energy

Who can ignore this 500-pound gorilla?It’s a 500-pound gorilla that Robert Criss, Ph.D., professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, sees standing on the speaker’s dais at political rallies, debates and campaigns. Its name is population growth. “Population growth is driving all of our resource problems, including water and energy. The three are intertwined,” Criss says. “The United States has over 305 million people of the 6.7 billion on the planet. We are dividing a finite resource pie among a growing number of people on Earth. We cannot expect to sustain exponential population growth matched by increased per capita use of water and energy. It’s troubling. But politicians and religious leaders totally ignore the topic.”

Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis are proposing to borrow a process used in breweries and wastewater treatment facilities to make corn ethanol more energy efficient. They are exploring the use of oxygen-less vats of microorganisms that naturally feed on organic waste produced from the ethanol fermentation process.

Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have gained the first detailed insight into the way circadian rhythms govern global gene expression in Cyanothece, a type of cyanobacterium (blue-green algae) known to cycle between photosynthesis during the day and nitrogen fixation at night.

Researchers at WUSTL and Arizona State University have sequenced the genome of a rare bacterium that harvests light energy by making an even rarer form of chlorophyll, chlorophyll d. Chlorophyll d absorbs “red edge,” near infrared, long wave length light that is invisible to the naked eye. In so doing, the cyanobacterium Acaryochloris marina competes with virtually no other plant or bacterium in the world for sunlight.

Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis and Arizona State University have sequenced the genome of a rare bacterium that harvests light energy by making an even rarer form of chlorophyll, chlorophyll d. Chlorophyll d absorbs “red edge,” near infrared, long wave length light that is invisible to the naked eye. In so doing, the cyanobacterium Acaryochloris marina, competes with virtually no other plant or bacterium in the world for sunlight.

David Kilper/WUSTL PhotoRobert Blankenship, professor of biology and chemistry at Washington University in St. Louis, holds the cyanobacteria *Acaryochloris marina*, a rare bacterium that uses chlorophyll d for photosynthesis.Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis and Arizona State University have sequenced the genome of a rare bacterium that harvests light energy by making an even rarer form of chlorophyll, chlorophyll d. Chlorophyll d absorbs “red edge,” near infrared, long wave length light that is invisible to the naked eye. In so doing, the cyanobacterium Acaryochloris marina, competes with virtually no other plant or bacterium in the world for sunlight.

David Kilper/WUSTL Photo ServicesThe combination of beer, wastewater, microbes, fuel cells, high-school students and teachers sounds like a witches’ brew for an old-fashioned, illicit 1960s beach party. Instead, these are the components of a new high-school science curriculum being developed by researchers at Washington University and two St. Louis area high-school teachers.

David Kilper/WUSTL Photo ServicesThe combination of beer, wastewater, microbes, fuel cells, high-school students and teachers sounds like a witches’ brew for an old-fashioned, illicit 1960s beach party. Instead, these are the components of a new high-school science curriculum being developed by researchers at Washington University and two St. Louis area high-school teachers.

David Kilper/WUSTL PhotoLars Angenent, Ph.D., assistant professor of energy, environmental & chemical engineering, with a microbial fuel cell.The combination of beer, wastewater, microbes, fuel cells, high school students and teachers sounds like a witches’ brew for an old-fashioned, illicit ’60s beach party. Instead, these are the components that comprise the heart and soul of a new high school science curriculum being developed by researchers at Washington University in St. Louis and a couple of St. Louis area high school teachers. Video available.

David Kilper/WUSTL Photo(Left to right) Cindy Richard-Fogal, Ph.D., research scientist in biology in Arts & Sciences, Elaine Frawley, graduate research assistant, and Robert Kranz, Ph.D., professor of biology in Arts & Sciences, examine an *E. coli* culture.Robert G. Kranz, Ph.D., professor of biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has been awarded two grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to study pathways in bioenergy conversion. The first, for $1,203,250, is a long-term NIH R01 renewal that began Aug. 1 titled “Cytochrome c Biogenesis.” The renewal award means that NIH has funded Kranz continuously for 22 years.