News

In March 2023, DOE’s Biological and Environmental Research program organized the Artificial Intelligence

artificial intelligence

A machine-based system that can, for a given set of human-defined objectives, make predictions, recommendations or decisions influencing real or virtual environments.

Source: U.S. Department of State Source

for the Methane

methane

A hydrocarbon that is a primary component of natural gas. Methane is also a greenhouse gas (GHG), so its presence in the atmosphere affects the earth’s temperature and climate system

Source: EPA Source

Cycle virtual workshop, which set out to explore how artificial intelligence and machine learning

machine learning (ML)

Machine Learning (ML) refers to the field and practice of using algorithms that are able to “learn” by extracting patterns from a large body of data.

Source: Center of Excellence Source

can advance scientific understanding associated with the methane cycle. The workshop report is now available and identifies key opportunities for artificial intelligence application to methane cycle research across a range of spatial and temporal scales.

On February 22, 2024 the MSD Community of Practice (CoP) hosted a webinar on using meta-repositories to document the data and code underpinning MSD experiments. The webinar was led by Chris Vernon, Casey Burleyson, Mengqi Zhao, and Jennie Rice – all from PNNL. The webinar was attended by more than 40 researchers from the MSD community and beyond.

Working Groups are a central component of the MSD Community of Practice (CoP), where researchers from different disciplines, projects and institutions coordinate and innovate MSD research and support community development. The MSD CoP is pleased to announce the establishment of two new Working Groups.

Some get to watch sunsets on the beach. Some visit oyster farms. Some forge wires, gears, and metal into buoys, paddles, and snakes. Some poke and stretch materials. Some build tools to protect seals and whales. And some unearth knowledge from dense data and build virtual replicas of the real world.

Applications are currently being accepted for the Fall 2024 term of two undergraduate internship programs offered by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science: the Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internships (SULI) program and the Community College Internships (CCI) program. Through SULI and CCI, undergraduate students discover science and technology careers at the DOE national laboratories and gain the experience needed to transition from internship to employment.

Nestled on 160 acres of cattle pasture and wheat fields sits the heart of the Southern Great Plains (SGP) atmospheric observatory, the first field measurement site established by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility. Nine DOE national laboratories collaborate to manage ARM’s work, and DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory is responsible for the SGP and third ARM Mobile Facility (AMF3) sites.

Decades of solar radiation research at the National Renewable Energy

renewable energy

Renewable energy comes from unlimited, naturally replenished resources, such as the sun, tides, and wind. Renewable energy can be used for electricity generation, space and water heating and cooling, and transportation.

Source: U.S Department of Energy Source

Laboratory is set to revolutionize power system planning and solar energy deployment in Africa, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East. It comes in the form of a new, high-resolution solar timeseries data set on the Renewable Energy Data Explorer (RE Data Explorer) tool, tailored to the needs of stakeholders in energy sectors across national governments, academia, and private industry.

The most recent U.S. Census states that 44.4 million people, or nearly 14% of the population, live along the Atlantic Coast. That is a lot of people—who need a lot of electricity. And as the country pushes to decarbonize

decarbonize

Decarbonization involves the reduction or eradication of carbon dioxide emissions from specific systems, such as industries, economies, or societies.

Source: Source

the energy sector, that power needs to increasingly come from renewable sources, like solar and wind. But densely populated coastlines often do not have the space needed for large solar or wind farms.

Alyson Coates, a Senior Technical Staff Member in ORNL's Fusion and Fission Energy and Science Directorate, noticed a need for more STEM programs for young girls in her rural community in Blount County. So, she decided to fill the gap herself. In 2022, Coates and her family started a local robotics team to compete in the FIRST Tech Challenge, a national robotics competition for middle school and high school students.

Exactly how does coral make its skeleton, a sea urchin grow a spine, or an abalone form the mother-of-pearl in its shell? A new study at the Advanced Light Source at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) revealed that this process of biomineralization, which sea creatures use to lock carbon away in their bodies, is more complex and diverse than previously thought.

Ectomycorrhizal fungi (EMF) play a pivotal role in forest ecology.

ecology

The interrelationships between living organisms and their environments.

Source: NASA earth observatory Source

They serve as a primary fungal group that establishes biochemical symbiotic exchanges with trees, trading photosynthetically fixed carbon for soil nutrients. Iron, an essential plant nutrient, is crucial for metabolic functions of living organisms. The specific mechanisms by which pine plants process iron within EMF associations, however, remain poorly understood.

We know that greenhouse gas emissions like carbon dioxide

carbon dioxide (CO2)

An important heat-trapping gas, also known as a greenhouse gas, that comes from the extraction and burning of fossil fuels (such as coal, oil, and natural gas), from wildfires, and natural processes like volcanic eruptions.

Source: NASA Source

should increase rainfall. The emissions heat the atmosphere, causing a one-two punch: warmer oceans make it easier for water to evaporate, and warmer air can hold more water vapor, meaning more moisture is available to fall as rain. But for much of the 20th century, that increase in precipitation didn’t clearly show up in the data.