Environmental Remediation Program: Earth Science Division Bioenergy Expertise

Earth Sciences Division Bioenergy Expertise: ESD scientists and ESD faculty scientists

David Ackerly

Potential impacts of climate change on the diversity and distribution of the flora of California, based on modelling of species ranges in response to current and future climate.
Assessment of plant and microbial responses to climate change factors in California grasslands.
Physiological mechanisms of plant growth and productivity in relation to environmental conditions, with an emphasis on water relations and photosynthesis.

Sally Benson

Monitoring CO2 transport and subsurface mass balances
Laboratory experiments of multiphase flow in CO2/brine systems
Optimization of storage capacity and security

Jens Birkholzer

Modeling CO2 storage and associated brine displacement
Numerical simulation of flow and transport in tunnels
Evaporation and condensation in non-isothermal subsurface systems

John Coates

Fabrication and research of pure and mixed culture microbial fuel cells (mfc’s)
Compare the operational efficiencies of thermophilic versus mesophilic mfc’s
Isolation and characterization of microorganisms responsible for energy generation

Mark Conrad

Application of stable isotopes for monitoring subsurface microbial activity.
Studies of natural biological production and consumption of methane in a variety of environmental settings.
Laboratory and field studies of microbial degradation of organic compounds (e.g., petroleum hydrocarbons, chlorinated solvents, natural organic matter).

Christine Doughty

Modeling of CO2 injection and migration in saline formations
Phase trapping and hysteretic models of CO2 flow
Modeling and interpretation of hydrologic well logging

Stefan Finsterle

Coupled multiphase flow and biogeochemical reactive transport simulations.
Design and analysis of laboratory and field experiments using forward and inverse modeling.
Joint inversion of geophysical and hydrological data for monitoring and validation

Marc Fischer

Measurement of plant productivity and carbon and nitrogen cycling in natural and managed ecosystems
Measurement of surface CO2 flux leakage from geologic CO2 storage sites
Atmospheric monitoring of trace gas emissions relevant to climate and air quality, at plot to regional scales

Barry Freifeld

Interpretation and analysis of field test results for CO2 storage pilot tests
Imaging and analysis of methane-hydrate-bearing core
Field analytical system development, deployment, and application

Terry Hazen

20 years of international experience in deep subsurface microbiology and large scale field studies of microbial ecology e.g., 10/2006 Science 314:479-482
25 years of international experience in environmental and bioreactor design, process control and implementation (most recently Systems Biology approaches) for air, water, soil, and landfills e.g., Hazen & Stahl 6/2006 Curr. Opin. Biotech. 17:285–290
25 years of international experience with in situ and ex situ bioremediation/biodegradation strategies for oil, chlorinated solvents, landfills, and metals e.g. 2 R&D 100 awards, 5 patents licensed by more than 30 companies internationally, DOE BER Distinguished Scientist since 2005 (1 of 4), 9/2005 Remediation Journal 15:5-25

Hoi-Ying N. Holman

Noninvasive chemical imaging of dynamical processes in living microbial cells and microbial communities (e.g., w/ Advanced Light Source)
Precise manipulation of individual cells and/or communities of microbial cells
Technology validation and dissemination via collaborations

Susan Hubbard

Extensive experience with integration of biogeochemical-hydrogeological-geophysical datasets for improved characterization of natural systems;
Development of methods to remotely monitor biogeochemical transformations using geophysical approaches.
Use of advanced characterization and modeling approaches to guide precision agriculture.

Ernie Majer

Geophysical imaging of oil an gas reservoirs
Stimulation of oil reservoirs
EOR Monitoring using Passive and Active seismic

Norman Miller

Numerical simulations of climate/weather perturbations and the impact on agrosystems and energy requirements;
Model-based development of biogeochemical processes in the environment

Larry Myer

Technical Director of WESTCARB, project to assess CO2 sequestration opportunities in the western US, BP is a participant in WESTCARB
Conducted studies of the effects of fluid saturation on seismic wave velocity and attenuation, with application to reservoir monitoring
Conducted studies of applications of micro-imaging to prediction of reservoir rock properties

Peter Nico

Investigation of nano-scale carbon/mineral interactions using Scanning Transmission X-ray Microscopy (STXM)
Mechanistic organic chemistry for understanding and predicting carbon transformations
X-ray micro-Tomopgraphy imaging of soil/rock three dimensional structures

Curt Oldenburg

CO2 leakage and seepage simulation and risk assessment
CO2 injection in depleted gas reservoirs for CO2 Storage and Enhanced Gas Recovery
Simulation of convection in liquid-dominated geothermal systems

Karsten Pruess

Rapid, non-isothermal CO2 leakage simulation
Development of TOUGH2 numerical model (multiphase reservoir simulation)
Vapor-dominated geothermal systems modeling

William Riley

Numerical modeling of carbon and nitrogen cycling in terrestrial ecosystems, and exchanges of C, N, and H2O with the atmosphere;
Modeling of isotopes in ecosystem and atmosphere to improve understanding of plant and soil C cycling, soil moisture, and plant physiological behavior;
Use of atmospheric measurements and numerical modeling to quantify ecosystem carbon and water fluxes at site, regional, and global scales

Jonny Rutqvist

Coupled hydro-geomechanical modeling of CO2 storage reservoirs
Development of TOUGH-FLAC for hydro-geomechanical modeling
Rock mechanics and hydrologic coupling

Rohit Salve

Field investigations of flow and transport in rock and soil

Dmitriy Silin

Analytical models of CO2 migration from CO2 storage sites
Multicomponent diffusion in gas reservoirs
Applied mathematics for hydrocarbon and CO2 migration studies

Joe Suflita (U of OK)

Viscosity Alteration of Heavy Oils
Paraffin Control Measures
Anaerobic Bioremediation

Tetsu Tokunaga

Microbially mediated redox transformations.
Mass transfer and reactions in heterogeneous media.

Margaret Torn

Terrestrial carbon storage via soil carbon stabilization, using isotopes, experiments, models
Experiment model systems (mesocosms) to investigate plant-soil-microbe system behavior from genome to ecosystem scales.
Greenhouse gas emissions inventories, processes, and mitigation in agricultural, forest, and grassland/prairie ecosystems.

Jiamin Wan

Soil quality sustainability in relation with plant rooting and plant residues.
Nitrogen fixing microbes in relation with rhizosphere biogeochemistry.
Laboratory mesoscale (cm-m) experimentation of plant-soil-microbial interactions in natural systems.

Tianfu Xu

Development of TOUGHREACT, for coupled hydrology and reactive transport
Mineral reactions and sequestration of CO2
Geochemical modeling of ore deposits

Jizhong Zhou (OU, ESD Guest Scientist)

Development of microbial communities for high ethanol and hydrogen production directly from plant biomass.
Functional and comparable genomics of ethanol-producing bacteria
Development of functional gene arrays for analyzing microbial community structure for high production of plant biomass.

Gary Andersen

Analysis of microbial diversity and metabolic activity in complex environments associated with microbial fuel cells, biomass degradation and global climate change with a novel high-density microarray.
Development of a web-based database and user tools for microbial ecologist studying energy-related research at http://greengenes.lbl.gov
Analysis of fungal diversity in the environment and developing a microarray-based system for detection.