Rick Diamond
September 17, 2007
Reducing our Carbon Footprint: A Low-Energy House in Berkeley, Kabul,
and Washington DC
(view slides)(listen
to MP3)
Bill Collins
Monday October 22, 2007
Reducing our Carbon Footprint: Frontiers
in Climate Forecasting
(view slides)
Chris Somerville
November 12, 2007
Reducing Our Carbon Footprint: Converting Plants to Fuel
(view slides)
Steven
Chu
April
23, 2007, 5:30—7PM, 2025 Addison Street, Berkeley
The Energy Problem and what the Helios Project
Can Do about It
Dr. Chu, Director, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory,
has
been the formative influence in establishing Helios. Steve
is the director of the Lawrence Berkeley
National Laboratory, and professor of Physics and Cellular
and Molecular Biology of the University of
California, Berkeley. Go
here for a copy of the talk (ppt
and mp3)
The energy problem is one of the most important issues that science and technology has to solve. The scientific evidence is clear: The earth’s climate is warming as a result of human activity, largely through our use of fossil fuels, which emit greenhouse gases that add carbon to the atmosphere. Projections on climate change predict a growing threat to society: the shrinking ice cap, decreased water supply, drought, huge population dislocations, effects on agriculture, etc. The challenge is to find and develop zero-carbon energy sources on a mass scale. Lab Director Steven Chu proposes an aggressive research program to transform the existing and future energy systems of the world away from technologies that emit greenhouse gases. The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Helios Project concentrates on renewable fuels, such as biofuels, and solar technologies, including a new generation of solar photovoltaic cells and the conversion of electricity into chemical storage to meet future demand.
A.
Paul Alivisatos
May 14, 2007
Nanoscience at Work: Creating Energy from Sunlight. Paul
Alivisatos, Co-Leader of The Helios Project, is the Associate
Director for Physical Sciences and director of the Materials
Sciences Division at Berkeley Lab. An authority on artificial
nanostructure synthesis and inventor of the quantum dot technology,
Paul is the UC Berkeley Chancellor's Professor of Chemistry
and Materials Science and a co-founder of several companies,
including Quantum Dot and Nanosys. Recipient of many awards,
Paul is also a member of the National Academy of Science. In
Helios, he will use nanotechnology in the efficient capture
of sunlight and its conversion to electricity to drive economical
fuel production processes. Go here to view
slides or to listen
to an mp3
of the talk.
Jay Keasling
June 4, 2007
Renewable Energy from Synthetic Biology Jay
Keasling, Co-Leader of The Helios Project, is the Director
of the Physical Biosciences Division at Berkeley Lab, and a
groundbreaking researcher in the new scientific field of synthetic
biology. He
is a UC Berkeley professor of Chemical and Bioengineering,
and founder of Amyris Biotechnologies, a company that was honored
as a Technology Pioneer for 2006 by the World Economic Forum.
Jay has succeeded in using synthetic biology to develop a yeast-based
production scheme for precursors of the antimalarial drug artemisinin
in work funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In
Helios, Jay heads the biology program, incorporating a range
of approaches to increasing the efficacy and economy of plants
and cellulose-degrading microbes to make solar-based fuels.
Go here to view slides or to listen to an mp3
of the talk.