Monday, March 14, 2011

Top Oak Ridge National Laboratory spokesman Billy Stair leaving

(Oak Ridger) Billy Stair is leaving his post as top spokesman at Oak Ridge National Laboratory to work for a government and public relations firm with operations in Nashville, Knoxville, and Washington, D.C...3/11

ORNL official: damage at Japan's neutron source

(Knoxville News Sentinel) Ian Anderson, Oak Ridge National Laboratory's neutron sciences chief and director of the Spallation Neutron Source, said lab folks have been in touch with counterparts at the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex -- reporting some significant problems caused by the massive earthquake there...3/11

Previous ORNL Stories

DOE

Secretary Comments on the Selection of the Next Executive Director of the International Energy Agency

(Energy.gov) The Governing Board of the International Energy Agency (IEA) today announced that their 28 members have selected Maria Van der Hoeven of the Netherlands, the former Dutch Minister of the Economy, to be the Agency's next Executive Director...3/11

State & Regional

Gov. Haslam to present 1st Tenn. budget proposal

(WBIR) Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam is preparing to present his first state budget plan to Tennessee lawmakers. The Republican governor, who is scheduled to lay out his spending proposal Monday evening, has warned that that the state budget will shrink by more than $1 billion because federal stimulus money is running out this year...3/14

Jobless rate increases across state

(Tennessean) The January unemployment rate for Nashville was 8.6 percent, up from 8.1 percent in December. The rate in the 13-county Metro area jumped from 7.9 percent to 8.8 percent. The state unemployment rate increased a much smaller 9.4 percent to 9.5 percent. That figure is seasonally adjusted while county rates are not...3/14

National

U.S. Nuclear Industry Faces New Uncertainty

(New York Times) The fragile bipartisan consensus that nuclear power offers a big piece of the answer to America’s energy and global warming challenges may have evaporated as quickly as confidence in Japan’s crippled nuclear reactors...3/13

Clinton Spokesman Quits After WikiLeaks Comments

(NPR) State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley quit on Sunday after causing a stir by describing the military's treatment of the suspected WikiLeaks leaker as "ridiculous" and "stupid," pointed words that forced President Obama to defend the detention as appropriate...3/13

East Tennessee

UT plan rescues foreign languages from budget ax

(WBIR) University of Tennessee administrators have come up with an alternative to eliminating Russian and Italian degree programs and will continue to offer the majors while also cutting costs...3/13

energy & science policy

House Subcommittee Debates Merits of Climate Science

(AIP) The House Subcommittee on Energy and Power delved into the science and politics of climate change in a March 8 hearing entitled “Climate Science and EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Regulations.” The hearing served as a microcosm of the debate on climate change in the U.S. House of Representatives, highlighting the sharp differences in views between the new Republican majority and the Democratic minority...3/11

Inside Energy Extra

3/11 A daily report on U.S. energy policy
[ORNL users only]

House Republicans sketch energy plan
Stop-EPA bill wins initial House vote
Chu denies he wants high 'gas' prices
Bid to dim bulb standard gets hearing
DOE's top attorney to join Neustar

science & technology

The Most Distant Mature Galaxy Cluster: Young, but Surprisingly Grown-Up

(Science Daily) "We have measured the distance to the most distant mature cluster of galaxies ever found," says the lead author of the study in which the observations from ESO's VLT have been used, Raphael Gobat (CEA, Paris)...3/11

Quake moved Japan by 8 feet: USGS

The quake and its tectonic shift resulted from "thrust faulting" along the boundary of the Pacific and North America plates, according to the USGS. The Pacific plate pushes under a far western wedge of the North America plate at the rate of about 3.3 inches (83 millimeters) per year, but a colossal earthquake can provide enough of a jolt to dramatically move the plates, with catastrophic consequences...3/13