Global climate change requires breakthroughs in sustainable energy technologies but as a nation we now spend more money on potato chips than we do on sustainable energy research and development. The opening day of the Philomathia Foundation energy symposium at Berkeley showed why this is unsustainable.

An international all-star lineup of experts in solar and biofuel energy, climate science, urban design and other areas of research critical to sustainable energy technologies will gather in Berkeley for a public symposium on October 1 and 2, 2010. The goal is to lay out the best course of action for a clean, green energy future.

Scientists with the Joint BioEnergy Institute have identified a trio of bacterial enzymes that can catalyze key steps in the conversion of plant sugars into hydrocarbon compounds for the production of green transportation fuels.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has been awarded $8.6 million in Recovery Act funding for what the DOE calls “ambitious research projects that could fundamentally change the way the country uses and produces energy.” The money will go towards four separate projects: one that will speed the development [...]

Berkeley Lab has been awarded nearly $18 million by the U.S. Department of Energy, through its Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, to establish the Advanced Biofuels Process Development Unit, a facility aimed at expediting the commercialization of next generation biofuels by providing industry-scale test beds for innovative technologies.

Berkeley Lab researchers have identified an ancient light harvesting protein that helps protect green algae from absorbing too much sunlight during photosynthesis, a find that should help the development of algae as a biofuels feedstock.

George Smoot of the Physics Division represented Berkeley Lab at the signing of an agreement with representatives of South Korea’s University of Incheon to explore the potential for joint scientific research in energy, biology, accelerators, cosmology, and space. The agreement calls for investigation of possible collaborations in which the University of Incheon would provide facilities and Berkeley Lab would provide research programs.

In revisiting a chemical reaction that’s been in the literature for several decades and adding a new wrinkle of their own, researchers with Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley have discovered a mild and relatively inexpensive procedure for removing oxygen from biomass. This procedure, if it can be effectively industrialized, could allow many of today’s petrochemical products, including plastics, to instead be made from biomass.

A “Life Cycle Impact Assessment” has shown that a biofuel eliminating even 10-percent of current gasoline pollutant emissions would have a substantial impact on human health in this country, especially in urban areas.

Berkeley Lab’s Jay Keasling has been selected by the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) to receive its first annual Biotech Humanitarian Award. Keasling was recognized for his use of synthetic biology techniques to develop a simple and much less expensive means of making artemisinin, today’s most powerful anti-malaria drug.