Welcome to the 2018/2019 academic year: The Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory (RAEL) is a unique new research, development, project implementation, and community outreach facility based at the University of California, Berkeley in the Energy and Resources Group and the Department of Nuclear Engineering. RAEL focuses on designing, testing, and disseminating renewable and appropriate energy systems. The laboratory’s mission is to help these technologies realize their full potential to contribute to environmentally sustainable development in both industrialized and developing nations while also addressing the cultural context and range of potential social impacts of any new technology or resource management system.
Go to AboutA note to prospective visitors to RAEL:
Due to the high demand for places in RAEL I regret inform to you that we no longer can accept any short-term visitors (months to a year). We now can only accept students who apply to and are accepted in a degree program on campus. If you write to RAEL making this request anyway, your email won’t be returned (because both we receive far too many such requests, and because you have not read/found this announcement on the RAEL home page).
With our regrets,
Dan
To highlight the latest research findings emerging from UC Berkeley and the Berkeley Lab, on sustainability we present Cal Future Forum: Our Changing World, an unusual opportunity to learn directly from leading researchers who are developing solutions to the environmental challenges we face.
In May 2017 over a dozen prominent Berkeley researchers provided a synopsis of the state of the planet, a better understanding of the challenges we face, and the solutions being developed at Berkeley – and being implemented globally. This rare gathering of leading Berkeley scientists, engineers, scholars and policy experts was moderated by prominent radio host, Michael Krasny.
Please visit this page for access to all of the talks.
Go to News & Events
RAEL is a unique collaboration of scholars, activists, policy makers, community groups and engaged leaders from industry all working to to expand our ability to do and put into practice “use-inspired basic research” in words of Donald Stokes. Please visit the RAEL project, student, publication and media pages to find information on our many activities. After a decade of the old RAEL website, this new site is just now being fully populated with our old and new content. Please visit the ‘support RAEL’ pages too, as your interest attention, and support is vitally need to extend and expand our ability to make a difference in accelerating the clean energy transition.
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Today we will discuss opportunities involved in a global effort where RAEL is a partner. Solve Climate by 2030, which has a major event to be hosted (webinar) at UC Berkeley on April 7.
For the event registration, click here. This session will familiarize participants with the tools and challenges to limiting climate change on a global scale. We will use the en-ROADs Climate Action simulation game, a role-play exercise that provides a unique opportunity to explore real world energy challenges by mimicking the UN climate change negotiations. Participants […]
Samira Siddique is a co-organizer, participant and speaker in: The Subir and Malini Chowdhury Center for Bangladesh Studies and the Institute for South Asia Studies are hosting a symposium titled “Beyond the Crisis Narrative: Rohingya Statelessness and its Implications for Bangladesh” on Friday, February 7, 2020, with keynote speaker Hannah Beech, Southeast Asia Bureau Chief for The New York Times and a […]
Agriculture can play a huge role in sequestering carbon and decreasing the amount of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. Up to now, though, there has been little financial incentive for farmers to do so, due to the inability to measure carbon in the soil. That’s changing, though. Last June, Indigo announced its Terraton Initiative that […] Read more
For a recent article in The Beam, on gender, technology and cooking, click here. This article by Grace Mbungu and Daniel Kammen was featured in The Beam #10 – Local Heroes of the Energy Transition. The challenge of providing clean cooking energy services to over 2.7 billion peopleand 850 million or more without reliable electricity services worldwide is […] Read more
For the original piece in Forbes, click here. January 17, 2020 by: Emanuela Barbiroglio Costa Cruises and AIDA Cruises ships calling at Aqaba, Jordan, are offering their guests climate-friendly vegetables from an innovative farm outside the city. The new partnership brings together the Costa Group and the Norwegian non-profit Sahara Forest Project Foundation. The initiative will deliver […] Read more
Take a look at an exciting Assistant Professor position that is available at UC Berkeley relevant to much of the work taking place in RAEL: click here. RECRUITMENT PERIOD Open October 7th, 2019 through Friday, Dec 13, 2019 at 11:59pm (Pacific Time) DESCRIPTION The College of Engineering and the Blum Center for Developing Economies […] Read more
Originally published on the KQED news & discussion pages, Sept 10, 2019. The climate apocalypse is coming and there’s nothing we can do to stop it. At least that’s the thesis of writer Jonathan Franzen, whose recent essay in The New Yorker, titled “What if We Stopped Pretending?,” tapped into a fear about a climate apocalypse that […] Read more
\Teresa Wiltz, USA Today, for the original, click here. Last year, right before Hurricane Florence hit New Bern, a small riverfront city along the North Carolina coast, Martin Blaney rushed to the public housing complex he runs, banging on doors, yelling: “Evacuate, evacuate, evacuate!” When the winds settled and the rains ended in New Bern, Blaney’s […] Read more
Check out this vlog with Vanessa, a UC Berkeley undergraduate and RAEL research scholar. Forbes has now posted an interview with Vanessa, which you can read here. Read more
Congratulations to Patricia Hidalgo-Gonzalez, who was names a 2019 — 2020 Siebel Energy Scholar! The Siebel Scholars program was established by the Thomas and Stacey Siebel Foundation in 2000 to recognize the most talented students at the world’s leading graduate schools of business, computer science, bioengineering, and energy science. Each year, more than 90 graduate […] Read more
RAEL and partners at the World Wildlife Fund and the Nature Conservancy published a paper in American Scientist, on the role of the clean energy revolution in preserving the world’s great rivers. Read it here. The original is here. Read more
National Science Foundation SUPERB (Summer Undergraduate Program In Engineering at Berkeley) scholar Francesca Giardine worked with Dennis Best in RAEL on clean energy for under-served communities for the 2019 Summer. Here she is presenting her research. Have a great year back at Smith College! Read more