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At the second annual UC Berkeley Sustainability Summit, held last Thursday, the campus honored the green-minded among us and awarded grants to six campus units through the Chancellor’s Green Campus Fund. It also unveiled hot-off-the-press copies of the “UC Berkeley Campus Sustainability Assessment,” a 122-page environmental report card on diverse campus systems, ranging from water use in toilets to the fuel efficiency of campus vehicles.

The first step in cleaning up the environment is plugging in our cars, says Clintonista-turned-Brookings-scholar David Sandalow.

The BATT Program — Batteries for Advanced Transportation Technologies — is a $6 million program of the Department of Energy's Office of FreedomCAR and Vehicle Technologies, which is developing a new generation of batteries for use in electric, hybrid-electric, and plug-in hybrid-electric vehicles. Berkeley Lab's Environmental Energy Technologies Division (EETD) assists DOE in managing BATT Program research at Berkeley Lab and other national labs, universities, and private companies.

UC energy experts release their much-anticipated blueprint for fighting global warming by reducing the amount of carbon emitted when transportation fuels are used in California. This "low carbon fuel standard," designed to stimulate improvements in transportation-fuel technologies, is expected to become the foundation for similar initiatives in other states, as well as nationally and internationally.

Hybrid electric cars drive away oil imports

DaimlerChrysler officially handed the keys to the F-Cell, the company's limited production hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, to UC Berkeley transportation researchers on Dec. 20 as part of a two-year field test. The project is connected to the U.S. Department of Energy's effort to assess the viability of hydrogen vehicle and infrastructure technology in real world settings.

Six campus units have combined to launch the new Joint Center on Transportation Sustatinability Research, naming Alex Farrell Director. The Center will provide opportunities for students, faculty, policymakers and industry to develop the skills and insights needed to solve critical challenges in transportation, according to Farrell.

The Institute of Transportation Studies has joined forces with the city of Chengdu, China, and Southwest Jiaotong University to help Chengdu design and implement a wholly integrated transit system, as part of the new UC Berkeley-based Urban Sustainability Initiative (USI). The initiative is intended to foster collaborations between UC Berkeley and a wide range of institutions in Asia, Africa, and Latin America to match the latest knowledge available with decision-makers for implementation in the world's fastest growing urban areas. The USI is administered by the Berkeley Institute of the Environment and is comprised of several elements.

The development of hydrogen fuel cells for vehicles, the ultimate green dream in transportation energy, is another step closer. Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) have identified a new variation of a familiar platinum-nickel alloy that is far and away the most active oxygen-reducing catalyst ever reported.

UC Berkeley will play a key role in California's strategy to combat global warming, with scientists here and at UC Davis researching ways to lower vehicle emissions in order to reduce the state's carbon footprint.