News

Ongoing research at national laboratories and in the lighting industry is focusing on improving the light output, lifetime, and durability of LEDs, as well as driving their costs down. Many lighting experts expect that LEDs will eventually be used widely in general lighting applications, replacing inefficient incandescent bulbs, as well as energy-efficient fluorescent lamps (both the linear and... Read more

Berkeley Lab Researcher Played Significant Role In Its DevelopmentJune 15, 2011—A significant new standard to help organizations save energy, "ISO 50001 Energy management systems- Requirements with guidance for use," was released today by the International Organization for Standardization.ISO 50001 can be used by any organization to manage its energy use. Targeting broad applicability across... Read more

A paper by William Fisk, Anna Mirer, and Mark Mendell has received a "best paper" award from the editors of the journal Indoor Air.According to the citation, "Quantitative relationship of sick building syndrome symptoms with ventilation rates," was "one of the top papers published in the journal during the years 2008-2010."The authors were honored at one of the plenary sessions of the Indoor Air... Read more

"California's Energy Future - The View to 2050" looks a generation ahead at what's required to reach the goal of reducing the state's greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent below the 1990 level by 2050. Several researchers in the Environmental Energy Technologies Division participated in developing this study, the result of a multi-institutional partnership to examine energy futures to reduce... Read more

A benchmarking tool to help dairy owners and operators use energy and water as efficiently as possible in their facilities was released today by scientists at the Environmental Energy Technologies Division of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.The BEST-Dairy allows a user to calculate energy and water use intensity and obtain a benchmarking score for the selected plant, as compared with the... Read more

Fuel cells as a power generator simply look too good to be true. They're quiet, they don't produce criteria pollutants, and they're efficient electricity producers. They can be placed right next to a building without adding miles of transmission lines, and they won't bother passers-by any more than a fire hydrant or a dumpster—less than a dumpster.But they're not the perfect power source, not... Read more

The European Patent Office bestowed the European Inventor Award on Berkeley Lab scientist Ashok Gadgil for UV Waterworks, an innovative portable water purification device based on ultraviolet light. Along with co-inventor Vikas Garud, Gadgil received the award at a ceremony in Budapest today. The two were selected as winners in the non-European category. The lost-cost device has been licensed by... Read more

Two Berkeley Lab Scientists Were AuthorsA recent report examining the potential role of renewable power in reducing emissions of climate-altering greenhouse gases concludes that a high percentage of the world's energy supply could be met by renewables by mid- century if backed by the right enabling public policies.Two researchers in the Environmental Energy Technologies Division of Lawrence... Read more

OpenADR is setting standards for 2.0 and gaining momentum outside of California. OpenADR Alliance isn’t waiting for federal standards to push beyond the edges of California. In fact, it’s gunning to be the national standard. The nonprofit corporation, which fosters the development, adoption and compliance of the Open Automated Demand Response standard, is expecting to have certified... Read more

As China's economy continues to soar, its energy use and greenhouse gas emissions will keep on soaring as well—or so goes the conventional wisdom. A new analysis by researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) now is challenging that notion, one widely held in both the United States and China.... Read more

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Distinguished Scientist Art Rosenfeld has been awarded the Global Energy International Prize for his contributions to the field of energy efficiency. In announcing the prize, the organization said: "Arthur Rosenfeld is known for his innovation and technological research in the field of construction of energy-efficient buildings. Arthur Rosenfeld has been... Read more

New research by the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory finds strong evidence that homes with solar photovoltaic (PV) systems sell for a premium over homes without solar systems.... Read more

Washington, DC — The U.S. Department of Energy today announced that Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) have joined with Dow Chemical Company as part of a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement to fund key research that will help develop the next generation of cool roof technologies in the U.S. The agreement will support research to... Read more

EETD Post-Doctoral Fellow George Ban-Weiss participated in an atmospheric modeling study of black carbon aerosols and their impact on climate change while he was with the Carnegie Institution for Science and Stanford University. Read Carnegie's press release, "Climate change from black carbon depends on altitude," here:"Palo Alto, CA — Scientists have known for decades that black carbon aerosols... Read more

Thomas McKone, Leader of the Environmental Chemistry, Exposure, and Risk Group of the Environmental Energy Technologies Division, has been quoted extensively in the news media on the transport and health risks of radiation from Japan.McKone will be a speaker at the Western Occupational and Environmental Medical Association webinar on April 6 at 12:00 Pacific Time titled "Public and Worker Health... Read more

Two speakers at this free, open-to-the-public class at the Pacific Energy Center of PG&E in San Francisco are scientists at the Environmental Energy Technologies Division of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.Information Visualization in Commercial Buildings: Design, Technology, and Human Behavior April 13 (Wednesday, 9:00 am to 4:30 pm), San Francisco, Pacific Energy CenterJessica... Read more

This article in The New York Times, "Building Better Batteries for Electric Cars," quotes Venkat Srinivasan, a scientist and blogger in the Environmental Energy Technologies Division here at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The story addresses ongoing research at Berkeley Lab, Argonne National Laboratory and elsewhere to develop batteries for transportation with increased power density.... Read more

That fancy programmable thermostat on your living room wall, the one with a backlit digital screen, several tiny buttons, and unintelligible instruction manual, may be making it more difficult to save energy.A research team at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) is beginning to figure out why. They are determining how to measure the usability of a thermostat—that is, the... Read more

Ashok Gadgil, Director of the Environmental Energy Technologies Division, has received the Olympus Lifetime of Educational Innovation Award, recognizing "faculty members who have demonstrated a sustained contribution throughout their careers to stimulating and inspiring innovative thinking in students in their own universities and throughout academia,." Gadgil, one of three 2011 winners, was cited... Read more

Launched in 2006, over 8,700 residential energy upgrades have been completed through Austin Energy's Home Performance with ENERGY STAR (HPwES) program. The program's lending partner, Velocity Credit Union (VCU) has originated almost 1,800 loans, totaling approximately $12.5 million. Residential energy efficiency loans are typically small, and expensive to originate and service relative to larger... Read more

Smart Grid® News recently announced that Alstom Grid has acquired the U.S-based Smart Grid vendor, Utility Integration Solutions, Inc (UISOL). Alstom Grid has operations across the World and strong in European and Middle East markets.UISOL is supporting Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) on Open Automated Demand Response communication specifications (OpenADR), primarily in... Read more

Not long ago, Japan faced a major power crisis. In September 2002, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) was forced to shut down 17 nuclear power plants for emergency safety inspections.The winter of 2002-2003 was approaching, and the plants, which were expected to remain closed for months, would be unavailable through summer 2003, a time when demand from summertime air conditioning would... Read more

The Demand Response Research Center recently posted several one-page PDFs about its recent work. Following is one of these on the OpenADR specification and job creation.Open Automated Demand Response (OpenADR) is an information exchange model that facilitates reliable and cost-effective automation of both electricity price and system grid reliability signals to support demand response (DR).... Read more

Greener Computing News has published an article discussing a recent issue of Yale's Journal of Industrial Ecology (JIE) co-edited by EETD's Eric Masanet. The special issue, which is available free to the public, addresses how industrial ecology can be used to analyze the benefits and impacts of information and communications technology.... Read more

A documentary film about technological solutions to reduce climate change by Peter Byck, featuring EETD Distinguished Scientist Art Rosenfeld, opens in San Francisco on March 11. The movie "Carbon Nation," bills itself as the "climate change solutions movie that doesn't even care if you believe in climate change."Early in the film's production, filmmaker Peter Byck visited with scientists and... Read more