NEWS MEDIA CONTACT:                         FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Jeff Sherwood, 202/586-5806                       July 26, 1999

Energy Dept. Forms Two Centers for
Climate Change Research

As part of its global climate change research program, the U.S. Department of
Energy (DOE) has formed two centers to study the capture and long-term storage
of atmospheric carbon dioxide in terrestrial ecosystems and in the oceans.  This
carbon "sequestration" is one potential component of future international
efforts to reduce the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that is
believed to be contributing to global warming.

"The Energy Department centers will help coordinate research across an enormous
breadth of disciplines from both government and academia," said Dr. Martha
Krebs, director of the department's Office of Science.  "Breakthroughs from
these centers could lead to new, environmentally acceptable ways to help address
this global problem."

One center will focus on ways to sequester carbon dioxide on land, the other in
the ocean.  The DOE Center for Research on Enhancing Carbon Sequestration in
Terrestrial Ecosystems (CSITE) is led by a consortium of the Department of
Energy's Oak Ridge, Pacific Northwest and Argonne National Laboratories. This
center will be funded at a total of $6 million over three years. The center has
collaborators from Colorado State University, North Carolina State University,
the Ohio State University, the Rodale Institute in Pennsylvania, Texas A&M
University, the University of Washington and the Joanneum Research Institute in
Austria.

One way to increase carbon sequestration is through better land management.  By
making modest changes in farming and forestry practices, plants and soils may be
used more efficiently to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.  CSITE's
research will help determine ways to use plants, microbes, or soil management
practices to cause more carbon to be stored below ground without major
sacrifices in aboveground yields.

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The length of time carbon is sequestered is important in limiting atmospheric
concentrations of carbon dioxide.  A major goal of CSITE is to determine how to
increase the amount of carbon entering into "pools" that are stabilized in soil
and protected against decomposition.  The center will also research ways to
measure, monitor and verify sequestration so that it may be appropriately
accounted for in national inventories of greenhouse gas emissions.

Field research will take place at sites including the department's national
environmental research parks at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and
Oak Ridge National Laboratory and U.S. Department of Agriculture sites in
Alabama and South Carolina.

The center's co-leaders are Gary Jacobs of the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge
National Laboratory and Blaine Metting at the Department of Energy's Pacific
Northwest National Laboratory.

The second center, to focus on ocean sequestration, is led by a consortium of
the Energy Department's Lawrence Berkeley and Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratories.  The DOE Center for Research on Ocean Carbon Sequestration (DOCS)
will receive a total of $3 million over three years.  DOCS will have
collaborators from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Moss Landing
Marine Labs, the Pacific International Center for High Technology Research,
Rutgers University and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

DOCS will research the feasibility, effectiveness and environmental
acceptability of ocean carbon sequestration.  It may be possible to increase the
amount of carbon dioxide  absorbed by the ocean through direct injection of
carbon dioxide into the deep ocean or through fertilization of marine organisms,
such as plankton, living in the surface ocean.  Research will assess the
environmental consequences of carbon dioxide injection and ocean fertilization
as well as analyze relevant environmental policies.  Research will combine
observations and experiments in the ocean and computer modeling of ocean
currents and the diffusion of carbon dioxide.

Jim Bishop of the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
and Ken Caldeira of the Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory are the center's co-directors.

Department of Energy laboratories submitted proposals in collaboration with
other academic institutions and the department chose the centers using a
competitive, peer review process.

Additional information on recent carbon management and sequestration reports is
available on the Internet at http://www.fe.doe.gov/sequestration/index.html

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