New research points to a flexible, cost-effective option for backup power when trouble strikes: batteries aboard trains. A study from Berkeley Lab finds that rail-based mobile energy storage is a feasible way to ensure reliability during exceptional events.
In this Q&A, Berkeley Lab's Yuxin Wu discusses how scientists are developing sensing technologies that could be installed on floating offshore structures. This would allow the structures to self-monitor damaging conditions that could lead to costly repairs, and could also gauge impacts to marine mammals.
Berkeley Lab scientists have visualized the distortions of chemical bonds in a methane molecule after it absorbs light, loses an electron, and then relaxes. Their study provides insights into how molecules react to light, which can help develop new methods to control chemical reactions.
Fusion energy could address pollution, climate change, and high energy prices. Berkeley Lab’s Cameron Geddes and Reed Teyber explain how researchers are trying to make it a reality.
A research team led by Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley has engineered bacteria to produce new-to-nature carbon products that could provide a powerful route to sustainable biochemicals. The advance could reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the manufacturing of fuels, drugs, and chemicals.
Researchers are helping women entrepreneurs in Uganda grow small businesses by investing in energy-efficient technology. Helping the women invest in energy-efficient equipment and appliances could benefit them and their communities as well as reduce their business’s carbon footprint.
To accelerate development of useful new materials, researchers at Berkeley Lab are building a new kind of automated lab that uses robots guided by artificial intelligence. A-Lab will rapidly test whether materials that have been computationally predicted can be made in reality. The lab’s vision is to use AI to discover materials of the future, starting with a focus on materials for batteries and energy storage.
A new look at climate data shows that, by the end of the century, the heaviest days of rain and snowfall across much of North America will likely release 20 to 30 percent more moisture than they do now. Much of the increased precipitation will occur in winter, potentially exacerbating flooding in regions such as the upper Midwest and the west coast. Researchers also found that heavy precipitation days historically experienced once in a century will become more frequent – as often as once every 30 or 40 years in the Pacific Northwest and southeastern United States.
A team at the Advanced Quantum Testbed at Berkeley Lab (in collaboration with UC Berkeley and Yale) developed an architectural blueprint for a novel quantum processor based on fluxonium qubits, which outperform the most widely used superconducting qubits. Furthermore, they simulated two types of logic gates to validate the performance of the proposed fluxonium blueprint.
The Quantum Systems Accelerator has issued an impact report that details progress made since the center launched in 2020. Highlights include a record-setting quantum sensor that could be used to hunt dark matter, a machine learning algorithm to correct qubit errors in real time, and the first observation of several exotic states of matter using a 256-atom quantum device.
About 12% of the total global energy demand comes from heating and cooling homes and businesses. A new study suggests that using underground water to maintain comfortable temperatures could reduce consumption of natural gas and electricity in this sector by 40% in the U.S. The approach, called aquifer thermal energy storage (ATES), could also help prevent blackouts caused by high power demand during extreme weather events.
Seven Berkeley Lab scientists contributed to research behind a new United Nations report that says limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels requires cutting greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 – and that we have the tools to make a difference now.
A whole new world of antibiotics is waiting inside the viruses that infect bacteria. Our scientists are making it easier to study them.
Scientists at Berkeley Lab have developed a polymer coating that could enable longer lasting, more powerful lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles. The advance opens up a new approach to developing EV batteries that are more affordable and yet easy to manufacture.
A team from Berkeley Lab and Florida State University has designed a new blueprint for solid-state batteries that are less dependent on specific chemical elements. Their work could advance efficient, affordable solid-state batteries for electric cars.
Since the 1970s, scientists have known that copper has a special ability to transform carbon dioxide into valuable chemicals and fuels. But for many years, scientists have struggled to understand how this common metal works as an electrocatalyst, a mechanism that uses energy from electrons to chemically transform molecules into different products.
Society’s growing demand for high-voltage electrical technologies—including pulsed power systems, cars and electrified aircraft, and renewable energy applications—requires a new generation of capacitors that store and deliver large amounts of energy under intense thermal and electrical conditions. Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Scripps Research have now developed a new polymer-based device that efficiently handles record amounts of energy while withstanding extreme temperatures and electric fields.
A recent study by climate scientists from the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory aims to inform the discussion around how protecting additional land to meet conservation goals may impact land use (such as agricultural) and land cover (such as grass, water, or vegetation). The research is among the first to explore how potential pathways to achieve these bold targets affect agricultural expansion, and its findings suggest that meeting the 30% protection targets could lead to substantial regional shifts in land use and in some cases still fail to protect the world’s most biodiverse hotspots.
Modeling the effects of earthquakes on homes, businesses, and infrastructure is about to get a lot easier, thanks to advanced simulations performed on the world's fastest supercomputers.
Excitons are drawing attention as possible quantum bits (qubits) in tomorrow’s quantum computers and are central to optoelectronics and energy-harvesting processes. However, these charge-neutral quasiparticles, which exist in semiconductors and other materials, are notoriously difficult to confine and manipulate. Now, for the first time, Berkeley Lab researchers have created and directly observed highly localized excitons confined in simple stacks of atomically thin materials. The work confirms theoretical predictions and opens new avenues for controlling excitons with custom-built materials.
A new battery material that dissolves in water will make it simple and economical to recycle a wide range of batteries, so we can reuse the valuable and increasingly rare materials within, including nickel and cobalt.
Fans of science history can now access a new gem: a 20-minute video interview with the father of the Big Bang theory, Georges Lemaître. European broadcast network VRT found the 20-minute recording that is thought to be the only video of Lemaître. His interview, originally aired in 1964 and conducted in French, has now been transcribed and translated into English by physicists at Berkeley Lab and the Vatican Observatory.
Graduate student intern Meg Slattery is working with researchers in Berkeley Lab’s Lithium Resource Research and Innovation Center to develop a new research blueprint – inspired by energy justice – as they explore the Salton Sea’s potential as a renewable source of lithium for battery production.
Tropical forests are crucial for sucking up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. But they’re also subject to intense storms that can cause “windthrow” – the uprooting or breaking of trees. A new study finds that more extreme thunderstorms from climate change will likely cause a greater number of large windthrow events in the Amazon, which could impact the rainforest's ability to serve as a carbon sink.
There are so many unknowns about long COVID. Why is the range of symptoms so vast? How do pre-existing conditions play a role? Scientists have developed a machine learning tool to accelerate discoveries using actual patient data.
As semiconductor devices become ever smaller, researchers are exploring two-dimensional materials for potential applications in transistors and optoelectronics. Controlling the flow of electricity and heat through these materials is key to their functionality, but first we need to understand the details of those behaviors at atomic scales. Now, researchers have discovered that electrons play a surprising role in how energy is transferred between layers of 2D semiconductor materials tungsten diselenide and tungsten disulfide.
Researchers at Berkeley Lab have developed a new kind of heating and cooling method that they have named the ionocaloric refrigeration cycle. They hope the technique will someday help phase out refrigerants that contribute to global warming and provide safe, efficient cooling and heating for homes.
One of the most highly-attended workshops at the 2022 IEEE Quantum Week was organized by researchers from the Advanced Quantum Testbed (AQT) at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (Berkeley Lab). Motivated by deep scientific inquiry and technological needs, the one-day hybrid workshop was titled “Classical Control Systems for Quantum Computing.”
The Quantum Systems Accelerator, a National Quantum Information Science Research Center led by Berkeley Lab, is stepping up efforts for quantum education and outreach, especially at the high school level, which traditionally has not been regarded as an entry point to quantum science. The outreach should help fill the increasing number of job vacancies in this fast-growing and developing field.
The Donnan electric potential arises from an imbalance of charges at the interface of a charged membrane and a liquid, and for more than a century it has stubbornly eluded direct measurement. Many researchers have even written off such a measurement as impossible. But that era, at last, has ended. With a tool that’s conventionally used to probe the chemical composition of materials, scientists at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) recently led the first direct measurement of the Donnan potential.
Scientists have measured the highest toughness ever recorded, of any material, while investigating a metallic alloy made of chromium, cobalt, and nickel. Not only is the metal exceptionally strong and ductile, its properties become enhanced as it gets colder. This runs counter to most other materials in existence.
CRISPR, the Nobel Prize-winning gene editing technology, is poised to have a profound impact on the fields of microbiology and medicine yet again. A team led by CRISPR pioneers Jennifer Doudna and Jill Banfield has developed a tool to edit the genomes of bacteria-infecting viruses called bacteriophages using a rare form of CRISPR. The ability to easily engineer custom-designed phages will help researchers treat dangerous drug-resistant infections and control microbiomes without antibiotics or harsh chemicals.
Things are looking brighter than ever at the Berkeley Lab Laser Accelerator Center. A recently completed upgrade will expand the center’s capabilities into new areas, including studies of particle acceleration, extremely hot plasmas, cancer treatment techniques, and materials for quantum science.
By 2033, more than 1 billion laptops, cellphones, and other electronic devices could be entering the U.S. waste stream each year. However, with better end-of-life management, new Berkeley Lab research shows electronic waste could also represent a source of valuable metals, namely gold, that could benefit the future economy by offsetting increasing demand for virgin mining.
Berkeley Lab scientists have demonstrated a new technique, modeled after a metabolic process found in some bacteria, to convert carbon dioxide into solar fuels through artificial photosynthesis.
Researchers say that the Chilean Andes could face marked snow loss and roughly 10% less mountain water runoff with a global warming of approximately 2.5 degrees Celsius over the next 30 years. The study has implications for the California Sierra Nevada and highlights the need for carbon mitigation.
Berkeley Lab's ALS has received federal approval to begin construction on an upgrade that will boost the brightness of its X-ray beams at least a hundredfold. Scientists will use the improved beams for research into new materials, chemical reactions, and biological processes. This construction milestone enables the lab’s biggest project in three decades to move from planning to execution.
Diesel-fueled freight trucks play an outsized role in producing India’s total greenhouse gas and air pollution emissions. While the country has promoted policies to transition to electric vehicles for public transportation buses and cars, batteries that can power such large trucks have been too heavy and expensive to make their electrification possible. A new study shows that advances in battery technology and dramatically decreased battery costs in recent years have changed that. With the right policies and incentives, battery electric trucks would be more affordable to operate than diesel, and India could become a world leader in producing electric vehicles.
A new study led by the Department of Energy’s Berkeley Lab has measured how long it takes for several kinds of exotic nuclei to decay. The paper, published today in Physical Review Letters, marks the first experimental result from the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams.
Berkeley Lab scientists have developed new machine learning algorithms to accelerate the analysis of data collected decades ago by HERA, the world’s most powerful electron-proton collider that ran at the DESY national research center in Germany from 1992 to 2007.
Since 2018, Berkeley Lab’s Advanced Quantum Testbed (AQT) has led several scientific breakthroughs in quantum computing across various areas. AQT also operates an open-access experimental testbed designed for deep collaboration with external users from academia, national Laboratories, and industry.
In celebration of Hispanic Heritage - Latin American Heritage Month, 5 QSA-affiliated scientists described how they pivoted to quantum information science (QIS) and technology, and why they're excited about the opportunities for scientific discovery. Featuring Ana Maria Rey, Pablo Poggi, Sergio Cantu, Elmer Guardado Sanchez, and Diego Barberena. QSA (Quantum Systems Accelerator) is a National QIS Research Center funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). Berkeley Lab leads QSA with Sandia National Laboratories as the lead partner. QSA is composed of 15 member institutions in the United States and Canada.
In Star Trek, the Borg are a ruthless, hive-minded collective that assimilate other beings with the intent of taking over the galaxy. Here on nonfictional planet Earth, Borgs are DNA packages that could help humans fight climate change.
Today, the Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) formally unveiled ESnet6, the newest generation of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) high-performance network dedicated to science. The hybrid in person and virtual event was held at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and live-streamed on streaming.lbl.gov.
In June, the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument survived a massive wildfire, followed by rains and mudslides. After cleaning and testing the equipment, DESI collaborators successfully restarted the experiment and began imaging the night sky again on Sept. 10. The survey is creating the largest 3D map of the universe ever made to study a phenomenon called dark energy.
Achieving scalability in quantum processors, sensors, and networks requires novel devices that are easily manipulated between two quantum states. A team led by Berkeley Lab researchers has developed a method, using a solid-state “twisted” crystalline layered material, which gives rise to tiny light-emitting points that can be switched on and off with the simple application of an external voltage. The research could lead to a new way to make quantum bits, or qubits, which encode information in quantum computers.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Carolyn Bertozzi, Morten Meldal, and K. Barry Sharpless “for the development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry.”
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics to Alain Aspect, John Clauser, and Anton Zeilinger "for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science."
Along with vaccines, masks, and testing, indoor air hygiene and building engineering controls will be key to slowing the spread of airborne, highly infectious variants of COVID-19. In a recent review in the journal Indoor Air, researchers at Berkeley Lab presented a thorough review of the state of the science for several key strategies to reduce airborne infection risk using building controls – ventilation, filtration, airflow management and disinfection by germicidal ultraviolet (UV) light.
A new experimental facility that replicates realistic earthquakes in the laboratory, paired with the world’s fastest supercomputers, will help scientists and engineers build and retrofit shake-resilient buildings and infrastructure across the U.S.
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