News

February 22, 2024
Hanna Breunig, a research scientist in the Energy Analysis and Environmental Impacts Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), has been honored with the 2023 Energy and Environmental Science (EES) Lectureship Award from the Royal Society of Chemistry.Breunig is one of only two recipients of the annual award, which recognizes early-career researchers working within an energy... Read more
December 15, 2023
Every year, airplanes crisscrossing U.S. skies burn 23 billion gallons of fuel, leaving contrails and 8% of the nation’s transportation-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in their wake. A recent study by researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and Sandia National Laboratories reveals which crop-based feedstocks offer the... Read more
August 29, 2023
Researchers from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the Center for Law, Energy, and the Environment (CLEE) at the UC Berkeley School of Law are leading a project to explore the creation of a Direct Air Capture (DAC) facility that uses cutting-edge technologies to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in California’s Southern San Joaquin Valley (SSJV). This foundational... Read more
August 23, 2023
Since early July, the Earth has sweltered under record-breaking heat. In the United States, from California and the Desert Southwest to Texas and Florida, a long-lasting heat wave in the triple digits has broken dozens of heat records – and counting. To mitigate the risks of living in extreme heat, scientists at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab)... Read more
August 9, 2023
In rooms where smoking has taken place regularly, tobacco’s imprint lingers on indoor surfaces, even long after regular smoking has stopped. The leftover residues, known as thirdhand smoke, can be a long-term source of indoor pollutants. New research from a team led by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) zeroes in on carpets as an especially potent... Read more
August 4, 2023
Mary Ann Piette, whose research has been foundational to improving energy efficiency of existing buildings and integrating flexible building technologies with the electric grid, has been appointed Associate Laboratory Director (ALD) of the Energy Technologies Area (ETA). The appointment, which took effect August 2, follows a national search. Piette has served as the interim ALD of ETA since... Read more
July 27, 2023
Plastic waste is a problem. Most plastics can’t be recycled, and many use finite, polluting petrochemicals as the basic ingredients. But that’s changing. In a study published today in Nature Sustainability, researchers successfully engineered microbes to make biological alternatives for the starting ingredients in an infinitely recyclable plastic known as poly(diketoenamine), or PDK. The... Read more
April 6, 2023
Levels of planet-warming carbon dioxide in the air continue to rise. Cutting emissions by moving away from fossil fuels is a priority – but so is removing carbon that’s already been emitted. Of the many emerging technologies on the table, which ones will be most effective, and where? What about costs? What kinds of investments will have the most impact? Scientists at the Department of... Read more
March 10, 2023
Why isn't more plastic actually recyclable? Why don’t compostable forks actually compost? And when are we going to solve our waste problems? A recent episode of A Day in the Half-Life, a podcast about science from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), explores these and other questions related to plastics and recycling. There are reasons for optimism. Three Berkeley Lab... Read more
December 5, 2022
A building's indoor air quality (IAQ) plays a key role in the health, comfort, and performance of the people who spend countless hours in offices, homes, and other indoor spaces. From mold to cooking smoke to airborne viruses such as Covid-19 and the common cold, factors both seen and unseen come into play when determining IAQ. Experts at a recent conference hosted by the Johns Hopkins Center for... Read more
December 1, 2022
By 2033, more than 1 billion laptops, cellphones, and other electronic devices could be entering the U.S. waste stream each year. That’s according to a new study in Nature Sustainability that projects a dramatic increase in the amount and complexity of U.S. waste electronics in the decade ahead. If not properly recycled, this influx represents a growing cause for environmental concern as it... Read more
November 28, 2022
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) research scientist Hanna Breunig was named co-director of the Hydrogen Materials Advanced Research Consortium (HyMARC). Breunig serves as Deputy-Head of the Sustainable Energy and Environmental Systems Department within the Energy Analysis and Environmental Impacts (EAEI) Division of Berkeley Lab. HyMARC was formed to address the scientific gaps... Read more
July 29, 2022
Scientists have designed a new material system to overcome one of the biggest challenges in recycling consumer products: mixed-plastic recycling. Their achievement will help enable a much broader range of fully recyclable plastic products and brings into reach an efficient circular economy for durable goods like automobiles. We generate staggering quantities of plastic and plastic-containing... Read more
July 20, 2022
Converting petroleum into fuels involves crude chemistry first invented by humans in the 1800s. Meanwhile, bacteria have been producing carbon-based energy molecules for billions of years. Which do you think is better at the job? Well aware of the advantages biology has to offer, a group of biofuel experts led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) took inspiration from an... Read more
April 4, 2022
The third and final installment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC’s) Sixth Assessment Report calls for aggressive and comprehensive actions if we are to achieve net zero emissions by mid-century. It finds we still need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions drastically, beyond what governments have pledged, and that this emissions gap is exacerbated by implementation gaps... Read more
July 22, 2021
Companies like Purple Air and IQAir, with air pollution sensors that cost under $300, have brought air quality monitoring to the masses. But when Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) scientist Tom Kirchstetter looked at Purple Air’s map last year during wildfire season, he noticed a big hole in Richmond, a city of 110,000 to the north of Berkeley. “You can see what appears to... Read more
June 14, 2021
A multidisciplinary Berkeley Lab team has been working for several years to develop a game-changing plastic that, unlike traditional plastics, can be recycled indefinitely and is not made from petroleum. Their latest milestone was the release of an analysis showing the feasibility and potential outcomes of launching the unique material, called poly(diketoenamine) or PDK, into the market at an... Read more
April 21, 2021
Despite our efforts to sort and recycle, less than 9% of plastic gets recycled in the U.S., and most ends up in landfill or the environment. Biodegradable plastic bags and containers could help, but if they’re not properly sorted, they can contaminate otherwise recyclable #1 and #2 plastics. What’s worse, most biodegradable plastics take months to break down, and when they finally do, they... Read more
October 16, 2020
One day in March, the kids were there. The next day, there was no one. Then on a Saturday in August, a man came into an empty public school in suburban Boston carrying a container of dry ice, trying to figure out how to bring the students back to their desks.Since January, that man, Joseph Allen, a professor at Harvard’s School of Public Health, has been saying to anyone who will listen that... Read more
August 6, 2020
Deep beneath the surface of the Salton Sea, a shallow lake in California’s Imperial County, sits an immense reserve of critical metals that, if unlocked, could power the state’s green economy for years to come. These naturally occurring metals are dissolved in geothermal brine, a byproduct of geothermal energy production. Now the race is on to develop technology to efficiently extract one of... Read more
August 5, 2020
Kristin Persson, a senior faculty scientist in the Energy Storage & Distributed Resources Division within the Energy Technologies Area at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and director of the Materials Project, has been named director of the Molecular Foundry. Her new appointment is effective August 15, 2020. She will continue to hold an appointment as a professor of... Read more
April 6, 2020
Biofuels are an important part of the broader strategy to replace petroleum-based gasoline, diesel, and jet fuels that we use today. However, biofuels have so far not reached cost parity with conventional petroleum fuels.One strategy to make biofuels more competitive is to make plants do some of the work themselves. Scientists can engineer plants to produce valuable chemical compounds, or... Read more
March 12, 2020
Can scientists understand human behavior enough to figure out what drives the choices you make? In fact, it’s called “decision science,” and it’s something that Anna Spurlock, a behavioral economist with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), specializes in.Spurlock (pictured) spearheads the WholeTraveler Transportation Behavior Study, a three-year project that has attempted... Read more
February 27, 2020
Data centers are the backbone supporting the world’s ever-increasing need for internet access, data storage, and networking. Demand for data center services has risen sharply over past decades, and data-intensive technologies promise to increase demand further. New research by a team including Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's (Berkeley Lab's) Arman Shehabi and Sarah Smith shows that... Read more
January 3, 2020
UC Berkeley and Berkeley Lab researchers received notable selection from the American Chemical Society for their recent publication “Control Technology-Driven Changes to In-Use Heavy-Duty Diesel Truck Emissions of Nitrogenous Species and Related Environmental Impacts,” in Environmental Science and Technology. Together, Chelsea Preble, Robert Harley and Thomas Kirchstetter conducted several... Read more