News

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is extending the deadline to submit Commercial Building Partnerships (CBP) call for projects applications until 12 p.m. (noon) Eastern time on May 28, 2010.Through CBP, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory personnel and private sector technical experts are helping building owners... Read more

"Just think how often your fancy new mobile phone or computer has become little more than a paperweight because the battery lost its zeal for doing its job," says John Chmiola, a chemist with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). "At a time when cellphones can do more than computers could do at the beginning of the Clinton presidency, it would be an understatement to say that... Read more

Researchers at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) released a new study on the bill savings received by residential customers with solar photovoltaic (PV) power systems, under the net metering rates currently offered by California's two largest electric utilities. The report focuses on California, as it is the largest PV market in the U.S.... Read more

As part of an ongoing effort to reduce energy use in new and existing commercial buildings by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), commercial building owners, operators, and technical experts can join DOE's Commercial Building Partnerships (CBP) initiative. Three DOE national laboratories—the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), and the... Read more

A new study by scientists at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) examines the workforce needs of the energy efficiency services sector, and finds that the speed with which employment will grow will depend in part on how effectively the nation deploys training and education programs for the energy efficiency workforce.... Read more

A new video highlighting the Darfur Stoves Project and our partnership with Oxfam America (OA) is now featured on OA's homepage. Click on the tab "Conflict in Darfur" to watch it.... Read more

Bill Nye's Climate Lab is an educational website developed and presented by Chabot Space and Science Center, Oakland, California. Chabot partnered with Emmy-award-winning science educator Bill Nye the Science Guy and science advisors, including Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and UC Berkeley, to inspire kids and families to reduce energy consumption and find solutions to a... Read more

EETD scientist Venkat Srinivasan has been writing a blog about batteries, advanced battery research and electric vehicles.... Read more

Pioneering French physicists Marie and Pierre Curie have the curie, a unit of radioactivity, named after them. Renowned inventor Nikola Tesla is honored with the tesla, which measures a magnetic field. And now, the Rosenfeld, proposed as a unit for electricity savings, will be named after the man seen by many people as the godfather of energy efficiency, Arthur Rosenfeld.... Read more

A new analysis by scientists at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) for the Western Governor's Association explores renewable resource decisions in the West. The report's "sensitivity analysis" examines how decisions about which renewable sources are chosen, and how transmission lines are expanded, are affected by changes in policies and other... Read more

Nicotine in third-hand smoke, the residue from tobacco smoke that clings to virtually all surfaces long after a cigarette has been extinguished, reacts with the common indoor air pollutant nitrous acid to produce dangerous carcinogens. This new potential health hazard was revealed in a multi-institutional study led by researchers with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).... Read more

The fact that glaciers in the Himalayan mountains are thinning is not disputed. However, few researchers have attempted to rigorously examine and quantify the causes. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory scientist Surabi Menon set out to isolate the impacts of the most commonly blamed culprit—greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide—from other particles in the air that may be causing the... Read more

The system of power delivery in the US is in trouble – it is old and creaking. To prevent more gigantic financial losses similar to the ones the US economy has already experienced as a result of blackouts, the government is looking to change the way in which the grid is designed and operated. DatacenterDynamics FOCUS, "Is the Smart Grid an Intelligent Move?" Vol. 3, Issue 8, February/March 2010,... Read more

A scientist at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) known for his work developing energy-efficient water purification systems for the developing world has received the Sustainability Pioneer Award at a ceremony near Zurich, Switzerland today.Ashok Gadgil is the Acting Division Director of the Environmental Energy Technologies Division at Berkeley Lab, and... Read more

The world owes Dr. Art Rosenfeld more than just a "Job well done!" as he concludes his ten-year tenure as a member of the California Energy Commission. Known as the "father of energy efficiency," Rosenfeld has been at the forefront of the energy efficiency movement since 1973, a movement which is currently saving Americans more than $700 billion dollars each year on their energy bills.... Read more

The stimulus package passed in 2009 by Congress may help shovel-ready community wind projects move ahead, according to a new report by Mark Bolinger, a scientist in the Environmental Energy Technologies Division of the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Bolinger analyzed the impact of two new incentives for wind power that were included in the Recovery Act.... Read more

A project to improve the energy efficiency of the State of California Franchise Tax Board's data center has won a "Best of California" Award from the Center for Digital Government. Geoffrey Bell, Energy Engineer at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Environmental Energy Technologies Division, led the project team.The research was funded by the California Energy Commission's Public Interest... Read more

Secretary of Energy Steven Chu's talk at the Climate Conference in Copenhagen contained several slides referencing research being performed in the Environmental Energy Technologies Division here at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.Home Energy Saver—Slide 13 references the Home Energy Saver, an online energy auditing tool to help homeowners, and now professional energy auditors, do an... Read more

Research by Robert Clear, Francis Rubinstein and Jack Howells of the Environmental Energy Technologies Division suggests that the exposure to mercury in a broken CFL is minimal—equivalent to one bite of albacore tuna—and simple commonsense measures such as opening a window after the breakage and during clean-up are enough to protect room occupants.... Read more

Berkeley National Laboratory will build and operate a new National User Facility for Net-Zero Energy Buildings using a competitively selected award of $15.9 million in stimulus funds from the U.S. Department of Energy.... Read more

Emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from local sources in California are higher than previously thought, according to direct measurements made by a research team led by Marc Fischer at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Environmental Energy Technologies Division (EETD). Attempting to pinpoint the source of the added emissions, the collaborative team, including EETD and National... Read more

The China Energy Group, formed by Mark Levine in 1988, has been an instrumental behind-the-scenes advisor and partner in the greening of China, working with Chinese agencies to build domestic know-how in energy efficiency.... Read more

The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded Honeywell an $11.4 million grant to help Southern California Edison implement automated demand response under OpenADR, the Open Automated Demand Response Communications Specification.The grant was one of several Smart Grid Investment Grants awarded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.OpenADR was developed by researchers at the PIER Demand... Read more

Over 30,000 megawatts of wind energy capacity are installed across the United States and an increasing number of communities are considering new wind power facilities. Given these developments, there is an urgent need to empirically investigate typical community concerns about wind energy and thereby provide stakeholders involved in the wind project siting process a common base of knowledge. A... Read more

EETD's Melissa Lunden is participating in a study sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security with the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority to protect the nation's critical infrastructure from chemical terrorist attacks.... Read more