Climate Change

Alex Farrell’s research and accomplishments span the arenas of transportation policy, the electric power sector, risk mitigation, and climate change. Along with several students in the Energy and Resources Group and Professor Kammen, Farrell recently led an initiative to quantify the energy and environmental implications of ethanol as a vehicular fuel. The paper was published in Science in February 2006. Also in early 2006, Farrell co-edited the definitive study of greenhouse gas mitigation strategies for the state of California as part of Governor Schwarzenegger’s plan to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The study shows that employing a mix of existing technologies investment in energy technologies provide a net gain to California’s economy. Further improvements could lead to dramatic cost savings in both the near and long term. This is a follow up study to the 2004 seminal paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on expected climate changes in California over the next century.

Dan Kammen founded and directs the unique Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory, cited by many as the only ‘one stop’ site for energy science and engineering projects that are merged with energy finance and economics, sociology, market, and environmental impact studies. Recent RAEL contributions include: (i) significantly supporting and strengthening the burgeoning solar photovoltaic industries in East Africa, that have become the free-market model for a large number of nations; (ii) bringing the potential of continent-wide sustainable biofuel industries with major energy and health impacts to the attention of world leaders; (iii) highlighting the job benefits of clean energy investments, a story that became central to the adoption of clean energy standards in a number of states as well as a focal point of several national election campaigns; and (iv) focusing national attention on the federal under-investment in energy research, development, and deployment. He is co-author of Should We Risk It? Exploring Environmental, Health and Technological Problem Solving (Princeton University Press, 1999) and over 100 technical and refereed publications.

Professor Harley studies the sources, atmospheric transport, and photochemical reactions associated with air pollution. Mathematical modeling, laboratory, and field experiments are used to understand and control air pollution problems. The role of mobile sources (especially gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles) in these problems is of special interest. One of his on-going projects, titled “Motor Vehicle Emission Trends and Reformulated Fuels” is a multi-year field study of vehicle emissions has been conducted at a highway tunnel near the Berkeley campus. He conducts research into the effects of switching from MTBE to alcohols such as ethanol, or to highly branched alkanes such as 2,2,4-trimethylpentane. He also works on urban and regional-scale photochemical air quality models that have been developed to relate emissions of volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides to photochemical formation of ozone and other air pollutants. Such models are used to determine the amount of emission reductions needed to meet air quality objectives.