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For decades, California has used groundbreaking tools to collect and analyze emissions data from a variety of sources to establish a scientific basis for policy making. As its scope has expanded to include greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions, it has sought out similar tools to use to achieve the goals of legislation such as the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (AB 32).To support this effort,... Read more

A team of researchers in the Environmental Energy Technologies Division led by Hanna Breunig has published a paper analyzing regional options for managing brine from carbon capture and sequestration projects. The research, described in a feature article here, looks at how brine brought to the surface from saline aquifers during the process of carbon sequestration might be managed and used in other... Read more

Using measuring techniques that combine video with devices measuring particulate matter, black carbon and nitrogen oxides in real time, scientists at the Environmental Energy Technologies Division (EETD) of Berkeley Lab have verified that policies designed to reduce the emissions of particulates from trucks driving onto the Port of Oakland have been effective.The paper describing their results, by... Read more

Researchers estimate that those of us in developed countries spend 90 percent of our time indoors, which means that most of the time we are breathing air polluted by emissions from indoor sources. Providing more outdoor air ventilation can improve indoor air quality; however, energy is needed to heat, cool, humidify or dehumidify, and sometimes filter the ventilation air brought indoors from... Read more

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is seeking participants for a study of air quality in California homes. The study is being conducted by scientists in the Environmental Energy Technologies Division of Berkeley Lab. This project is funded by the California Energy Commission and is focused on homes with natural gas appliances. Individuals who are selected to participate and complete the... Read more

Scientists in Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Environmental Energy Technologies Division (EETD), in cooperation with colleagues throughout the Lab, have formed a team to evaluate the impacts of low-carbon and energy-efficient technologies that are still in the laboratory. Development of these technologies is part of a Lab-wide effort called Carbon Cycle 2.0, focused on sustainable energy... Read more

Current standards for U.S. offices require approximately 8 liters per second (L/s) of outdoor air ventilation per person. Providing twice as much ventilation would reduce sick building syndrome symptoms (SBS) and absences, improve work performance, and provide billions of dollars in annual economic benefits in the U.S., according to a recent study from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory... Read more

Recently, EETD's Thomas Kirchstetter, and Tim Dallman and Robert Harley of the University of California, Berkeley, presented the results of a study on the emissions of PM (particulate matter) and NOx (nitrogen oxides) from trucks at the Port of Oakland. The occasion was an August 4th hearing in Oakland, California, convened by Alameda County supervisors to discuss requirements that trucks... Read more

A paper by William Fisk, Anna Mirer, and Mark Mendell has received a "best paper" award from the editors of the journal Indoor Air.According to the citation, "Quantitative relationship of sick building syndrome symptoms with ventilation rates," was "one of the top papers published in the journal during the years 2008-2010."The authors were honored at one of the plenary sessions of the Indoor Air... Read more

"California's Energy Future - The View to 2050" looks a generation ahead at what's required to reach the goal of reducing the state's greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent below the 1990 level by 2050. Several researchers in the Environmental Energy Technologies Division participated in developing this study, the result of a multi-institutional partnership to examine energy futures to reduce... Read more

Thomas McKone, Leader of the Environmental Chemistry, Exposure, and Risk Group of the Environmental Energy Technologies Division, has been quoted extensively in the news media on the transport and health risks of radiation from Japan.McKone will be a speaker at the Western Occupational and Environmental Medical Association webinar on April 6 at 12:00 Pacific Time titled "Public and Worker Health... Read more

Michael Sohn, Staff Scientist and Leader of the Airflow and Pollutant Transport Group, EETD, is serving on a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Science Advisory Panel, Office of Pesticide Programs. The purpose of the panel is to review a probabilistic approach to source-to-outcome health risk assessments.... Read more

The Healthy Zero Energy Buildings (HZEB) website has made its debut.The HZEB research program's goal is to develop the information needed for scientifically-sound commercial building ventilation standards that balance energy efficiency objectives with the need to maintain acceptable indoor air quality.Zero (net) energy buildings have a net energy consumption of zero over a typical year. The... Read more

Buildings are responsible for a large fraction of total U.S. energy demand and buildings are replaced slowly. About one third of the U.S. population lives in multifamily buildings. The residents of multifamily buildings often have below-average incomes and they are sometimes exposed to high levels of potentially harmful indoor contaminants. The U.S. is embarking on a program of aggressive energy... Read more

Another reason for including asthma on the list of potential health risks posed by secondhand tobacco smoke, especially for non-smokers, has been uncovered. Furthermore, the practice of using ozone to remove the smell of tobacco smoke from indoor environments, including hotel rooms and the interiors of vehicles, is probably a bad idea.... Read more

Nicotine in third-hand smoke, the residue from tobacco smoke that clings to virtually all surfaces long after a cigarette has been extinguished, reacts with the common indoor air pollutant nitrous acid to produce dangerous carcinogens. This new potential health hazard was revealed in a multi-institutional study led by researchers with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).... Read more

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... Read more

Emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from local sources in California are higher than previously thought, according to direct measurements made by a research team led by Marc Fischer at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Environmental Energy Technologies Division (EETD). Attempting to pinpoint the source of the added emissions, the collaborative team, including EETD and National... Read more

Dan Rather Reports, a newsmagazine show airing on HDNet, interviewed Marc Fischer of the Environmental Energy Technologies Division for a segment about reducing greenhouse gas emissions through carbon offsets. Fischer's research focuses on measuring regional emissions of greenhouse gases through direct measurement. The show aired November 11.... Read more

An NAS report estimates the hidden costs of energy production and use in 2005 were $120 billion with the single largest expense attributed to health damage from air pollution associated with electricity generation and motor vehicle transportation.... Read more

Research conducted at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory suggests that operating buildings more energy efficiently could have benefits for the health of occupants and, surprisingly, also for their comfort.The researchers, Mark Mendell and Anna Mirer of Berkeley Lab's Environmental Energy Technologies Division, analyzed data collected from 95 air-conditioned office... Read more