Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has been awarded $7 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding for four projects that seek to advance Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS), which is capable of harnessing the Earth’s heat where conventional geothermal technologies cannot. The funding is part of a $400 million investment that the Department of Energy has made in geothermal energy thanks to the Recovery Act.

Apprentice electricians will join Berkeley Lab’s Facilities Division thanks to a historic agreement with the Alameda County Electrical Joint Apprenticeship and Training Committee, sponsored by Local 595 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the Northern California chapter of the National Electrical Contractors Association.

As funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act start to flow into Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, much of that funding is flowing out to small businesses. To date, Berkeley Lab has been awarded more than $220 million in Recovery Act funds, a large part of which will go toward infrastructure projects and buying and upgrading computers and scientific equipment, such as microscopes, lasers and gene sequencers. So far, $38.2 million in Recovery Act subcontracts have been awarded, of which 58 percent went to small businesses.

Berkeley Lab researchers have developed the world’s first acoustic hyperlens, a device that provides an eightfold boost in the magnification power of ultrasound, underwater sonar and other sound-based imaging technologies.