EETD Communications

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 the journal 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.

Download the paper here:
http://www.energy.ca.gov/2008publications/CEC-999-2008-020/CEC-999-2008-020.PDF

Read the California Energy Commission press release:
http://www.energy.ca.gov/releases/2008_releases/2008-10-30_rosenfeld_award.html

The September-October 2008 issue of the online publication Conservation Update, published on the web by the U.S. Department of Energy’s State Energy Program, has an article written by me (Allan Chen) summarizing research by Berkeley Lab’s Environmental Energy Technologies Division (EETD) and its many partners to improve the energy efficiency of data centers.

http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/state_energy_program/update/

Royal Philips Electronics and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) 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.

Initial research will focus on optimizing the energy efficiency of indoor lighting through advanced integrated wireless lighting control systems that are responsive to people, events and external daylight levels.

For more information, see the rest of this press release at:
http://www.research.philips.com/newscenter/index.html

Berkeley Lab’s Environmental Energy Technologies Division and the University of California, Berkeley, have announced a new R&D program to conduct energy and environment R&D with government and private sector partners in India. See the press release for more information:

http://newscenter.lbl.gov/press-releases/2008/10/03/berkeley-lab-and-university-of-california-berkeley-announce-india-energy-rd-program/