News

Unprecedented heat waves, storms, and wildfires are pushing electrical grids in the United States to their limits. To work towards a safe and reliable power system in the coming years, utilities will need to factor the potential effects of climate change and extreme climate change-driven events into their plans for power distribution, generation capacity and back-up energy storage, and... Read more

Scientists have designed a new material system to overcome one of the biggest challenges in recycling consumer products: mixed-plastic recycling. Their achievement will help enable a much broader range of fully recyclable plastic products and brings into reach an efficient circular economy for durable goods like automobiles. We generate staggering quantities of plastic and plastic-containing... Read more

Gao Liu, leader of the Applied Energy Materials Group within the Energy Storage and Distributed Resources Division of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), was recently named to the Electrochemical Society's 2022 Class of Fellows. Established in 1989, the Fellows of the Electrochemical Society (ECS) is a body of renowned scientists and engineers chosen for their scientific... Read more

Berkeley Lab has initiated a national public-private partnership to update and upgrade the Interruption Cost Estimate (ICE) Calculator—a publicly-available, online tool—which estimates the economic consequences of power interruptions. Information on the costs that customers experience when the lights go out is an important consideration for the planning and prioritization of improvements to... Read more

Converting petroleum into fuels involves crude chemistry first invented by humans in the 1800s. Meanwhile, bacteria have been producing carbon-based energy molecules for billions of years. Which do you think is better at the job? Well aware of the advantages biology has to offer, a group of biofuel experts led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) took inspiration from an... Read more

Game-changing technology that leads the United States into a clean energy future is one of the Department of Energy (DOE) goals highlighted in the first-ever LEEP Summit on Tuesday, July 12, 2022. LEEP, or Lab-Embedded Entrepreneurship Program, trains the next generation of clean tech entrepreneurs, providing full-time support for two years along with access to the many unique resources,... Read more

Ahmet Kusoglu, a staff scientist in the Energy Conversion Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), was recently named a contributing editor for the Electrochemical Society's Interface magazine. Published quarterly, Interface is an authoritative, accessible publication for those in the field of solid-state and electrochemical science and technology, offering in-depth articles... Read more

Priyamvada Goyal, a postdoctoral researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), received the Best Poster Presentation award at a recent conference hosted by the American Chemical Society's (ACS) Division of Polymer Chemistry. Goyal's poster presentation focused on the integration of selectivity measures and property correlations for cation uptake in ionomers — a research... Read more

Two researchers recently participated in a panel discussion on Algorithms and Data for Equity at the Women in Data Science Conference at Stanford University, showcasing the importance of diversity in this critical research area. Jessica Granderson, then serving as Director for Building Technology on the White House Council on Environmental Quality, and Ling Jin joined with University of California... Read more

A new cohort of 11 scientists and engineers will join the prestigious two-year fellowship program at Cyclotron Road based at the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). Selected from a pool of more than 200 applicants, the 2022 Cohort fellows will work with Berkeley Lab scientists and facilities to translate innovative research into market-ready... Read more

The United States has set an ambitious goal to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by at least 50% by 2030. Are we on track to succeed? A new study by a team of scientists and policy analysts from across the nation suggests that there are multiple pathways to achieve this goal – but big commitments will need to be made, immediately. “This study should give policy makers and other energy... Read more

Ravi Prasher, associate laboratory director of the Energy Technologies Area and senior scientist in the Thermal Energy Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), will receive the 2022 Heat Transfer Memorial Award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). The prestigious award, established in 1959, recognizes outstanding contributions to the field of heat... Read more

Tom Webster, a researcher at Berkeley Lab for more than 20 years, recently passed away at the age of 80. With a broad knowledge of engineering and his passion for sustainable energy, Tom joined the solar energy group at Berkeley Lab in 1976, contributing to nearly two dozen reports published by the Energy Technologies Area. A beloved member of the UC Berkeley community, he joined the Center for... Read more

Experts from the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) will play leading managerial and technical roles in the recently established Net Zero World Action Center to bolster DOE’s Net Zero World Initiative (NZWI). The NZW Action Center brings together 10 DOE national laboratories, nine U.S. government agencies, and philanthropy organizations to promote net... Read more

With the rise in renewable energy, as well as increasing uncertainty associated with outages due to power surges and extreme weather events, energy storage plays a key role in ensuring reliable power supply to critical infrastructure such as healthcare facilities, data centers, and telecommunications. Hydrogen shows promise as an energy storage solution, and researchers are developing materials... Read more

A highly realistic, plant-based bacon that harnesses the power of sustainable seaweed protein made an appearance on ABC’s Shark Tank, setting a new record during the show for the highest valuation of a pre-revenue company in the show’s history. Co-developed by Cyclotron Road entrepreneur-scientist Amanda Stiles, UMARO™ Bacon marks the first step in establishing ocean-farmed seaweed as a... Read more

Research using software developed at Berkeley Lab recently pinpointed actions that could help the historic canal city of Venice, Italy slash energy use and reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The study, which was recently published in the journal, Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments, looked at how upgrades to existing housing (also known as retrofits) could have an impact on emissions and... Read more

Public schools spend roughly $8 billion a year on energy bills — the second largest expense after teacher salaries. Promoting energy efficiency can be a good way to save money for school districts and increase the comfort and health of teachers and students, all while reducing pollution. At a briefing in April 2022, the White House gave a shout out to a new tool that Berkeley Lab has developed... Read more

One of the most important electric power system trends of the 2010s was the rapid deployment of wind turbines and photovoltaic arrays, but early data suggests a twist for the 2020s may be the rapid deployment of ‘hybrid’ generation resources. Hybrid power plants typically combine solar or wind (or other energy sources) with co-located storage. Just as cost declines drove last decade’s wind... Read more

The need for negative emissions technologies to address our climate crisis has become increasingly clear. At the rate that our planet is emitting carbon dioxide – adding about 50 gigatons every year – we will have to remove carbon dioxide at the gigaton scale by 2050 in order to achieve “net zero” emissions. The U.S. Department of Energy has recognized the urgency of carbon dioxide removal... Read more

On the first Earth Day in 1970, researcher Steve Greenberg was one of 20 million Americans, then 10% of the population, inspired to take time to observe the fragility of the planet and the need to protect it. Over 50 years later, an estimated one billion people around the world—one in eight—are actively participating. In the early '70s, visionaries like Art Rosenfeld applied science and... Read more

Power plants and other industrial facilities often spew carbon dioxide into the atmosphere like a leaky faucet. As governments around the world are striving to reduce and even eliminate their greenhouse gas emissions and reach “net zero” emissions by mid-century, they’re looking for technologies to help. What if we could somehow suck up all that carbon dioxide, like a giant vacuum cleaner? A... Read more

Record Amounts of Zero-carbon Electricity Generation and Storage now Seeking Grid Interconnection Berkeley Lab-led study shows over 1,300 gigawatts of solar, storage, and wind in interconnection queues – an indicator of a major energy transition underway, even if most proposed projects will not be built The amount of new power generation and energy storage projects in so-called... Read more

The third and final installment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC’s) Sixth Assessment Report calls for aggressive and comprehensive actions if we are to achieve net zero emissions by mid-century. It finds we still need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions drastically, beyond what governments have pledged, and that this emissions gap is exacerbated by implementation gaps... Read more

Improving a school's energy performance can affect more than utility bills — it can also boost indoor air quality and learning outcomes, making the classrooms healthier for students and staff. A new campaign, Efficient and Healthy Schools, will provide practical guidance on ventilation upgrades that can increase energy efficiency, lower costs, and improve the air at K-12 schools nationwide.... Read more