The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and it's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) are developing technology to make wood adhesives from sawdust, bark, or other biomass (plant materials or wastes derived from them).

The Department of Energy has a rich heritage of meeting important national goals in the areas of energy, national security, science, and technology. The end of the Cold War, and the election of President Clinton, have given us a new national agenda. Through a comprehensive strategic planning process, we have determined that the Department must now unleash its extraordinary scientific and technical talent and resources on new and more sharply focused goals: fueling a competitive economy, improving the environment through waste management and pollution prevention, and reducing the nuclear danger.

Do you have waste disposal problems? Do you have land sitting idle because it is not quite good enough for food crops? Would you like to be in on a major new industry and help solve air pollution and global warming problems? The US. Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) may have just the ticket-technology to convert cellulosic biomass such as agricultural residues and wastes to ethanol, a clean burning alternative transportation fuel.

Disclosed is an apparatus and method for in situ remediation of contaminated subsurface soil or groundwater contaminated by chlorinated hydrocarbons. A nutrient fluid (NF) is selected to simulated the growth and reproduction of indigenous subsurface microorganisms capable of degrading the contaminants; an oxygenated fluid (OF) is selected to create an aerobic environment with anaerobic pockets. NF is injected periodically while OF is injected continuously and both are extracted so that both are drawn across the plume. NF stimulates microbial colony growth; withholding it periodically forces the larger, healthy colony of microbes to degrade the contaminants. Treatment is continued until the subsurface concentration of contaminants is acceptable. NF can be methane and OF be air, for stimulating production of methanotrophs to break down chlorohydrocarbons, especially TCE and tetrachloroethylene.