Don't miss this summer's classic matchup: Berkeley Lab versus carbon dioxide. Get a ringside seat at the Carbon Smackdown, a five-part lecture series starting June 30 that pits Berkeley Lab scientists against the scourge of climate change. It's a no-holds barred fight, with the future of Earth hanging in the balance. These all-star matches start at noon in the Building 50 auditorium:
June 30: Cookstoves in the developing world: Ashok Gadgil, Kayje Booker, Adam Rausch
July 9: Capturing Carbon: Jeff Long, Nancy Brown
July 16: Wind Warriors: Ryan Wiser, Glen Dahlbacka
August 3: Smart Windows: Steve Selkowitz, Delia Milliron
August 9: Visualizing Clean Energy: Juan Meza
The series is a Carbon Cycle 2.0-sanctioned event and is brought to you by Berkeley Lab's Public Affairs Department. Go here for dates and more information.
Berkeley Lab’s Accelerator and Fusion Research Division will receive $2.0 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funding to begin building a large-aperture, dipole-magnet facility for testing advanced cables and inserts in high transverse magnetic fields. Particle accelerators require ever-stronger magnets for better quality beams at higher energies, and existing superconducting materials such as niobium-tin are approaching their limits. For magnets operating at fields above 15 tesla the Large Dipole Facility will provide a critical research tool for testing potential new materials including high-temperature superconductors. Watch Today at Berkeley Lab for a coming feature on the promises and problems of the new materials. Go here for details on the ARRA grant.
To combat the alarming rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide that’s promoting global warming, should we seed the atmosphere with light-reflecting sulfate pollutants, create thicker, brighter clouds at sea, or induce enormous blooms of carbon-sucking algae in the oceans? In other words, should we deploy geoengineering technologies to hack the planet? Eli Kintisch, a reporter for the journal Science and a former science-writing intern with Berkeley Lab’s Public Affairs Department, explores this question in his new book, Hack the Planet: Science's Best Hope - or Worst Nightmare - for Averting Climate Catastrophe, published by Wiley. More>
As part of the Carbon Cycle 2.0 initiative, Director Paul Alivisatos has urged the Berkeley Lab community to “walk the talk” of reducing carbon emissions. Maybe we can take inspiration from the citizens of Greensburg, Kansas. The small town was almost 95-percent destroyed by a powerful tornado in May 2007, but a little over two years later, Greensburg has rebuilt itself as a model green community, getting as much energy as possible from a mix of geothermal, solar, and wind power. Some city buildings have their own wind and solar generators, and a wind farm just outside town went online in March. Greensburg, which plans to be carbon neutral by 2017, is ranked best in the U.S. among nine of the world’s “most promising carbon-neutral communities” by Popular Science magazine. Read more here.
Today Overaa Construction will begin pretesting of the fire alarm system in Bldg. 15, the nearly completed new Advanced Light Source (ALS) User Support Building near Bldg. 80. Fire alarms may sound intermittently and will be audible to those nearby. Testing may continue throughout the coming weeks.
The Building 51 Demolition Project will require the closure of Parking Lot I to accommodate construction vehicle traffic, waste container loading, and exterior asbestos abatement work. The parking lot is scheduled to be closed for up to two weeks beginning Monday, June 21. The demolition project will be diligent in minimizing the parking impact and will reopen the spaces as soon as safe and practicable, planned to be no later than Tuesday, July 6. If you have any questions please call Bob Cronin at x7854.
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