New Center to Explore Marketing and Use of Green Technology

A new center established last month in collaboration with various disciplines across the UC Berkeley campus is working to promote awareness about energy-related issues and practical implementation of alternative energy technology.

The Center for Energy and Environmental Innovation—started in September under the direction of Haas School of Business assistant professor Catherine Wolfram and adjunct professor Andrew Isaacs—aims to bring together students and faculty from different colleges and programs on campus to aid in the commercialization process of alternative energy research.

“(The purpose) is to take what is done already by engineers, by lab ... and get it out to the investment community,” Wolfram said.

The center offers courses and case studies for students from different disciplines to learn about different aspects of energy, including how energy technologies are actually adopted and made available on the market.

The center, established under the Haas Management of Technology Program, also plans to connect students to internship programs offered by different companies.

“The goal of the center is to train students ... to study everything from an interdisciplinary perspective, because energy study is interdisciplinary,” said Jit Bhattacharya, graduate student and chair of Berkeley Energy and Resources Collaborative, a campus organization that helped to start the center.

Bhattacharya said the center pulls faculty from different schools and programs, including the College of Engineering, the Goldman School of Public Policy, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Energy Biosciences Institute.

“(The purpose of the center is) to apply technology that is developed ... to function in the real world,” he said.

David Zilberman, executive committee member of the Energy Biosciences Institute, said the center can facilitate communication and interaction among different schools with regard to issues and policies surrounding energy research.

Zilberman said the collaborators will help address the impact of limited energy resources on the problems of global poverty and climate. The program will help to develop sustainable technologies and mechanisms that can help to reduce social and environmental costs.

“If we don’t (develop) new types of biofuels, it will (drain) natural resources,” Zilberman said.

The center will likely obtain funds from individual departments on campus and from private companies and foundations.

Bhattacharya added that he hopes the initiative will help to increase outside recognition of campus energy research.

“I already think Berkeley is the best place to study energy,” he said. “(I hope) everybody knows that Berkeley is helping solving (energy) problems and want to work with us.”

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