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February 2012
- Inspiring Energy Efficiency Research in the Nation's Universities
- The LBNL Institute for Globally Transformative Technologies (LIGTT)
January 2012
- Beyond Lithium Ion V Conference to be Held in Berkeley in June
- EETD Researcher Contributes to New CAFE and Greenhouse Gas Standards for Light-Duty Vehicles
- Berkeley Lab's Ashok Gadgil Wins Zayed Future Energy Prize's Lifetime Achievement Award
- Free Energy Information Systems Handbook Available
- Heart to Hearth: Darfur Stoves Project’s Andree Sosler Makes Survival Sustainable
- EETD Scientist Editor of Special Issue of the Journal Energy Efficiency
- Laying the Groundwork in Ethiopia: Berkeley Lab's Ethiopian Stove in Action
February 2012
Inspiring Energy Efficiency Research in the Nation's Universities
Solar energy has long captured the hearts and minds of U.S. university students, with the Solar Decathlon biennially celebrating their achievements on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. But what of energy efficiency, the workhorse for cost-effective carbon emission reductions? Can we inspire the nation’s brightest minds to pursue radical efficiency improvements in the appliances and equipment that consume the nation’s energy? This is the goal of the Max Tech and Beyond Appliance Design Competition.
The LBNL Institute for Globally Transformative Technologies (LIGTT)
The Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) is establishing the new LBNL Institute for Globally Transformative Technologies (LIGTT) to close the innovation gap for developing countries and create a pipeline of demand-driven technologies in the key areas for international development, including fuel-efficient cook-stoves, safe drinking water and access to electricity. These technologies will fight global poverty in an environmentally sustainable way by matching Berkeley Lab’s advanced research capabilities in affordable, low-carbon solutions with the needs of developing countries, particularly those in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, home to the vast majority of people living on less than $1.25 per day. Through locally appropriate business models, the Institute will work with carefully selected partners to deploy these technology solutions and bridge the gulf between their invention in the lab and their arrival in the marketplace.
Through our existing partners (WaterHealth International, Oxfam America and Darfur Stoves Project), LBNL’s technologies are active in eight countries in Asia and Africa. These organizations are excited about new opportunities to partner with LIGTT to deploy critical new technologies to the developing world.
Read the White House press release.
Read the Berkeley Lab press release.
LBNL Institute for Globally Transformative Technologies (LIGTT) website.
Ashok Gadgil, Director of the Environmental Energy Technologies Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, answers some questions about LIGTT here.
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January 2012
Beyond Lithium Ion V Conference to be Held in Berkeley in June
Widespread adoption of electric vehicles could greatly reduce dependence on finite petroleum resources, reduce CO2 emissions and provide new scenarios for grid operation. Although new electric vehicles with advanced lithium ion batteries are being introduced, further breakthroughs in scalable energy storage, beyond current state-of-the-art lithium ion batteries, are necessary before the full benefits of vehicle electrification can be realized.
Motivated by these societal needs and by the tremendous potential for materials science and engineering to provide necessary advances, a consortium comprising IBM Research and five U.S. Department of Energy national laboratories (Lawrence Berkeley, National Renewable, Pacific Northwest, Argonne, and Oak Ridge) will host a symposium June 5-7, 2012, at The Claremont Hotel in Berkeley, California.
Beyond Lithium Ion V Conference web site
EETD Researcher Contributes to New CAFE and Greenhouse Gas Standards for Light-Duty Vehicles
One of the quickest, most inexpensive paths to increasing gas mileage and reducing vehicle carbon dioxide emissions is to reduce vehicle weight, rather than investing in new, expensive vehicle technologies. Concerns that reducing vehicle weight will result in increased fatalities from vehicle accidents have hindered past efforts to substantially increase fuel economy standards, but recent research results, including those of Tom Wenzel, a research scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Environmental Energy Technologies Division (EETD), are challenging this assumption. If analyses can show that vehicle manufacturers can lower vehicle weight safely, then corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards can be strengthened without undue cost to consumers.
Berkeley Lab's Ashok Gadgil Wins Zayed Future Energy Prize's Lifetime Achievement Award
Ashok Gadgil, the Director of the Environmental Energy Technologies Division of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), has won the Lifetime Achievement award of the Zayed Future Energy Prize. The award was announced in Abu Dhabi at the Zayed award ceremony today.
Free Energy Information Systems Handbook Available
Developed by Berkeley Lab Scientists to Help Building Managers Get Started Using These Systems to Increase Building Energy Efficiency
The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and U.S. Department of Energy have released The Energy Information Handbook: Applications for Energy-Efficient Buildings Operations. This free book guides commercial building owners and operators who have no experience with energy information systems in understanding how to analyze the energy use of buildings, and use their analysis to lower energy costs by operating buildings more efficiently. Software developers and energy service providers in the commercial building industry, as well as more experienced owners and managers who wish to improve how they visualize, analyze, and manage their building’s energy use, will also find the book useful.
Heart to Hearth: Darfur Stoves Project’s Andree Sosler Makes Survival Sustainable
Call it the bright side of globalization: progressive solutions midwifed by transnational interconnections. From her office in Berkeley, Calif., Andree Sosler, executive director of the Darfur Stoves Project, coordinates the distribution of cheap, clean, super fuel-efficient cooking stoves to women in the Darfur region of Sudan. Designed by Berkeley scientists, partially manufactured in Mumbai, India, and assembled in Sudan, the stoves vastly reduce the amount of time and money Sudanese women have to spend obtaining firewood and cooking food.
Dubbed "the five minute stove" by a group of Darfuri women Sosler helped train to market the device, the stoves are carefully calibrated to fit local environmental conditions and traditional cooking methods.
EETD Scientist Editor of Special Issue of the Journal Energy Efficiency
Ed Vine, a scientist in the Environmental Energy Technologies Division is the editor of a special issue of the journal Energy Efficiency focusing solely on the evaluation of energy efficiency (2012: Volume 5 Number 1). The papers published in the issue are a subset of those delivered at the International Energy Program Evaluation Conference held in Europe in 2010.
The issue's introduction, by Vine and S. Thomas of the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment, and Energy notes that "Europe is at a critical juncture in developing a professional evaluation community. As the European Commission designs and implements directives and the Member States, regions, local authorities, and energy companies all create their own policies and programs, it is important that the evaluation community in Europe participate in the design and implementation of energy efficiency programs and policies, as well as in their evaluation. Policymakers need to know what works and what does not work."
The full set of papers from the conference are available at the official web site.
Laying the Groundwork in Ethiopia: Berkeley Lab's Ethiopian stove in Action
The Darfur Stoves Project began in 2005 after a trip by Lab researchers. They were looking at existing wood-burning stoves and what could be done to make them more efficient, requiring less firewood. On this latest trip, Debra found that the idea of U.S.-based researchers thinking about helping an African country came as a surprise:
"The group was pleased that I was sharing my first coffee ceremony experience with them and astounded when they learned that scientists in the U.S. had tailor made a stove for Ethiopia."
