- Number 358 |
- March 12, 2012
In the past decade, microbiologists began realizing that communities of microbes process energy and materials, which affects their environments. To understand how microbial communities function in a natural ecosystem, scientists at DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have developed a novel kinetic model that represents microbial community dynamics in soil pores. With it, they can then evaluate the consequences of different strategies that microbes might use for degrading organic matter, such as cellulose in soil, and analyze how three-dimensional pore structure impacts biological activity.
“Modeling the dynamics of soil bacterial communities is extremely challenging because it involves disparate physical, chemical, and biological components,” said Dr. Allan Konopka, director of the Microbial Communities Initiative. “The unique feature of the new model is that it factors in a range of possible microsite conditions while accounting for heterogeneity in a three-dimensional system and treating the metabolism of microbial cells individually based on their own local environmental conditions and history.”
New analysis at DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has found that concentrating solar power (CSP), with its greater grid flexibility and ability to store energy for as long as 15 hours, can enhance total solar power generation and actually give photovoltaic (PV) systems a greater presence on the grid.
When the blazing summer sun starts descending in the late afternoon, rooftop solar panels lose some of their juice. The angles are wrong to capture the photons and turn them into electricity – and the backyard trees are more apt to get in the way.
What is an environmentally conscious — but air-conditioning-loving — homeowner to do?
Sandia National Laboratories researchers, using off-the-shelf equipment in a chemistry lab, have been working on ways to improve amputees’ control over prosthetics with direct help from their own nervous systems.
Organic materials chemist Shawn Dirk, robotics engineer Steve Buerger and others are creating biocompatible interface scaffolds. The goal is improved prosthetics with flexible nerve-to-nerve or nerve-to-muscle interfaces through which transected nerves can grow, putting small groups of nerve fibers in close contact to electrode sites connected to separate, implanted electronics.
Fluid dynamics is the study that leads to automobiles with less drag in traveling through surrounding air, and to airplane wings that lift when air flows around them. Because many industrial processes employ moving fluids (gases or liquids), understanding the physical behavior of such systems can assist in the design of new and/or more efficient processes. To do that, engineers have developed a mathematical (computational) approach called computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to simulate the physical reality of these systems with the goal of improving industrial processes that employ moving fluids.Describing flow is more challenging for solids than for liquids or gases. Can you pour potato flakes (or pancake mix) out of the box without plugging the spout? An engineering study showed that solids processing plants typically achieve only 64% of their design capacity while plants designed to use gases or liquids typically achieve 90-95% of their design capacity. Thus, granular solids (solids that flow or are fluid) require special treatment.
A technology developed at DOE's Oak Ridge National Laboratory could streamline and strengthen the process for siting power plants while potentially enhancing the nation's energy security.
Oak Ridge Siting Analysis for power Generation Expansion, or OR-SAGE, divides the United States into nearly 700 million 2.5-acre cells that can be studied to determine if they are candidates for one or more types of electric power plant. This tool was used to produce results presented in a 152-page report prepared by the Department of Energy's ORNL for the Electric Power Research Institute and allows for quick screening and characterization of potential sites.