Readers React: Obama's Speech at Argonne National Lab

As might be expected, some readers agreed with the President, some didn't. Find out what they had to say, and enjoy an interesting bonus story as well!

Readers React: Obama's Speech at Argonne National Lab

As might be expected, some readers agreed with the President, some didn't. Find out what they had to say, and enjoy an interesting bonus story as well!

During a visit to Argonne National Laboratory on Friday, President Barack Obama said federal budgets cuts would have harmful effects on scientific research and economic development in the United States. (Read the full story here.) Obama visited Argonne, located just outside of Lemont, to tour its state-of-the-art research facilities and promote his proposed Energy Security Trust, which would set aside $2 billion over 10 years to research alternatives for oil and gasoline. We reached out to Patch readers in DuPage County to see what they thought of the President's visit and the speech. Readers gave a mix of positive and negative feedback, and one in Lemont related a particularly interesting encounter with POTUS' security detail. Here's a …

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Obama Visiting Argonne Next Friday to Talk Energy Policy

The focus of the trip is to “focus on American energy,” officials said.

President Barack Obama will return to his home state March 15, to visit Argonne National Laboratory, near Lemont, and discuss his energy policies, the Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune are reporting. An official told the Tribune that the trip is intended to “focus on American energy,” and may or may not also include comments on the impact on facilities like Argonne of funding cuts caused by the current sequester. The Sun-Times notes that this is the President’s first trip to the Chicago area since speaking at Hyde Park Academy on Feb. 15; the First Lady visited McCormick Place on Feb. 28 to promote her physical-fitness campaign “Let’s Move.” Argonne National Laboratory is also a Patch Local Voices contributor (and here). Read more at …

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Argonne Lab Gets $600K Grant to Research Urban Policy Decisions

The new Urban Center for Computation and Data will apply advanced computational and data-driven techniques to the challenge of intelligent urban planning and design.

Argonne National Laboratory, in partnership with the University of Chicago, received a $600,000 federal grant for a new research effort that will help decision-makers in urban areas better understand the impact of different policies on their communities. According to the University of Chicago, the population of the world's cities will nearly double over the next several decades. And there's much more data being collected to help optimize the operation of cities and anticipate the impact of their growth. The $600,000 grant, from the National Science Foundation, will unite reseachers through the Computation Institute (CI), a joint initiative between the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory. The new Urban Center for …

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Cut Foreign Oil Dependence? Argonne Gets Grant That Could Help

Argonne National Laboratory received a $120 million federal grant to create revolutionary battery technology that could help promote American energy independence.

The Argonne National Laboratory received a $120 million federal grant that could help slash dependence on foreign oil, U.S. Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-Western Springs) announced Thursday. Argonne, a non-profit research lab operated by the University of Chicago for the Department of Energy, will devote the grant to developing revolutionary battery technology for transportation and the electric grid, according to a news release from Lipinski's office.  The federal funding will be delivered over five years and "has the potential of creating a revolution in battery technology that slashes dependence on foreign oil and makes our region the worldwide leader in battery manufacturing," the news release stated. "This award sets up Argonne National …

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Bob R

9:00 am on Saturday, December 1, 2012

Because of market demand, the US is on it's way to mining our own. Supply and demand. Here is an article from Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ciocentral/2012/06/08/rare-earth-minerals-an-end-to-chinas-monopoly-is-in-sight/   more ›

Argonne Scientists Assist in Search For 'God Particle'

Argonne National Laboratory researchers are among the hundreds of scientists and graduates students who have critical roles in the search for the Higgs boson. A new particle that could contain the properties of the Higgs was recently announced.

Researchers from Argonne National Laboratory are closely involved in the ongoing search for an elusive particle that might better explain the world around us. The Argonne physics researchers continue this year with the effort to find the Higgs boson—the particle that could explain why various subatomic particles have mass. At a recent seminar at the CERN laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland, the two Large Hadron Collider experiments announced independent observations of a new particle in the mass region 125-126 GeV that is compatible with the Higgs boson. "The results presented today are the result of over 20 years of effort by several thousands of scientists throughout the world, and Argonne’s contributions to the ATLAS detector made …

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Argonne Turns Up the Heat with Geothermal Power at Visitor Center

The national laboratory recently installed an underground geothermal heating and cooling system to control temperatures in its visitors center.

Six hundred feet below the visitor center at Argonne National Laboratory winds a series of U-shaped pipes.  A mixture of water and glycol courses through the channels, absorbing the earth’s temperature—a relatively steady 55 degrees—and bringing it to the surface. The network of pipes is part of a new geothermal system that exploits the constantly renewable resource of the earth’s natural temperature to heat the visitor center in winter and cool it in the summer. “It just makes sense,” said engineer and project manager Damian Dockery. “The ground is relatively infinite in size. We’re always going to have that potential energy there. We’re not going to change the temperature of that much mass.”  Geothermal temperature control works by …

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Argonne Highlights Sustainability Research during Earth Day Fair

Scientists from across the lab showcased environmentally conscious technologies that might soon find their way into daily life.

Talk about efficient: In the not-too-distant future, drivers might be able to power up their electric cars on the go just by rolling over charging pads implanted in the asphalt at stoplights.  Argonne National Laboratory highlighted this and other sustainable energy research Tuesday at its annual Earth Day celebration that featured displays from more than half a dozen Argonne scientists.  The charging pads that Argonne researchers envision would function like large-scale wireless charging mats for devices such as iPhones and BlackBerrys. They could make their way into our roads as soon as three to five years from now, said Purdue University grad student Hina Chaudhry, who’s doing doctoral research at Argonne.  Hybrid cars such as the Chevy…

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