News

October 20, 2020
Seven researchers in the Energy Technologies Area have recently been honored with prestigious Director's Awards at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). The awards program recognizes Lab employees' accomplishments and commitment to excellence in support of the Lab's mission and strategic goals. Lab-wide, three staff members received Lifetime Achievement Awards, and another 34... Read more
October 20, 2020
Seven researchers in the Energy Technologies Area have recently been honored with prestigious Director's Awards at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). The awards program recognizes Lab employees' accomplishments and commitment to excellence in support of the Lab's mission and strategic goals. Lab-wide, three staff members received Lifetime Achievement Awards, and another 34... Read more
October 15, 2020
The Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has appointed Noël Bakhtian, previously a senior policy adviser in the White House Office of Science and Technology (OSTP) and currently director of the Center for Advanced Energy Studies (CAES) at Idaho National Laboratory, as its inaugural director of the Berkeley Lab Energy Storage Center. Building on decades of... Read more
October 12, 2020
Hydrogen fuel cells are on the rise: Germany has rolled out hydrogen-powered trains, the San Francisco Bay Area will soon see the nation’s first hydrogen fuel cell ferry, and sales of fuel-cell vehicles are up globally. It’s a technology with the potential to provide a variety of clean energy options, especially in transportation.Now the Department of Energy has announced several major... Read more
October 12, 2020
With a day job as deputy of research for Building Technology and Urban Systems Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and another full-time job as a parent to a young child, Jessica Granderson still found more time to carve out of her schedule this year to help design face shields for hospital staff.“Back in March when we were initially confronting our regional surge in... Read more
October 2, 2020
The Energy Technologies Area (ETA) won three R&D 100 awards in the areas of higher energy efficiency in buildings, making lithium batteries safer and development of an innovative tool; all together the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) took home seven awards. For more than 50 years, the annual R&D 100 Awards have recognized 100 technologies of the... Read more
September 30, 2020
Methane is most commonly known as a ubiquitous cleaner energy source, while also being a potent greenhouse gas. It is produced from both natural sources, such as wetlands and large bodies of water, and anthropogenic sources, such as natural-gas reservoirs and livestock. At the same time, methane is a source of many important feedstock chemicals, including blue hydrogen and methanol, which is used... Read more
September 17, 2020
Air sealing and insulation, which are common elements of energy efficiency upgrade packages, come with a bonus: In addition to saving energy, they almost always cut dampness and mold. This latest research comes from a new publication from the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (Berkeley Lab). However, the paper also found that levels of some indoor air pollutants increased... Read more
September 10, 2020
Two researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have been recognized by the Kigali Cooling Efficiency Program (K-CEP). The awards for Nihar Shah and Won Young Park honor their work on improving the energy efficiency of cooling systems and evaluating the benefits of those improvements.Shah, Presidential Director of Berkeley Lab’s Global Cooling Efficiency Program, received... Read more
September 3, 2020
Prominent battery research has made great strides in advancing next-generation rechargeable batteries, which might use lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries, rather than the traditional Li-ion batteries commonly found in electric cars and mobile phones.Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have discovered a new type of polymer that can be used as a binder in a Li-S battery... Read more
August 18, 2020
Over the last few years of frequent and intense wildfire seasons, many parts of the U.S. have experienced hazardous air quality for days on end. At the same time a number of low-cost air quality monitors have come on the market, allowing consumers to check the pollutant levels in their own homes and neighborhoods. So, air quality scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab)... Read more
August 11, 2020
Heat waves are becoming a more regular occurrence across the country. Iain Walker, Leader of the Residential Building Systems Group at Berkeley Lab, has suggestions for how to weather them. Walker has more than 20 years’ experience as a building scientist and consultant on energy use and ventilation in residential buildings. Q. Is it more efficient or economical to keep my house cool all day or... Read more
August 6, 2020
Deep beneath the surface of the Salton Sea, a shallow lake in California’s Imperial County, sits an immense reserve of critical metals that, if unlocked, could power the state’s green economy for years to come. These naturally occurring metals are dissolved in geothermal brine, a byproduct of geothermal energy production. Now the race is on to develop technology to efficiently extract one of... Read more
August 5, 2020
Kristin Persson, a senior faculty scientist in the Energy Storage & Distributed Resources Division within the Energy Technologies Area at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and director of the Materials Project, has been named director of the Molecular Foundry. Her new appointment is effective August 15, 2020. She will continue to hold an appointment as a professor of... Read more
August 5, 2020
As the rate of electric vehicle (EV) adoption in the U.S. rises, the transportation sector will put additional pressure on the power grid. California expects more than 50% zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs), which includes battery EV, plug-in hybrid EV and fuel cell EV, in new vehicle sales by 2030 to achieve statewide emission and pollution reduction goals. This added pressure on the grid could be... Read more
July 30, 2020
Commercial building retrofits present a prime opportunity to improve building energy efficiency, and numerous industry and policy stakeholders are increasingly pushing for these retrofits to happen. However, a recent study by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) found that most commercial building retrofits are actually simple upgrades of... Read more
July 9, 2020
Release of "beta" Building Efficiency Targeting Tool for Energy Retrofits (BETTER) Johnson Controls (NYSE: JCI) and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) announced the release of the beta Building Efficiency Targeting Tool for Energy Retrofits (BETTER) (better.lbl.gov/) to the public today. The easy-to-use, open-source BETTER tool allows building owners and managers to rapidly... Read more
June 30, 2020
A grant of nearly $2 million was recently awarded to install energy-saving, thin-glass triple-pane windows in low-income communities in California. Thanks to years of investment and support from the California Energy Commission (CEC) and the Department of Energy (DOE), this project will work with industry partners to deploy superior windows in California homes. Windows are often referred to as the... Read more
June 25, 2020
The scientific community is mourning the tragic death of Adrian Albert, 35, a visionary scientist and engineer, and emergent entrepreneur, who was killed by a vehicle on June 5, 2020 while riding his bicycle in Sonoma County. The driver fled the scene and the Calif. Highway Patrol is investigating the case. For his colleagues and mentors at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National... Read more
June 15, 2020
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Technology Commercialization Fund has awarded $1 million to four projects from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (Berkeley Lab) to further collaborative research with industry partners on biofuels, bioproducts, energy microgrid technology, and renewable energy technology.Two of those projects are from Berkeley Lab’s Energy Technologies Area: Expand Access to... Read more
June 9, 2020
Marca Doeff, a senior scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (Berkeley Lab), recently won the election to become secretary of The Electrochemical Society (ECS), a member-led organization dedicated to advancing electrochemical and solid state science.Doeff has worked on materials for electrochromics, lithium and sodium polymer batteries, lithium ion batteries, solid-state lithium batteries and... Read more
May 27, 2020
Falling prices for renewable energy and storage could help China get more than half its electricity from non-fossil fuel sources by 2030 at lower costs, according to a new analysis from the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (Berkeley Lab), the University of California, Berkeley and Stony Brook University. The cost of energy from solar panels, wind turbines and battery storage... Read more
May 18, 2020
A new type of device that has the potential to efficiently store vast amounts of energy has recently been effectively reconfigured and improved by researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). This breakthrough could be a stepping-stone to helping our evolving power grid become more resilient.Renewable energy sources such as solar and wind are becoming increasingly... Read more
May 13, 2020
Wind plant performance declines due to plant age in the United States can be partially managed and is influenced by policy, according to a recent study from the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).The U.S. is currently the second-largest wind power market globally – supplying 7.3% of the nation’s electricity generation in 2019 – yet this is the first... Read more
May 13, 2020
FLEXLAB®, the world’s most advanced building simulator and testbed, will be used to simulate office and school heating, ventilation, and air conditioning configurations. (Credit: Berkeley Lab)As society prepares to reopen indoor spaces and ease back into some sense of normalcy during the COVID-19 pandemic, a team of researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National... Read more