Articles from Berkeley Lab News Center

At the opening day of the Philomathia Foundation Symposium at Berkeley: Pathways to a Sustainable Energy Future, the audience learned the following three facts: as a result of carbon emissions from human activity, our planet’s climate is changing faster than models have predicted; improved energy efficiency alone is not enough to fix the problem, therefore new breakthroughs in sustainable energy technologies are needed; however, as a nation, we spend more money on potato chips than we do on sustainable energy research and development. Graham Fleming (photo by Peg Skorpinski) “The provision of sustainable energy is the defining problem of the 21st century, one that presents a challenge of unprecedented scale. Decisions we make now will influence the planet for thousands of years, and dictate our quality of life in both the near and long term,” said Graham Fleming, Vice Chancellor for Research at the University of California (UC) Berkeley ... (Read Full Article)

Solar cells made from silicon are projected to be a prominent factor in future renewable green energy equations, but so far the promise has far exceeded the reality. While there are now silicon photovoltaics that can convert sunlight into electricity at impressive 20 percent efficiencies, the cost of this solar power is prohibitive for large-scale use. Researchers with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), however, are developing a new approach that could substantially reduce these costs. The key to their success is a better way of trapping sunlight. (Read Full Article)