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Rolf Muller passed away peacefully at his home on March 2, 2020, with his children, Alice and Will, by his side. Born on August 6, 1929 in Aarau, Switzerland, Muller joined Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) in 1960 as part of the MMRD/ MCSD (now split into MSD and CSD) where he eventually worked as Associate Division Director. He retired from Berkeley Lab in 1991. Muller was one... Read more

Biofuels are an important part of the broader strategy to replace petroleum-based gasoline, diesel, and jet fuels that we use today. However, biofuels have so far not reached cost parity with conventional petroleum fuels.One strategy to make biofuels more competitive is to make plants do some of the work themselves. Scientists can engineer plants to produce valuable chemical compounds, or... Read more

Extreme weather events – such as severe drought, storms, and heat waves – have been forecast to become more commonplace and are already starting to occur. What has been less studied is the impact on energy systems and how communities can avoid costly disruptions, such as partial or total blackouts. Now an international team of scientists has published a new study proposing an optimization... Read more

With its high energy-to-weight ratio, hydrogen has great potential to be an efficient and clean fuel for cars, auxiliary power, stationary power generation and also as an energy storage medium. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) researchers have been working with various methods of hydrogen production to produce cleaner and more efficient hydrogen for decades. New successful... Read more

Can scientists understand human behavior enough to figure out what drives the choices you make? In fact, it’s called “decision science,” and it’s something that Anna Spurlock, a behavioral economist with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), specializes in.Spurlock (pictured) spearheads the WholeTraveler Transportation Behavior Study, a three-year project that has attempted... Read more

Cheap, clean power generation is becoming more of a reality, but energy storage is still one of the biggest barriers to widespread adoption. Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) are continually working to advance technologies that generate, use, or store electricity at a large scale and for long duration (more than four hours). Electrochemical energy technologies... Read more

Data centers are the backbone supporting the world’s ever-increasing need for internet access, data storage, and networking. Demand for data center services has risen sharply over past decades, and data-intensive technologies promise to increase demand further. New research by a team including Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's (Berkeley Lab's) Arman Shehabi and Sarah Smith shows that... Read more

The Retro-Commissioning Sensor Suitcase, an innovative technological solution developed through a Department of Energy (DOE) national lab-industry partnership to improve a building’s operating costs, comfort and energy performance, was recently honored with the 2020 Federal Laboratory Consortium Award for Excellence in Technology Transfer. Over the last several years, Lawrence Berkeley National... Read more

The 2019 fiscal year has been one of the busiest yet for FLEXLAB, an advanced integrated building and grid technologies testbed at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).The facility recently marked its fifth anniversary and has supported a wide range of projects, from testing emerging technologies to developing and validating new strategies to integrate... Read more

UC Berkeley and Berkeley Lab researchers received notable selection from the American Chemical Society for their recent publication “Control Technology-Driven Changes to In-Use Heavy-Duty Diesel Truck Emissions of Nitrogenous Species and Related Environmental Impacts,” in Environmental Science and Technology. Together, Chelsea Preble, Robert Harley and Thomas Kirchstetter conducted several... Read more

Two new videos highlighting ongoing collaboration and innovative research advancements promoting hydrogen as a large-scale renewable energy resource have recently been completed by a consortium of National Laboratories. Research Scientists from Berkeley Lab, along with Sandia National Laboratories, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Idaho National... Read more

Lithium ion is probably the most advanced technology available for the packs of rechargeable batteries you’ll buy this holiday season. The batteries also power the vast majority of consumer devices, electric vehicles, and grid storage systems.Despite their ubiquity, lithium-ion batteries have disadvantages. Metals used in the batteries are becoming expensive and one crucial metal, cobalt, is... Read more

Following an international search, Robert Kostecki has been appointed director of the Energy Storage and Distributed Resources (ESDR) Division in the Energy Technologies Area (ETA) at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).Kostecki has extensive leadership experience and is a renowned scientist known for his pioneering research in electrochemical systems... Read more

Cutting-edge technologies from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) to detect radiation, make buildings more energy efficient, and accelerate neuroscience research were honored with R&D 100 Awards by R&D World magazine.Also recognized was Spack: A Package Manager for HPC Systems, a project led by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and which includes the National Energy... Read more

Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (Berkeley Lab) have shown how chemical and structural changes improve the performance of a novel ion-conducting polymer (ionomer) membrane from 3M Company. The team included Ahmet Kusoglu, a research scientist in Berkeley Lab's Energy Conversion Group Using multiple x-ray characterization tools at the Advanced Light Source (ALS), the researchers took a... Read more

As part of a video series in which scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (Berkeley Lab) share their favorite periodic table elements, Hugo Destaillats offers his tribute to titanium. Destaillats, a chemical staff scientist/engineer in Berkeley Lab's Energy Technologies Area, notes titanium's use in a variety of everyday products, from eyeglasses to paint."In our group, we study the... Read more

Scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (Berkeley Lab) have developed a new infrared approach to probing the first few molecular layers of a liquid in contact with a graphene electrode under operating conditions.The research, conducted at the Advanced Light Source (ALS), offers a new way to study the interfaces that are key to understanding batteries, corrosion, and other bio- and... Read more

A recent CNBC video story on ocean desalination technologies, one of several options being explored to address world water shortages, featured Prakash Rao of Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (Berkeley Lab). Rao, a research scientist within the Lab's Energy Technologies Area, conducts analysis of large-scale desalination, focusing on its energy implications. He has co-authored research, for example,... Read more

Six researchers in the Energy Technologies Area have been recognized in the annual Director's Awards, which applauds outstanding scientific contributions at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).Tom McKone received the Berkeley Lab Prize, a lifetime achievement award; Nihar Shah, a research scientist/engineer, received a societal impact award; and the... Read more

Adam Weber’s research team sits together in a cluster of offices, cubicles, and laboratories deep in the labyrinth of the Department of Energy’s (DOE's) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s (Berkeley Lab) Buildings 62 and 70.A staff scientist/engineer who won a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2014, Weber has now collected a solid and multidisciplinary group... Read more

The National Alliance for Water Innovation, which is led by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), has been awarded a five-year, $100-million Energy-Water Desalination Hub by DOE (pending appropriations) to address water security issues in the United States. The Hub will focus on early-stage research and development for energy-efficient and... Read more

A class of alternative tobacco product called heat-not-burn is quickly gaining in popularity across the globe. The product manufacturers claim that these battery-operated devices produce a “clean,” nicotine-laden vapor that contains fewer irritant and carcinogenic chemicals than a conventional cigarette – and are therefore a less harmful option for tobacco users. New research from the... Read more

The Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant near U.S. Route 101 (the Pacific Coast Highway) in the northern portion of San Diego County; Carlsbad, California. (Credit: Art Wager/iStock)As populations boom and chronic droughts persist, coastal cities like Carlsbad in Southern California have increasingly turned to ocean desalination to supplement a dwindling fresh water supply.Now... Read more

When Hannah Moring was growing up she loved tinkering around with her Dad in his woodworking shop, and learning how things worked and were put together, a fascination that flourished throughout high school, where she excelled in math and science.Today that experience has led her to a prestigious internship this summer at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). Moring is one of nine... Read more

Black carbon, commonly known as soot, is a significant contributor to global warming and is strongly linked to adverse health outcomes. Produced by the incomplete combustion of fuels – emitted from large trucks, trains, and marine vessels – it is an air pollutant of particular concern to residents in urban areas. Sensors available on the market today are expensive, making black carbon... Read more