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Contents
December 2008
October 2008
- California Energy Commissioner Arthur Rosenfeld Honored with Innovation Award
- A Vision for Energy Efficiency at Data Centers
- Philips and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Join Forces to Improve Energy Efficiency in Buildings
- Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley Announce India Energy R&D Program
July 2008
June 2008
- Berkeley Lab, NOAA, NASA to Use Research Aircraft in Summertime Atmospheric Greenhouse Gas Sampling Project
- Powering Down in Juneau
May 2008
April 2008
- Revised Edition of Turning Numbers Into Knowledge Released
- Berkeley Lab Examines State-level Renewables Portfolio Standards Policies
March 2008
February 2008
- Robert Sawyer Elected to the National Academy of Engineering
- Maharashtra at the Crossroads: Berkeley Lab-Led Agreement Tackles India's Energy Shortage, Global Climate Change
January 2008
- Feeling the Heat: Berkeley Researchers Make Thermoelectric Breakthrough in Silicon Nanowires
- Berkeley Lab Scientists Find Evidence of Link Between Outdoor Ozone and Building-Related Health Symptoms
December 2008
Cool World: A Modest Proposal to Cool the Planet by Cooling the Neighborhood
Hashem Akbari and Surabi Menon, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), and Art Rosenfeld, California Energy Commissioner, Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, and former Berkeley Lab scientist, have proposed a "Cool World" plan that would use white roofs, and solar-reflective roofs of other colors, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and help delay atmospheric heating effects.
October 2008
California Energy Commissioner Arthur Rosenfeld Honored with Innovation Award
The Economist magazine has named California Energy Commissioner Art Rosenfeld recipient of one of this year's Innovation Awards. The weekly British magazine awards Innovation awards in several areas; Rosenfeld won the award in the "Energy and the Environment" sector. A former Berkeley Lab scientist, Rosenfeld was director of the Center for Building Science (Environmental Energy Technologies Division), and he is a Professor Emeritus in the Physics Department at UC Berkeley.
Rosenfeld is working with EETD's Hashem Akbari on reducing the effects of global warming through the application of white and cool-colored roofs. In a paper to be published by Climatic Change, Rosenfeld, Akbari, and EETD's Surabi Menon point out that a vigorous white and cool roof program can significantly cool the world by directly offsetting the heating effect of carbon dioxide. They estimate that every 1,000 square feet of white roof offsets 10 tons of CO2 emissions.
Press Release
Download the paper
A Vision for Energy Efficiency at Data Centers
Data centers are the unseen workhorses of the global economy. Their numbers have grown rapidly along with their energy use. Now, government and the information technology industry are cooperating to develop solutions to the rapid rise in data center energy consumption. This article in the U.S. Department of Energy's Conservation Update covers research and program efforts to increase the energy efficiency of data centers.
Philips and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Join Forces to Improve Energy Efficiency in Buildings
Royal Philips Electronics and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) today announced that they have signed an agreement to jointly research new energy-efficiency solutions for buildings. Philips and Berkeley Lab will work together to develop new technologies for the control of multiple building sub-systems such as lighting and temperature controls, and new building simulation tools for developing and evaluating effective energy control strategies.
Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley Announce India Energy R&D Program
The U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California, Berkeley have announced a joint research and development program in which researchers will work with the government and private sector of India to develop paths toward reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) while maintaining sustained economic growth.
More information
Press Release
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July 2008
Climate Change: The Role of Particles and Gases
2008 Summer Lecture Series
Berkeley Lab
July 1, 2008
Here is a video of EETD scientist Surabi Menon delivering her Summer Lecture series talk on climate change.
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June 2008
Berkeley Lab, NOAA, NASA to Use Research Aircraft in Summertime Atmospheric Greenhouse Gas Sampling Project
Scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the University of California, the California Air Resources Board, and NASA will use aircraft outfitted with atmospheric sampling devices in mid-June to measure greenhouse gases over California, in an effort to better understand the relative contribution of the state's GHG emissions to the global total.
Powering Down in Juneau
Faced with a crisis that suddenly pushed electricity prices up to five times the usual, Juneau responded with a campaign to cut energy use drastically. How do you save electricity in a hurry? One way to do it is to call in Berkeley Lab scientist Alan Meier, who wrote the book Saving Electricity in a Hurry while on leave to the International Energy Agency.
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May 2008
EETD Researchers Cite Wind Power's Value
For the third consecutive year the U.S. was home to the fastest-growing wind power market in the world, according to a U.S. Department of Energy report whose primary authors were Ryan Wiser and Mark Bolinger, of Berkeley Lab's Environmental Energy Technologies Division.
DOE Press Release
Full article
Darfur Stoves Project — KQED QUEST Television Story
QUEST, a KQED multimedia series exploring Northern California science, environment and nature, highlights the work of Ashok Gadgil and his colleagues.
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April 2008
Revised Edition of Turning Numbers Into Knowledge Released
The revised and updated 2nd edition of Jon Koomey's book Turning Numbers into Knowledge: Mastering the Art of Problem Solving has been released by Analytics Press.
The 2d edition includes a new chapter on data sharing web sites, an epilogue summarizing Koomey's experience debunking an urban legend, an expanded further reading section, numerous updates and improvements throughout, and a new foreword from John P. Holdren, Past President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
Some of the book's chapters can be downloaded in PDF format, as described below.
- The front matter includes the table of contents, the foreword, and the preface (which contains an annotated chapter list).
- Chapter 4 describes the importance of peer review to the scientific process.
- Chapter 11 defines "critical thinking" and describes how that process can improve your analytical work.
- Chapter 28 describes the uses and limitations of models, both simple and complex.
You can send comments or questions to the author at jgkoomey@stanford.edu or http://www.koomey.com.
Berkeley Lab Examines State-level Renewables Portfolio Standards Policies
Renewable electricity is being supported by a growing number of states through the creation of renewables portfolio standards (RPS). A report released by the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) provides a comprehensive overview of the early experiences with these state-level RPS policies.
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March 2008
Saving Power at Peak Hours
Science at the Theater
Berkeley Repertory Theater
Berkeley, California
March 10, 2008
A talk by Mary Ann Piette, scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, on how automated demand response technology is reducing peak power demand in California.
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February 2008
Photo credit: Mark Jacobs
Maharashtra at the Crossroads: Berkeley Lab-Led Agreement Tackles India's Energy Shortage, Global Climate Change
The Indian state of Maharashtra is at a crossroads. Its people endure frequent electricity blackouts due to a booming energy demand that far outpaces energy production. One solution is to build more coal-fired power plants, which are among the chief greenhouse-gas-emitting culprits of climate change. Another solution takes a different approach: reduce electricity demand, and the need for more power plants, by implementing energy-efficiency measures.
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January 2008
Feeling the Heat: Berkeley Researchers Make Thermoelectric Breakthrough in Silicon Nanowires
Energy now lost as heat during the production of electricity could be harnessed through the use of silicon nanowires synthesized via a technique developed by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) at Berkeley. The far-ranging potential applications of this technology include DOE's hydrogen fuel cell-powered "Freedom CAR," and personal power-jackets that could use heat from the human body to recharge cell-phones and other electronic devices.
Berkeley Lab Scientists Find Evidence of Link Between Outdoor Ozone and Building-Related Health Symptoms
A team of researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has found evidence that the prevalence of building-related symptoms (BRS) increases with increasing outdoor concentrations of the pollutant ozone. They have also discovered that the type of air filter that some buildings use in their ventilation systems may also play a role in the prevalence of BRS.
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