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, […]

The Energy and Resources Group summer instructors understand the complex and interdisciplinary nature of sustainability. All have significant experience teaching and/or professional experience in the subject areas of their courses. For course descriptions and schedule, visit our Summer Curriculum and Schedule page. Instructors listed may be subject to change. SAMUEL EVANS Course: Climate Change Economics […]

ERG’s Dan Kammen on How Decreased CO2 Emissions Shape the Future of Electric Vehicles

In a recent Sustainability Times article, ERG professor Dan Kammen explains how pandemic lockdowns resulted in historic drops in our CO2 emissions. Additionally, Kammen's previous study on how exactly COVID-19 lowered said Co2 emissions was featured in a Berkeley News article, arguing that a move towards greater usage of electric-powered vehicles would "reduce the major greenhouse gas responsible for climate change and global warming". "The greatest reduction of emissions was observed in the ground transportation sector. Largely because of working from home restrictions, transport CO2 emissions decreased by 40% worldwide,” Kammen stated. Read how the pandemic lockdowns decreased Co2 emissions here, and what this means for the future usage of electric vehicles here.

Kammen’s Monitoring of Global CO2 Emissions Reveals Effects of COVID-19 Pandemic

ERG professor Dan Kammen recently co-authored and published a research article, "Near-real-time monitoring of global CO2 emissions reveals the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic", on Nature. The article was featured on various news sources, including AZO Cleantech, ScienceDaily, and StudyFinds. "The greatest reduction of emissions was observed in the ground transportation sector. Largely because of working from home restrictions, transport CO2 emissions decreased by 40% worldwide. In contrast, the power and industry sectors contributed less to the decline, with −22% and −17%, respectively, as did the aviation and shipping sectors," Kammen states in his research.

ERG Professor Harte For Interconnectedness in Support System Reforms

ERG Professor John Harte recently published an article on Environmental Health News giving a roadmap on we can use the same interconnectedness that is spurring catastrophe to instead promote health and sustainability.

housing policy is climate policy Kammen and Senator Wiener: For America’s cities

In an op-ed today in the New York Times, professor Dan Kammen and state Senator Scott Wiener are blunt: “To solve the climate crisis, we have to solve the housing crisis.”

Alumna Laura Schewel Talks Transportation Analytics in ITS International

The January/February 2019 edition of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) International features an interview with ERG alumna Laura Schewel (MS ’11). Schewel is the CEO of Streetlight Data, a transportation analytics company she founded while at ERG. Streetlight Data uses anonymous cellular and GPS navigation data to study transportation patterns and develops analytical software to be […]

ERG’s Kammen Comments on ‘Yellow Vest’ Protests in New York Times

“So while President Macron has highlighted the need for funds to invest in clean energy, that is not actually what was planned,” Mr. Kammen said.

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.

Samuel Miles

Sam Miles is a Ph.D. stu­dent in the Energy and Resources Group, and in the Renew­able and Appro­pri­ate Energy Lab at the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, Berkeley. His research focus is at the inter­sec­tion of the scal­a­bil­ity chal­lenge for elec­tric­ity mini-​​grids and the socio-​​economic char­ac­ter­is­tics of urban­iza­tion in Africa, par­tic­u­larly for the arti­sans and entre­pre­neurs who […]

Arthur Mallet Dias

Arthur is interested in using sustainable innovation as a framework for designing new businesses, services, and products that help tackle climate change. He is particularly interested in promoting sustainability through energy and resource efficiency, solar power deployment, and sustainable mobility, as well as bringing clean water, sanitation, and electricity to the rural and urban poor. […]

Reem Rayef

Reem is a concurrent MPP/ERG student at UC Berkeley. She is broadly interested in leveraging energy policy toward the decarbonization of transportation and transit systems in urban settings. Previously, Reem consulted on energy and climate policy at National Journal, in Washington, DC. She is a native of New Jersey, and is in constant search of […]

Edem Yevoo

Edem received his B.S in Environmental Science and Technology, with a concentration in Ecological Technology Design and minor in Geographic Information Science (GIS) from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2019. Edem is interested in sustainable energy development and natural resource management, in particular, exploring solutions to renewable energy integration and energy access in […]

Nick Clarke

A Discrete-event Simulator to Determine if Public Transit Buses Go Battery Electric Today (MA ’20) A native of Utah, Nick holds a BA in Environmental Studies from Westminster College in Salt Lake City. He has focused his career on real-time environmental monitoring, previous working at Oberlin College and Lucid on energy and resource monitoring. Prior […]

Margaret McCall

Margaret is pursuing an MS/MPP with ERG and the Goldman Policy School. At Berkeley, she hopes to focus on demand flexibility (a key aspect of greening the power grid) and electric vehicles (the future of transportation), and ideally on how the two intersect. She is coming to Berkeley from Rocky Mountain Institute, where her interest […]

Christian Miller

Measuring California’s Energy Service Affordability (MS ’19) 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. […]

Sara Mulhauser

Battery Energy Storage Technology Adoption & Electric Utility Structure (MS ’19) 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 […]

Michelle Levinson

Harnessing Financial Motivation to Drive Transportation Electrification: a Resource for Electric Utility Regulators (MA ’19) 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. […]

Will Gorman

Effects of Electricity Consumption and Rate Design on Solar Plus Storage-enabled Grid Defection (MS ’19) 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 […]