Latest Berend Smit Stories

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Like the Roman god Janus, methane presents Earth’s atmosphere with two situational faces. As the main component of natural gas, methane when burned as a fuel produces less carbon dioxide than the burning of oil or coal, which makes it a plus for global climate change. However, pure methane released into the atmosphere via leaks from unconventional oil and gas extraction, coal mining or from the melting of Arctic ice is an even more potent greenhouse...

Model vets millions of structures to find ones that will improve efficiency of current technology When power plants begin capturing their carbon emissions to reduce greenhouse gases – and to most in the electric power industry, it's a question of when, not if – it will be an expensive undertaking. Current technologies would use about one-third of the energy generated by the plants – what's called "parasitic energy" – and, as a result, substantially drive up the price of...

Two University of California, Berkeley, faculty members will receive $30 million over the next five years from the U.S. Department of Energy to find better ways to separate carbon dioxide from power plant and natural gas well emissions and stick it permanently underground, according to an announcement on Monday, April 27 from the White House.Berend Smit, a professor of chemical engineering and of chemistry, and Donald DePaolo, a professor of earth and planetary science and head of the Earth...