For decades, no one worried much about the air quality inside people’s homes unless there was secondhand smoke or radon present. Then scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory made the discovery that the aggregate health consequences of poor indoor air quality are as significant as those from all traffic accidents or infectious diseases in the United States. They are now working on turning those research findings into science-based solutions, including better standards for residential buildings and easier ways to test for the hazardous pollutants.

Scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) are known for designing high-efficiency cookstoves for Darfur and Ethiopia. Now they are applying their expertise to the windswept steppes of Mongolia, whose capital city, Ulaan Baatar, is among the most polluted cities in the world. The scientists are working with the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), a U.S. foreign aid agency, to improve air quality in the capital city by lowering emissions from outdated stoves and boilers.

Cooking exhaust hoods designed for home kitchens vary widely in their ability to capture and vent away the air pollutants generated by the gas burners on cook stoves, according to a study by two Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) scientists. Of seven representative devices they tested, the capture efficiency varied from less than 15 [...]

What does the European Climate Exchange in London have to do with the rural Yaya Gulelle district in Ethiopia? Everything—if all goes well in some test chambers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory this summer. Berkeley Lab researchers, led by senior scientist Ashok Gadgil, have already designed an efficient cookstove specifically for women living in makeshift camps for displaced persons in Darfur. Now, the non-profit World Vision has approached Berkeley Lab to modify its Darfur stove for Ethiopia.