News

May 4, 2018
Berkeley Lab has designed, calibrated and has been operating a world-class testing laboratory for efficiency and emissions from biomass cookstoves for many years. However, no guidebooks or textbooks are available that advise other researchers on how to build their own similar testing laboratory. Due to a significant number of requests from cookstove researchers around the world (including but not... Read more
May 1, 2018
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory was recently honored with a prestigious Green Leadership Award at the 12th Annual Green California Summit in Sacramento.The Lab's Energy Technologies Area (ETA) was highlighted for innovative breakthroughs in the energy efficiency category for research aimed at helping California meet its zero net energy (ZNE) building goals, while ensuring adequate indoor air... Read more
April 26, 2018
Hanna Breunig has always forged her own path in science. “If something feels right, I don’t hesitate to pursue an idea that could make the world a better place,” says Breunig, a senior scientific engineering associate in the Energy Technologies Area.Now with funding from an Early Career Laboratory Directed Research and Development award announced last November, she’s looking for affordable... Read more
April 19, 2018
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), in collaboration with public and private partners, has released the most comprehensive publicly available database yet of U.S. wind turbine locations and characteristics. The United States Wind Turbine Database (USWTDB) will allow unparalleled ability for government agencies and others to make planning decisions. The USWTDB, funded by the U.S.... Read more
April 17, 2018
Evaluating buildings as a group, rather than individually, can help optimize energy savings in cities. To aid this effort, the Energy Technologies Area’s Tianzhen Hong has introduced CityBES, a data and computing platform that can assess energy efficient retrofits for sets of properties and visualize their performance. He recently assessed 940 buildings in San Francisco. Read the full article in... Read more
April 16, 2018
Lab researchers Marc Fischer, Seongeun Jeong, and Xinguang Cui contributed to a study led by Imperial College London that reported a new technique to estimate CO2 emissions from fossil fuels using atmospheric measurements, tested over three months in California. This is the first time fossil fuel emissions have been independently checked for such a large area. Read the full article at the Berkeley... Read more
April 16, 2018
A new finding could advance a type of solid state power generator, with broad potential for clean energy applications. Using Warp software, scientists found that electron reflection may have previously been misidentified in the study of thermionic energy converters, and that a certain type of electron reflection could be leveraged to increase power generation in these devices. Read the full... Read more
April 9, 2018
Scientists said they were experimenting with using white paint over black asphalt as a way of cutting temperatures in the Phoenix area. Ronnen Levinson of the Energy Technologies Area said it could possibly reduce the heat island effect, a term given to urban areas that are hotter than nearby rural areas. Read the full article at ktar.com.... Read more
April 6, 2018
UC Berkeley’s Bill Nazaroff pointed to work with Energy Technologies Area (ETA) scientists in a recent lecture showcasing advances in the understanding of the air we breathe. The Lab’s Ashok Gadgil introduced Nazaroff, whose ETA collaborators include Brett Singer, Allen Goldstein, Rengie Chan, Xiaochen Tang, and Hugo Destaillats. Watch a video of the lecture at UC Berkeley's Civil and... Read more
April 4, 2018
Whether it’s e-cigarettes or emerging heated tobacco products, the market for electronic nicotine delivery systems is booming. Most scientists agree that vaping is less harmful than smoking tobacco, but how much is known about the “clouds” they create? ETA’s Hugo Destaillats discusses the chemical composition of these complex aerosols in a recent article in the Analytical Scientist.... Read more
April 2, 2018
A “Living Lab” model led by ETA’s Eleanor Lee received a Climate Leadership Award from the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. The award recognizes a “Living Lab” partnership between Goldman Sachs, Berkeley Lab, and the Building Energy Exchange. Goldman Sachs reduced energy use by nearly 80 percent in some areas, via smart use of lighting and shading. Read the original "LIving Lab"... Read more
March 29, 2018
Li-ion battery development relies on the chemical reaction of the active elements in the electrode’s materials. A promising new strategy uses an unconventional element typically believed to be inactive. In a recent paper, ETA’s Wei Tong and Bryan McCloskey, and Wanli Yang of the ALS, reveal experimental evidence to confirm the contribution of this unconventional element. Read the full article... Read more
March 28, 2018
It may be only a matter of time before urban dwellers can hail a self-driving taxi, so researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and UC Berkeley decided to analyze the cost, energy, and environmental implications of a fleet of self-driving electric vehicles operating in Manhattan.Using models they built and data from more than 10 million taxi... Read more
March 22, 2018
Stakeholders in government, business, and academia recently met to identify solutions to Mexico’s growing space cooling (air conditioning) energy demand. The “Summit on Space Cooling Research Needs and Opportunities in Mexico” was convened by the Berkeley Lab Mexico Energy Initiative and United States Agency for International Development, in partnership with Mexico. More information is... Read more
March 22, 2018
On World Water Day, watch researcher Emily Tow of the Energy Technologies Area talk about her project to treat municipal wastewater in an energy-efficient way and bring it up to drinking water standards. Using the Molecular Foundry, she is looking at biofouling of membranes used to treat wastewater.... Read more
March 21, 2018
Berkeley Lab's International Energy Studies group recently hosted a delegation from the Indonesian Government to discuss energy efficiency and clean energy issues. The delegation was led by Coordinating Ministry of Maritime Affairs (CMMA) Deputy Minister for Infrastructure Ridwan Djamaluddin. Berkeley Lab researchers identified 10 GW of peak load savings from energy efficiency, and presented the... Read more
March 20, 2018
Our second video for World Water Day this week features Chinmayee Subban, a researcher in the Energy Technologies Area. She discusses her technology for removing salt from low salinity water, a tech solution that could provide an alternative irrigation source for California’s agriculture needs.... Read more
March 19, 2018
Research by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Transportation Studies (ITS) suggests that traffic apps might work for an individual, but could make congestion worse overall. “This problem has been vastly overlooked,” said Alexandre Bayen of the Lab’s Energy Analysis & Environmental Impacts Division in The Atlantic. “It is just the beginning of something that is going be much worse.” Read... Read more
March 15, 2018
Clay Nesler, Vice President of Global Sustainability and Industry Initiatives at Johnson Controls Inc., recently discussed how the US-China Clean Energy Research Center Building Energy Efficiency (CERC-BEE) program is advancing smart buildings and technologies that conserve energy create economic development opportunities for the United States. Please click on the links below for Nesler's... Read more
March 15, 2018
Berkeley Lab is a co-recipient of four awards — three awards that will fund research related to climate science, and one award for a cybersecurity project — from the University of California National Laboratory Fees Research Program. The Lab’s site leads for the four projects are listed below:Climate Impact of Manure Management from California Dairies Berkeley Lab site lead: Marc Fischer... Read more
March 13, 2018
As part of Women’s History Month, DOE is focusing on the women behind the Manhattan Project. The first installment features five facts about Lilli Hornig, a chemist who studied plutonium and chemistry.Five fast facts about Dr. Lilli Hornig.... Read more
March 9, 2018
A workshop to introduce Chinese government officials to a range of U.S. technology companies that could help them implement their low-emission action plans – thereby facilitating commercial opportunities for U.S. companies in China – was recently hosted by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s China Energy Group in Shenzhen, China. More than 60 individuals from U.S. and Chinese government... Read more
March 9, 2018
A workshop to introduce Chinese government officials to a range of U.S. technology companies that could help them implement their low-emission action plans – thereby facilitating commercial opportunities for U.S. companies in China – was recently hosted by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s China Energy Group in Shenzhen, China.More than 60 individuals from U.S. and Chinese government... Read more
March 9, 2018
Most Americans don’t realize cooking can be a major source of indoor air pollutants, unless they’ve recently burned something on the stove. But studies have shown that cooking-related contaminants can cause health problems such as respiratory illness and asthma attacks.To learn more, I spoke with Brett Singer, PhD, a scientist at Berkeley Lab who investigates indoor air quality. Recently, he... Read more
March 9, 2018
Berkeley Lab-led study suggests early exposure to thirdhand smoke may lead to greater health risks later in life.Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) identified thirdhand smoke, the toxic residues that linger on indoor surfaces and in dust long after a cigarette has been extinguished, as a health hazard nearly 10 years ago. Now a new... Read more