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 to 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
Community groups are protesting logging and mega-dam development in Sarawak. RAEL is working with the community groups to explore sustainable energy, land-use and community options for the region. Read more on our Clean Energy Solutions for Borneo page.
Go to Clean Energy Solutions for Borneo
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.
RAEL lab members gather under the ‘Nobel Tree’ at UC Berkeley — March, 2016
Front row: Left to right
Rebekah Shirley, Nikky Avila, Lindsay Holliday, Noah Kittner, Deborah Sunter, Susanna Arrecha, David Mozersky
Back row: Left to right
Jalel Sager, Sergio Castellanos, Josiah Johnston, Chris Jones, Shuba Bhagavan, Jose Lara, Daniel Kammen, Benjamin Maluenda
Missing:
Anne-Perrine Avrin, Diego Ponce de Leon, Juan-Pablo Carvallo, Patricia Hidalgo-Gonzalez
Actualizing the Vision of Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home Roundtable at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences November 2, 2016 Laudato Si’ is a powerful text, political and poetic, and deeply inspiring. It addresses the most critical issues of our time in vision and substance. It elucidates the necessity and means of “individual […] Read more
Featured in June 2017 The Promise of Berkeley The EcoBlock website is here. And also featured in Scientific American. Read more
Key quote: “The fossil-free economy is already profitable.” To access this paper at the Nature website, click here. To access this paper and supporting materials from the RAEL website, click here. Read more
Sustainable Design of Communities: Moving beyond a focus on solar roofs for single-family homes, ambitious projects are attempting to join blocks of buildings into sustainable units Published in Scientific American and in the RAEL publications list here. June 26, 2017 Moving beyond a focus on solar roofs for single-family homes, ambitious projects are attempting to join blocks of buildings into sustainable units […] Read more
Our paper now available from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: Previous analyses have found that the most feasible route to a low-carbon energy future is one that adopts a diverse portfolio of technologies. In contrast, Jacobson et al. (2015) consider whether the future primary energy sources for the United States could be narrowed to […] Read more
This profile of ERG undergraduate concentrator and RAEL student Brooke Maushund, appeared in the College of Natural Resources newsletter here. Best study spot on campus? I’ve spent a lot of time on the 4th floor of CITRIS, but East Asian Library has been my steadfast home — you can’t beat those giant glass walls. Best Cal […] Read more
Forum with Michael Krasny — Friday, June 2: Listen live or download the podcast “Trump is AWOL but California is on the field, ready for battle.” That’s how California governor Jerry Brown responded to President Trump’s announcement Thursday that the United States will pull out of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. Governor […] Read more
May 1, 2017, San Francisco — The Program on Conflict, Climate Change and Green Development, part of UC Berkeley’s Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory, convened on April 28, 2017, the first of two expert workshops on the Peace Renewable Energy Credit (PREC). A newly developed financing mechanism, the PREC is designed to encourage renewable energy investment […] Read more
April 27, 2017, PV News. Kosovo must do more for renewables, European Union says Citing a RAEL study, authored by Noah Kittner and Daniel Kammen along with colleagues from KOSID in Kosovo, the European Commission has said that Kosovo’s government needs to increase efforts to improve its energy system, and to provide more support for renewables, although […] Read more
Despite Its Oil-Industry Past, Energy Transitions Commission Foresees A Full-Renewables Future by Jeff McMahon, based in Chicago. Follow Jeff McMahon on Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter, or email him here. Renewables could provide nearly all the power in some regions in less than 20 years, reliably, and at a cost competitive with fossil fuels, according to a report released today […] Read more