Energy & Environment

Daniel M. Kammen
Professor in the Energy and Resources Group; professor of Public Policy, Goldman School of Public Policy; professor of Nuclear Engineering; director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory

Expertise:
Science and policy of energy systems. Engineering, management, and dissemination of renewable energy systems; health and environmental impacts of energy generation and use; rural resource management, including issues of gender and ethnicity; international research and development policy, climate change; energy forecasting and risk analysis.

Contact:
(510) 642-1139
E-mail: kammen@berkeley.edu

Additional contacts:
Robert Sanders, Media Relations: (510) 643-6998
rlsanders@berkeley.edu
Roxanne Makasdjian, broadcast: (510) 642-6051, roxannem@berkeley.edu

Background:
Kammen brings to the analysis of national and international energy policy an understanding of the technology as well as of the economics and the policy landscape. He sees value in greater emphasis on renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind power and biomass, not only because it is better for the environment, but also because it would improve our nation's security by lessening reliance on imported oil. Renewables also would produce more jobs than an equivalent investment in fossil fuel energy sources, according to a recent study by Kammen. He also argues that renewables are a better investment than highly touted but uncertain exotic new technologies such as hydrogen fuel.

He has testified before U. S. House and Senate committees on energy and environmental issues. He has advised the New Apollo Energy Project, an initiative spearheaded by Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., to replace the energy bill now languishing in Congress with a new bill emphasizing energy independence and weaning the country from a reliance on imported fossil fuels by 2010.

Kammen has been a guest on National Public Radio's Science Friday and has been interviewed by CNN and numerous local television and radio stations on energy, environmental and risk policy issues, and current events. He is very comfortable in front of the camera, and recently was interviewed by Alan Alda for an upcoming Scientific American Frontiers program called Future Car, set to air in May 2004.

Kammen advises the United States and Swedish Agencies for International Development, the World Bank, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the African Academy of Sciences and the President’s Committee on Science and Technology, and is a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.