A promising new form of nuclear power that evolved in part from research more than a decade ago at Oregon State University has received a significant boost: up to $226 million in funding to NuScale Power from the U.S. Department of Energy.
Category: Healthy Economy
In most neighborhoods, talk turns to family, weather or sports. But when the neighbors include a global high-tech company and the state’s largest research university, the conversation bends to technology.
Categories
The Gas Track
For an undergraduate, Josh Tibbitts faced an unusual problem last winter: where to find a source of high-pressure natural gas for a new research lab. We’re not talking about double or triple the pressure that produces the blue flame in your furnace or a kitchen stove — typically less than one-quarter of a pound per square inch (PSI). Tibbitts needed to find a supply at 2,000 PSI.
Categories
Engineers with Soul
Engineers excel at solving problems. They can design systems that provide clean drinking water, generate electricity from sunlight and improve personal health. While the design of these systems demands technical skill, success or failure ultimately resides with the people who use and maintain them and whose lives depend on them — that is, with a social network.
Oregon State University students increasingly use the globe as their campus. They might live with a family in the Amazon rainforest, go scuba diving in the Caribbean and hear life-changing stories in health clinics in South Africa and India. They witness wildlife management on an African safari ranch and in the Himalayan foothills of Nepal.
Categories
On a Wing and a Dare
The Vapor, built by Pulse Aerospace of Lakewood, Colorado, can fly as high as 15,000 feet and be flown autonomously or under the control of a ground-based pilot. In a trial run near Corvallis, Michael Wing used the unmanned aerial system to study imaging techniques in a search-and-rescue operation.