Yin Hao

Hao is a post­doc­tor­al researcher in RAEL as well as in the Depart­ment of Earth Sys­tem Sci­ence at Tsinghua Uni­ver­si­ty. She holds a dou­ble-degree Ph.D. from Bei­jing Nor­mal Uni­ver­si­ty and Aal­borg Uni­ver­si­ty, spe­cial­iz­ing in envi­ron­men­tal eco­nom­ics and envi­ron­men­tal plan­ning respec­tive­ly. Hao’s research applies inter­dis­ci­pli­nary meth­ods to ana­lyze the pol­lu­tion sources, health impacts and exter­nal cost of air pol­lu­tion in China.

Hao is deeply inter­est­ed in envi­ron­men­tal poli­cies and their effec­tive­ness at bal­anc­ing eco­nom­ic growth with envi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty. She is cur­rent­ly col­lab­o­rat­ing with Pro­fes­sor Zhang Qiang, Pro­fes­sor Liu Zhu and Pro­fes­sor Daniel Kam­men. Her post­doc­tor­al research inves­ti­gates ener­gy con­sump­tion in devel­op­ing coun­tries and its impacts on CO₂ emis­sions and human health.

She is lead researcher in the UC Berke­ley-Tsinghua U‑Duke Uni­ver­si­ty part­ner­ship on the health impacts of decar­boniza­tion of the pow­er sec­tor in Chi­na, Cal­i­for­nia, and elsewhere.

For her pub­li­ca­tions: click here.

Cur­rent posi­tion:

Post­doc­tor­al Research Fel­low, Uni­ver­si­ty of British Columbia

Sustainability at the CLEW Nexus in Latin America

Emerg­ing economies will account for more than 90 per­cent of new ener­gy-gen­er­a­tion capac­i­ty by 2035, and Latin Amer­i­ca is no excep­tion to this trend. In the last 40 years, the region’s pri­ma­ry ener­gy demand has more than dou­bled. In a glob­al envi­ron­ment of increas­ing­ly volatile fuel prices, emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies, and cli­mate-change impacts, the con­tin­ued increase in demand presents chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties to Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean. To man­age the next phase of devel­op­ment, the region’s gov­ern­ments will need to devel­op new ener­gy sources and pay more atten­tion to sustainability.

Kam­men and stu­dents (Juan Pablo Car­val­lo, Diego Ponce de Leon Bari­do and Rebekah Shirley) dis­cussed strate­gies to design and eval­u­ate pro­grams for man­ag­ing ener­gy and oth­er resources in the region both as a speak­er pan­el for the Cen­ter for Latin Amer­i­can Stud­ies at UC Berke­ley and in a new pub­li­ca­tion on inte­grat­ed tools for build­ing low-car­bon economies in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean.

Our researchers also delve into the spe­cif­ic case study of Nicaragua along with Ful­bright Nexus Fel­lows 2012–2013. This group explored three case stud­ies at the nation­al, region­al and com­mu­ni­ty lev­els in Nicaragua: bread­fruit and food inse­cu­ri­ty; rain­wa­ter har­vest­ing on the Pacif­ic coast; and, bio-ener­gy pro­duc­tion from agri­cul­tur­al waste. This research shows the increas­ing need to see the cli­mate, land, ener­gy, and water (CLEW) sec­tors as inter­re­lat­ed, and to proac­tive­ly plan pol­i­cy with these inter­con­nec­tions in mind. Nicaragua’s oppor­tu­ni­ties for sus­tain­able devel­op­ment with­in a CLEW nexus frame­work are suf­fi­cient­ly large that the coun­try could well become an exam­ple of wise nat­ur­al resource use for Latin Amer­i­ca and the world.

Press release on our work with bio­gas digesters in Mexico: 

Fusion, March 24, 2014. These stu­dents have bold ideas on how to make renew­able ener­gy more acces­si­ble. 

Arti­cle, full video and pho­tos from our pan­el dis­cus­sion with CLAS:

Cen­ter for Latin Amer­i­can Stud­ies. Feb­ru­ary 10, 2014. Sus­tain­able Ener­gy Sys­tems in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean. 

Read more about our involve­ment in the Ful­bright Region­al Net­work for Applied Research (NEXUS) Pro­gram 2012–2013.

Bolliger, Ian

Ian is a Nation­al Defense Sci­ence and Engi­neer­ing Grad­u­ate Fel­low in the Ener­gy and Resources Group and a mem­ber of the inau­gur­al “Envi­ron­ment and Soci­ety: Data Sci­ence for the 21^st Cen­tu­ry” Nation­al Sci­ence Foun­da­tion Research Trainee­ship (NRT) cohort. His research inter­ests lie at the inter­sec­tion of ener­gy sys­tems, cli­mate change adap­ta­tion, and glob­al health. He is a mem­ber of the Next Gen­er­a­tion Ecosys­tem Exper­i­ments Arc­tic team, inves­ti­gat­ing bio­geo­chem­i­cal fac­tors gov­ern­ing ener­gy flux­es in arc­tic tun­dra envi­ron­ments from the plant scale to the mod­el grid-cell scale. He is also inter­est­ed in devel­op­ing bet­ter tools for char­ac­ter­iz­ing sea­son­al snow­pack vari­a­tion, in order to improve fore­casts of stream­flow, water avail­abil­i­ty, and hydropow­er pro­duc­tion. Ian serves as project man­ag­er for Tiny House in My Back­yard, a stu­dent project to design and build mobile, afford­able, and sus­tain­able net-zero ener­gy hous­ing on the Berke­ley Glob­al Cam­pus. Pri­or to arriv­ing at UC Berke­ley, he received his BA from Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty in Applied Math­e­mat­ics and spent three years mod­el­ing trends in glob­al injury rates at the Insti­tute for Health Met­rics and Eval­u­a­tion. Out­side of acad­e­mia, Ian is a mem­ber of the Tahoe Back­coun­try Ski Patrol, and he writes about moun­tain adven­tures and envi­ron­men­tal issues on his blog at TheIn​er​tia​.com.

Tiny House in My Backyard

Tiny House Competition

This event is open to all col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties in Cal­i­for­nia. Par­tic­i­pa­tion pro­motes an inter­est in ener­gy con­ser­va­tion, ener­gy effi­cien­cy and green build­ing and solar tech­nolo­gies. The Ener­gy & Tech­nol­o­gy Cen­ter and Com­mu­ni­ty Solar are proud to spon­sor this event.

“The Tiny House Com­pe­ti­tion – Build Small and Win Big” is a new com­pe­ti­tion in the Sacra­men­to region, chal­leng­ing col­le­giate teams to design and build net-zero, tiny solar hous­es. The event is antic­i­pat­ed to be held in the fall of 2016 and is spear­head­ed by SMUD’s Ener­gy & Tech­nol­o­gy Cen­ter and Com­mu­ni­ty Solar®program.

The Com­pe­ti­tion
This event is mod­eled after the U.S. Depart­ment of Energy’s Solar Decathlon. An edu­ca­tor or oth­er school admin­is­tra­tor will men­tor each team. Dur­ing the two years lead­ing up to the event, stu­dents will design and build the ener­gy-effi­cient hous­es. A stipend between $3,000 — $6,000 will be provided.

Awards
Dur­ing the week of com­pe­ti­tion, stu­dents will exhib­it their hous­es to the pub­lic, judges and the media. The ten cat­e­gories of the decathlon include archi­tec­tur­al design, liv­abil­i­ty, com­mu­ni­ca­tion, afford­abil­i­ty, ener­gy effi­cien­cy and bal­ance, appli­ance load, technology/​electrical and mechan­i­cal sys­tems, trans­porta­tion, sus­tain­abil­i­ty and doc­u­men­ta­tion. On the last day, teams will be award­ed tro­phies and mon­e­tary prizes.

Dead­line to apply
The dead­line to apply for the 2015 com­pe­ti­tion has passed.

Work­shop date
A Tiny House Work­shop is sched­uled for Novem­ber 14 & 15, 2014

Con­tacts
Suzette Bien­v­enue, Ener­gy & Tech­nol­o­gy Center
Suzette.​Bienvenue@​smud.​org

Brent Sloan, Com­mu­ni­ty Solar
Brent.​Sloan@​smud.​org

Down­loads

• Tiny House Com­pe­ti­tion flyer
• Tiny House Com­pe­ti­tion FAQs

Siegner, Alana (Laney)

Alana is a first-year Master’s stu­dent in the Ener­gy and Resources Group. Pri­or to arriv­ing at ERG, she received her under­grad­u­ate degree from Tufts Uni­ver­si­ty (2012) in Envi­ron­men­tal Stud­ies and Inter­na­tion­al Rela­tions. She served as an Ameri­Corps Nation­al Teach­ing Fel­low for two years at the Dev­er-McCor­ma­ck School in Dorch­ester, MA, teach­ing 8^th grade aca­d­e­m­ic enrich­ment class­es as well as a high school prepa­ra­tion cur­ricu­lum that she devel­oped for pub­lic schools across the Cit­i­zen Schools net­work. At ERG, her research inter­ests focus on trans­lat­ing ener­gy and resource issues into sec­ondary-school-lev­el sci­ence lessons in order to pro­mote eco­log­i­cal intel­li­gence and cli­mate lit­er­a­cy goals. In addi­tion to work­ing on envi­ron­men­tal edu­ca­tion efforts local­ly, Alana is part of an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary team of grad­u­ate stu­dents work­ing to design and build a net-zero-ener­gy tiny house for the Sacra­men­to Munic­i­pal Util­i­ty Dis­trict (SMUD) Tiny House Com­pe­ti­tion. Part of the tiny house project involves lead­ing a “DeCal” course for UC Berke­ley under­grad­u­ates, teach­ing stu­dents how to install solar pan­els and put into prac­tice green build­ing tech­niques in order to pro­mote fur­ther cam­pus-wide car­bon neu­tral hous­ing projects. The tiny house is intend­ed to pro­duce a por­tion of its own food and recycle/​treat grey­wa­ter onsite in addi­tion to meet­ing its own ener­gy needs.  The award win­ning Tiny House web­site is: THIMBY.

Cruetzig , Felix

Dr. Felix Creutzig is head of the work­ing group Land Use, Infra­struc­tures and Trans­port. He is lead author of the IPCC’s Fifth Assess­ment Report and was lead ana­lyst of the Glob­al Ener­gy Assess­ment. Felix Creutzig teach­es cours­es about cli­mate change and infra­struc­tures at Tech­nis­che Uni­ver­sität Berlin. His research focus­es on:

•    Con­cep­tu­al­iz­ing and quan­ti­fy­ing GHG emis­sions of cities world-wide
•    Assess­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for GHG mit­i­ga­tion of cities world-wide
•    Build­ing mod­els of sus­tain­able urban form and transport
•    Land rents as a com­ple­ment for financ­ing sus­tain­able infrastructures
•    Ana­lyz­ing the role of cap­i­tal stocks and infra­struc­tures for cli­mate change mitigation
•    Land use-medi­at­ed uncer­tain­ty in inte­grat­ed assess­ments, par­tic­u­lar­ly those relat­ed to bioenergy

Since 2009 Felix Creutzig is also group leader at the Depart­ment of the Eco­nom­ics of Cli­mate Change at Tech­nis­che Uni­ver­sität Berlin.  He was a post­doc fel­low at the Ener­gy and Resources Group at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley, col­lab­o­rat­ing with Dan Kam­men, Lee Schip­per and Eliz­a­beth Deakin, and the Ener­gy Foun­da­tion Chi­na in Bei­jing. Felix Creutzig received his PhD in Com­pu­ta­tion­al Neu­ro­science from Hum­boldt-Uni­ver­sität zu Berlin, and holds a Mas­ter of Advanced Stud­ies (Path III in Math­e­mat­ics) from Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty, UK.

Bailis, Robert

Rob is inter­est­ed in sus­tain­abil­i­ty, resource use, and envi­ron­men­tal change in the devel­op­ing world. He explores these issues prin­ci­pal­ly, though not exclu­sive­ly, in the con­text of ener­gy. He became inter­est­ed in the inter­sec­tion of ener­gy, soci­ety, and envi­ron­ment while work­ing as a teacher in the US Peace Corps in a remote com­mu­ni­ty in north­west­ern Kenya. He uses an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary approach that places equal empha­sis on qual­i­ta­tive and quan­ti­ta­tive meth­ods across a range of scales, from local to region­al and glob­al. Fol­low this link for more infor­ma­tion about his past and cur­rent research.

https://​envi​ron​ment​.yale​.edu/​p​r​o​f​i​l​e​/​b​a​i​l​is/

Ezzati, Majid

My research focus­es on expo­sure to, and health effects of, envi­ron­men­tal, behav­iour­al, nutri­tion­al, and meta­bol­ic risk fac­tors and their inter­ven­tions at the pop­u­la­tion lev­el.  The research activ­i­ties rou­tine­ly com­bine con­cepts, data, and meth­ods from a range of envi­ron­men­tal, health, and quan­ti­ta­tive sci­ences with a sys­tems per­spec­tive.  We col­lect and ana­lyze pri­ma­ry field data on envi­ron­men­tal risk fac­tors (pri­mar­i­ly air pol­lu­tion).  We also devel­op and apply ana­lyt­i­cal mod­els to com­bi­na­tions of pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary data to esti­mate health effects of risk fac­tor expo­sures and inter­ven­tions.  You can learn about our past and ongo­ing stud­ies, and see their results and pub­li­ca­tions, through the Envi­ron­ment and Glob­al Health Research Group page.

Household Energy, Cookstoves and Health

Bio­mass fuels (wood, char­coal, dung, and agri­cul­tur­al residues) are vital to basic wel­fare and eco­nom­ic activ­i­ty in devel­op­ing nations, espe­cial­ly in sub-Saha­ran Africa (SSA), where they meet more than 90% of house­hold ener­gy needs in many nations. Com­bus­tion of bio­fu­els emit pol­lu­tants that cur­rent­ly cause over 1.6 mil­lion annu­al deaths glob­al­ly (400,000 in SSA. Because most of these deaths are among chil­dren and women, bio­mass use is direct­ly or indi­rect­ly relat­ed to mul­ti­ple Mil­len­ni­um Devel­op­ment Goals (MDGs), includ­ing envi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty, reduc­ing child mor­tal­i­ty, and gen­der equity.

Tak­ing indoor air pol­lu­tion mea­sure­ments in rur­al Kenya

Mak­ing char­coal, Kenya

Women gath­er­ing fire­wood, Zombe, Kenya

Sustainable Energy for Kosovo and Southeast Europe

Ener­gy effi­cien­cy, renew­able ener­gy, and smart sys­tems inte­gra­tion pro­vides a rapid path away from local and glob­al­ly pol­lut­ing ener­gy sys­tems.  This gen­er­al assess­ment is par­tic­u­lar­ly true for impov­er­ished areas or those impact­ed by con­flict.  This is the case because the mix­ture of ener­gy effi­cien­cy and renew­able ener­gy can gen­er­al­ly be deployed far more rapid­ly and in more dis­trib­uted a fash­ion than tra­di­tion­al, cen­tral­ized, ener­gy systems.

Koso­vo is par­tic­u­lar­ly in need, and par­tic­u­lar­ly amenable to this sort of “rapid and green” devel­op­ment plan.  This project, start­ed to iden­ti­fy and quan­ti­fy oppor­tu­ni­ties to choose a clean path instead of an ongo­ing fix­a­tion on coal, has now spread to exam­ine both nation­al and region­al oppor­tu­ni­ties in South­east Europe.