International Study: More
Needed to Offset Carbon

The InterAcademy Council released a new report yesterday, co-chaired by Berkeley Lab Director Steve Chu, on the scientific consensus framework for directing global energy development. “Lighting the Way: Toward a Sustainable Energy Future” calls for action in three areas: improving energy efficiency and reducing carbon intensity of the world economy, developing carbon sequestration technologies, and creating of renewable energy technologies. Full story. Go here to read a Time Magazine story on the report, and here for a New York Times article.

Chu, seated third from left, with Chinese Science Academy members, Lab and UC Berkeley researchers, and UC Regent Richard Blum (far left, seated)

Chinese Science Group
Learns More About Lab

A delegation from the Chinese Academy of Science visited on Friday to learn more about the Lab’s research. The group received an overview of the Lab from Director Steve Chu and listened to presentations by Arun Majumdar, director of the Environmental Energy Technologies Division; Mark Levine, head of the China Energy Efficiency Research Group; Paul Alivisatos, the Lab’s associate director of physical sciences; Paul Williams, BP’s associate director of the Energy Biosciences Institute; and Dan Kammen, with UC Berkeley’s Energy Resources Group.

EmeryStation East

Joint BioEnergy Institute
Sets Up Shop in Emeryville

The Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI), a $135 million Department of Energy Bioenergy Research Center, has announced an agreement with Wareham Development to lease space at EmeryStation East, a new state-of-the-art laboratory building in Emeryville. JBEI is a six-institution partnership led by Berkeley Lab whose mission is to speed the development of renewable biofuels — liquid fuels derived from the solar energy stored in plant biomass. Full story. Go here to read a San Francisco Chronicle story on this development.

Global-Warming Impact
On Fresh Water Supplies
By Jon Gertner

Scientists sometimes refer to the effect a hotter world will have on this country’s fresh water as the other water problem, because global warming more commonly evokes the specter of rising oceans. By comparison, the steady decrease in mountain snow pack seems to be a more modest worry. But not all researchers agree with this ranking of dangers. Last May, for instance, Berkeley Lab Director Steve Chu remarked that diminished supplies of fresh water might prove a far more serious problem than slowly rising seas.  Full story.