Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Press Releases

Study Finds that the Price of Wind Energy in the United States is at an All-time Low, Averaging under 2.5¢/kWh

Wind energy pricing is at an all-time low, according to a new report released by the U.S. Department of Energy and prepared by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). The prices offered by wind projects to utility purchasers averaged under 2. …

Berkeley Lab Spinoff Company Makes Fast, Accurate Nanoscale Sensor

Imagine being able to test your food in your very own kitchen to quickly determine if it carried any deadly microbes. Research conducted at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and now being commercialized by Optokey may make that possible …

Atomic View of Microtubules

Microtubules are hollow cylinders with walls made up of tubulin proteins – alpha (green) and beta (blue) – plus EB proteins (orange) that can either stabilize or destabilize the structure of the tubulin proteins. Microtubules, hollow fibers of tubulin …

Notes from the Particle Physics Underground

Meet the High-Performance Single-Molecule Diode

Researchers from Berkeley Lab and Columbia University have created the world’s highest-performance single-molecule diode using a combination of gold electrodes and an ionic solution. (Image courtesy of Latha Venkataraman, Columbia University) A team of …

Berkeley Lab Researchers Observe Shortest Wavelength Plasmons Ever in Single Walled Nanotubes

This s-SNOM infrared image shows Luttinger-liquid plasmons in a metallic single-walled nanotube. The term “plasmons” might sound like something from the soon-to-be-released new Star Wars movie, but the effects of plasmons have been known about for …

Unlocking the Rice Immune System

Rice is a staple for half the world’s population and the model plant for grass-type biofuel feedstocks (Photo by Roy Kaltschmidt, Berkeley Lab) A bacterial signal that when recognized by rice plants enables the plants to resist a devastating blight disease …

A Most Singular Nano-Imaging Technique

SINGLE uses in situ TEM imaging of platinum nanocrystals freely rotating in a graphene liquid cell to determine the 3D structures of individual colloidal nanoparticles. Just as proteins are one of the basic building blocks of biology, nanoparticles can …

New Visitor Center in South Dakota Highlights Underground Science

  The Open Cut is an inactive mine pit that draws more than 40,000 visitors to Lead, SD every year. Credit: Kate Greene, Berkeley Lab The town of Lead, South Dakota was once famous for its prodigious gold and silver stores, but lately it’s been getting …

Gut Microbes Enable Coffee Pest to Withstand Extremely Toxic Concentrations of Caffeine

The coffee berry borer is the most devastating coffee pest in the world. The tiny beetle is found in most regions where coffee is cultivated, and a big outbreak can slash crop yield by 80 percent. It’s also a caffeine fiend. The insect is the only coffee …

Bay Area National Laboratories Jointly Launch New Small Business Voucher Pilot for Emerging Cleantech Companies

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), in partnership with Sandia National Laboratories/California (SNL/CA) and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), has been awarded $4.15 million by the Department of Energy (DOE) to jointly launch …

Berkeley Lab Study Finds that Future Deployment of Distributed Solar Hinges on Electricity Rate Design

Berkeley, CA – Future distributed solar photovoltaic (PV) deployment levels are highly sensitive to retail electricity rate design, according to a newly released report by researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National …

Sensitive and Specific: A New Way of Probing Electrolyte/Electrode Interfaces

Schematic illustration of the spectroscopy design with graphene grating: a)Electrochemical cell and spectroscopy configuration (Pt = Platinum); b) Optical microscopic image of a graphene grating on fused silica. Credit: Feng Wang, Berkeley Lab Diffraction …

Radiation Safety for Sunken-Ship Archaeology

An image of the USS Independence from the Coda Octopus Echoscope 3D sonar, which was integrated on the Boeing Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) Echo Ranger. Credit: NOAA and Coda Octopus About 42 miles southwest of San Francisco and 2,600 feet underwater …

A Bridge to Better Batteries

A major automaker came to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory recently wanting to better understand battery degradation. After many months of intense collaborative research with a Berkeley Lab battery scientist, they gleaned some important insights into …

Autonomous Taxis Would Deliver Significant Environmental and Economic Benefits

Imagine a fleet of driverless taxis roaming your city, ready to pick you up and take you to your destination at a moment’s notice. While this may seem fantastical, it may be only a matter of time before it becomes reality. And according to a new study from …

Orange is the New Red

Translocation of the carotenoid pigment within a critical light-sensitive protein called the Orange Carotenoid Protein triggers a shifting of the protein from the light-absorbing orange state to the energy- quenching red state, providing cyanobacteria with …

Opening a New Route to Photonics

In this adiabatic elimination scheme, the movement of light through two outer nanoscale waveguides is controlled via a “dark” middle waveguide that does not accumulate any light. (Image by Zhosia Rostomian) A new route to ultrahigh density, ultracompact …

New Magnet Center Brings Together Research and Development

The new Berkeley Center for Magnet Technology (BCMT) will advance magnet technologies by bringing together research and development expertise from across Berkeley Lab. Developed under the leadership of Wim Leemans, director of the Accelerator Technology …

Berkeley Lab Scientists to Develop Better Way to Screen Chemicals for Cancer-Causing Effects

A better way to screen chemicals that may cause cancer is under development. This image shows in two dimensions what Berkeley lab scientists are working to achieve in three dimensions: cultures containing diverse cell types (seen here using red and green …