With the Indian economy growing by leaps and bounds yet hampered by regular power shortages and blackouts, Indian electricity regulators are in a tough spot. How to wring more electricity from very limited infrastructure? The answer lies in energy efficiency, and through collaborations with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory India is hoping to learn from California’s successes in implementing energy efficiency and demand-side management to meet energy demand.

Thanks to Berkeley Lab’s fleet and transportation policies aimed at reducing car rides, only slightly more than half of the more than 4,000 employees and visiting researchers that work at Lab facilities drive to work as a single occupant. The rest commute by bike, carpool and public transit—and the numbers are growing.

From cool roofs to automated building controls to advanced lighting systems, Berkeley Lab has implemented an assortment of measures which has resulted in a 44 percent decline in energy use intensity, or energy usage per square foot, since 1985. And greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from Berkeley Lab facilities have shrunk by about 5 percent over the last two years.

In the next 40 years, California’s population is expected to surge from 37 million to 55 million and the demand for energy is expected to double. Given those daunting numbers, can California really reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050, as required by an executive order? Scientists from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory who co-wrote a new report on California’s energy future are optimistic that the target can be achieved, though not without bold policy and behavioral changes as well as some scientific innovation.

As part of President Barack Obama’s commitment to strengthen cooperation with China in the area of clean energy, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has entered into an agreement to provide training and other expertise to China’s National Energy Conservation Center (NECC).

Energy efficiency, electrification and low carbon fuels are essential for California to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent below 1990 levels by the year 2050. While the challenges are great, they can be met, say Berkeley Lab scientists.

The amount of energy consumed by data centers is increasing rapidly around the world, and China is no exception. With its growing information technology and telecom industries and its emerging status as a supercomputer power, China continues to expand its data center capacity. In an effort to help reduce carbon emissions, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a world leader in high-performance buildings, has started working with China to improve the energy performance of its data centers.

Energy management engineer Steve Greenberg bikes three miles uphill to work every day, rain or shine. He refuses to use a desktop computer, insisting on a less energy-intensive laptop. And to avoid using paper towels each time he visits the bathroom, he keeps a hand towel in his office. Those are only a few of the things he does to reduce his carbon footprint—and that’s just at work.

What do a smart window company, a microbial analysis start-up and waste-heat recovery start-up have in common? They’re all located in the San Francisco Bay Area and they’re all based on technology developed at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. What’s more, these three start-up companies have either had highly successful launches or closed major deals in the last several months. One of the companies announced a new manufacturing facility that will create hundreds of jobs around the country and bring energy-savings technologies to a wider market.