Energy Production
The Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) is a San Francisco Bay Area scientific partnership led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and including the Sandia National Laboratories (Sandia), the University of California (UC) campuses of Berkeley and Davis, the Carnegie Institution for Science and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). JBEI’s primary scientific mission is to advance the development of the next generation of biofuels – liquid fuels derived from the solar energy stored in plant biomass. JBEI is one of three new U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Bioenergy Research Centers (BRCs).
The Solar Energy Research Center (SERC) is one of three Helios projects in which researchers from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) are working to develop fuels from sunlight. The other two complementary projects, which focus exclusively on biofuels, are the Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI), centered at the University of California at Berkeley and funded by the oil company BP, and the Joint Bioenergy Institute (JBEI, see above) in Emeryville, California. JBEI, a partnership among LBNL, Lawrence Livermore, and Sandia National Laboratories, and several universities, is one of three Bioenergy Research Centers established by the U.S. Department of Energy.
While these two projects research crops and enzymes associated with conversion of cellulose to fuels, SERC sidesteps plant biology completely. In this process, solar cells (photovoltaics, or PVs) collect sunlight and supply electrical currents that are used to drive fuel-forming chemical reactions. As envisioned, the chemical reactors convert water and carbon dioxide into a high-energy-density fuel that can be stored, transported, and used for transportation or other applications. The entire process can take place in a single reactor (termed a photoelectrochemical, or PEC, cell) that collects sunlight and is the site of the reactions involving water and ambient carbon dioxide.
