O’Brien Fog Paper Featured in EOS

A paper that ESD Climate Scientist Travis O’Brien co-authored is featured on this week’s cover of the weekly AGU journal Eos, Transactions of the AGU—just in time for the AGU Meeting!

Methyl Ketones: From Fragrances to Biofuels

Harry Beller recently led the refinement of an engineered strain of E. coli that can convert glucose into significant quantities of methyl ketones, a promising source of clean, green, and renewable blending agents for diesel fuel.

Singer Works with Cyclotron Road Innovator

Cyclotron Road innovator Deepak Dugar will be working with Steve Singer toward developing the next generation of biocatalysts and processes for converting renewable feedstocks into chemicals and fuels at a competitive price.

Apply for U.C. Global Food Initiative Grant

The U.C. Global Food Initiative, extensively supported by ESD environmental and climate programs within Berkeley Lab, is inviting applications for a student fellowship opportunity. Applications are due October 1, 2014.

Complex Soil Systems: An Energetic Exchange

Eoin Brodie and Boris Faybishenko recently co-chaired the first Complex Soil Systems Conference in downtown Berkeley. This flagship conference, strove to develop “A Path to Improved Understanding of Complex Soil Systems.”

Insect Ecosystem Contains Biofuel Clues

ESD’s Javier Ceja-Navarro and others have characterized the gut microbiome of a wood-feeding beetle native to the eastern US, finding in its gut a metabolic capability permitting both aerobic and anaerobic activity, as well as N2 fixation.

Biofuels: Increasing Bacterial Fatty Acids

Harry Beller and others recently found homologs of Escherichia coli FabG, an essential reductase involved in fatty acid biosynthesis, in work that could serve as a starting point for microbial production of fatty acid-derived biofuels.

ARPA-E Video Cites Christer Jansson

Earlier this week, DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) hosted a summit and technology showcase in National Harbor, Maryland, in which they debuted four project videos. One of them, on biofuels, prominently mentions ESD’s Christer Jansson and his innovative work.

FOA for the Bioenergy Technologies Incubator

FOA: DE-FOA-0000974 Bioenergy Technologies Incubator. FOA document download here. Submission Deadline for Concept Papers: 03/31/2014, Submission Deadline for Full Applications: 05/23/2014

Christer Jansson Putting Methane to Energy Use

ESD’s Christer Jansson leads a team of scientists working on producing an enzyme that will help convert methane, an abundant Earth resource, into a transportation fuel.