ESD Communications Digest - December 2011 Edition

This digest provides you a summary of communication highlights from around the division that were added or updated during the course of the month.

Gas Reservoirs as GCS Sites

A demonstration project on the southeastern tip of Australia has helped to verify that depleted natural gas reservoirs can be repurposed for geologic carbon sequestration and have enough CO2 storage capacity to make a significant contribution to reducing global emissions.

Engineering Bacteria for New Biofuels

ESD’s Harry Beller and other LBNL scientists investigate the generation of methyl ketones, a class of compounds that can be synthesized from plant-derived sugars by engineered microbes, for potential application to biofuel production.

Investigating Far-Away Microbes

Nara Damdinsuren, a PhD. candidate in her native Mongolia, has recently been working with ESD’s Tamas Torok on using genetic screens to catalog microbes from the Khaara River, which flows through the mountainous nation of Mongolia.