Projects

Abrupt Climate Change

• Climate Modeling

DOE’s Climate Modeling Program initiated back in 2008 an area of research in Abrupt Climate Change Modeling aimed at articulating the thresholds, nonlinearities and fast feedbacks in the climate system with a focus on abrupt climate change, incorporating causal mechanisms into coupled climate models and testing the enhanced models against observational records of past abrupt climate change.

William D. (Bill) Collins wdcollins@lbl.gov 510-495-2407

Private: Barbara Rose Davis brdavis@lbl.gov 510-486-7496

ARPA-E Microbial Electrocatalysis (Electrofuels)

• Bioenergy

As part of the DOE Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E) program for research on microorganisms that can produce liquid fuels without using petroleum or biomass, a Berkeley Lab-EESA team engineered strains of a common soil bacterium, Ralstonia eutropha, to produce drop-in replacements for gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel using only hydrogen and carbon dioxide as inputs.

Private: Harry R. Beller hrbeller@lbl.gov 510-486-7321

Consolidated Sequestration Research Project (CSRP)

• Carbon Storage Program

The Consolidated Sequestration Research Project (CSRP) sought to accelerate and remove barriers to commercial-scale GCS deployment through targeted research tasks.

Thomas Daley tmdaley@lbl.gov 510-508-3038

Barry M. Freifeld bmfreifeld@lbl.gov 510-520-2618

Private: Helen G. Prieto hgprieto@lbl.gov 510-486-6696

GEO-SEQ Project

• Carbon Storage Program

The GEO-SEQ Project has two primary goals: to develop ways to improve predictions of injectivity and capacity of saline formations and depleted gas reservoirs, and to develop and test innovative high-resolution methods for monitoring CO2 in the subsurface.

Thomas Daley tmdaley@lbl.gov 510-508-3038

Barry M. Freifeld bmfreifeld@lbl.gov 510-520-2618

IAEA Cooperative Research

• Nuclear Energy and Waste

In August 2006, as part of an IAEA Cooperative Research Project, ESD conducted a week-long modeling training course focusing specifically on the ESD-developed TOUGH simulation software codes

Jens Birkholzer jtbirkholzer@lbl.gov 510-486-7134

JAEA & NUMO—Science and Technology for Nuclear Waste Repository

• Nuclear Energy and Waste

LBNL researchers collaborate with the researchers in these organizations to jointly improve the science of nuclear waste disposal.

Kenzi Karasaki kkarasaki@lbl.gov 510-486-6759

Large-Scale Hydrological Impacts of Geological CO2 Storage

• Carbon Storage Program

If carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) technologies are implemented on a large scale, the amounts of CO2 injected and sequestered underground will be extremely large. The figure above shows schematically the large-scale subsurface impacts that will be experienced during and after industrial-scale injection of CO2. While the CO2 plume at depth may be safely…

Jens Birkholzer jtbirkholzer@lbl.gov 510-486-7134

Quanlin Zhou qzhou@lbl.gov 510-486-5748

Jonny Rutqvist jrutqvist@lbl.gov 510-486-5432

Abdullah Cihan acihan@lbl.gov 510-495-2997

Private: Helen G. Prieto hgprieto@lbl.gov 510-486-6696

Linking from Genomes to Ecosystem Function: An Annual Grassland Mesocosm Exploration

• Terrestrial Ecosystem Science

The ultimate goal of this completed research was to improve our ability to predict ecosystem response to climate change. Our starting assumption was that plants and microorganisms mediate terrestrial ecosystem response to global climate change. While there are many groups of organisms that are critical to ecosystem function, we employed the simplifying construct that plants and microbes are the primary mediators.

Margaret S. Torn mstorn@lbl.gov 510-495-2223

Private: Gary Andersen glandersen@lbl.gov 510-495-2795

Eoin Brodie elbrodie@lbl.gov 510-486-6584

Microbial Communities (JBEI)

• Bioenergy

The Microbial Communities research team prospects for new enzymes that can efficiently deconstruct lignocellulosic biomass. Group members take samples from such places as rain forest floors and composts. From these samples, specific microbes and enzymes are identified, isolated, and manipulated, and a suite of “omics” tools is used for genome-level community characterization.

Ocean Biogeochemical Processes

Our main area of interest is the ocean's carbon cycle. As geochemists, we're interested in how carbon cycle processes influence the geochemical cycles of the 50 or so elements which exhibit nonconservative behavior in sea water. As earth scientists, we're concerned with the consequences of rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. How will living systems respond to climate induced change in the ocean? How does the ocean naturally sequester carbon and how will this change in the future?

James K. Bishop jkbishop@lbl.gov 510-642-6110

Todd J. Wood tjwood@lbl.gov 510-332-9473