Berkeley Lab will open two new centers for the advancement of clean energy technologies.

The Center for Ionomer-based Water Electrolysis, or CIWE, and the Center for RESTORation of soil carbon by precision biological strategies, or RESTOR-C, will address two of seven goals included in the Energy Earthshots Initiative launched by the Department of Energy, or DoE, according to a Berkeley Lab press release.

Each center will receive $19 million in funding over the course of the next four years, according to a Berkeley Lab press release, with the intent of expediting affordable climate change reduction technology.

“For me, it’s an opportunity to combine my expertise with the wide-ranging expertise of our other team members and have a larger impact than I could by performing research only in my own research group,” said Susannah Green Tringe, division director for environmental genomics and systems biology, in an email.

Tringe was recently appointed director of RESTOR-C, which she said aims to “increase carbon flux into soil carbon storage pools,” removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and forming stable, persistent carbon by harnessing the ability of plants and microbes.

Carbon pools are reservoirs that hold carbon, such as oceans or soil, according to the DoE website.

This project will directly contribute to the DoE’s Carbon Negative Shot Initiative, which aims to capture and store gigatons of atmospheric carbon dioxide in carbon pools within the next decade.

“Most carbon fixed by plants is respired within a year, but some becomes persistent soil carbon due to chemical, physical or environmental factors,” Tringe said in an email. “To enhance carbon accumulation in soils, we will target soil, microbial, and plant factors influencing carbon flux and stability.”

The other center, CIWE, aims to bring down the cost of hydrogen produced by water electrolysis, which splits water atoms into hydrogen and oxygen, according to the center’s director and Berkeley Lab senior scientist Adam Weber.

CIWE is part of the DoE’s Hydrogen Shot Initiative, which intends to pose clean hydrogen as an alternative to fossil fuels and improve air quality, according to a press release from Berkeley Lab.

“Electrolysis using renewable energy is one of the most promising routes towards providing clean hydrogen, which is one of the best ways to decarbonize the hard to decarbonize sectors in our economy,” Weber said in an email.

Both Tringe and Weber expressed their excitement to head these new centers and work with a diverse array of professionals to pioneer biotechnology for the sake of combating climate change.

With collaboration across multiple research centers and universities in California, Colorado, New Mexico, Tennessee, and Texas, Berkeley Lab hopes to improve the quality of life in the Bay Area through the successful realization of both the Negative Carbon and Hydrogen Energy EarthShots initiatives, according to Weber.

“Having these two centers based here will further highlight the Bay Area as a major hub for soil carbon research,” Tringe said in an email.