ARTICLES AND
NEWS RELEASES
A New Accelerator to Study Steps on the Path to Fusion
May 8, 2012
The just-completed NDCX-II, the second generation Neutralized Drift Compression Experiment at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), is an unusual special-purpose particle accelerator built by DOE's Heavy Ion Fusion Science Virtual National Laboratory (HIFS VNL), whose member institutions are Berkeley Lab, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.
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Berkeley Lab Opens Advanced Biofuels Facility
August 18, 2011
The ailing United States’ economy would receive a much needed boost with the commercial development of a domestic source of transportation fuel – especially if that fuel were to be clean, green and renewable, and could replace gasoline on a gallon-for gallon basis in today’s engines and infrastructures. Helping to make that dream come true is the mission of the Advanced Biofuels Process Demonstration Unit (ABPDU), which officially opened for business by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).
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Tools and Toys for Builders: New Test Center for Low-Energy Buildings
July 19, 2011
All types of snazzy technologies are available these days to make buildings greener: automated shades, electrochromic windows that know when to tint, intelligent lighting controls and smart cooling and heating systems, to name just a few. But how do these components work with each other and with building occupants? What happens when more than one technology is installed in a building? Do the current generation of building energy simulation programs provide accurate predictors of actual energy performance? Unfortunately, these questions are rarely answered since field-testing of integrated building technologies has not been a focus of the building industry.
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Moving Data at the Speed of Science: Berkeley Lab Lays Foundation for 100 Gbps Prototype Network
July 13, 2011
Berkeley, CA. July 13, 2011 — The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) today announced a major step toward creating one of the world’s fastest scientific networks to accelerate research in fields ranging from advanced energy solutions to particle physics. Known as the Advanced Networking Initiative (ANI), the effort represents a $62 million multi-year investment by the DOE Office of Science in next-generation networking technology.
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Catching Carbon with Computer Simulations
September 30, 2010
The Department of Energy is dedicating $40 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds to develop an integrated suite of computer simulation tools that will validate technological concepts for carbon capture and storage technologies. Researchers in the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Computational Research and Material Science Divisions will receive $2 million from the Carbon Capture Simulation Initiative (CCSI) to build a software framework that enables communications between existing modeling tools and provide software development support. More>
Built With Recovery Act Dollars, New Structures Serve Science
September 7, 2010
With major funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has built new lab space for battery researchers and scientists who investigate “metamaterials,” upgraded an aging transformer bank that supplied electricity to the entire site and constructed a modern facility to support thousands of scientists who visit the Laboratory each year to conduct cutting-edge experiments on all manner of matter. More>
Berkeley Lab’s Battery Team Looks Beyond Vehicles to the Electric Grid
July 29, 2010
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, known for having one of the top research programs in the country for batteries and fuel cells for vehicle applications, has decided to enter another area in the battery world. It has been granted $1.6 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds to develop a novel storage device for the electric grid. More>
Berkeley Lab Receives $4 Million in Recovery Act Funding to Develop Computational Methods for Energy-Related Research
June 18, 2010
Researchers in the Computational Research Division (CRD) of the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have received more than $4 million in funding for six projects that will help develop computational methods to answer some of the nation's most pressing questions regarding energy efficiency, climate stabilization, and next-generation, carbon-neutral energy sources. More>
Berkeley Lab’s Preliminary Evaluation of Recovery Act Grant Program Finds Positive Effects on Renewable Energy Capacity and Jobs
May 11, 2010
The Section 1603 Treasury cash grant program appears to have stimulated incremental renewable power capacity additions in 2009, thereby supporting U.S.-based renewable energy jobs, according to a new report by researchers Mark Bolinger, Ryan Wiser, and Naïm Darghouth of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. More>
Berkeley Lab to Receive $8.6 Million in Recovery Act Funding for “Transformational” Energy Research Projects
May 3, 2010
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has been awarded $8.6 million in Recovery Act funding for what the DOE calls “ambitious research projects that could fundamentally change the way the country uses and produces energy.” The money will go towards four separate projects: one that will speed the development of materials that can absorb carbon dioxide emitted from power plants, another that will use a common soil bacterium to produce biofuels, and two that are aimed at developing new high-energy batteries for powering electric vehicles. More>
DOE Announces New Opportunities to Improve Commercial Building Energy Efficiency
April 21, 2010
Three Department of Energy national laboratories will select and fund technical experts to provide technical guidance to commercial building owners and operators. The goal of this Commercial Building Partnerships (CBP) initiative is to increase the energy efficiency of selected new and existing buildings. For more on the announcement, click here. For more on LBNL's work on Net-Zero Energy Commercial Buildings, click here.
Berkeley Lab to Build DOE Advanced Biofuels User Facility
March 31, 2010
The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has been awarded nearly $18 million from the Recovery Act to build an advanced biofuels process development facility. Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) through its Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), this new facility will help expedite the commercialization of next generation biofuels by providing industry-scale test beds for innovative technologies. Called the Advanced Biofuels Process Development Unit (PDU), it will be the only facility of its kind available for public use. More>
Berkeley Lab Awarded $12.8 Million in Stimulus Funds for Health Research
January 19, 2010
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has been awarded $12.8 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for research into cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, radioactive decontamination and a variety of other health conditions. More>
Berkeley Lab awarded $15.9 million in Recovery Act Funding for new Net-Zero Energy Buildings National User Facility
December 10, 2009
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory will build and operate a new National User Facility for Net-Zero Energy Buildings using a competitively selected award of $15.9 million in stimulus funds from the U.S. Department of Energy. More>
Berkeley Lab Receives $7 Million for Enhanced Geothermal Energy Technologies
October 29, 2009
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has been awarded $7 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding for four projects that seek to advance Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS), which is capable of harnessing the Earth’s heat where conventional geothermal technologies cannot. More>
Small Businesses Benefit from Berkeley Lab's Recovery Act Funds
October 28, 2009
As funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act start to flow into Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, much of that funding is flowing out to small businesses. More>
On the Road to Fusion Energy, an Accelerator to Study Warm Dense Matter
October 14, 2009
Imagine yourself at the core of Jupiter, a planet 300 times the mass of Earth. At 35,000 degrees Fahrenheit, you and I might think it’s hot in here, but to a physicist it’s merely warm – warm dense matter, to be precise, stuff that hasn’t quite undergone thermonuclear fusion yet. More>
DOE to explore scientific cloud computing at Argonne, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories
October 14, 2009
Cloud computing is gaining traction in the commercial world, but can such an approach also meet the computing and data storage demands of the nation’s scientific community? A new program funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act through the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) will examine cloud computing as a cost-effective and energy-efficient computing paradigm for scientists to accelerate discoveries in a variety of disciplines, including analysis of scientific data sets in biology, climate change and physics. More>
Berkeley Lab Receives $1.8 Million in Recovery Act
Funding to Help Federal Agencies Improve Energy Efficiency
September 9, 2009
Through $1.8 million in funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Berkeley Lab scientists will provide technical expertise to help federal energy managers with advanced energy-efficient technologies in lighting, HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning), and control systems. More >
Berkeley Lab Researchers Receive Recovery Act Funds
to Help Improve Reliability of Electrical Grid
September 1, 2009
The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) announced today that mathematicians from its Computational Research Division (CRD) are receiving Recovery Act funds to help increase the reliability of the electrical grid and improve the nation's ability to respond to energy disruptions. More >
Advanced Light Source Receives $11.3 Million
to Enable New Types of Scientific Inquiry
August 19, 2009
What can you do with x-rays that are 10 billion times brighter than those from your doctor’s x-ray machine? A lot! Scientists using the powerful beam lines at Berkeley Lab’s Advanced Light Source in recent years have conducted breakthrough research on platinum-nickel alloys as a catalyst for fuel cells, made a discovery about the Ebola virus structure that could lead to a vaccine, and crafted a new technique for guiding self-assembly of nanostructures that should open up vistas for entirely new applications. More >
Berkeley Lab’s ESnet Receives $62 Million
to Develop World’s Fastest Computer Network
August 10, 2009
As scientists in a wide variety of disciplines increasingly rely on supercomputers and collaboration with colleagues around the world to advance their research, managing and sharing the mountain of data generated by their investigations will soon become a choking point. In order to facilitate such data-intensive research, ESnet, the Department of Energy’s high-performance networking facility managed by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, is receiving $62 million to develop what will be the world’s fastest computer network, designed specifically to support science. More >
Berkeley Lab Receives an Additional $40.3 Million
in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Funding
August 4, 2009
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced that the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) will receive $40.3 million in funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to support research in biofuels, fusion energy and the nation’s power grid and to ensure scientists have state-of-the-art equipment for their investigations. More >
BELLA Accelerating Science by Accelerating Electrons
June 25, 2009
Berkeley Lab scientists stunned the world in 2006 when they proved they could accelerate electrons to very high energies (1 GeV, or a billion electron volts) in a distance of centimeters rather than hundreds of meters. Using the same concepts, those scientists plan to take the project to the next level and build a laser-based accelerator capable of zapping electron beams to energies exceeding 10 GeV in a distance of just one meter. More >
Federal Stimulus Funds Get to Work at Berkeley Lab
May 1, 2009
With the arrival of the first portion of the $115.8 million in federal stimulus funding allocated to Berkeley Lab, work has already started to inject the money directly into the economy. The Lab’s Facilities division, which will receive the majority of the funds, since much of it is slated for laboratory construction and infrastructure, has hired project managers and other personnel and is poised to assign new work to subcontractors. More >
Berkeley Lab to Receive $115.8 Million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Funding
March 23, 2009
BERKELEY, CA – The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced that the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) will receive $115.8 million from President Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. More >
