ERG has a small core faculty but a much larger group (100+) of affiliated faculty. Affiliated faculty are based in other departments on campus or at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and share ERG’s commitment to shared learning and interdisciplinary work.  They are advisors, mentors, or employers to ERG students, and serve on master’s project, […]

Costa Rica’s Promise to Phase Out Fossil Fuels

Costa Rica’s president-elect Carlos Alvarado announced his goal to remove gasoline and diesel from the country’s transportation plans by 2021, its 200 year anniversary of independence. This promise marks the first time a Costa Rican leader has backed such a move, though green organizations have previously urged it. While completely eliminating fossil fuels within three years may […]

Cost Efficiency

“What would it look like if all Yellow Cabs in Manhattan were replaced with self-driving electric taxis? How much battery range would they need, and where would you put charging stations? How much would it cost to ride in a robotaxi, and what would the environmental impact be?” These are the questions posed by ERG […]

Transportation Emissions in Mexico City – How Big Data is Driving Change

Mexico City is one of the most congested cities in the world, and it’s taking a toll on the health of its citizens and the environment. Sergio Castellanos, a postdoctoral scholar with Energy and Resources Group, along with Dan Kammen and other researchers from UC Berkeley and the National Institute of Ecology and Climate Change […]

ERG’s EcoBlock Project Selected by Scientific American as a World Changing Idea for 2017

The Oakland EcoBlock Project is an urban sustainability experiment that focuses on reducing the footprint of a typical neighborhood block. As a mini-grid system for shared energy and water in a low-income community, it has the potential to encourage more efficient resource usage and shared clean transportation, and to promote far broader social and racial […]

New ERG Chair Daniel M. Kammen

We are pleased to announce the appointment of the new Energy and Resources Group Chair, Professor Daniel M. Kammen. His appointment began July 1, 2017. Daniel Kam­men is a Pro­fes­sor of Energy with appoint­ments in the Energy and Resources Group, The Gold­man School of Pub­lic Pol­icy, and the Depart­ment of Nuclear Engi­neer­ing at the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley. […]

Jones & Kammen compare neighborhood footprints

The first-of-its-kind interactive map was produced by the University of California, Berkeley’s CoolClimate Network and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, and covers census block groups –neighborhoods of several hundred to a few thousand households – in the nine-county area. Neighborhoods with relatively high emissions for any component of their carbon footprints show up […]

but scientists say the work’s just begun. Obama’s Clean Power Plan is finally out

ERG Professor Daniel Kammen was featured in two magazine publications regarding Obama's Clean Power Plan and the impacts it might have on the U.S. population.

On a plane? Enjoy the view of the planet you’re killing!

ERG alum Chris Jones (MS '05, PhD '15) explains the level in which airplanes contribute to the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

ERG Grad Student Selected To Represent UC Berkeley in Sacramento

Rachel Golden will share her views in the state capital in April.

RAEL at UN Climate Summit

SWITCH model selected as a "Project to Watch" by the UN's Big Data Climate Challenge.

Upcoming Certificate Course on Economic Impact of Climate and Energy Policy

3-day cer­tifi­cate course Oct 3-5, offer­ing a prac­ti­cal per­spec­tive on the eco­nomic effects of cli­mate and energy policy.

50% of U.S. household carbon footprint Suburban sprawl

Chris Jones (ERG PhD) and Prof. Dan Kammen point out that U.S. households are responsible for about 20% of annual worldwide greenhouse gas emissions, which are driving climate change.

Christian Miller

Christian is fascinated by energy end-uses’ effect on communities’ economic and political well-being. While his formal scientific background is in biorenewable resources, his focus is on the sustainable development of holistic energy solutions based on socioeconomic, geographic, and natural resource characteristics for communities both domestic and developing abroad. As well, Christian is interested in the […]

Sara Mulhauser

Sara is an architect who delved into distributed generation while developing fuel cell projects for Bloom Energy. She became interested in the energy industry in general, and specifically the regulatory and finance conditions that make markets more open to uptake of innovative technologies. While her focus is in energy, she is also interested in how […]

Michelle Levinson

Michelle is a concurrent degree student at the Goldman School of Public Policy and the Energy Resources Group. Prior to graduate school, she worked in political, legal, and regulatory advocacy at the Natural Resources Defense Council and NextGen Climate America. Michelle is currently interested in the financial impacts of climate change, but also likes to […]

Will Gorman

Will’s primary research interests involve assessing the opportunity for distributed energy resources to participate on the electric system while investigating their technical impact on the grid. Prior to joining ERG, he worked for the Brattle Group’s utilities group in Boston studying electricity markets and renewable energy. He holds a B.S. in chemical engineering and a […]

Gordon Bauer

Transportation has long been dominated by the personal gasoline-powered automobile, but breakthroughs in electric vehicles, shared mobility, and automation promise to disrupt the sector. Gordon’s research focuses on leveraging these disruptions to maximize both social and environmental sustainability, drawing on insights from a variety of disciplines to understand how people might interact with these new […]

Adam Orford

Adam returned to graduate school after a career as an attorney specializing in environmental, energy, and natural resources litigation. He came to Berkeley to focus on what the law can be, and should be. His research interests – ranging across the environmental, energy, and natural resources sectors – include public policy analysis and development, public […]

José Daniel Lara

Jose Daniel was born in San José Costa Rica, received his B.Sc. and Licentiate in Electrical Engineering from the University of Costa Rica in 2009 and 2012 respectively, his M.Sc. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Waterloo, Canada in 2014, and his M.S. in Energy and Resources from the University of […]

Kaito Umemura

Kaito's research focuses on the dynamics of stochastic variables and probability distribution functions, which describe the behavior of macroscopic environments, such as ecological systems, climate systems and human social systems.

Plastics Recycling: A Peek at the Future (’87 M.A.)

Measuring Solid Waste to Realize the Potential of Source Reduction (’90 M.A.)