Environmental Remediation Program: Earth Science Division Contributions to the Bioenergy Effort

Earth Science Division Contributions to the Bioenergy Effort

Biological Carbon Sequestration

The goal of Biological Carbon Sequestration is to render biofuels production, deconstruction, and fermentation processes carbon neutral (or preferably, carbon negative) through terrestrial and geologic carbon sequestration. Terrestrial sequestration involves the removal of CO2 from the atmosphere by vegetation and the storage of CO2 in biomass and soils. With this mechanism, advances are needed to increase the net fixation of CO2 by terrestrial vegetation, to enhance the transformation of carbon to soil organic matter, to reduce the emission of CO2 from soils, and to increase the capacity of degraded lands to sequester carbon. There is a significant opportunity to enhance these terrestrial CO2 uptake and storage processes through molecular bioengineering. Geologic sequestration involves the use of depleted oil and gas reservoirs, saline aquifers, and other natural formations to store injected CO2. Microbial engineering also has the potential to tackle some of the key challenges in geological sequestration, such as those associated with storage optimization and integrity. For example, microbial engineering can be used to facilitate geochemical reactions that enhance CO2 storage, by promoting microbial processes that facilitate mineral trapping of CO2 or through the development of precipitates and biomass that can seal natural fractures, which could otherwise serve as conduits for CO2 seepage. Additional challenges associated with both geological and terrestrial sequestration include the development of an improved understanding of plant-soil-microbe-mineral-pore fluid processes involved in sequestration; prediction, monitoring, and validation of sequestration processes; and life cycle and risk assessment.
Through leveraging on Berkeley-based expertise in microbial ecology, transport simulation, and imaging and on world-recognized carbon sequestration leadership, efficient biological carbon sequestration approaches can be developed using ESD theoretical, numerical, and experimental expertise.

Existing research centers, institutes, and facilities relevant for Carbon Sequestration research:

Phylochip Development Lab will characterize the type and activities of microbes important for sequestration processes;
Virtual Institute for Microbial Stress and Survival and Center for Environmental Biotechnology will design bioreactors and sequestration scale-up test approaches as well as explore the utility of extremophile functions for improved sequestration;
Center for Isotope Geochemistry will continue to develop isotopic methods for improved characterization of sequestration and carbon cycling;
Center for Computational Geosciences will continue to enhance its capabilities for predicting and imaging coupled biogeochemical-hydrological carbon sequestration processes;
Environmental Program at the ALS will be useful for exploring plant-soil-microbial-gas-mineral interactions, dynamic responses to stress, and organo-mineral stabilization processes;
Berkeley Genomes to Ecosystem Model Mesocosm Facility will investigate soil-plant-mineral-microbe systems and assist with scale-up of developed approaches from bench to field scales;
The TOUGH system of codes will be used to predict CO2 sequestration, migration, leakage, and biogeochemical interactions under a range of environmental conditions and timeframes.

Contacts:
Margaret Torn, mstorn@lbl.gov, (510) 495-2223
Larry Myer, LRMyer@lbl.gov

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