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Going Green: Berkeley Lab on a Path to Substantially Cut Its Emissions

By Guest PostJune 6, 2011Environmentadvanced light source, berkeley lab, blair horst, carbon cycle 2.0, carbon dioxide, cobbler children have no shoes, conserve energy, cool roofs, energy efficiency technologies, ghg, ghg emissions, global warming, godfather of energy efficiency, greenhouse gas, lawrence berkeley national laboratory, living laboratory, melissa summers, old saying, patrick thorson, president barack obama, site sustainability plan, the molecular foundry

*Energy use intensity is down; sustainability plan would reduce it even further.*

There’s an old saying that the cobbler’s children have no shoes. But at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, whose scientists have pioneered many of the energy efficiency technologies being deployed around the world today, energy conservation is not neglected at home. In fact, a number of homegrown energy-savings technologies are in use at the Lab itself, allowing Berkeley Lab to substantially reduce its energy use intensity and make headway towards achieving significant cuts in its greenhouse gas emissions.

From cool roofs to automated building controls to advanced lighting systems, the Lab has implemented an assortment of measures which has resulted in a 44 percent decline in energy use intensity, or energy usage per square foot, since 1985. And greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from Berkeley Lab facilities have shrunk by about 5 percent over the last two years. (more…)

Kartchner Caverns: A Living Microbe Laboratory

By Guest PostMay 20, 2011Scienceanti fungal, anti microbial, bacterial communities, cave dwelling microbes, dna fragments, gene sequences, genetic structure, genetic survey of microbes, kartchner caverns, living laboratory, marian ortiz, metabolism, microbe, microbial communities, organisms, pcr, polymerase chain reaction, pyrosequencing, southern arizona, speleothems, stalactites, stalagmites, university of arizona, whetstone mountains

*In the first extensive genetic survey of microbes living in Kartchner Caverns, UA doctoral candidate Marian Ortiz has shown that some of the cave-dwelling microbes may have anti-microbial and anti-fungal properties.*

In a hole in the ground, there lives a microbe. Actually, there live several microbes. What are they and how do they survive in conditions practically devoid of resources or other forms of life?

Doctoral candidate Marian Ortiz in the University of Arizona’s department of soil, water and environmental science is trying to find out. (more…)

Tag Archives: living laboratory

Going Green: Berkeley Lab on a Path to Substantially Cut Its Emissions

Kartchner Caverns: A Living Microbe Laboratory