News

Today, Open Molecules 2025, an unprecedented dataset of molecular simulations, was released to the scientific community, paving the way for development of machine learning tools that can accurately model chemical reactions of real-world complexity for the first time.This vast resource, produced by a collaboration co-led by Meta and the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory... Read more

Michigan State University (MSU) honored Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) battery design expert Gao Liu with an Alumni Award in its 45th annual ceremony, celebrating excellence among faculty, alumni, and students.Liu, who earned a Ph.D. in chemistry from the university in 2001, is now senior scientist and leader of the Applied Energy Materials Group at LBNL. For more than 20 years, he... Read more

What if advanced clothing or accessories could cool people down fast, no matter where they are? Researchers from the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) have demonstrated a new material design that could make this possible with minimal electricity.The technology involves thin, shape-shifting film layers... Read more

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) researcher Hanna Breunig shared her personal career reflections in a recent ACS Energy Letters series focused on energy science field leaders who published seminal work in 2024. Breunig recalled a lecture delivered by the engineer and water systems expert James Bisogni at Cornell University when she was an undergraduate student, which helped her... Read more

Scientist-entrepreneur Mike Tucker was named 2024 Inventor of the Year for the Energy Technologies Area at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). At a January 22 Innovation Celebration event, the Lab’s Intellectual Property Office (IPO) recognized Tucker as his research Area’s most prolific innovator by volume of IPO technology submissions. Tucker is an electrochemical engineer... Read more

Joe Rand, an energy policy researcher in the Energy Markets and Policy Department at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), was named in the Top 50 Data Changemakers in the Energy Sector 2025. The list was recently published by Chief Data Officer Magazine. The magazine included Rand in “an elite group of innovators who are at the forefront of an industry undergoing seismic... Read more

Adam Weber, senior scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), and Marca Doeff, retired senior scientist from LBNL, were honored as inaugural recipients of the Electrochemical Society's San Francisco Section Awards.The San Francisco Section Award was established in 2021 to recognize excellence in the field of electrochemical science and technology and/or solid-state science and... Read more

Adapted from a Dec. 20, 2024 Department of Energy news releaseA recent report produced by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), which outlines the energy use of data centers from 2014 to 2028, estimates that data center load growth has tripled over the past decade and is projected to double or triple by 2028.The 2024 Report on U.S. Data Center Energy... Read more

Three scientists with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) were among the nearly 400 scientists and engineers awarded by President Biden to receive the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on outstanding scientists and engineers early in their careers.Raúl Briceño... Read more

Approximately 30% of the energy loss from heating and cooling systems comes from a building’s windows. New research from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) examines the potential of one solution: thermo-responsive (TR) dynamic windows.The study, which was published in the journal Nature Communications, ran more than 2.8 million simulations across over 2,000 global locations to... Read more

This year’s Director’s Awards at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (Berkeley Lab) recognized Energy Technologies Area (ETA) researchers, Marca Doeff, Gao Liu, Charlie Ćurčija, Howdy Goudey, Robert Hart, Brendon Milne Smith, Dev Millstein and Jennifer Stokes-Draut.The Director’s Awards highlight Berkeley Lab employee achievements across a range of categories. A... Read more

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and its partners are finding new ways for commercial food manufacturers to cool down their products and energy costs.California-based Straus Family Creamery will host the world’s first industrial-scale, fully electric heat pump refrigeration system. This novel, integrated system reclaims heat from the... Read more

Retrofitting a portion of the US shipping fleet from internal combustion engines to battery-electric systems could significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and be largely cost effective by 2035, according to a new study from Berkeley Lab researchers recently published in Nature Energy.Shipping represents 3% of total US greenhouse gas emissions from transportation, making it an important... Read more

The Alliance to Save Energy (ASE) conferred an Energy Research and Analysis Star of Energy Efficiency Award to Jared Langevin and Andy Satchwell of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), for their pioneering modeling of building sector decarbonization scenarios.The U.S. Building Sector Decarbonization Scenarios to 2050 detailed, for the first time, the intersection of the building... Read more

A machine that sucks carbon emissions from the atmosphere might sound like science fiction, but it is one of several carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies expected to help achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. While emission mitigation is the current priority, CDR will eventually tackle “residual emissions” from sectors like heavy industry and agriculture that may be too costly to fully... Read more

Rechargeable lithium-ion batteries are growing in adoption, used in devices like smartphones and laptops, electric vehicles, and energy storage systems. But supplies of nickel and cobalt commonly used in the cathodes of these batteries are limited. New research led by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) opens up a potential low-cost, safe alternative... Read more

Ashok Gadgil, a retired faculty senior scientist in the Energy Technologies Area of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and a UC Berkeley Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Civil and Environmental Engineering, was featured in the Bayh-Dole Coalition's second annual "Faces of American Innovation" report for his role in developing a powerful light-based water disinfector. Gadgil... Read more

The Energy Storage Research Alliance will focus on advancing battery technology to help the U.S. achieve a clean and secure energy futureToday the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced the creation of two new Energy Innovation Hubs. One of the national hubs, the Energy Storage Research Alliance (ESRA), is led by Argonne National Laboratory and co-led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory... Read more

Since its launch in 2020, the Liquid Sunlight Alliance has enabled progress in artificial photosynthesis – including advances in device performance, materials durability, and computational modelingArtificial photosynthesis could one day harness energy from the sun to convert carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and water into liquid fuels to power your car, and enable a process for creating chemicals and... Read more

Though 2023 was a relatively slow year for new wind power deployment in the United States, the industry continues to see growth, solid performance, expanding supply chains, and attractive prices, according to a report prepared for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).With power sales prices ranging from less than $20 to more than $40 per... Read more

Nan Zhou, Senior Scientist at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, received the Champions of Energy Efficiency in Buildings Award from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE).Zhou was joined by four other cross-sector energy policy leaders in receiving the award, which recognizes accomplishment in improving buildings’ efficiency, at the 23rd... Read more

One innovative technology from the Energy Technologies Area (ETA) is among two at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) that have been honored with a 2024 R&D 100 Award. The award, presented by R&D Magazine and selected by an independent panel of judges, recognizes the year’s 100 most innovative and disruptive technology products... Read more

The Smarter Small Buildings Campaign will publicly recognize three organizations in 2024 – LUSH, Sheetz, and Bakersfield College – for their excellence in rooftop heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) controls. The virtual event, part of the Better Buildings summer webinar series, will air to the public on July 30 at 11 a.m. ET (register for this free webinar here).Thoughtful... Read more

As the United States expands its clean energy capacity, it also needs more transmission bandwidth. Reconductoring—a power industry term for replacing cables on existing transmission towers—is one way to expand the nation’s transmission capacity.To help assess reconductoring projects, researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have developed the Reconductoring... Read more

Some parts of the world have been so successful in making inexpensive renewable electricity that we occasionally have too much of it. One possible use for that low-cost energy: Converting carbon dioxide into fuel and other products using a device called a membrane-electrode assembly.A team of scientists from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California... Read more