Soil harbors three times as much carbon as Earth’s atmosphere, but until recently research into how warming affects the amount of carbon released from soil into the atmosphere was limited to investigations of the top meter of soil. Researchers at Berkeley Lab are the first to examine soils and sediments as deep as seven…
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Climate scientists have not been properly accounting for what plants do at night, and that, it turns out, is a mistake. A new study from the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has found that plant nutrient uptake in the absence of photosynthesis affects greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere. In a…
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Scientists who study the exchange of chemicals in rivers and streams examine activity taking place within the nutrient-rich portions of streambeds, floodplains, and riverbanks known as hyporheic zones – which provide habitat for various aquatic organisms. Berkeley Lab researchers investigating hyporheic exchange have now shown that meanders near the headwaters of the Colorado…
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Berkeley Lab scientists Héctor García Martín, Jay Keasling, and Jill Banfield (whose primary affiliation is with the Earth & Environmental Sciences Area) were mentioned in an article by Amia Srinivasan entitled “What Termites Can Teach Us” published in The New Yorker. From the article: “In 2004 a team led by the Berkeley earth scientist Jill Banfield…
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Mineral surface area largely controls the interactions of minerals with fluids and microbes, and the rate of chemical reactions, including mineral dissolution, precipitation, and oxidation-reduction which involves a transfer of electrons between two species. New research from EESA explores the impact of surface roughness on mineral dissolution rates in micro-fractures within rocks deep underground.…
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A number of scientists working within EESA joined corporate and civic leaders from around the world for the September 11-14 Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco. Andrew Jones and Bill Collins addressed attendees of Berkeley Lab’s signature “Science to Action” event at the city’s Exploratorium on September 11. The Lab co-sponsored this all-day event…
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In California a whopping 19 percent of the total electrical demand is used in some way to move or treat water. Peter Fiske, director of the Lab’s Water-Energy Resilience Research Institute wrote a piece published in R&D Magazine on opportunities for science and technology in creating sustainable water systems, including a look at water-energy research at…
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This Q and A article appeared first on the Berkeley Lab News Center. Previously, the work of the Watershed Function SFA Research team was featured during a podcast for News Deeply. You can hear Bhavna Arora talk about her research here. One in 10 Americans depends on the Colorado River for bathing and drinking.…
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Bill Gates’ $1 billion Breakthrough Energy Ventures is investing in a host of startups developing technology that confront climate change. Among the first selected was Fervo Energy, a company hosted by EESA that is applying fracking techniques to the geothermal industry in the hope of converting far more of the planet’s latent heat into a source of…
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A symposium on the applications and enhancements of the popular TOUGH flow-simulation computer programs is underway Monday, October 8, through Wednesday, October 10, in the Building 66 Auditorium. Hosted by the Earth and Environmental Sciences Area, the ninth triennial TOUGH symposium brings together users of the TOUGH codes for the simulation of multiphase fluid and…
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