Berkeley Lab and Peking University To Collaborate on Carbon Capture and Storage Research

13 November 2009

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and China’s Peking University agreed on 12 November to jointly pursue the development of safe and effective carbon capture and storage techniques.

The collaboration was cemented at the US-China Workshop on Carbon Capture & Storage, a two-day event sponsored by the Philomathia Foundation through a grant to UC Berkeley. The workshop, held at Peking University, brought together scientists from Berkeley Lab, Stanford University, and several Chinese research institutions.

The US and China together are responsible for 40% of the world’s emissions of carbon dioxide.

In order for carbon capture and storage to have a significant impact on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, advances are needed in both the capture technology and in the understanding of subsurface processes related to carbon dioxide injection, trapping, and monitoring.

Future projects facilitated by the memorandum of understanding could include joint carbon capture and storage tests, research on identifying the best storage sites, and the development of computer models of storage site performance, to cite a few examples.

Earlier this year, Berkeley Lab became home to the Center for Nanoscale Control of Geologic CO₂, one of 46 Energy Frontier Research Centers established by the Department of Energy. Scientists at the Center probe the fundamental chemical, physical, and biological processes that control the movement of carbon dioxide fluids in the Earth.

Another Energy Frontier Research Center, which focuses on capturing CO₂ from power plants and natural gas emissions, is located at the University of California, Berkeley.