Feature Articles

Researchers at the FLEXLAB^® facility, a unique buildings testbed at Berkeley Lab, are helping the buildings and utilities sectors and U.S. policymakers develop new technologies for a zero-carbon future. Their work could help the nation develop a flexible energy system that could better deliver electricity and clean energy to customers, manage grid conditions, and help customers save on utility bills.

Tina Brower-Thomas of Howard University and Kenneth Evans-Lutterodt of Brookhaven Lab’s National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II), a DOE Office of Science User Facility, were recently awarded a $1.5 million grant through the Department of Defense’s University Instrumentation Program (DURIP), sponsored by the Office of Naval Research. With this funding, they will set up a research program to study the growth of perfect diamond thin films for quantum information systems (QIS).

What could smaller particle accelerators look like in the future? SLAC scientists are working on innovations that could give more researchers access to accelerator science.

Christine Nattrass, a physics professor at the University of Tennessee (UT), Knoxville, has recruited a crew of mostly undergraduate students to dig deep into data from billions of particle collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) to help unlock the secrets of matter.

Argonne’s newest version of the AAE program takes a more focused approach centered on local communities, with the intent of distributing curricula that other organizations can use for their own science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education.

Through DOE’s High Performance Computing for Energy Innovation initiative, Argonne will partner with Ford Motor Company, Capstone Green Energy, Lakril Technologies and Power Manufacturing to help accelerate the development of clean energy technologies.

Scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory used their knowledge of complex ecosystem processes, energy systems, human dynamics, computational science and Earth-scale modeling to inform the nation’s latest National Climate Assessment, which draws attention to vulnerabilities and resilience opportunities in every region of the country.