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25 March 2024

Tracking Greenhouse Gas Emissions: From Field Work to Strategy

With a delicate hand, Anna Karion slides a large, enclosed box back into its protective shelf. She’s standing on top of a hill that overlooks the Washington, D.C. area. This box, a greenhouse gas (GHG) sensor, is connected to a tube that runs up a tall, metal tower that is constantly collecting air samples. Karion, a research scientist with the National Institute of Standards and Technology, is working to fine-tune GHG measuring instruments installed in a telecommunications tower. This tower is one of 15 in the D.C. area that have been fitted for air-sampling and collectively make up the Northeast Corridor Urban Testbed Project. The technology in these instruments builds on nearly 30 years of research supported by the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science and others through the AmeriFlux project. AmeriFlux measures changes in the environment across North and South America, including levels of carbon dioxide (CO₂). The data these towers collect will enable a consortium of research groups, including the DOE, to better understand the movement of GHGs at a global scale.

Learn more about how research supported by DOE has set the stage for a national standard for measuring and tracking GHGs.

NEWS CENTER

The Office of Science posted 63 science headlines and university and stakeholder news pieces between 3/12/24 and 3/25/24.

Aerosols: Secondary organic aerosols are small particles in the atmosphere that affect human health, air quality, and the amount of sunlight that reaches Earth’s surface. Criegee intermediates are one class of compounds that play an important role in how these aerosols form. Researchers from DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories, and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory identified the chemical signatures of the process of these compounds combining. This research provides insight into how these aerosols form in Earth’s lower atmosphere.

Isotopes: Researchers at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB), a DOE Office of Science user facility at Michigan State University, have created five new isotopes (variations on elements). They are the first batch of new isotopes created at FRIB. This accomplishment shows that FRIB is getting close to being able to create isotopes that are the same types produced when neutron stars crash into each other. Scientists are now researching how to produce these isotopes in greater quantities.

Solid state batteries: As a solid-state battery stores and releases its charge, ions move back and forth between two electrodes. Within the electrolyte’s atomic lattice, this movement is erratic and hard to predict. Researchers from DOE’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University, Oxford University, and Newcastle University hit these ions with a pulse of laser light. They found that the ions briefly reversed direction and returned to where they started before returning to their erratic paths.

Quantum materials: Researchers at the University of California, Irvine and DOE’s Los Alamos National Laboratory developed a new method to transform everyday materials into materials scientists can use to make quantum computers. To do so, they applied a specific type of strain at the atomic scale. The accomplishment could make materials for quantum technology more accessible.

Parallel spin: Nuclear physicists with DOE’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility have broken a nearly 30-year-old record. They measured parallel spin within an electron beam at a far higher precision than ever before. This measurement is extremely important for studying the building blocks of matter. The achievement sets the stage for experiments that could open the door to new discoveries.

Lithium-sulfur batteries: Lithium-sulfur batteries could potentially store five to 10 times more energy than current state-of-the-art lithium-ion batteries at a lower cost. They also use fewer rare earth materials. However, scientists don’t fully understand the chemical reactions that limit these batteries’ lifetimes. Researchers at UCLA have now described the key pathways of one of these chemical reactions.

SCIENCE HIGHLIGHTS

The Office of Science posted five new highlights between 3/12/24 and 3/25/24.

Upcycling plastics: Yeast is often used for cooking, but it may be useful for breaking down waste plastic as well. Researchers at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville discovered that the yeast species Yarrowia lipolytica can use part of polyolefin plastic waste to grow its own cells. This discovery shows that some types of yeast may be a useful option for upcycling plastic waste into high-value chemicals.

IN THE NEWS

Quanta Magazine: Swirling forces, crushing pressures measured in the proton

Scientists are using experiments at DOE’s Jefferson Lab to understand how energy, pressure, and shear stresses are distributed throughout protons.

NEWS10: RPI researcher awarded $1.5M grant for black hole project

Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute are simulating how experiments will transmit and analyze high energy physics data. The models will use information from computing facilities at DOE’s Fermilab and Argonne National Laboratory.

Earth.com: Aerosol formation in Earth’s atmosphere is a complicated process

Researchers at DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory, DOE’s Sandia National Laboratories, and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab have gained a better understanding of how aerosols form in Earth’s lower atmosphere.

BASIC TO BREAKTHROUGH

Using AI to Wrangle Fusion Power for the Grid

The extraordinarily hot plasma that enables fusion reactions can lose its stability quickly and escape the magnetic fields that hold it in fusion reactors. This disruption usually stops the fusion reaction. For scientists to make fusion a reliable source of energy, they need to be able to prevent or suppress these disruptions.

A team of engineers, physicists, and data scientists from DOE’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory and Princeton University developed an artificial intelligence (AI) program that could help predict and avoid these problems. They trained the AI on past experimental data rather than physics models. The team then demonstrated the AI on experiments at the DIII-D National Fusion Facility, a DOE Office of Science user facility. The test showed that the AI could forecast potential plasma instabilities known as tearing mode instabilities up to 300 milliseconds before they occurred. While short, that was enough time for the AI to adjust the operations of the reactor so it could avoid a disruption.

This accomplishment makes it possible for fusion scientists to use AI to prevent instabilities in the plasma and have more dynamic control over reactions. It’s a step closer to developing fusion energy as a clean, reliable source of power.

END NOTES

From Imposter Syndrome to Belonging

While Jeffrey Tejada loved science as a child, he wasn’t aware how close he lived to DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory until a teacher introduced him to the lab in the ninth grade. Then, he attended the lab’s STEM-Prep Summer Institute, where he learned about biochemistry, physics, environmental science, and computer science alongside other ninth graders from underrepresented minorities in science. Later in high school, he participated in the Student Partnerships for Advanced Research and Knowledge program at the lab. That program provided him and his classmates the opportunity to conduct real research using the National Synchrotron Light Source II, a DOE Office of Science user facility. Although the shut-down due to the COVID-19 pandemic put a damper on the group’s plans, Tejada’s passion for science didn’t fade.

Since then, he’s attended both the lab’s Mini-Semester Program and been an intern through the DOE Office of Science’s Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internship program.

Tejada is now passing on his knowledge and experience to other students. He was recently a panelist with other alumni of programs run by the Office of Workforce Development for Teachers and Scientists at the 2023 National Diversity in STEM conference. He also mentors and tutors high school students in his community, whom he encourages to apply to national lab programs like the ones he participated in.

Jeffrey Tejada’s experiences are just one example of how our national labs provide unique opportunities that support future scientists.

Please see the archive on Energy.gov for past issues.

No. 115: 25 March 2024