News

Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory are celebrating the second anniversary of the Department of Energy's FLEXLAB®, one of the world's most advanced facilities for studying the energy performance of building systems.FLEXLAB — Facility for Low-Energy Experiments in Buildings — completed its first two years in operation with partners from industry, universities, public utilities... Read more

Two factors that contributed to the poisoning of tens of thousands of Washington, D.C., residents through their drinking water in the early 2000s—lead pipes and a disinfectant called chloramine—continue to coexist in countless water systems nationwide, including in the Bay Area. But not to worry, says UC Berkeley water expert and engineering professor David Sedlak; they’re safe when properly... Read more

Few would argue that the state hasn't done its fair share in the fight against climate change. But the question of how much the Global Warming Solutions Act has actually cut California's greenhouse gas emissions is tougher to get at. "I think that it worked," says the Lab's Jeffrey Greenblatt.... Read more

Launched in 2014, EERE International’s South Africa Clean Energy Project brings together experts from the U.S. and South Africa, including Lab researchers, led by ETA’s Charlie Curcija (center). They use DOE-developed software to analyze typical building structures in South Africa, specifically looking at the building envelope to determine their energy efficiency and locate opportunities to... Read more

The fellowship honors the contributions of the Lab’s Art Rosenfeld for his pioneering work toward the advancement of global energy efficiency. Graduate student Nkiruka Avila plans to use the award to fuel her research on unreliable power grids in Nigeria.... Read more

Scientists have successfully paired ferroelectric and ferrimagnetic materials so that their alignment can be controlled with a small electric field at near room temperatures, an achievement that could open doors to ultra low-power microprocessors, storage devices and next-generation electronics.The work, co-led by researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory... Read more

Elementary school science teaches us that in the sun, dark colors get hot while white stays cool. Now new research from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has found an exception: Scientists have determined that certain dark pigments can stay just as cool as white by using fluorescence, the re-emission of absorbed light.The researchers tested this concept by coloring cool roof... Read more

When an individual utility customer decides to add rooftop solar to their home or business, the utility needs to deliver less power to that customer from other sources. A small number of solar adopters may not have much of an impact, but rapid growth in rooftop solar in some parts of the country has the potential to significantly impact the need for generating resources and transmission and... Read more

Technology advancements are expected to continue to drive down the cost of wind energy, according to a survey of the world's foremost wind power experts led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). Experts anticipate cost reductions of 24%-30% by 2030 and 35%-41% by 2050, under a median or 'best guess' scenario, driven by bigger and more efficient turbines, lower capital and... Read more

Reinventing Fire: China, a groundbreaking energy roadmap for China that shows how the country can meet its ambitious, six-fold 2050 economic growth target using almost the same amount of energy in 2050 as 2010, but with substantially more renewable energy and less coal was released on September 6th at the G20 Energy Efficiency Forum in Beijing. The report was authored by the Energy Research... Read more

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has been awarded more than $4 million by the Department of Energy (DOE) to undertake three projects aimed at improving the energy efficiency of buildings, which account for more than 40 percent of the country's energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.The projects, all developed in the Lab's Energy Technologies Area (ETA), will help meet... Read more

Innovative open flame cooking reduces indoor air pollution; saves time and moneyWhen Peter Therkelsen was thinking about inventing a new way to cook, he and fellow scientist Robert Cheng hit on an idea based on a clean combustion technology for a ring-type gas burner that had been utilized in the past and designed for NASA’s low-gravity experiments.What they came up with could revolutionize... Read more

In its annual celebration of young innovators in August, 2016, MIT Technology Review recognized Opus 12 co-founder Kendra Kuhl for her work on designing a reactor that will convert the carbon dioxide emitted by power plants into useful chemicals.Opus 12 is a project of Cyclotron Road, an incubator for energy technologies.Read the full article at MIT Technology Review.... Read more

Two new Berkeley Lab studies find record low prices across all sectorsSolar energy system pricing is at an all-time low, according to the latest editions of two recurring “state of the market” reports released today by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).Within the market for distributed solar photovoltaic (PV) systems, installed prices in 2015... Read more

Department of Energy's Small Business Vouchers awarded to 43 small businesses.Program contact: Jodi Bellacicco, 510-486-5445Eight small businesses have been awarded vouchers to work with the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) to bring their next-generation clean energy technologies to the marketplace faster.These vouchers were awarded as part of DOE's Small... Read more

Wind energy pricing remains attractive to utility and commercial purchasers, according to an annual report released by the U.S. Department of Energy and prepared by the Electricity Markets & Policy Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Prices offered by newly built wind projects are averaging around 2¢/kWh, driven lower by technology advancements and cost reductions."Wind energy... Read more

Berkeley Lab study identifies two additional carcinogens not previously reported in e-cigarette vapor.While previous studies have found that electronic cigarettes emit toxic compounds, a new study from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has pinpointed the source of these emissions and shown how factors such as the temperature, type, and age of the device play a role in emission... Read more

While air conditioning temporarily cools, it’s making our world hotter. According to Berkeley Lab researchers, a crash program to maintain or establish three shade trees per building and make all roofs and pavement in U.S. cities reflective could decrease national cooling demand by 20 percent by driving temperatures lower.For more, read The Washington Post article from July 22, 2016.... Read more

China's electricity demand will continue to grow over the next decade, so more power plants may be needed. But if future demand cannot be predicted in a scientific and transparent way, building more power plants can lead to a waste of investment and generate a lot of stranded assets, which will eventually be borne by the electricity payers or taxpayers.Read the full story, featuring Liang Jin,... Read more

Berkeley Lab study assesses employment impact of widespread conversion to solar-LED lighting in developing countries.Many households in impoverished regions around the world are starting to shift away from inefficient and polluting fuel-based lighting—such as candles, firewood, and kerosene lanterns—to solar-LED systems. While this trend has tremendous environmental benefits, a new study by... Read more

The Health and Medicine Division of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine have just released a report on the health effects of indoor particulate matter, citing Berkeley Lab research. ETA researchers Bill Fisk and Brett Singer were invited presenters at the workshop and are also cited in this infographic.... Read more

In June, China Energy Group (CEG) conducted three additional trainings on the low-carbon city tools, i.e., GREAT, BEST Cities, Urban-RAM and ELITE Cities, co-organized by research organizations from cities of Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Jinan. On June 15, CEG group members performed the training in Guangzhou with support from Guangzhou Institute of Energy Conservation and Chinese Academy of Sciences... Read more

Berkeley Lab report is first comprehensive energy analysis of data centers in nearly 10 years.As the number of data centers continues to increase in the United States, the good news is that they are becoming much more energy efficient. A new report from the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has found that electricity consumption by data centers... Read more

In the mid-2000s, William Fisk, a senior scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, stumbled upon two obscure Hungarian studies that challenged common assumptions about the air indoors. The studies suggested that, even at relatively low levels, carbon dioxide could impair how well people thought and worked.Fisk, an indoor–air quality expert who led the UC Berkeley Lab’s Indoor... Read more

Which electric car is right for you? The app is called MyGreenCar. You simply install it on your phone, choose the cars you'd like to virtually test drive, and then drive your own car as you normally would. MyGreenCar tracks your personal driving style, the terrain you frequent, and driving circumstances. It then tells you how the vehicles stack up in terms of fuel efficiency, range, and cost... Read more