Welcome

The Global Energy Technology Strategy Program (GTSP) has been established to assess the important roles that technology can play in effectively managing the long-term risks of climate change. This involves an integrated approach to fully exploring all aspects of climate change - including scientific, economic, regulatory, and social impacts - and then aligning new or existing technologies to mitigate negative consequences. The potential role of biotechnology is one important avenue of research in this program. As part of the GTSP research activities in 2003, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the Joint Global Change Research Institute, a collaboration between PNNL and the University of Maryland, hosted a special workshop on the Applications of Biotechnology to Mitigation of Greenhouse Warming.

The purpose of the workshop was to explore the scientific-to-social consequences of climate change, which is impacted primarily by the emission of greenhouse gases, and to identify the prospects for a wide-range of biological technologies to contribute to mitigation of climate change. Specifically, the workshop addressed the following leading topics:

Increasing productivity of woody and herbaceous biomass to substitute for fossil fuels
Increasing agricultural productivity to make up for lands diverted to biomass production
Biorefineries to concentrate energy content and reduce the bulk of biomass products transported to end-users
Microbial or other means of stabilizing carbon sequestered in soils
Microbial and enzymatic processes for hydrogen production, carbon capture and sequestration, and increased energy efficiency of industrial processing

Leading experts delivered white papers on these topics and on the social, economic, ethical and regulatory aspects of these potential applications to climate change mitigation (see tab above). Following the technical presentations, commissioned commentators delivered remarks, and then the sessions were opened for comments and questions by workshop participants. This was the second workshop held of its kind. The first forum, "Carbon Sequestration in Soils: Science, Monitoring and Beyond," took place in 1998 and helped to advance U.S. Department of Energy programs dealing with carbon sequestration. The workshop proceedings were published in February 2004.

Organizing Committee
R. Cesar Izaurralde, Joint Global Change Research Institute
F. Blaine Metting, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Norman J. Rosenberg, Joint Global Change Research Institute