Jeff Tester talks to James Hodge about the importance of environmental science.

	Jefferson Tester is the H. P. Meissner Professor of Chemical Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, US. He is known for his work on various aspects of chemical and energy engineering. Jeff is on the editorial board of the RSC's new journal, Energy & Environmental Science.

Welcome to the editorial board of Energy & Environmental Science. Why is this journal going to be so important?
The interface between energy and environmental science is crucial as we move forward. The most interesting and important work is taking place at the intersection between several disciplines. Green Chemistry started for exactly the same reason - there was a lot of work going on that was very 'interfacial' and multi-disciplinary. For example, green chemistry connected reducing environmental impacts with different approaches to chemical synthesis and separations.

When you were a student, which inspiring environmental scientists did you look up to?
When I was studying for my PhD, there wasn't such an emphasis on global change as there is now. We concentrated on local issues associated with chemical effluents. I'm a chemical engineer -  a lot of the formal training I had was to do with improving separations and improving yield and processes and, in the early days, we only had to confine our attention to everything inside the plant fence. I'd have to go back to Rachel Carson (and others like her) who set us on a new path with respect to the influence of chemicals in the environment and how they can change ecosystems. Mario Molina and his co-workers did a lot of important work on CFCs and their effect on ozone depletion in the upper atmosphere but it took a long time for their enormous contribution to be recognised with a Nobel prize. The underlying research represents a great example of fundamental science with a specific application to sustainability - the kind we'd like to get into EES at an early stage.

How has environmental science [and the awareness of environmental issues] changed throughout the course of your career?

Certainly, science and engineering science have changed focus a lot; problems that we couldn't even imagine during the early part of my own professional life are now front-and-centre. Carbon capture, sequestration and storage of CO₂ in the ground and ocean are good examples of enabling technologies to allow us to make a transition to a more sustainable energy supply system. In the 1970s, the focus was on injecting CO₂ into oil reservoirs to increase production. It wasn't a climate change driven initiative.

Our view of resources in general has changed too. The technological aspects of energy efficiency have not been fully appreciated until recently. Efficiency was viewed as something that only the extreme environmentalists were advocating. Now we're seeing serious efforts to build zero net energy buildings and commercial buildings that are much more sustainable in terms of indoor air quality, lower energy use with very efficient heating, air conditioning and lighting systems. Efficiency is an important part of this energy-environmental science domain that wasn't really featured in the early days.

Do you feel that the US government is doing enough to support energy science?
In the past 20 years, energy science has been short-changed in America. Some may argue with this, but I know that in many areas - particularly fundamental research in earth sciences necessary for geothermal energy extraction - basic materials science for solar technology and fundamental research on wind and biomass energy have not been as active as they could be. Clearly, that's changing now though. The Department of Energy and the US Department of Agriculture are 're-tooling'. Congress has yet to give a mandate to move forward in a big way but things are moving in a better direction for sure. Maybe by this time next year, an editorial will appear in EES to say that we're pleased to report there's a lot more governmental support for energy.

On the engineering side, a little renaissance is underway - there's a resurgence of interest in wave power, tidal power, offshore wind, geothermal, biomass and even solar thermal. We saw this before in the 1970s but now there is a much more imperative set of goals. Hopefully, there will be sustained multi-year support of long-term, high-risk, high-payout initiatives in engineering science in the energy domain. I have yet to see it happen, but it's changing rapidly, so I'm optimistic.

Are scientists doing enough to help governments to make those important decisions?

Well, in the US, the answer is clearly no. The scientific community needs to be much more involved in government to inform policy-makers of the need to transform our energy system. Our country would benefit if more senators and representatives had formal scientific training.

More needs to be done but at least there has been a change of direction. For example, this past year, I and other scientists have been invited to testify to Congress on a number of energy issues. Some of us are sceptical whether this increased level of government interest in energy is being driven by fear of running out of oil rather than centred on a true commitment to long-term sustainability.

The campaign for sustainability hasn't come together in the way that other long-term national and international campaigns (like the fight against polio, AIDS or malaria) have. Energy and the environment should not be just a political issue. It is as much about the security of the earth's ecosystem and our quality of life as it is about where our energy comes from and how it is used.

Which chemical technologies show the most promise for the future in energy and environmental science?
Well, I'm working on hydrothermal transformative chemistry in high pressure water and CO₂. Researchers are giving a lot of attention (and rightfully so) to doing biochemical transformations to make biofuels, but they tend to be extremely selective reactions. A lot of the available potential feedstocks are chemically complex mixtures like industrial, municipal and agricultural wastes. These are not amenable to straight biological transformation. I favour a two-fold approach: we could use hydrothermal methods to get partial chemical conversion and decomposition and then use biological techniques to operate on simpler molecules. For example, could we take lignocellulosic [lignocellulose is a combination of lignin and cellulose that strengthens woody plant cells] material and transform it very completely and quickly into simple sugars and then go through a biochemical step to complete the transformation with much higher yields? The chemistry associated with hydrothermal processes is largely uncharacterised in detail.

There are also opportunities for more efficient recovery of hydrocarbon fuels from unconventional sources such as oil shale and tar sands. Methods that are far less environmentally invasive than those that have been tested and commercially developed so far should be receiving much more attention.