Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory news

A new study by scientists at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) examines the workforce needs of the energy efficiency services sector, and finds that the speed with which employment will grow will depend in part on how effectively the nation deploys training and education programs for the energy efficiency workforce.

“There is a shortage of formal training programs in energy efficiency, and an extremely high demand right now, thanks to the inf

The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has been awarded nearly $18 million from the Recovery Act to build an advanced biofuels process development facility. Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) through its Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), this new facility will help expedite the commercialization of next generation biofuels by providing industry-scale test beds for innovative technologies. Called the Advanced Biofuels Process Development Unit (P

A newly discovered path for the conversion of sunlight to electricity could brighten the future for photovoltaic technology. Researchers with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have found a new mechanism by which the photovoltaic effect can take place in semiconductor thin-films. This new route to energy production overcomes the bandgap voltage limitation that continues to plague conventional solid-state solar cells.

Working with bismuth ferrite, a ceramic made from bismuth

A new analysis by scientists at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) for the Western Governor’s Association explores renewable resource decisions in the West. The report’s “sensitivity analysis” examines how decisions about which renewable sources are chosen, and how transmission lines are expanded, are affected by changes in policies  and other uncertainties.

The scientists developed a spreadsheet-based tool with private sector f

The fact that glaciers in the Himalayan mountains are thinning is not disputed. However, few researchers have attempted to rigorously examine and quantify the causes. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory scientist Surabi Menon set out to isolate the impacts of the most commonly blamed culprit—greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide—from other particles in the air that may be causing the melting. Menon and her collaborators found that airborne black carbon aerosols, or soot, from India is a

A collaboration led by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy`s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) has developed a microbe that can produce an advanced biofuel directly from biomass. Deploying the tools of synthetic biology, the JBEI researchers engineered a strain of /Escherichia coli/ (/E. coli/) bacteria to produce biodiesel fuel and other important chemicals derived from fatty acids.

`The fact that our microbes can produce a diesel fuel directly from biomass with no additional chem

A collaboration led by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) has developed a microbe that can produce an advanced biofuel directly from biomass. Deploying the tools of synthetic biology, the JBEI researchers engineered a strain of Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria to produce biodiesel fuel and other important chemicals derived from fatty acids.

“The fact that our microbes can produce a diesel fuel directly from biomass with no additional chem

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory will build and operate a new National User Facility for Net-Zero Energy Buildings using a competitively selected award of $15.9 million in stimulus funds from the U.S. Department of Energy.

This facility will contain a set of test beds for building systems integration designed to address key technical challenges for net-zero energy buildings. The Department of Energy solicited research applications from eligible national laboratories nationwide, which th

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory scientists Lynn Price and Nan Zhou expected the long banquet and endless toasting. What they did not expect on a recent trip to a cement plant in central China was a three-hour variety show by the factory employees, complete with folk dancing, song-and-dance numbers and comedians. Even more surprising were the lyrics to one of the songs:  “I started to listen closely and realized they were singing about closing inefficient factories, next year’s cle

Over 30,000 megawatts of wind energy capacity are installed across the United States and an increasing number of communities are considering  new wind power facilities. Given these developments, there is an urgent  need to empirically investigate typical community concerns about wind  energy and thereby provide stakeholders involved in the wind project siting process a common base of knowledge. A major new report released today by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley Nati