Podcast appearances and mentions of mark zoback

Recorded on June 21, 2022 https://youtu.be/B4v-9Zztiwc In episode 50 of the PetroNerds podcast, Trisha Curtis sits down with the CEO of Petro.Ai, Troy Ruths, on location at the Petro.Ai office, in Houston, Texas.  This is a great must listen to conversation on the state of US shale, completions, and the money coming back into US shale. Trisha went down to Houston to speak at a dinner event for Petro.Ai where the infamous Mark Zoback also gave a talk. Trisha and Troy follow up this nerdy dinner convo with a Petronerds Podcast and talk extensively about the state of the market, the publics vs. the privates, optimism and $100 oil, sentiment, and the technical prospects for US shale.  They get into completions, well spacing, predictions, data, knowledge of the rock, "tiers," and a whole lot more.  This is a nerdy and optimistic conversation on the state of US shale and the significant growth and opportunity the rock and the industry have to offer the US and the world.  Is the US industry done tinkering with completions?  A few years ago, folks would have said yes, but this podcast will make you think that could change.

Mark Zoback discusses his Honorary Lecture, "Geomechanical Issues Affecting Long-Term Storage of CO2." In this episode, Mark highlights how oil and gas companies are best positioned to address the needs for large-scale carbon storage. He discusses the role of depleted oil and gas reservoirs for CO2 storage, as well as the geomechanical issues that have to be considered. Mark also shares what is most essential to unlocking long-term CO2 storage and how government officials and companies can work together. This is a timely conversation that addresses real-world needs with the geophysical knowledge to solve problems. Visit https://seg.org/podcast to find the link to listen to Mark's lecture. BIOGRAPHY Mark D. Zoback is the Benjamin M. Page Professor of Geophysics at Stanford University, Director of the Stanford Natural Gas Initiative, and Co-Director of the Stanford Center for Induced and Triggered Seismicity, and the Stanford Center for Carbon Storage. Zoback conducts research on in situ stress, fault mechanics, and reservoir geomechanics with an emphasis on shale gas, tight gas, and tight oil production as well as CO2 sequestration. He is the author of two textbooks and the author/co-author of approximately 400 technical papers. Zoback has received a number of awards and honors, including election to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering in 2011 and the Robert R. Berg Outstanding Research Award of the AAPG in 2015. He was the 2020 chair of the Society of Petroleum Engineers Technical Committee on Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage. SPONSOR This episode is brought to you by CGG. Question: What is key to safe, long-term CO2 storage? Answer: A good understanding of subsurface site integrity. Making more-informed decisions while developing your sub-surface storage calls for the kind of integrated geoscience expertise CGG can provide. Our multi-discipline approach delivers assessments of containment risks such a cap rock failure, fault reactivation and surface deformation. Our coupled reservoir, geomechanics and fracturing simulations can incorporate thermal effects and a full range of non-linear material models to ensure a rigorous assessment of injection and storage risks. With CGG, gain greater insight for your carbon and energy storage projects with our unique range of geoscience expertise that helps you see things differently. Visit https://www.cgg.com/ to learn more. CREDITS Original music by Zach Bridges. This episode was hosted, edited, and produced by Andrew Geary at 51 features, LLC. Thank you to the SEG podcast team: Ted Bakamjian, Kathy Gamble, and Ally McGinnis. You can follow the podcast to hear the latest episodes on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify.

America is in the midst of a fracking boom. Most new oil and gas wells in this country are drilled using hyrdraulic fracturing, the injection of a cocktail of water and chemicals at high pressure to release bubbles of oil or gas trapped in shale rock. Thanks to fracking, America is awash in cheap natural gas and is poised to become the world’s largest petroleum producer next year. That would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. "People thought that the United States was tapped out." says Russell Gold, a reporter at The Wall Street Journal, and author of The Boom: How Fracking Ignited the American Energy Revolution and Changed the World. "There's more energy than we frankly know what to do with right now." But some say the boom comes with a cost. Opponents of fracking cite risks to groundwater supplies, and argue that it’s not climate friendly. Mark Zoback, a professor of Geophysics at Stanford agrees that when dealing with a large industrial process like fracking, things can go wrong, but that fracking itself isn't the problem. "The real problem is well construction," Zoback says, "and if you do a good job of building a well, and we know how to build wells, we really can prevent the kinds of problems we should worry about below the earth’s surface, and that is the leakage that could contaminate aquifers that could leak gas to the atmosphere and obviate the benefit of using natural gas instead of coal, for example, for greenhouse gas emissions." Gold and Zoback recently sat down at the Commonwealth Club to weigh in on the costs and benefits of fracking, along with Trevor Houser, co-author of Fueling Up: The Economic Implications of America's Oil and Gas Boom. Houser speaks to the economic benefit of fracking, but cautions against believing any hype. "The climate consequences of the gas boom have been oversold by environmentalists, the climate benefits of the gas boom have been oversold by the industry," Houser says. "Same as the economic story….it's not as good as you think, it's not as bad as you think." Hype or not, it's a boom that's taking place right in our own backyard, says Russell Gold. "This is not an energy boom that's happening above the Arctic Circle in Alaska or way off in Gulf of Mexico over the horizon," Gold says. "This is happening in county after county in many places. And while that is intrusive and while we are talking about an industrial process, if we’re not doing it here in the United States, it's going to be done somewhere else." Russell Gold, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal; Author, The Boom: How Fracking Ignited the American Energy Revolution and Changed the World Trevor Houser, Partner, Rhodium Group; Co-Author, Fueling Up: The Economic Implications of America's Oil and Gas Boom Mark Zoback, Professor of Geophysics at Stanford, former member of the Secretary of Energy’s Committee on Shale Gas Development from 2011 to 2012 This program was recorded in front of a live audience at the Commonwealth Club of California on April 1, 2014.

With a thriving natural gas market in the U.S., oil and energy companies are in a race for fracking rights across the country. The fracking bonanza has led to concern about the oversight of hydraulic fracturing practices. “We need to regulate,” said TJ Glauthier, former Deputy U.S. Secretary of Energy and a former board member of Union Drilling, “I think that natural gas has a very important role to play in a conversion to a cleaner economy and a cleaner future.” One notable result of the “shale gas revolution,” according to Mark Zoback, Professor at the Stanford University School of Earth Sciences, is that “CO2 emissions from coal are down 20% just in the last few years.” But higher than expected methane leakage could mean that “the actual lifecycle carbon impact of burning natural gas is actually worse than coal,” said Kassie Siegel, Senior Counsel at the Center for Biological Diversity. A conversation with three experts on the state of hydraulic fracturing and regulation in America. This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club of California on April 2, 2013

Martin Mulvihill, the Executive Director of Berkeley Center for Green Chemistry, discusses the Center’s efforts to build an academic program to advance green chemistry through interdisciplinary scholarship. He discussed his views of sustainability in chemistry. bcgc.berkeley.eduTranscriptSpeaker 1: Spectrum's next Speaker 2: [inaudible].Speaker 3: Welcome to spectrum the science and technology show on k a l x Berkeley, a biweekly 30 minute program bringing you interviews featuring bay area scientists and [00:00:30] technologists. Speaker 2: [inaudible].Speaker 1: Good afternoon. I'm Rick Karnofsky. Brad swift and I are co-hosting today's show today. We have on Martin Mulva Hill, the executive director of the Berkeley Center for Green Chemistry. He'll talk to us about the center's efforts to build a novel academic program and how he views sustainability and chemistry. Marty Mulvihill, welcome to spectrum. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. I wanted [00:01:00] to have you talk about sustainability and then my take on things. Sustainability is fast becoming a cliche, so if you would spell out what you believe sustainability to be. Speaker 4: Yeah. Sustainability is a broad movement towards both dematerialization materialization and trans materialization, so looking at ways to use fewer resources to still meet the means of society such that future generations [00:01:30] can also meet their needs. That comes from the Brundtland report, which is the UN report, which back in 86 sort of defined sustainability. Sustainability includes a lot of different things, which is much broader than any one discipline and even any one interdisciplinary center can really take on, in my opinion, at the Berkeley Center for Green Chemistry, my background and my current position, we really focus on a narrow part of sustainability and that's the chemicals piece. How do we ensure [00:02:00] that at the molecular level, the things we're building, um, are more sustainable, I. E don't use more resources than necessary and are safe for human health and the environment. The overarching goal for the center, how would you characterize that? Speaker 4: And you're the executive director of the center now, right? That's correct. We have like many of the centers on campus, three main purposes. The first is education. So we're teaching [00:02:30] a number of graduate classes and are redoing the undergraduate laboratories in chemistry. So first and foremost, it's about bringing these concepts of sustainability and green chemistry to our students here at UC Berkeley. Secondarily, as a research institution, we're very interested in pushing the bounds of green chemistry. So making the new materials, working with people to make safer materials and understanding the broad consequences of chemicals within [00:03:00] our environment and business supply chains such that we have better and safer chemicals for consumer use. That's the research piece. And the third piece, because this is applied and a big topic is about engagement. So that's working with both local NGOs, the California government, as well as a local businesses to take a look at how do we, beyond the [00:03:30] walls of UC Berkeley, actually improve the chemical footprint, so to speak. Speaker 4: Can you give us an example of a sustainable versus an unsustainable chemical process? Yeah. I'll give you an example of something that we're working on right now. So we don't necessarily have the more sustainable substitute at hand. But in the wake of the recent oil spills, we were taking a close look at what was used, [00:04:00] what was the response? So first we have to characterize what are your options that are available? What are the technologies in the case that dispersants so something that's gonna take that oil slick and turn it into small globules are your only option either because of concerns about the environment or concerns about the human health, safety of the people cleaning up the oil spill. Sometimes these really are your best option. You dig down another level and you talk to the folks in a toxicology [00:04:30] and you find out that the dispersants we use actually break down more slowly than the oil itself. Speaker 4: So if you're going to add something to an oil slick, it seems like what you'd want is something that breaks down at least as fast as the oil you're trying to get rid of. So again, we talked to our colleagues and we're characterizing this issue. So as chemists, we can think about how can we make something that breaks down more quickly. Additionally, you talked to your, our colleagues that have worked out in the Gulf and characterize [00:05:00] the biological communities that actually break down this oil, found that there are a couple of strains of bacteria that are primarily responsible for that and one of those strains of bacteria is adversely effected by the most commonly used oil dispersant. That's a problem. Again, if you want to clean up oil and sometimes it's absolutely necessary to disperse it, you want to make sure that the things that are naturally going to break it down aren't going to be harmed by the thing you're using to disperse it. Speaker 4: So [00:05:30] with those design parameters in mind, the center is now seeking to create an oil dispersant that breaks down as quickly or more quickly than awhile and is not toxic hopefully to any aquatic life, but especially not to the aquatic life that's going to be primarily responsible for breaking down the dispersant in the oil that we're getting rid of in the first place. So it's a way of, in the past, you would have chemists just to create a molecule that effectively disperses [00:06:00] oil. Absolutely good goal. But it wasn't until other people took a look at what they created that you started understanding the environmental fate and the toxicology of these things. Now we have the knowledge upfront, so I'm working with graduate students in toxicology and in chemistry to characterize this solution from beginning to end before we even claim that this is something we can be used out in the environs Speaker 2: [inaudible] [00:06:30] you you're listening to spectrum on KALX we are speaking with Martin Mulvihill, executive director of the Berkeley Center for Green Chemistry. Speaker 4: The the key thing to getting the center off the ground was getting buy in from college chemistry, the School of Public Health, college in natural resources, Haas School of business and the College of Engineering. So getting all [00:07:00] of those folks at the table was actually probably the biggest challenge. The center is so far met because you find that as the disciplines become, you know, more and more focused and more and more advanced, their ability to communicate actually has lost a little bit. So understanding that a chemist doesn't advance in his field without making new products, while at the same time a environmental scientist has a hard time advancing in his or her field if they don't actually [00:07:30] characterize problems. Chemists don't like to hear about problems. Environmental scientists don't necessarily like to hear about the millions of new chemicals we want to make. So those discussions are aren't necessarily, it's easier as natural as we'd want them to be, but we're breaking those barriers down at Berkeley and the people who break them down the most are actually the students because they aren't indoctrinated in one way of thought yet. So they naturally see the connection between making a capital goal and understanding where [00:08:00] it goes. It's really the people who have been trained for the longest have the hardest time breaking down those boundaries. So a bit of a generational issue. Yeah, absolutely. We view a generational shift in the way that we can see of making and distributing chemicals and materials in our society. Speaker 4: And what about the regulatory environment? I know the European Union is very aggressive and the EPA has somewhat, [00:08:30] California's always been very aggressive. How does that play in this with the industry and their costs and how they want to go forward? Yeah, the regulatory question is a very important one and is actually in some ways where you see Berkeley. Got It start. So since 2006 the folks in public health, especially Mike Wilson makes Schwartzman, they were both working actively with California legislation in this area and continue to work [00:09:00] actively in this area. The regulatory piece, at least the way we see it is all about providing more information, more information to the marketplace and also more information to the consumer. So when you look at things like the reach initiative in the European Union, what is really asking for is information. If you produce chemicals at certain scales, you have to, as the scales increased, provide more and more information. Speaker 4: The next step is going to be how do [00:09:30] we figure out what to do with that information. And it is regulation that can create economic barriers or incentives to adoption of safer chemicals. So the California Green Chemistry initiative is still in the phase of deciding what information we're going to ask for. And then how are we going to promote changes to safer chemicals. Those discussions involve both industry folks, academic folks and NGO folks. They're happening in [00:10:00] real time, so there are certainly differences of opinion there, but we are intering a phase of global chemical production where more information is going to become necessary and consumers, governments and other folks are going to start asking for products that perform better environmentally is an international standard, something that's conceivable and possible because what seems to happen is that developing countries create strict standards [00:10:30] and then the companies just dump in the non developed world or company places where they don't have any sort of regulatory framework. Speaker 4: Yeah, certainly from a my viewpoint international action is certain is necessary because if you have different sets of economic and environmental drivers in different places, it's easy to game the system. I mean we do have a, a global chemical manufacturing [00:11:00] system. It's already global so they can easily move things from one place to another. I think that it's in the best interest of all of us in the end, all of the stakeholders, both individual consumers as well as the companies and the governments to do some coordination, um, coordination of international policies, very tough. You sometimes run the risk of being pushed to the lowest common denominator. I think that's the danger [00:11:30] of going that route. The first step. And what I would like to see globally is at least some standard information requirements. So taking a look at what do you have to test for chemicals produced at what levels based on where you're selling them. So you might be producing them somewhere else and you have to worry about all those, uh, waste products and how they're being dealt with. But at least if you have a standard [00:12:00] for a global standard for what information you have to test in order to sell, it does, you know, good to produce a chemical somewhere that you can then sell back into the developed world. Speaker 5: Talk a little bit about your research in nanotechnology. Speaker 4: Yeah. So, um, I've actually been at Berkeley Awhile and my research as a graduate student was in nanotechnology, making [inaudible] new materials, mostly inorganic materials [00:12:30] that had some application for either the energy space or environmental sensing space. So I was able to create a sensor for arsenic in groundwater. That was actually the project that got me excited about this more interdisciplinary approach to science and technology. After that, I did research on the fate of nanoparticles in the environment. So I went up to the national labs, um, Berkeley national labs right up the hill behind campus [00:13:00] and did a year long postdoc in environmental science and material science characterizing the fate of Nano materials in the environment. Because as we create all these new materials, it's important to take a life cycle approach, right? Understand both how as a chemist I can get the function that I want out of a new material, but also make sure that the end of life isn't going to create unfortunate undesirable harms. So that's an exciting area of my own research [00:13:30] where now that I have a better sense of the life cycle of nanomaterials. We're trying to apply some of that too. Water purification technology, so I still work with a show Gad go who's in environmental engineering and e t d at the labs trying to create new, a safer, I'm sorbent for mineral contamination and groundwater so get rid of things like arsenic or excess fluoride. Speaker 5: Nanoscience then could [00:14:00] also have this kind of sustainability issue and push in. It's Speaker 4: growing cause this, this is a brand new science. It's, yeah, I think nanoscience is a great case study. Take a look at Green Chemistry and nanoscience side by side. They actually started around the same time and they have a lot of the same goals. The goal of nanoscience really is to do more with less, right? Let's take small materials that are well-engineered [00:14:30] to more efficiently produce energy. I mean you look at what Nano technologies being used for. It's a lot of, it looks like the same things that green chemistry is trying to do and in fact folks are also it already looking at the end of life issues around nanomaterials. I think it's a perfect example of how greater awareness, greater awareness from the funding agencies is actually taking a more proactive approach to new chemical materials, Nano materials [00:15:00] being a large class of the new materials that we're producing. So you already have large centers throughout the country that are taking a look at what are the environmental implications of nanomaterials, what are the toxicological fates of new nano materials? It's actually a place where I think we're ahead of the historical curve. Are there still concerns and unknown knowns about nanomaterials? Absolutely. Are nanomaterials making it into consumer products? Yeah, they're just beginning to, [00:15:30] I don't think they represent a clear and present danger that's larger than any of the other chemicals that we're using. Speaker 2: [inaudible]Speaker 4: you're listening to spectrum on KLM Speaker 2: [inaudible]Speaker 4: one exciting thing I'd just plug is that this May, we're going to be having our second conference here on campus. So last March was [00:16:00] our first kind of big open public conference and brought in people representing all of these backgrounds. And we're going to do that again, this May. So take a look at our website, it's going to be on May 3rd here on campus. So you know if you're interested in being involved, always send me an email. We have lots of opportunities. Take a look at our classes and consider coming to our conference in May. And the conference is open to the students and community. Absolutely, absolutely. [00:16:30] Great. And what's the website? The website is BC gc.berkeley.edu so Berkeley Center for Green Chemistry, BC GC. Good. See you there. Excellent. Marty Mulvihill thanks very much for coming on spectrum. Thank you very much. Speaker 2: Pleasure. [inaudible] Speaker 6: [00:17:00] irregular feature of spectrum is a calendar that highlight some of the science and technology events happening in the bay area over the next two weeks. The Audubon society is hosting a winter bird count tomorrow, Saturday, January 28th this is a free event open to families of all ages and sizes. Naturalists will lead a bird walk around lake merit to discover and [00:17:30] count wintered bird species such as ducks cormorants inheritance. Meet at the lake 600 Bellevue Avenue in Oakland. Dress warmly bring binoculars and field guides if you have them, but binoculars will be available to borrow. Bring water into lunch. Please RSVP with the Golden Gate Autobon g g a s education@gmail.com or (510) 508-1388 or [00:18:00] also visit www.andgoldengateaudubon.org for more information. Speaker 1: Registration is open for she's Geeky Bay area. This event runs January 27th 28th and 29th at the Computer History Museum in mountain view. She's Kiki hosts on conferences across the U s providing a unique environment for women working in technology and other geeky fields including science, engineering and math. To learn from one another. Grow networks, [00:18:30] connect across generations and discuss issues. Women attending. She's Geeky events. Find inspiration and gain self confidence to pursue or continue on stem career paths because they are given the opportunity to present their work often for the first time. Discuss critical issues and build peer networks for support. Visit www dot [inaudible] dot org for more information Speaker 5: producing natural gas from shale opportunities and challenges of a major new energy source. Mark Zoback is the Benjamin M. Page [00:19:00] professor of geophysics at Stanford University. Mark Conducts Research on institute stress, fault mechanics and reservoir geomechanics. He currently serves on the National Academy of Energy Committee investigating the deep water horizon accident and the secretary of Energy's committee on Shale gas development and environmental protection. His presentation is Monday, January 30th at 4:15 PM on the Stanford University campus whining science center [00:19:30] and Video Auditorium. It is free and open to the public conversations at the Herbst, the power of gaming on a planetary basis. We spend 3 billion hours a week playing video games. That's a lot of time enough to change our lives and probably save the world. The real world while we're at it, author of reality is broken, why games make us better and how they can change the world. Dr Jane mcgonigal discusses her belief [00:20:00] that video games can be a positive platform for exploration and problem solving in our lives and for our planet. In conversation with Ryan Wyatt, director of the Morrison Planetarium, Tuesday, January 31st at 8:00 PM at the herps theatre four oh one Venice avenue in San Francisco, tickets start at $22 Speaker 6: February's free. Leonardo art center, evening rendezvous or laser will be on the first at Sanford [00:20:30] universities. PGO Hall Room one 13 networking begins at six 45 and a talk starts at seven here from artists, Daniel Small and Luca and two Nucci on firstlight, their art based on the Hubble ultra deep field imaging systems portrait of the visible universe that reveals the first light from 13.5 billion years ago. Architect and photo person will present city of the future as of 2008 over 80% [00:21:00] of land of the world that is suitable for raising crops is in use. Where will we find farmland we need? By 2040 80% of the world's population will reside in urban centers pushing out into the neighboring agricultural land. How will we feed ourselves form a NASA scientists. San Gill will talk about collaborative intelligence and how evolution and natural systems can inform social problem solving. Then I will conclude with artists, Phil Ross, his presentation [00:21:30] on micro architecture. Fungi can be used to transform agricultural waste into durable and low impact materials at room temperature. The future is moldy in this presentation, Phil will describe as research on growing a building out of living fungus. For more about the laser series, browse www.leonardo.info Speaker 5: the February science cafe presents exploding and brains mice [00:22:00] who love cat piss and people who eat too much cake. The hidden ways that microbes manipulate animal behavior. All animals live in close contact with micro organisms of all sorts. These micro organisms depend on animals for food, shelter, places to reproduce, et cetera. These microbes lives are thus affected by ways in which the animal behaves in. Many of these microbes have evolved ways to ensure that their hosts behave in ways that are good for them, often at the [00:22:30] expense of the animals. Dr. Michael Isen, we'll talk about new work from his lab and elsewhere. Looking at a variety of different ways in which micro organisms use chemical signals and targeted disruptions of cells in the nervous system to alter animal behavior. He will also touch on the ongoing battles over public access to the scientific literature. Michael Isen is an evolutionary biologist at UC Berkeley and an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Science cafe happens Wednesday, [00:23:00] February 1st at 7:00 PM in the La Pena Cultural Center, 31 oh five Shattuck avenue in Berkeley.Speaker 2: [inaudible]Speaker 5: you're listening to spectrum Speaker 2: [inaudible]Speaker 6: and now for some science news headlines. Here's Brad swift Speaker 5: diesel truck emissions in Oakland fall sharply in January, 2010 [00:23:30] the California Air Resources Board banned all 1993 and older drayage trucks from ports and rail yards statewide. They also ordered trucks built within the years 1994 to 2006 to particle filters by the end of the year 2011 in a paper recently published in environmental science and technology. You see Berkeley Professor Robert Harley and coauthors Tim Dolman and Tom Cush [00:24:00] stutter described the process and the results of their monitoring truck exhaust at a section of highway near the port of Oakland and the Oakland rail yards. They compare data they collected from November, 2009 before the ban with data they collected from the same Oakland site in 2010 after the ban, the comparison found black smoke emissions were reduced by about half and the nitrogen oxide emissions dropped by 40% Harley [00:24:30] and his researchers will return to this section of highway several more times over the next two years. As the remaining 2004 to 2006 truck engines are retrofitted with filters, they expect to study in greater depth the properties of emitted particulate matter. They will also examine more closely the chemical composition of the nitrogen oxide emissions to determine the split between nitric oxide and the nitrogen dioxide. [00:25:00] This diesel emissions control program will go statewide to all trucks over the next several years, including trucks from out of state, Speaker 6: neuro psychopharmacologist, David Nutt and colleagues at the Imperial College. London wrote an article that was published in the January 23rd of the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on how hallucinogens such as magic mushrooms work in the human brain. 15 people with previous history of psychedelic usage were injected with a small amount of psilocybin. [00:25:30] This caused an immediate reaction that peaked within minutes and lasted for about an hour. This differed from those injected with Saltwater Placebo functional magnetic resonance imaging brain scans before and after administration showed decreased blood flow activity through some regions of the brain. The result was found again with a new batch of 15 volunteers and through a different brain scan methodology that showed lower blood oxygenation in the brain. Specific areas [00:26:00] affected included the posterior cingulate cortex and medial prefrontal cortex. Science news reports that Brian Roth of the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill who was not involved with the study remarked that they had the complete opposite of what had been predicted. They differ from earlier studies that use positron emission tomography. This work hearkens back to an earlier headline we ran on spectrum that reported that some hallucinogen and phenomena such as synesthesia [00:26:30] may arise from a relaxing of some of the brain's filters. It may also help find drugs or derivatives to be used in the treatment of depression, cluster headaches, obsessive compulsive disorder, and other conditions that linked to too much brain Speaker 5: activity. For the first time ever, stem cells from umbilical cords have been converted into other types of cells, which may eventually lead to new treatment options for spinal cord injuries and multiple sclerosis among [00:27:00] other nervous system diseases. James Hickman at University of central Florida, bioengineer and leader of the research group says we're very excited about where this could lead because it overcomes many of the obstacles present with embryonic stem cells. The main challenge in working with stem cells is figuring out the chemical or other triggers that will convince them to convert into a desired cell type. Had Devika Davis, a postdoctoral researcher in Hickman's lab, [00:27:30] was able to transform umbilical stem cells into oligodendrocytes critical structural cells that insulate nerves in the brain and the spinal cord. There are two main options the group hopes to pursue through further research. The first is that the cells could be injected into the body at the point of a spinal cord injury to promote repair. The other possibility for the Hickman team's work relates to multiple sclerosis [00:28:00] and similar nervous system diseases. Speaker 2: [inaudible] music you heard today was from Lozan and David Sofer. These album Croak and acoustic. It is released under the creative Commons attribution license version 3.0 [inaudible] [00:28:30] spectrum was recorded and edited, and by me, Rick Karnofsky and by Brad swift and Mark Taylor, thank you for listening to spectrum. We are happy to hear from this. If you have comments about the show, please send them to us via email. Our email address is spectrum dot k a l x@yahoo.com join us in two weeks at this same time. [00:29:00] [inaudible] [00:29:30] [inaudible]. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Martin Mulvihill, the Executive Director of Berkeley Center for Green Chemistry, discusses the Center's efforts to build an academic program to advance green chemistry through interdisciplinary scholarship. He discussed his views of sustainability in chemistry. bcgc.berkeley.eduTranscriptSpeaker 1: Spectrum's next Speaker 2: [inaudible].Speaker 3: Welcome to spectrum the science and technology show on k a l x Berkeley, a biweekly 30 minute program bringing you interviews featuring bay area scientists and [00:00:30] technologists. Speaker 2: [inaudible].Speaker 1: Good afternoon. I'm Rick Karnofsky. Brad swift and I are co-hosting today's show today. We have on Martin Mulva Hill, the executive director of the Berkeley Center for Green Chemistry. He'll talk to us about the center's efforts to build a novel academic program and how he views sustainability and chemistry. Marty Mulvihill, welcome to spectrum. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. I wanted [00:01:00] to have you talk about sustainability and then my take on things. Sustainability is fast becoming a cliche, so if you would spell out what you believe sustainability to be. Speaker 4: Yeah. Sustainability is a broad movement towards both dematerialization materialization and trans materialization, so looking at ways to use fewer resources to still meet the means of society such that future generations [00:01:30] can also meet their needs. That comes from the Brundtland report, which is the UN report, which back in 86 sort of defined sustainability. Sustainability includes a lot of different things, which is much broader than any one discipline and even any one interdisciplinary center can really take on, in my opinion, at the Berkeley Center for Green Chemistry, my background and my current position, we really focus on a narrow part of sustainability and that's the chemicals piece. How do we ensure [00:02:00] that at the molecular level, the things we're building, um, are more sustainable, I. E don't use more resources than necessary and are safe for human health and the environment. The overarching goal for the center, how would you characterize that? Speaker 4: And you're the executive director of the center now, right? That's correct. We have like many of the centers on campus, three main purposes. The first is education. So we're teaching [00:02:30] a number of graduate classes and are redoing the undergraduate laboratories in chemistry. So first and foremost, it's about bringing these concepts of sustainability and green chemistry to our students here at UC Berkeley. Secondarily, as a research institution, we're very interested in pushing the bounds of green chemistry. So making the new materials, working with people to make safer materials and understanding the broad consequences of chemicals within [00:03:00] our environment and business supply chains such that we have better and safer chemicals for consumer use. That's the research piece. And the third piece, because this is applied and a big topic is about engagement. So that's working with both local NGOs, the California government, as well as a local businesses to take a look at how do we, beyond the [00:03:30] walls of UC Berkeley, actually improve the chemical footprint, so to speak. Speaker 4: Can you give us an example of a sustainable versus an unsustainable chemical process? Yeah. I'll give you an example of something that we're working on right now. So we don't necessarily have the more sustainable substitute at hand. But in the wake of the recent oil spills, we were taking a close look at what was used, [00:04:00] what was the response? So first we have to characterize what are your options that are available? What are the technologies in the case that dispersants so something that's gonna take that oil slick and turn it into small globules are your only option either because of concerns about the environment or concerns about the human health, safety of the people cleaning up the oil spill. Sometimes these really are your best option. You dig down another level and you talk to the folks in a toxicology [00:04:30] and you find out that the dispersants we use actually break down more slowly than the oil itself. Speaker 4: So if you're going to add something to an oil slick, it seems like what you'd want is something that breaks down at least as fast as the oil you're trying to get rid of. So again, we talked to our colleagues and we're characterizing this issue. So as chemists, we can think about how can we make something that breaks down more quickly. Additionally, you talked to your, our colleagues that have worked out in the Gulf and characterize [00:05:00] the biological communities that actually break down this oil, found that there are a couple of strains of bacteria that are primarily responsible for that and one of those strains of bacteria is adversely effected by the most commonly used oil dispersant. That's a problem. Again, if you want to clean up oil and sometimes it's absolutely necessary to disperse it, you want to make sure that the things that are naturally going to break it down aren't going to be harmed by the thing you're using to disperse it. Speaker 4: So [00:05:30] with those design parameters in mind, the center is now seeking to create an oil dispersant that breaks down as quickly or more quickly than awhile and is not toxic hopefully to any aquatic life, but especially not to the aquatic life that's going to be primarily responsible for breaking down the dispersant in the oil that we're getting rid of in the first place. So it's a way of, in the past, you would have chemists just to create a molecule that effectively disperses [00:06:00] oil. Absolutely good goal. But it wasn't until other people took a look at what they created that you started understanding the environmental fate and the toxicology of these things. Now we have the knowledge upfront, so I'm working with graduate students in toxicology and in chemistry to characterize this solution from beginning to end before we even claim that this is something we can be used out in the environs Speaker 2: [inaudible] [00:06:30] you you're listening to spectrum on KALX we are speaking with Martin Mulvihill, executive director of the Berkeley Center for Green Chemistry. Speaker 4: The the key thing to getting the center off the ground was getting buy in from college chemistry, the School of Public Health, college in natural resources, Haas School of business and the College of Engineering. So getting all [00:07:00] of those folks at the table was actually probably the biggest challenge. The center is so far met because you find that as the disciplines become, you know, more and more focused and more and more advanced, their ability to communicate actually has lost a little bit. So understanding that a chemist doesn't advance in his field without making new products, while at the same time a environmental scientist has a hard time advancing in his or her field if they don't actually [00:07:30] characterize problems. Chemists don't like to hear about problems. Environmental scientists don't necessarily like to hear about the millions of new chemicals we want to make. So those discussions are aren't necessarily, it's easier as natural as we'd want them to be, but we're breaking those barriers down at Berkeley and the people who break them down the most are actually the students because they aren't indoctrinated in one way of thought yet. So they naturally see the connection between making a capital goal and understanding where [00:08:00] it goes. It's really the people who have been trained for the longest have the hardest time breaking down those boundaries. So a bit of a generational issue. Yeah, absolutely. We view a generational shift in the way that we can see of making and distributing chemicals and materials in our society. Speaker 4: And what about the regulatory environment? I know the European Union is very aggressive and the EPA has somewhat, [00:08:30] California's always been very aggressive. How does that play in this with the industry and their costs and how they want to go forward? Yeah, the regulatory question is a very important one and is actually in some ways where you see Berkeley. Got It start. So since 2006 the folks in public health, especially Mike Wilson makes Schwartzman, they were both working actively with California legislation in this area and continue to work [00:09:00] actively in this area. The regulatory piece, at least the way we see it is all about providing more information, more information to the marketplace and also more information to the consumer. So when you look at things like the reach initiative in the European Union, what is really asking for is information. If you produce chemicals at certain scales, you have to, as the scales increased, provide more and more information. Speaker 4: The next step is going to be how do [00:09:30] we figure out what to do with that information. And it is regulation that can create economic barriers or incentives to adoption of safer chemicals. So the California Green Chemistry initiative is still in the phase of deciding what information we're going to ask for. And then how are we going to promote changes to safer chemicals. Those discussions involve both industry folks, academic folks and NGO folks. They're happening in [00:10:00] real time, so there are certainly differences of opinion there, but we are intering a phase of global chemical production where more information is going to become necessary and consumers, governments and other folks are going to start asking for products that perform better environmentally is an international standard, something that's conceivable and possible because what seems to happen is that developing countries create strict standards [00:10:30] and then the companies just dump in the non developed world or company places where they don't have any sort of regulatory framework. Speaker 4: Yeah, certainly from a my viewpoint international action is certain is necessary because if you have different sets of economic and environmental drivers in different places, it's easy to game the system. I mean we do have a, a global chemical manufacturing [00:11:00] system. It's already global so they can easily move things from one place to another. I think that it's in the best interest of all of us in the end, all of the stakeholders, both individual consumers as well as the companies and the governments to do some coordination, um, coordination of international policies, very tough. You sometimes run the risk of being pushed to the lowest common denominator. I think that's the danger [00:11:30] of going that route. The first step. And what I would like to see globally is at least some standard information requirements. So taking a look at what do you have to test for chemicals produced at what levels based on where you're selling them. So you might be producing them somewhere else and you have to worry about all those, uh, waste products and how they're being dealt with. But at least if you have a standard [00:12:00] for a global standard for what information you have to test in order to sell, it does, you know, good to produce a chemical somewhere that you can then sell back into the developed world. Speaker 5: Talk a little bit about your research in nanotechnology. Speaker 4: Yeah. So, um, I've actually been at Berkeley Awhile and my research as a graduate student was in nanotechnology, making [inaudible] new materials, mostly inorganic materials [00:12:30] that had some application for either the energy space or environmental sensing space. So I was able to create a sensor for arsenic in groundwater. That was actually the project that got me excited about this more interdisciplinary approach to science and technology. After that, I did research on the fate of nanoparticles in the environment. So I went up to the national labs, um, Berkeley national labs right up the hill behind campus [00:13:00] and did a year long postdoc in environmental science and material science characterizing the fate of Nano materials in the environment. Because as we create all these new materials, it's important to take a life cycle approach, right? Understand both how as a chemist I can get the function that I want out of a new material, but also make sure that the end of life isn't going to create unfortunate undesirable harms. So that's an exciting area of my own research [00:13:30] where now that I have a better sense of the life cycle of nanomaterials. We're trying to apply some of that too. Water purification technology, so I still work with a show Gad go who's in environmental engineering and e t d at the labs trying to create new, a safer, I'm sorbent for mineral contamination and groundwater so get rid of things like arsenic or excess fluoride. Speaker 5: Nanoscience then could [00:14:00] also have this kind of sustainability issue and push in. It's Speaker 4: growing cause this, this is a brand new science. It's, yeah, I think nanoscience is a great case study. Take a look at Green Chemistry and nanoscience side by side. They actually started around the same time and they have a lot of the same goals. The goal of nanoscience really is to do more with less, right? Let's take small materials that are well-engineered [00:14:30] to more efficiently produce energy. I mean you look at what Nano technologies being used for. It's a lot of, it looks like the same things that green chemistry is trying to do and in fact folks are also it already looking at the end of life issues around nanomaterials. I think it's a perfect example of how greater awareness, greater awareness from the funding agencies is actually taking a more proactive approach to new chemical materials, Nano materials [00:15:00] being a large class of the new materials that we're producing. So you already have large centers throughout the country that are taking a look at what are the environmental implications of nanomaterials, what are the toxicological fates of new nano materials? It's actually a place where I think we're ahead of the historical curve. Are there still concerns and unknown knowns about nanomaterials? Absolutely. Are nanomaterials making it into consumer products? Yeah, they're just beginning to, [00:15:30] I don't think they represent a clear and present danger that's larger than any of the other chemicals that we're using. Speaker 2: [inaudible]Speaker 4: you're listening to spectrum on KLM Speaker 2: [inaudible]Speaker 4: one exciting thing I'd just plug is that this May, we're going to be having our second conference here on campus. So last March was [00:16:00] our first kind of big open public conference and brought in people representing all of these backgrounds. And we're going to do that again, this May. So take a look at our website, it's going to be on May 3rd here on campus. So you know if you're interested in being involved, always send me an email. We have lots of opportunities. Take a look at our classes and consider coming to our conference in May. And the conference is open to the students and community. Absolutely, absolutely. [00:16:30] Great. And what's the website? The website is BC gc.berkeley.edu so Berkeley Center for Green Chemistry, BC GC. Good. See you there. Excellent. Marty Mulvihill thanks very much for coming on spectrum. Thank you very much. Speaker 2: Pleasure. [inaudible] Speaker 6: [00:17:00] irregular feature of spectrum is a calendar that highlight some of the science and technology events happening in the bay area over the next two weeks. The Audubon society is hosting a winter bird count tomorrow, Saturday, January 28th this is a free event open to families of all ages and sizes. Naturalists will lead a bird walk around lake merit to discover and [00:17:30] count wintered bird species such as ducks cormorants inheritance. Meet at the lake 600 Bellevue Avenue in Oakland. Dress warmly bring binoculars and field guides if you have them, but binoculars will be available to borrow. Bring water into lunch. Please RSVP with the Golden Gate Autobon g g a s education@gmail.com or (510) 508-1388 or [00:18:00] also visit www.andgoldengateaudubon.org for more information. Speaker 1: Registration is open for she's Geeky Bay area. This event runs January 27th 28th and 29th at the Computer History Museum in mountain view. She's Kiki hosts on conferences across the U s providing a unique environment for women working in technology and other geeky fields including science, engineering and math. To learn from one another. Grow networks, [00:18:30] connect across generations and discuss issues. Women attending. She's Geeky events. Find inspiration and gain self confidence to pursue or continue on stem career paths because they are given the opportunity to present their work often for the first time. Discuss critical issues and build peer networks for support. Visit www dot [inaudible] dot org for more information Speaker 5: producing natural gas from shale opportunities and challenges of a major new energy source. Mark Zoback is the Benjamin M. Page [00:19:00] professor of geophysics at Stanford University. Mark Conducts Research on institute stress, fault mechanics and reservoir geomechanics. He currently serves on the National Academy of Energy Committee investigating the deep water horizon accident and the secretary of Energy's committee on Shale gas development and environmental protection. His presentation is Monday, January 30th at 4:15 PM on the Stanford University campus whining science center [00:19:30] and Video Auditorium. It is free and open to the public conversations at the Herbst, the power of gaming on a planetary basis. We spend 3 billion hours a week playing video games. That's a lot of time enough to change our lives and probably save the world. The real world while we're at it, author of reality is broken, why games make us better and how they can change the world. Dr Jane mcgonigal discusses her belief [00:20:00] that video games can be a positive platform for exploration and problem solving in our lives and for our planet. In conversation with Ryan Wyatt, director of the Morrison Planetarium, Tuesday, January 31st at 8:00 PM at the herps theatre four oh one Venice avenue in San Francisco, tickets start at $22 Speaker 6: February's free. Leonardo art center, evening rendezvous or laser will be on the first at Sanford [00:20:30] universities. PGO Hall Room one 13 networking begins at six 45 and a talk starts at seven here from artists, Daniel Small and Luca and two Nucci on firstlight, their art based on the Hubble ultra deep field imaging systems portrait of the visible universe that reveals the first light from 13.5 billion years ago. Architect and photo person will present city of the future as of 2008 over 80% [00:21:00] of land of the world that is suitable for raising crops is in use. Where will we find farmland we need? By 2040 80% of the world's population will reside in urban centers pushing out into the neighboring agricultural land. How will we feed ourselves form a NASA scientists. San Gill will talk about collaborative intelligence and how evolution and natural systems can inform social problem solving. Then I will conclude with artists, Phil Ross, his presentation [00:21:30] on micro architecture. Fungi can be used to transform agricultural waste into durable and low impact materials at room temperature. The future is moldy in this presentation, Phil will describe as research on growing a building out of living fungus. For more about the laser series, browse www.leonardo.info Speaker 5: the February science cafe presents exploding and brains mice [00:22:00] who love cat piss and people who eat too much cake. The hidden ways that microbes manipulate animal behavior. All animals live in close contact with micro organisms of all sorts. These micro organisms depend on animals for food, shelter, places to reproduce, et cetera. These microbes lives are thus affected by ways in which the animal behaves in. Many of these microbes have evolved ways to ensure that their hosts behave in ways that are good for them, often at the [00:22:30] expense of the animals. Dr. Michael Isen, we'll talk about new work from his lab and elsewhere. Looking at a variety of different ways in which micro organisms use chemical signals and targeted disruptions of cells in the nervous system to alter animal behavior. He will also touch on the ongoing battles over public access to the scientific literature. Michael Isen is an evolutionary biologist at UC Berkeley and an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Science cafe happens Wednesday, [00:23:00] February 1st at 7:00 PM in the La Pena Cultural Center, 31 oh five Shattuck avenue in Berkeley.Speaker 2: [inaudible]Speaker 5: you're listening to spectrum Speaker 2: [inaudible]Speaker 6: and now for some science news headlines. Here's Brad swift Speaker 5: diesel truck emissions in Oakland fall sharply in January, 2010 [00:23:30] the California Air Resources Board banned all 1993 and older drayage trucks from ports and rail yards statewide. They also ordered trucks built within the years 1994 to 2006 to particle filters by the end of the year 2011 in a paper recently published in environmental science and technology. You see Berkeley Professor Robert Harley and coauthors Tim Dolman and Tom Cush [00:24:00] stutter described the process and the results of their monitoring truck exhaust at a section of highway near the port of Oakland and the Oakland rail yards. They compare data they collected from November, 2009 before the ban with data they collected from the same Oakland site in 2010 after the ban, the comparison found black smoke emissions were reduced by about half and the nitrogen oxide emissions dropped by 40% Harley [00:24:30] and his researchers will return to this section of highway several more times over the next two years. As the remaining 2004 to 2006 truck engines are retrofitted with filters, they expect to study in greater depth the properties of emitted particulate matter. They will also examine more closely the chemical composition of the nitrogen oxide emissions to determine the split between nitric oxide and the nitrogen dioxide. [00:25:00] This diesel emissions control program will go statewide to all trucks over the next several years, including trucks from out of state, Speaker 6: neuro psychopharmacologist, David Nutt and colleagues at the Imperial College. London wrote an article that was published in the January 23rd of the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on how hallucinogens such as magic mushrooms work in the human brain. 15 people with previous history of psychedelic usage were injected with a small amount of psilocybin. [00:25:30] This caused an immediate reaction that peaked within minutes and lasted for about an hour. This differed from those injected with Saltwater Placebo functional magnetic resonance imaging brain scans before and after administration showed decreased blood flow activity through some regions of the brain. The result was found again with a new batch of 15 volunteers and through a different brain scan methodology that showed lower blood oxygenation in the brain. Specific areas [00:26:00] affected included the posterior cingulate cortex and medial prefrontal cortex. Science news reports that Brian Roth of the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill who was not involved with the study remarked that they had the complete opposite of what had been predicted. They differ from earlier studies that use positron emission tomography. This work hearkens back to an earlier headline we ran on spectrum that reported that some hallucinogen and phenomena such as synesthesia [00:26:30] may arise from a relaxing of some of the brain's filters. It may also help find drugs or derivatives to be used in the treatment of depression, cluster headaches, obsessive compulsive disorder, and other conditions that linked to too much brain Speaker 5: activity. For the first time ever, stem cells from umbilical cords have been converted into other types of cells, which may eventually lead to new treatment options for spinal cord injuries and multiple sclerosis among [00:27:00] other nervous system diseases. James Hickman at University of central Florida, bioengineer and leader of the research group says we're very excited about where this could lead because it overcomes many of the obstacles present with embryonic stem cells. The main challenge in working with stem cells is figuring out the chemical or other triggers that will convince them to convert into a desired cell type. Had Devika Davis, a postdoctoral researcher in Hickman's lab, [00:27:30] was able to transform umbilical stem cells into oligodendrocytes critical structural cells that insulate nerves in the brain and the spinal cord. There are two main options the group hopes to pursue through further research. The first is that the cells could be injected into the body at the point of a spinal cord injury to promote repair. The other possibility for the Hickman team's work relates to multiple sclerosis [00:28:00] and similar nervous system diseases. Speaker 2: [inaudible] music you heard today was from Lozan and David Sofer. These album Croak and acoustic. It is released under the creative Commons attribution license version 3.0 [inaudible] [00:28:30] spectrum was recorded and edited, and by me, Rick Karnofsky and by Brad swift and Mark Taylor, thank you for listening to spectrum. We are happy to hear from this. If you have comments about the show, please send them to us via email. Our email address is spectrum dot k a l x@yahoo.com join us in two weeks at this same time. [00:29:00] [inaudible] [00:29:30] [inaudible]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mark Zoback examines the future implications of the April 20, 2010 oil spill; need for energy resources that drive oil exploration; reform necessary to avoid similar catastrophes. (November 30, 2010)

Mark Zoback, a Professor of Geophysics at Stanford University, discusses a strategy for how natural gas combined with carbon capture and storage can play a major role as we turn away from carbon-based fossil fuels such as coal and oil. (October 1, 2009)

Mark Zoback discusses the possibility of replacing coal with unconventional gasses for energy production in the United States. (May 20, 2009)