Feb 24

How Argonne is working to power a clean energy revolution

BY CHRISTINA NUNEZ|FEBRUARY 22, 2021

Argonne was established 75 years ago with a mission to advance atomic energy. Today we are working to revitalize the U.S. energy sector and boost growth economywide.

On December 20, 1951, the Experimental Breeder Reactor-I became the first power plant to make usable electricity through atomic fission, which powered four 200-watt light bulbs. (Image by Argonne National Laboratory.)

When four light bulbs switched on at the Experimental Breeder Reactor-I in Idaho in 1951, a new energy era began. The lights were powered with the first usable electricity from atomic fission, one in a series of nuclear energy milestones driven by research at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory.

Today, Argonne pursues an ambitious portfolio of research to support a 100 percent clean energy…

Battery in 3D: X-rays watch solid state batteries charging and discharging

Solid-state batteries are charged and discharged in custom-made hardware designed at Georgia Tech. A smaller, modified version of the cell shown here was used to image these materials during cycling. (Image by Matthew McDowell, Georgia Tech.)

Despite worldwide use of lithium batteries, the exact dynamics of their operation has remained elusive. X-rays have proven to be a powerful tool for peering inside of these batteries to see the changes that occur in real time.

Using the ultrabright X-rays of the Advanced Photon Source (APS), a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility at the DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory, a research team recently observed the internal evolution of the materials inside solid-state lithium batteries as they were charged and discharged. …

Argonne Training Program on Extreme-Scale Computing seeks applications for 2021

The architecture and software environments of today’s most powerful supercomputers are complex, posing significant challenges to researchers interested in using them to advance scientific discoveries. To meet these challenges and facilitate breakthrough science and engineering on these amazing resources, the annual Argonne Training Program on Extreme-Scale Computing (ATPESC) — hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory — provides specialized, in-depth training to doctoral students, postdocs and computational scientists.

Applications are now being accepted for ATPESC 2021 — an intensive two-week training program that teaches participants the key skills, approaches and tools they will need to design…

Argonne National Laboratory

Argonne conducts basic and applied research in clean energy technologies that serve the nation’s energy needs.

Get the Medium app