Julio is one of the most widely known and authoritative experts in the United States on carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) and underground coal gasification. In his current appointment as Chief Energy Technologist for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, he leads initiatives and research in carbon capture and storage and fossil fuel recovery and utilization. This includes research, development and technology assessment in shale gas; hydrofracturing; conventional and unconventional oil recovery; carbon dioxide-enhanced oil recovery; and underground coal gasification. In this role, he has testified before the U.S. House and Senate and several state legislatures; published in Foreign Affairs and the New York Times; and worked with many private companies and government agencies. He has worked closely with the U.S. Deparment of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency, as well as the U.S. Energy Association. He is a principle co-author of the MIT report The Future of Coal Energy, the National Petroleum Council report Facing Hard Truths and the World Resources Institute report Carbon Capture and Sequestration CCS Guidelines.

Julio has led technical work for large CCS projects in the United States (such as In Salah and Weyburn) and in China. He is currently the co-director for the U.S.–China Clean Energy Research Center on Clean Coal and CCS and serves on the technical advisory boards for CCS projects by American Electric Power, Summit Power, EmberClear, and GreatPoint Energy. Julio has B.S and M.S. degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. from the University of Southern California. After graduation, he worked as a senior research scientist at Exxon and later ExxonMobil, then as a research scientist at the University of Maryland, collaborating with the university’s Joint Global Change Research Institute and the Colorado Energy Research Institute at the Colorado School of Mines.