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Secure and Sustainable Energy

Helios Project

In ancient Greek mythology, Helios was a god who wore the sun as his crown and carried it across the sky in a fiery chariot. In 2005, Berkeley Lab director Steve Chu took the Helios name to describe a collective research effort aimed at developing solar-based sources of renewable transportation fuels. Today the Helios Project encompasses efforts that include the generation of biofuels from biomass, the generation of biofuels by algae, and the direct conversion of water and carbon dioxide to fuels by the use of solar energy. Through Helios, Berkeley Lab is a partner in the Energy Biosciences Institute and is home to the Solar Energy Research Center (Website link when available).

Joint BioEnergy Institute

Cellulosic biomass - plant stalks, trunks, stems, leaves, etc. – represents a vast repository of solar energy that could be tapped to meet our nation’s transportation energy needs without producing carbon emissions that contribute to global warming. The Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) is one of three new Bioenergy Research Centers (BRCs) established by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to develop transportation fuels from renewable cellulosic biomass. JBEI consists of six San Francisco Bay Area institutional partners led by Berkeley Lab.

HiPerBRIC - High Performance Buildings Research and Implementation Center

(An initiative aimed at curbing the energy demands of buildings in the United States – much more to come).