Photo credit: Bart Nagel

By the time you see this issue of Forefront, our new president will be prioritizing his long and unenviable to-do list. Some have expressed concern that the current economic crisis may push other urgent matters—particularly the environmental agenda—far down or even off that list altogether. But I believe that our continuing search for ways to control carbon emissions—through technologies that are both economically and environmentally sustainable—can secure our future energy independence and at the same time create new market opportunities.

Everywhere there are heartening signs that individuals, industries and communities are taking responsibility for their own carbon footprints, measurable in everything from a nuclear power renaissance (30 new reactors under construction worldwide, with another 90 planned over the next 10 years) to automotive trends (a 38 percent uptick in U.S. registrations of new hybrid vehicles last year). Several states have enacted aggressive legislation like California’s AB 32, which requires a 25 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2020.

Berkeley Engineering is working on dozens of innovative applications for meeting these emissions goals. We’re focusing on what we do best, using smart technologies that push energy efficiency and reduce demand. The smart internal combustion engine and gas pump, for example, will decrease emissions while increasing auto efficiency (see story, The Smart Little Engine that Could). The low-to-zero-energy home bundles several technologies—including solar heating, triple-pane windows and smart sensors for heating and air conditioning and other systems—to produce enough renewable energy to cover all its own energy consumption.

But the finest technologies in the world need a strategic implementation plan. A particularly compelling contribution from Berkeley is the CITRIS Climate Navigator, initiated earlier this year as a tool for global collaboration leading up to the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, where world leaders will develop a replacement for the Kyoto accord, which expires in 2013.

The Climate Navigator—which draws inspiration from the Semiconductor Industry Association’s International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors—will function as an online forum for technology innovators, researchers, policy makers and business leaders to create new models and guidelines for addressing climate change over the coming decade and beyond. It will offer a digital library and knowledge base as well as new computer applications for modeling biofuel and other scenarios and their carbon-emissions implications. It will put the world’s best minds to work in supporting both our economic and environmental recovery.

I welcome your thoughts at dean.forefront@coe.berkeley.edu.

—S. Shankar Sastry
Dean, College of Engineering
NEC Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences
Roy W. Carlson Professor of Engineering