Media contacts:
(202) 586-4940
Deputy Secretary Poneman Announces Team led by Oak Ridge National Lab Selected to Receive up to $122 Million for Nuclear Energy Innovation Hub
WASHINGTON, D.C. � As part of a broad effort to spur innovation
and achieve clean energy breakthroughs, U.S. Deputy Secretary of
Energy Daniel Poneman today announced the selection of a team led by
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) for an award of up to $122
million over five years to establish and operate a new Nuclear
Energy Modeling and Simulation Energy Innovation Hub. The Hub, which
includes partners from universities, industry and other national
labs, will use advanced capabilities of the world�s most powerful
computers to make significant leaps forward in nuclear reactor
design and engineering.
�The Nuclear Energy Innovation Hub is a critical element in our
efforts to re-establish American leadership in nuclear energy research
and development,� said Deputy Secretary Poneman. �We need to rev up the
great American innovation machine to find solutions to our energy
challenges and promote American competitiveness. With the Hubs, we are
taking a page from America�s great industrial laboratories in their
heyday and building creative, highly-integrated research teams that can
accomplish more, faster, than researchers working separately.�
The Nuclear Energy Innovation Hub is one of three Hubs that will
receive funding in FY10. The Hubs are large, multidisciplinary,
highly-collaborative teams of scientists and engineers working over a
longer time frame to achieve a specific high-priority goal, like
developing fuels from sunlight in an economical way and making buildings
more energy efficient. They will be managed by top teams of scientists
and engineers with enough resources and authority to move quickly in
response to new developments. Selections for the other Hubs will be
announced over the coming months.
Specifically, the Nuclear Energy Innovation Hub will allow engineers
to create a simulation of a currently operating reactor that will act as
a �virtual model� of that reactor. They will then use the "virtual
model" to address important questions about reactor operations and
safety. This will be used to address issues such as reactor power
production increases and reactor life and license extensions. The
combination of data gained from the �virtual model� and the physical
reactor will be used to resolve technology issues confronting nuclear
energy development in the near, mid, and long terms.
The Nuclear Energy Innovation Hub will be located at the ORNL site
near Oak Ridge, Tennessee. In addition to ORNL, the members of the team
are:
- Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), Palo Alto, California
- Idaho National Laboratory, Idaho Falls, Idaho
- Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge Massachusetts
- North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina
- Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico
- Tennessee Valley Authority, Knoxville, Tennessee
- University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan
- Westinghouse Electric Company, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
The Hub will be funded at up to $22 million this fiscal year. The Hub
will then be funded at an estimated $25 million per year for the next
four years, subject to Congressional appropriations. More information on
the Hubs can be found at:
http://www.energy.gov/hubs/
-DOE-
Editorial Date June 1, 2010
By Brad Bugger
|