Energy, Climate & Environment News

Computer simulations show that a driver of annual weather cycles has gone unrecognized: the changing distance between Earth and the sun.

New research on the Cyprinodon diabolis documents the extreme effect that these harsh conditions have had on its genetic diversity.

Trees in the West provide ecosystem services for the Pacific fisher, whose population in the southern Sierra Nevada population is endangered.

Visitors to Yosemite Valley gape in awe at El Capitan and the Half Dome, aware, perhaps vaguely, that rain and glaciers took a long time to sculpt the landscape.

Oil and gas prices skyrocketed following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in spring 2022, creating a global energy crisis similar to the oil crisis of the 1970s. While some countries used the price shock to accelerate the transition to cleaner sources of energy, such as wind, solar and geothermal, others have responded by expanding the production of fossil fuels.

Researchers at UC Berkeley have discovered a pronounced role of California’s recent droughts in driving the transmission of Valley fever in the state.

New analysis led by researchers from Rausser College of Natural Resources and the University of Cambridge offers insight into the trajectory of energy research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) that may help policymakers recalibrate their strategy to drive innovation. Published September 12 in the journal Nature Energy, the findings show that participating in Mission Innovation, a new form of international cooperation, and intensifying technology competition from China are the strongest drivers of funding for new clean energy RD&D.

A new study led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and the nonprofit Resources for the Future (RFF) estimates that the social cost of carbon — a key metric for evaluating the future cost of climate change — is more than three times the value currently used by the U.S. federal government.

Solar panels, also known as photovoltaics, rely on semiconductor devices, or solar cells, to convert energy from the sun into electricity. Manufacturers typically dope the solar cell with chemicals so that one layer of the device bears a positive charge and another layer a negative charge. But chemical doping and layered synthesis also add extra costly steps in solar cell manufacturing.

After decades of inaction and failed attempts, the U.S. has finally passed federal legislation addressing climate change. The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is groundbreaking not only in its efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but also in how it demonstrates that we don’t have to choose between good jobs and action on the climate.

An analysis by climate scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, finds that the apparent temperature, or heat index, calculated by meteorologists and the National Weather Service (NWS) to indicate how hot it feels — taking into account the humidity — underestimates the perceived temperature for the most sweltering days we’re now experiencing, sometimes by more than 20 degrees Fahrenheit.

As wildfires become more frequent and severe due to climate change, it’s increasingly important to determine how and when the resultant smoke will move toward communities. To assist with predictions, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) turned to Tina Katopodes Chow, UC Berkeley professor of civil and environmental engineering, and her students.

Coming from a long line of Iowa farmers, David Savage always thought he would do research to improve crops. That dream died in college, when it became clear that any genetic tweak to a crop would take at least a year to test; for some perennials and trees, it could take five to 10 years. Faced with such slow progress, he chose to study the proteins in photosynthetic bacteria instead. But the advent of CRISPR changed all that.

The Energy & Biosciences Institute (EBI), headquartered at UC Berkeley, has renewed its partnership with Shell, entering into a new five-year research agreement, effective February 28, 2022, to continue funding research that meets the growing demand for energy in ways that are economically, environmentally, and socially responsible.

In Berkeley Talks episode 143, a panel of UC Berkeley experts discuss climate displacement — what it means to abandon places, the power dynamics between the Global South and the Global North, challenges for both the sending and receiving regions, and what needs to happen to address this fast-growing problem.

On Thursday, a panel of leading scholars will join Daniel Aldana Cohen, UC Berkeley assistant professor of sociology and director of the Socio-Spatial Climate Collaborative, to discuss how addressing the climate crisis requires tackling these long-standing racial and global inequalities and also dismantling the political and economic systems that created them.