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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—————————————————————-ERG Colloquium———————————————————— September 20, 2023 Location: 141 Giannini Hall, University of California, Berkeley Time: 16:00 — 17:30 PDT Title: The Power of Health: Accelerating the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals Summary: Clean energy is undergoing a cost and performance revolution, and health, social andgender-justice crises across Africa are exploding. With that background, how do we rapidlyand with resilience accelerate progress […] Read more
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1QO-uBcx1g&t=110s Read more
Timed for publication with the release of the movie Oppenheimer, we published an article on public service by scientists, a the I-M-P-E-A-C-H letter when Prof. Kammen left the Trump Administration, a piece in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, is now available (open access): https://thebulletin.org/premium/2023–07/why-what-happened-to-oppenheimer-then-is-relevant-now/ The full collection of articles is online at: https://thebulletin.org/magazine/2023–07/ To download […] Read more
https://peninsulapress.com/2023/06/13/from-sun-to-sustainability-the-journey-of-solar-panel-recycling/ The growing popularity of solar panels has brought attention to a critical issue: the challenge of recycling these devices at the end of their lifespan. California has become a significant hub for solar panel installations, leading the way in the adoption of solar energy within the United States. With a current installed capacity […] Read more
For the California Magazine article, click here. Count on comedians to nail the zeitgeist. I’m thinking of comics like Marc Maron, whose act riffs off existential pain points like mortality, antisemitism, the delaminating geopolitical situation, and, of course, that multigigaton carbon elephant in the room, climate change. “The reason we’re not more upset about the world […] Read more
A Fruitvale Microgrid Could Inspire Resiliency — if Approved by Sachi Mulkey | May 16, 2023 A Contributor from our Next-Gen Inspiration Team For the original, click here. Two dozen homes in Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood are banding together to give their block a first-of-its-kind sustainability makeover. The EcoBlock, a UC Berkeley research project collaborating with the community, aims […] Read more
By BRITTANY PETERSON and DREW COSTLEY For the original, click here. As 30 energy environment and trade ministers plus 50 CEOs assemble in Paris for the 8th international conference on energy efficiency, the International Energy Agency is urgently calling for greater investment in energy efficiency for factories, cars and appliances to meet international climate goals. The agency […] Read more
April 4: for the original article, click here. California policymakers made headlines in 2021 when they announced new emissions regulations that will ban the sale of new gas-powered vehicles by 2035. As the state inches closer to that date, researchers in UC Berkeley’s Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory (RAEL) are studying how an all-electric fleet will […] Read more
Click here for the new publication in Frontiers of Environmental Science. Citation: Opperman JJ, Carvallo JP, Kelman R, Schmitt RJP, Almeida R, Chapin E, Flecker A, Goichot M, Grill G, Harou JJ, Hartmann J, Higgins J, Kammen DM, Martin E, Martins T, Newsock A, Rogéliz C, Raepple J, Sada R, Thieme ML and Harrison D […] Read more
For the article by Dan Kammen & David Williams in PVMagazine, click here. Read more