NEWS: 7/26 Public Celebration to Welcome the Muon g-2 Electromagnet to Fermilab

[UPDATE: The Muon g-2 Ring has arrived at Fermilab as of 4:07am Friday morning! Photo at left courtesy of Reider Hahn, as shown on Fermilab's Scribble feed.] After its long journey, the Muon g-2 electromagnet is in its last few miles of the #BigMove, and Fermilab is hosting a public celebration on Friday, July 26 to welcome the Ring's arrival. Fermilab officials released the following:

We're holding a party tomorrow to welcome the ring. If you plan to come, you should read this. Rain and thunderstorms are forecasted for tomorrow evening. The indoor portion of the muon g-2 event will occur regardless of the weather including hands-on science activities in Wilson Hall and scientists available to answer your questions (beginning at 5:30). The ring will move rain or shine and would be delayed only in the event of lightning. Check back here for updates and if you're planning to come out, bring your rain gear.

Here's a fascinating time-lapse video from Fermilab showing the July 24-25 overnight move in Illinois:



Naperville, IL Community Television, Channel 17 also featured video coverage of the Ring's arrival in nearby Lemont at http://www.nctv17.com/napervillenews17/article.php?id=2579 [Link via Fermilab]

Argonne National Laboratory Energy Showcase: Photo Slideshow

As promised, Part Two of our coverage of the Saturday, September 15th Argonne Energy Showcase open house event. Our video highlights can be seen in the first installment of our Energy Showcase posts. Here's our full Flickr slideshow of over 50 photos with captions. Top: "Now, That's Cold!" Argonne researcher explains the technology behind the ATLAS (Argonne Tandem Linac Accelerator System) facility, the world's first superconducting linear accelerator for heavy ions. The object on the table is a model section of ATLAS' "superconducting split-ring resonator."

Center: "Hot or Not?" This very popular FLIR imaging exhibit in the Nuclear Energy building allowed visitors to see live video of themselves in the room with color-coded temperature gradients. As you can see, some people are literally hotter than others. A similar station set up in the Advanced Photon Source (401) complex let visitors take home a snapshot printout of their FLIR scans.

For even more images, visit Argonne National Lab's official Flickr photostream.

Bottom: "Clean and Green" One of the several advanced hybrid electric vehicles in the Sustainable Energy Tent. Some of the other new technologies on display were demonstrations of biofuel generation using fermented waste, vehicle charging stations, and an area where visitors could ride the "Energy Bike" to see how much pedaling they have to do to light up a conventional incandescent light bulb, versus the effort needed to make LED and compact fluorescent devices glow. As we can vouch, it takes a lot less legwork to make those clean and green LED's shine!

Argonne National Laboratory to Host 2012 Energy Showcase

[UPDATE 8/15/12: Argonne National Laboratory releases more details on the September 15th Energy Showcase program.]

If you (or your children) are science enthusiasts, mark your calendars for Saturday, September 15th: Argonne National Laboratory will open its doors to the public for a special educational event - the 2012 Energy Showcase:

The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory will open its gates to the community on Saturday, September 15, 2012, from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. for a day of discovery and fun for the whole family. The event is free and open to the public. Advance registration is required as attendance will be limited.

Argonne's Energy Showcase will be a similar event to the traditional Argonne Open House but will be on a somewhat smaller scale, making it easier to experience all that the laboratory has to offer in a single day. The Energy Showcase will feature interactive demos, exhibits and tours, giving attendees a unique opportunity to mingle with prominent energy researchers and innovators within a hands-on atmosphere. This is a great opportunity to learn more about Argonne's research and talk with leading experts at the laboratory.

The event will be held rain or shine. Free shuttle service will be provided and food and drink will be available for purchase. Advance reservations are required and visitors are welcome to take photos and videos of the event.

Register for the Argonne Energy Showcase at http://www.regonline.com/builder/site/default.aspx?EventID=1097223.

The Laboratory facility is located on 1,500 wooded acres, about 25 miles southwest of Chicago. Outdoor fans also may wish to take in the DuPage County Forest Preserve District's Waterfall Glen nature area in Darien, which includes a scenic 9-mile hiking/biking loop trail that encircles the Argonne grounds. The Energy Showcase promises to be an unusual, exciting opportunity to get a glimpse inside Argonne, and to meet some of the researchers who are pushing the boundaries of today's knowledge to meet our energy needs for the present and future.

Atomic Age II Fukushima Symposium, May 5th, 2012

RadioActive! readers near Chicago: the University of Chicago, the birthplace of the first controlled nuclear chain reaction, hosts Atomic Age Symposium II - Fukushima, this Saturday, May 5th.

[K]eynote speakers are Hiroaki Koide of the Kyoto University Reactor Research Institute, who has been speaking out against nuclear power for over 40 years; and Ruiko Muto, an anti-nuclear activist based in Fukushima and a member of a citizens’ group, Hairo [Reactor Decommission] Action Fukushima. Robert Rosner, Astronomy & Astrophysics & Physics, University of Chicago (former Director of the Argonne National Laboratory) will share his stance on nuclear energy via a videotaped message. Ruiko Muto’s speech will be followed by Bobbie Paul, Executive Director of Georgia WAND—Women’s Action for New Directions, Jeffrey Patterson (MD, Board Member and Past President of Physicians for Social Responsibility), and Dean Wilkie, a retired nuclear plant operator and manager who, with Nancy Foust, an online media expert, has collaborated on the Simply Info website to provide detailed information about Fukushima.

This will be an all-day symposium investigating the multiple dimensions of the ongoing Fukushima nuclear disaster through discussion by experts from Japan and the US, Saturday, May 5, 2012: 8:45am–6:00pm. This event is free and open to the public. Continental breakfast and lunch will be provided. For full information and details, visit http://lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/atomicage/aboutsymposium/ or call 773-702-8647.

Surfing the Nuclear Web: from Australia to Argonne

Looking for more radiation related sites? There's the informative and descriptively-named Radioactive Waste blog from Australia:

Being an environmental scientist of the disorganised type, and also overwhelmed by the quantity of sites of relevance to my interest in safety of radioactive waste, my hope is that this blog will bring some order to my life (this part at least)! All views & irreverent commentary expressed here are entirely my personal opinion, of course. In Australia, after cleaning up the mess at Maralinga (former UK nuclear weapons test site), we are now in process of building a national radwaste repository.

Jef's Web Files has a section focusing on nuclear safety, with recent posts about the development of detectors that can "smell" nukes, and the U.S. government's recent revival of a lost Cold War art - fallout analysis.

Atom Central is an intriguing portal with sections on the atom bomb, the Trinity site and video releases on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, American bomb tests and more.

Of special interest is the Argonne National Laboratory's engineering research website:

Argonne's rich heritage in the development of nuclear reactors began with CP-1, the world's first nuclear reactor brought to life by Enrico Fermi and his team on December 2, 1942, under the West stands at Stagg Field on the campus of the University of Chicago.

Dr. Walter H. Zinn, one of Fermi's close colleagues working on CP-1, became Argonne National Laboratory's first director in July 1946. In 1948, the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) transferred the major portion of the nation's nuclear reactor development program to Argonne. Under Dr. Zinn's vision and leadership, Argonne established a vigorous and far-reaching program to develop nuclear reactors of virtually all types.

You can see some of Argonne's history in video: Argonne's pioneering nuclear research is prominently featured in the documentary Atoms for Peace (1994, VHS), hosted by Bill Kurtis (whom we met as the host of the program NOVA: Back to Chernobyl). This one-hour feature details the history of the American peacetime nuclear program with its focus on energy production (and the U.S. fast-breeder reactor program, now on indefinite hiatus), as well as its linkage back to the early weapons development initiatives at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, Arco, Idaho (the first town to be powered by nuclear energy) and the now-defunct Hanford site power plant in Washington state. While Atoms for Peace is a bit hard to track down, you'll probably be able to find a copy at larger public libraries with video collections.