News

New Berkeley Lab study finds lower greenhouse gas emissions on per-mile basis for driverless cars deployed as taxis.Imagine a fleet of driverless taxis roaming your city, ready to pick you up and take you to your destination at a moment’s notice. While this may seem fantastical, it may be only a matter of time before it becomes reality. And according to a new study from Lawrence Berkeley... Read more

Berkeley Lab study finds EV batteries have a longer useful life than current standards suggest.In the first study of its kind, scientists at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) quantitatively show that electric vehicles (EVs) will meet the daily travel needs of drivers longer than commonly assumed. Many drivers and much prior literature on the retirement... Read more

Berkeley Lab and UNC-Chapel Hill’s discovery of nonflammable electrolyte gets VC funding. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) battery scientist Nitash Balsara has worked for many years trying to find a way to improve the safety of lithium-ion batteries. Now he believes he has found the answer in a most unlikely material—a class of compounds that has mainly been used for... Read more

An excerpt from a U.S. Department of Energy blog:"...dramatic changes are occurring in our nation’s energy mix, many of which demand a more technologically advanced electric grid. Increasing use of renewable energy sources, risks of cyber and physical attacks, and aging infrastructure create uncertainty of the current grid’s long-term ability to provide the services demanded of it. These... Read more

One of eight mid-career women who received a Clean Energy and Empowerment award from DOE-MIT partnership.As part of the U.S. Clean Energy Education and Empowerment (C3E) program, run by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI), Sila Kiliccote, leader of the Grid Integration Group at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, was recognized for her accomplishments... Read more

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) announces the signature of a collaboration license with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and IIT-Comillas University (Madrid) for its Utility of the Future Program. DER-CAM, software developed in the Microgrids Group at the Environmental Energy Technologies Division (EETD), will play a key-role in this project, which is part of the MIT... Read more

A team of scientists from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and Argonne National Laboratory was recognized by FMC Corporation, receiving its FMC Scientific Achievement Award. Aaron Reichl, Director of Technology for FMC Minerals, and Marina Yakovleva, Global Technical Programs Manager presented the award at a ceremony in April. The team performed fundamental research on FMC's... Read more

Plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) are here, and more are coming. By 2013, 100,000 PEVs were sold in the United States, and the number is growing. One study forecasts that more than a million plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) will be sold in California, New York, Washington, and Florida alone between 2013 and 2022. Electric vehicles (EVs) are also growing in range and sales. As the cost of... Read more

In February, Open Automated Demand Response (OpenADR) achieved another milestone toward becoming an international standard when the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), a renowned standards development organization, released a profile of OpenADR 2.0 as a Publicly Available Specification (PAS). This action recognizes OpenADR as a standard that will enable our electricity systems to be... Read more

The White House has announced that Adam Weber has won a Presidential Early Career Award. Weber is a staff scientist at the Environmental Energy Technologies Division of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). His current research involves understanding and optimizing fuel-cell performance and lifetime; understanding flow batteries for grid-scale energy storage; and analysis of... Read more

In Scientific American magazine’s December 2013 issue, “World-changing ideas,” the cover story, “How supercomputers will yield a golden age of materials science,” sets the scene for the issue’s focus on practical innovations emerging from the laboratory.In the article, MIT’s Gerbrand Ceder and Environmental Energy Technologies Division scientist Kristin Persson describe the Materials... Read more

September Special Focus: CalChargeIn preparation for its mid-October launch, CalCharge and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have completed work on their innovative Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) that is expected to become a national model for industry engagement with the national laboratories.Energy storage innovators need cost-effective and clear... Read more

September Special Focus: CalChargeAfter nearly two years of research and organizational development efforts, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), CalCEF, and other key partners are only weeks away from the full operational launch of CalCharge. By mid-October, they expect to announce the core group of institutional and major corporate members along with the first tranche of... Read more

From a General Electric press release:It's a little more complex than making instant oatmeal, but scientists from GE and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) may have just the recipe for next-generation electric vehicle (EV) batteries that achieve desired driving range and cost for consumers.The GE/Berkeley Lab team is developing a water-based, flow battery capable of more than... Read more

Berkeley Lab battery researcher Gao Liu and his team earned a coveted R&D 100 Award this year for their invention of an electrically conductive rubbery adhesive that can be mixed with particles of silicon to form a battery's negative (-) electrode, or anode. Lithium-ion batteries whose anodes are built with this "conducting polymer binder" can have 30 percent more energy storage capacity than... Read more

Jeffery Reimer is a scientist in the Environmental Energy Technologies Division, and UC Berkeley.Scientists would like to apply the same principles by which baking soda removes food odors from refrigerators or silica powder keeps moisture away from electronic devices to scrub carbon dioxide from the exhaust gases of fossil fuel power plants. An excellent candidate for this task is the class of... Read more

The energy density in lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries enables them to store and provide considerable energy in a small package. Powering devices from pacemakers to smart phones, these small, lightweight, rechargeable batteries have become a ubiquitous part of modern electronics. Using materials such as tin and silicon give Li-ion even a higher energy density—enough for a battery to power an... Read more

For 30 years or so, researchers in the Laser Spectroscopy and Applied Materials Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have been studying laser beams.Berkeley Lab's Rick Russo—a pioneer in the field—has been working with a technology called Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS), refining and expanding the technology for many applications. Famous for its use on Mars... Read more

A press release from CalCharge announcing the opportunity to partner with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory on battery research:Beginning this month, the rapidly emerging California battery sector will have access to new resources to accelerate its growth: an opportunity to work alongside world-class scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). This opportunity is... Read more

NEC Laboratories America, Inc. has provided Michael Stadler of the Grid Integration Group a gift in the amount of $60,000 to support his research in microgrids and energy storage. Previous gifts from NEC have supported research resulting in a publication titled “Electric Storage in California’s Commercial Buildings,” LBNL-6071E. The research examines whether buildings could serve as the hub... Read more

CalCharge, a partnership of CalCEF and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, has announced that it is teaming with San Jose State University to launch a battery university. Read the CalCharge press release at the link below.... Read more

In the quest to produce an environmentally benign renewable fuel, scientists have explored many techniques to split water molecules to produce hydrogen. Still, the current photovoltaic designs are not yet technically or economically viable. Materials research in this area has been promising, but research on the engineering design of these photoelectrochemical systems has been sparse.To advance... Read more

ARPA-E (Advanced Research Projects – Energy) has announced 66 research grants to develop transformational energy technologies. Two projects were awarded to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) researchers. Researchers from Berkeley Lab's Environmental Energy Technologies Division (EETD) will also participate in a third project awarded to the University of California,... Read more

Vince Battaglia leads a behind-the-scenes tour of Berkeley Lab's BATT, the Batteries for Advanced Transportation Technologies Program he leads, where researchers aim to improve batteries upon which the range, efficiency, and power of tomorrow's electric cars will depend. This is the first in a forthcoming series of videos taking viewers into the laboratories and research facilities that members of... Read more

CalCEF, which creates innovative financial products for the clean energy economy, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) today announced a partnership to launch CalCharge, a consortium uniting California’s emerging and established battery technology companies with critical academic and government resources. By bringing together the dozens of battery companies and institutions... Read more