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Sustainable energy:
The most important scientific challenge we
face today
It’s not going to be easy, and it’s not going to
happen overnight, but at least some of the solutions to one of
humanity’s greatest problems may be found at Berkeley Lab.
Somewhere among the Lab’s collaborative blend of biologists,
chemists, materials scientists, physicists, and computer scientists
could lie a way to obtain a sustainable, CO2-neutral source of
energy.
“This is the most important scientific challenge we face
today,” said Lab Director Steve Chu, speaking at a two-day
meeting held at Berkeley Lab in March 2005. The meeting was convened
to map the challenges that must be overcome to efficiently convert
solar energy into fuel or electricity. Deputy Director Graham
Fleming, an international authority on ultrafast processes, including
photosynthesis, organized the meeting, which drew several dozen
scientists from across the Lab and other institutions.
“If we can make solar energy an organic part of our thinking
at the Lab,” Chu said, “we can come up with broad,
coordinated solutions to the energy problem. Scale is crucial
to our success.”
A harrowing list of statistics underscores the need to quickly
wean the world from fossil fuels. Pre-industrial concentration
of atmospheric CO2, a greenhouse gas, was 280 parts per million.
Today, it’s 370 parts per million. Energy production and
use account for 80 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. And, if
that were not enough, world production of oil and gas is predicted
to peak within 10 to 40 years. Although energy conservation and
efficiency can buy some time, fossil fuels won’t last forever.
The clock is ticking. |
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LBNL Solar-to-Fuel Workshop
March 28 and 29, 2005
In April 2005, DOE/BES held a national workshop on basic research needs
for solar energy use. To prepare LBNL with a focused strategy for this
workshop, Lab director Steve Chu convened a 1½ day meeting to
define our goals and determine areas where the Lab has a leading edge
and is likely to make contributions that cannot be equaled elsewhere.
The workshop focused on the challenge of achieving a carbon-neutral
energy solution through the conversion of solar energy into chemical
fuel. This conversion may be through a sequence of solar to electrical
to chemical storage or through a direct solar to chemical path.
List of participants: click
here
Agenda and presentations
Please note: Access to these presentations is
currently limited to the Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley communities.
We welcome the interest of others, but we ask that you please contact
the speakers directly for permission to access their talks. This
helps us insure that embargoed or otherwise sensitive information
is not released.
Monday, March 28
Plenary Session
 Director
Steven Chu
schu (at) lbl.gov
Sustainable,
CO2 neutral energy (.ppt, 3.6MB)
Daniel Kammen, UC Berkeley's Goldman School of Public Policy
kammen (at) berkeley.edu
Strategies for a sustainable,
CO2 neutral energy economy (.ppt, 9.1MB)
Mark Levine, Berkeley Lab
mdlevine (at) berkeley.edu
Issues
in the Transition to a CO2-Neutral Economy (.ppt, 4.8MB)
Art Nozik, National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Arthur_Nozik (at) nrel.gov
Efficiency of solar
photon conversion to fuels and electricity
Tom Moore, Arizona State University
Tom.Moore (at) asu.edu
Biomimetic approaches, and role
of biological processes as paradigms for solar to fuel conversion
Synthetic biology: Engineered organisms for solar to chemical
Co-chairs: Paul Ludden, Kris Niyogi
Tad Patzek, UC Berkeley
twpatzek (at) lbl.gov
Thermodynamics
of industrial biofuels (.pdf, 1.5MB)
Jay Keasling, Berkeley Lab
jdkeasling (at) lbl.gov
Synthetic biology
in the quest for renewable energy (.ppt, 2.0MB)
Engineered systems: Hybrid nanomaterials and biomimetic systems
for solar to fuel conversion
Chair: Chris Chang
Chris Chang
cjchang (at) lbl.gov
Biomimetic
systems for solar to fuel conversion (.ppt, 0.3MB)
Jean Fréchet
frechet (at) berkeley.edu
Early
studies: from organic light harvesting assemblies to light powered nanoreactors
(.ppt, 3.3 MB)
Graham Fleming
grfleming (at) lbl.gov
The Architecture of Photosynthesis
(.ppt, 7.7MB)
Nanomaterials and nanostructured assemblies for photochemical
conversion (solar to electric or solar to fuel)
Co-chairs: Paul Alivisatos, Peidong Yang
Peidong Yang
pdyang (at) lbl.gov
Nanostructure needs for solar to fuel conversion (presentation embargoed)
Wladek Walukiewicz
w_walukiewicz (at) lbl.gov
Future prospects
of semiconductor materials for solar and photoelectrochemical cells
(.ppt, 2.3MB)
Heinz Frei
hmfrei (at) lbl.gov
What nanoporous supports
do we need for solar light-driven fuel synthesis? (.ppt, 0.5MB)
Photoelectrochemistry, Electric to Fuel
Chair: Charles Harris
harris (at) socrates.berkeley.edu
Photoelectrochemistry
summary (.ppt, 0.2MB)
Tuesday, March 29
Carlos Bustamante
carlos (at) alice.berkeley.edu
Synthetic Approaches to Solar Energy (coming soon)
Antón Vila-Sanjurjo
avila (at) lbl.gov
Designing an organism
that uses light energy for the production of EtOH (.ppt, 17MB)
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