Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham and Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources Herb Dhaliwal, co-chairs of the Joint Task Force on the Power Outage, yesterday announced the formation of three working groups: Electric System, Security, and Nuclear Power. Berkeley Lab energy expert Joe Eto will serve on the Electric System group. Click here to read more about the working groups. The federal governement isn't the only institution interested in Eto, program manager of CERTS. The press have been seeking out his expertise on the reliability of the electric grid nearly every day since the Aug. 14 blackout. He has fielded calls from major media outlets all over North America, including the Oakland Tribune, KTVU News, CNBC, Bloomberg News, Discovery Channel Canada, and Newsweek, to name just a few. Click here to watch a video clip of his recent interview with KTVU.

While scientists certainly enjoy receiving government support for research, ask any one of them about the drawbacks and you're likely to hear grumbling about red tape, bureaucracy, and mountains of paperwork. Now, the White House would like to hear these complaints. And it says it wants to do something about them. The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) is asking scientists and officials to send in their suggestions and criticisms so that government agencies can improve their policies and practices for funding research. A series of regional workshops will be held later this year to develop recommendations based on these comments. Full story.

Scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have developed an innovative portable computed tomography (CT) scanner, providing a potential boon to energy and mining industries throughout the world. The development allows geologists and engineers to analyze core samples on-site virtually anywhere in the world. The device analyzes the distribution of materials in core samples extracted from deep beneath the seas or from the permanently frozen expanses of the polar regions. "We were trying to look at methane hydrates using medical CT machines," said Barry Freifeld, a mechanical engineer at Berkeley Lab. "There's a lot of it on the planet. There is twice as much energy stored in it than all of fossil fuel combined." Full story.

Interim ESnet Manager
Appointed; Fund Transfer
Probe Under Way

The ASD annual employee picnic and grand opening of the ASD Academy is today, at noon, on the ALS patio and in Trailer 7C. The incorrect date was listed in yesterday's MyLBNL calendar.