07 April 2011
States: Playing to Clean Energy Strengths
By Oakley Brooks
There’s a lot of hand-wringing these days about the mediocre American record on clean energy. No federal climate legislation. No federal mandates for clean electricity. And when Americans look to incentive-laden Europe or to the huge clean-tech investments being made in China and Korea, we feel like an aged, belching Geo Metro being passed on both sides by sleek bullet trains. President Obama calls it our “Sputnik moment,†referring to the 1957 Soviet launch of the first satellite into space, which kicked the U.S. space program into high gear and led to quick creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration or NASA. He’s hoping the nation will be similarly spurred into a new age of innovation — this time on energy.
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Posted by Pinar Aybar at 0:55
05 May 2004
The New Consumers: Future Challenges to Sustainability
by Kelly Hill
The new consumers are coming, and they have a dramatic environmental impact.
Norman Myers, who has been called the Paul Revere of the environmental movement, brought that message to a crowd at the Alumni House as the guest lecturer at Tuesday afternoon’s William Main Distinguished Visitor lecture by the College of Natural Resources’ Center for Forestry. Due to the rapid development of countries such as China, Mexico, South Africa, India and Brazil, the wall-to-wall poverty of decades past is giving rise to a new global middle class.
Myers, who grew up in northern England and earned his undergraduate and masters degrees at Oxford, received his Ph.D. from Berkeley’s College of Natural Resources in 1973. He has worked in countries around the world and received many awards for his work in the environmental arena. He is at Berkeley to receive the Haas International Award, to be presented at the campus Commencement Convocation ceremony on May 13.
While Myers noted that the swift rise from poverty has vastly improved the lives of millions, he also sounded cautionary notes on what could happen if all global consumers follow the same path as wealthy nations such as the U.S.. And, he said, wealthy countries themselves need to take a hard look at their resource consumption.
“We in the rich world can’t start being critical of folks on the horizon unless we are setting a massive, undeniable example ourselves,†Myers said.
Myers said that the long-standing ultra-rich number about 850 million in a world of 6.1 billion. The new consumers could reach 1.1 billion people in 17 developing countries, with 300 million in China alone.
But the environmental impact of providing houses, food and electricity-powered appliances, televisions and computers to those new consumers could, as Myers put it, have the world bumping against the ceiling of its natural resources
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Posted by Eva St. Clair at 9:42
09 December 2009
What Can Be Accomplished from the Copenhagen Conference?
Reprinted from the Los Angeles Times
by Prof. David Roland-Holst
Because it respects no borders, the atmosphere is the ultimate public resource. Yet until now, air quality and climate have been thought of as matters of only local or national interest. That is changing. We now know that all of our striving for prosperity is altering the climate.
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Posted by Eva St. Clair at 8:31
03 November 2009
Discussing the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act
Professor Michael Hanemann of ARE discusses S.1733, the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, on KPFA's "Letters to Washington."
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Posted by Eva St. Clair at 1:56
01 November 2009
A New ARE Study Projects Growth Dividend from Comprehensive National Climate Policy
As the U.S. Senate debates clean energy and climate legislation, a new economic analysis finds that strong federal policy could stimulate both employment and income growth across the national economy. The new study was conducted by the University of California in collaboration with University of Illinois and Yale University and provides an in-depth, state-by-state examination of the impacts of three pillars of federal legislation: energy efficiency, renewable energy and limits on carbon pollution.
“This report shows that stronger federal energy and climate policies are compatible with economic growth,†said the report’s lead author David Roland-Holst, Adjunct Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics at UC Berkeley. “Those who say we cannot afford to take action now may not understand the opportunity we stand to lose by not acting. By revenue, energy is the world’s largest industry, yet traditional energy use patterns have created unsustainable carbon liabilities that threaten all of us. The next great knowledge-intensive sector will arise in an emerging multi-billion dollar global clean energy market. To participate in this technology breakout, we need policies that price carbon risk responsibly and create appropriate incentives for investors and innovators.â€
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Posted by Eva St. Clair at 2:04
08 October 2009
Algae Power
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Posted by Eva St. Clair at 1:21
13 May 2009
Green leaders from the Bay Area: Chris Somerville
The San Francisco Chronicle recently highlighted plant biologist Chris Somerville, director of the Energy Biosciences Institute, among 10 Bay Area entrepreneurs, scientists and policymakers at the vanguard of a revolution that aims to reinvent the way people use water, power their cars, build their houses and live their lives.
"They might not become household names," wrote the Chronicle, "but their research, policy papers and startups could shape the way many households run in the years to come." The story continues:
As a plant biochemist, Chris Somerville has pioneered the search for clean liquid-fuel sources harnessed from the solar energy stored in nonfood plants. Somerville is director of the Energy Biosciences Institute at UC Berkeley, an ambitious project financed by a $500 million grant from BP, the British oil company. It is the world's largest alliance between industry and academia.
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Posted by Cyril at 8:57
30 January 2009
Green Perspectives: David Roland-Holst
In a recent conversation with Green Technology magazine, Professor David Roland-Holst, co-author of two key reports on green economic policies, discussed workforce creation, federal stimulus money and governmental policymaking.
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Posted by Cyril at 7:14
18 November 2008
The staggering cost of climate change quantified for California
Hot on the heels of a report demonstrating the economic opportunities available to California if it invests in policies to address climate change, ARE adjunct professor David Roland-Holst has released a new study showing the enormous costs to the state posed by global warming.
About $2.5 trillion of real estate assets in California are at risk, with a projected annual price tag of between $300 million and $3.9 billion, according to the report.
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Posted by Cyril at 1:27
17 October 2008
On Biofuels: CNR Professors from the Energy Bioscience Institute
Above, Chris Somerville, professor of plant and microbial biology and director of the Energy Biosciences Institute, discusses the future of cellulosic biofuels.
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Posted by Cyril at 4:55
15 January 2008
The Power of Green Algae
Professor Tasios Melis is unlocking the chemical power of green algae to create clean hydrogen fuel that eliminates air-polluting fossil fuels in its production. Check out "Power of Green," a segment from Fueling America, the latest episode of USDA CSREES video magazine.
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Posted by Cyril at 9:16
01 August 2007
China's Chance to Lead
This op-ed, by Assistant Professor Max Auffhammer and UCSD economist Richard Carson, originally appeared in the Washington Post on August 2, 2007.
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Posted by Cyril at 3:20
06 April 2007
Increased production of biofuels might help farmers & address climate change, but it could inflate food prices
From the Associated Press:
Increased production of biofuels such as ethanol might help farmers' bottom lines and address climate-change concerns, but it could inflate food prices worldwide, warns a former White House economist.
"Worldwide, especially in developing countries ... food price increases are definitely something we're going to have to come to grips with," said David Sunding, who served on former President Bill Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers.
Sunding, an [agricultural resources and economics] professor at the University of California, Berkeley, spoke on March 26 to water experts at a conference at the University of Nebraska.
The combination of rising energy prices and the demand for corn, which is used to produce ethanol, will continue to drive up commodity prices, he said.
Corn prices have already begun to soar. A rush to turn more land into corn production could decrease supplies of other commodities, driving up prices of them as well.
The resulting higher market prices could then dampen the public's support for government subsidies that are designed to help farmers reap profits when markets are down.
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Posted by Cyril at 8:28
14 March 2007
Does Early Daylight Savings Really Save Energy?
Thanks to Congress, the U.S. "sprang forward" three weeks early this year, and daylight savings time will last one week longer in the fall. The idea behind the switch is energy conservation.
But as reported here in January, two ARE researchers, doctoral students Ryan Kellogg and Hendrik Wolff, found that a similar switch in Australia didn't meet the mark. Now that the the bleary-eyed mornings and brighter evenings are upon us, their work is getting a lot more attention:
Daylight Savings Might Not Save Energy (Video - ABC News)
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Posted by Cyril at 0:00
24 January 2007
Six Nobel Laureates on climate crisis: "There is no time"
A campus colloquium on "Energy Self-Sufficiency in the 21st Century" recently took the global climate crisis as the starting point for a freewheeling discussion among some of the world's top thinkers. Issues covered included the urgent need to make conservation a national way of life, getting the U.S. public to accept nuclear reactors, and persuading the U.S. government to serve as a world leader in developing clean, renewable energy sources.
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Posted by Cyril at 0:58
19 January 2007
Relying on Berkeley research, California establishes groundbreaking carbon standard for fuels
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has issued an executive order calling for California to establish the world's first carbon standard for transportation fuels. (Read about it in the Governor's op-ed here.)
Relying on research by David Roland-Holst, adjunct professor in ARE, the governor writes:
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Posted by Cyril at 1:20
11 January 2007
Springing forward may not help save energy
Springing forward may not help save energy, according to a study by two graduate students in Agricultural and Resource Economics.
From Bloomberg:
U.S. plans to cut electricity usage by lengthening daylight saving time may backfire, the report said. Lengthening daylight saving time by several weeks was included in energy legislation passed in 2005, with the goal of saving energy equivalent to 100,000 barrels of oil a day.
Extending daylight saving time may actually result in increased electricity demand as additional usage during morning hours cancels out the reduced demand in the evening, according to the Berkeley study. The paper analyzed electricity usage in Australia, which lengthened its daylight saving time by two months while hosting the 2000 Olympics.
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Posted by Cyril at 5:40
02 May 2006
Aurora BioFuels Takes Top Prize in the UC Berkeley Business Plan Competition
Aurora BioFuels, an alternative energy company based on technology developed by microbial biology professor and hydrogen fuel pioneer Tasios Melis, won both first prize and the People's Choice Award in the eighth annual UC Berkeley Business Plan Competition, held on April 27 at the Haas School of Business.
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Posted by Cyril at 6:12
20 April 2006
Energy Symposium: The "Rosenfeld Effect"
Eleven eminent scientists will speak on Friday, April 28 on topical energy issues at this day-long symposium honoring their colleague, California Energy Commissioner, UC Berkeley Professor Emeritus, and energy efficiency pioneer Arthur H. Rosenfeld, on the occasion of his 80th birthday. Rosenfeld has also just received the prestigious Enrico Fermi Award (press release here).
Sessions of The "Rosenfeld Effect" Energy Symposium will discuss the role of increased energy efficiency in California, in China, and on a global scale; the intersection of energy and safe drinking water in the developing world; the twin challenges of mitigating climate change and sustaining orderly markets in fluid fuels; how to turn good science into good politics; and defining, predicting, and coping with global warming.
8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.
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Posted by Cyril at 6:29
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