Sentilla Blog

Randy Katz, professor at the University of California, Berkeley, has embarked on a new project called LoCal. Short for any number of things, including "Lo(w) Cal(orie)", "Local Information", and of course "Cal", Katz has thrown Berkeley's hat in the ring to make energy smart in the 21st century. I had the privilege of bouncing ideas off Katz while a graduate student at Cal, and he gave a talk about LoCal at the 2009 EECS BEARS Symposium.

ECN asked technology leaders to brainstorm solutions that would make the most impact, specifically which green technology has the most commercial promise. I responded, along with 7 others, and our thoughts were published in the March issue. I've included my response below, and you can view the ECN March issue for the full set of responses.

New energy is really expensive. The most commercially viable option is to reduce your own energy use, which, as stated by the Obama Administration, is the cleanest fastest easiest, cheapest way to generate renewable energy. In order to reduce your energy consumption, you need to know precisely where and when you're using it.

On a recent flight, I had the pleasure of watching a number of episodes of E2, a PBS show narrated by Morgan Freeman.  The shows cover a number of environmental topics and features Stephen Chu, former energy expert at LBL and now Secretary of Energy.  If you haven't seen them, I highly recommend finding a few episodes. Unfortunately, only the "design" episodes are on hulu, the "energy" and "transport" episodes have not been posted online.

A couple of things stood out at me, and I came away with a feeling that we could do better at achieving energy efficiency and energy independence.  Not just because we should as a planet-saving activity, but because we've actually gone backwards in efficiency in the last 100 years.

First, consider this statistic:  The first Ford Model T accepted both Ethanol and Gasoline, and got 25 miles to the gallon.  Today's cars average 21 miles to the gallon, and while it only costs $50 to outfit a gasoline car at production with Ethanol capabilities, few cars are actually "FlexFuel".