News

It's a grand challenge: develop clean, sustainable technologies that deliver a low-carbon energy future, and through innovation, create jobs, new markets, and exports, and increase America's energy security.Researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have made it their mission to develop low-carbon and energy-efficient technologies such as advanced materials and... Read more

Scientists in Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Environmental Energy Technologies Division (EETD), in cooperation with colleagues throughout the Lab, have formed a team to evaluate the impacts of low-carbon and energy-efficient technologies that are still in the laboratory. Development of these technologies is part of a Lab-wide effort called Carbon Cycle 2.0, focused on sustainable energy... Read more

Current standards for U.S. offices require approximately 8 liters per second (L/s) of outdoor air ventilation per person. Providing twice as much ventilation would reduce sick building syndrome symptoms (SBS) and absences, improve work performance, and provide billions of dollars in annual economic benefits in the U.S., according to a recent study from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory... Read more

A new policy brief on the value of energy performance and green attributes in buildings, authored by Elizabeth Stuart, is available. Labels, certifications, and rating systems for energy efficiency performance and "green" attributes of buildings have been available in the U.S. for over 10 years, and used extensively in the European Union and Australia for longer. Such certifications and ratings... Read more

The installed cost of solar photovoltaic (PV) power systems in the United States fell substantially in 2010 and into the first half of 2011, according to the latest edition of an annual PV cost tracking report released by the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). The average installed cost of residential and commercial PV systems completed in 2010 fell by... Read more

Scientists in EETD provided technical analysis to the Department of Energy for the energy efficiency standards announced today.From the U.S. Department of Energy:Today, the Department of Energy issued final energy efficiency standards for home refrigerators and freezers that will improve their efficiency by about 25% by 2014. These new standards, developed through a consensus process with... Read more

A new policy brief for energy efficiency contractors and program managers describes how adding sales and business skills to contractor technical skills and certifications can increase the rate of customer conversions from home energy assessment to comprehensive home energy upgrade. It was prepared by Megan Billingsley and Elizabeth Stuart of the Electricity Markets and Policy Group of the... Read more

Leon (Lee) Schipper, a scientist who worked in Berkeley Lab's Environmental Energy Technologies Division for more than two decades, passed away on August 16 at Alta Bates Hospital in Berkeley. He was 64 and was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in May. Schipper was an energy efficiency expert who first worked at the Lab as a graduate student in 1972 and then joined as a scientist in 1978. He went... Read more

Recently, EETD's Thomas Kirchstetter, and Tim Dallman and Robert Harley of the University of California, Berkeley, presented the results of a study on the emissions of PM (particulate matter) and NOx (nitrogen oxides) from trucks at the Port of Oakland. The occasion was an August 4th hearing in Oakland, California, convened by Alameda County supervisors to discuss requirements that trucks... Read more

The Department of Energy has awarded up to $1.9 million to a research team led by EETD's Eric Masanet to develop "total cost of ownership" models for low- and high-temperature stationary fuel cell systems up to 250 kilowatts. The work will support research and development efforts for fuel cells by assessing the impact of state-of-the-art manufacturing technologies, system designs, and deployment... Read more

EETD scientists conduct research to analyze energy use in India, evaluate energy efficiency opportunities in its economy, and develop road maps to promote lower-carbon-emitting, sustainable economic development. They also work with their Indian colleagues on joint research, and provide technical consulting in a variety of areas such as energy-efficient building design and operation.Here are a few... Read more

The U.S. Department of Energy has released six fact sheets to assist American Reinvestment and Recovery Act grantees and end-users in benchmarking energy efficiency upgrade costs and expected annual savings. The fact sheets are directed at municipal, state, and federal government buildings, healthcare facilities, universities, colleges, and K-12 schools. The fact sheets provide information on the... Read more

Despite a trying year in which wind power capacity additions declined significantly compared to both 2008 and 2009, the U.S. remained one of the fastest-growing wind power markets in the world in 2010—second only to China—according to a report released today by the U.S. Department of Energy and prepared by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).... 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

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

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

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

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

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

Michael Sohn, Staff Scientist and Leader of the Airflow and Pollutant Transport Group, EETD, is serving on a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Science Advisory Panel, Office of Pesticide Programs. The purpose of the panel is to review a probabilistic approach to source-to-outcome health risk assessments.... Read more

The Healthy Zero Energy Buildings (HZEB) website has made its debut.The HZEB research program's goal is to develop the information needed for scientifically-sound commercial building ventilation standards that balance energy efficiency objectives with the need to maintain acceptable indoor air quality.Zero (net) energy buildings have a net energy consumption of zero over a typical year. The... Read more

The two largest greenhouse gas-emitting nations, the United States and China, have formed a partnership to research and develop clean energy technology. Agreements formalizing the research plans of the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center (CERC), announced jointly by President Barack Obama and President Hu Jintao more than a year ago, were signed in January 2011 during a state visit to... Read more