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Lab choice may prove beneficial to Berkeley in long term

Berkeleyside Editors — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 22:30:40 +0000

Officials ready for the press conference announcing Richmond as the new site for the second campus of LBNL. Photo: Frances Dinkelspiel

By Lance Knobel and Frances Dinkelspiel

In late September and early October, Dr. Jeff Ritterman, a member of the Richmond City Council, went down to Berkeley West Biocenter on Potter Street, one of the divisions of Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. Both times, Dr. Ritterman arrived before 8 am and staked out a spot in front of the entrance. As scientists came to work, Dr. Ritterman handed them a 4×6 postcard with a picture of the Richmond shoreline, signed by a resident of that city. It was a pitch for placing LBNL’s second campus in Richmond.

“I knew the decision would be important to (lab) employees,” said Dr. Ritterman, who served as head of cardiology at Kaiser Richmond for 30 years and became a city councilman in 2009. “I knew people had some concerns about Richmond and I wanted to reassure them and make an extra effort.”(...)

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By Berkeleyside Editors. | Permalink | 13 comments |
Post tags: Berkeley Lab, Dr. Jeff Ritterman, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Richmond Field Station, Robert Birgeneau, UC Chancellor Robert Birgeneau

Breaking: Berkeley Lab chooses Richmond for 2nd campus

Tracey Taylor — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:34:30 +0000

Design for the Richmond Field Station Lab campus

The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has selected Richmond as the site for its second campus. The Lab annnounced the news this morning on its website, saying the University of California-owned Richmond Field Station site “presents the best opportunity to solve the Lab’s pressing space problems while allowing for long term growth and maintaining the 80-year tradition of close cooperation with the UC Berkeley Campus.”

Three Berkeley-connected sites were on a shortlist of six for the campus. They were: Berkeley Aquatic Park West, located in West Berkeley; Emeryville/Berkeley, (which included properties currently occupied by the Lab in Emeryville and West Berkeley); and Golden Gate Fields, spanning the cities of Berkeley and Albany.

The Lab had originally said it would announce its decision in November 2011, but revised that to “early in 2012″ in late November, saying it needed more time to fully evaluate its options.(...)

Read the rest of Breaking: Berkeley Lab chooses Richmond for 2nd campus (163 words)

By Tracey Taylor. | Permalink | 10 comments |
Post tags: Berkeley Lab

Berkeley Lab second campus decision delayed into 2012

Lance Knobel — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 19:10:12 +0000

Schematic design from the August presentation of Aquatic Park West second campus site, one of three with Berkeley footprints

Cities and developers eagerly awaiting a decision on the second campus for Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory are going to have to wait a little longer. When the lab announced its program to find a second campus, the choice among the six shortlisted sites — three with footprints in Berkeley — was scheduled for this month. Today the lab announced it expected the decision in early 2012.

“We have been working diligently over the past months since announcing our list of finalists,” said Berkeley Lab Director Paul Alivisatos in the lab’s notice of the delay. “We need a bit more time to fully evaluate our options and to confer with stakeholders in order to arrive at the best possible decision. We have a number of excellent options before us. Our goal now is to complete this phase of the process and announce a preferred site as soon as we can.”(...)

Read the rest of Berkeley Lab second campus decision delayed into 2012 (248 words)

By lance. | Permalink | 2 comments |
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Berkeley’s Saul Perlmutter wins Nobel Prize in Physics

Lance Knobel — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 12:59:55 +0000

Nobel laureate Saul Perlmutter with an image of supernova 1987a in the background. Photo: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Update 7:30 a.m. “It’s the only reason to win a Nobel Prize,” replied Saul Perlmutter to Berkeleyside during a teleconference early this morning. The new Nobel laureate was replying to our question about when he would receive the prized NL parking permit, reserved for laureates on the Berkeley campus. He expects to pick it up today, he said.

Perlmutter said he first heard about the prize when his phone rang at 2:45 a.m. this morning. A Swedish reporter asked him, “How do you feel?” “How do I feel about what?” Perlmutter replied. Perlmutter’s wife hurried to check the web to see if the call was a hoax. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences reached Perlmutter at about 3:15 a.m. with the official call.

Perlmutter said the academy had called the wrong cellphone number earlier, because one of his colleagues, a Swedish physicist, still had an old number in his contact list.

The discovery that led to the prize was described by Perlmutter as “the slowest aha moment you’ve ever heard”. He explained how he and his team spent four months sifting data from their observations of type 1a supernovae, expecting that further calibration would allow the data to plot “where we expected it to”. Instead, the data were absolutely in contradiction to “the elements of physics that we knew about”.

“This was a big shock,” Perlmutter said.(...)

Read the rest of Berkeley’s Saul Perlmutter wins Nobel Prize in Physics (403 words)

By lance. | Permalink | 3 comments |
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Berkeley Lab holds meeting for Emeryville/Berkeley site

Frances Dinkelspiel — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 18:00:39 +0000

By Frances Dinkelspiel. | Permalink | 2 comments |
Post tags: Berkeley Lab, second campus, Wareham Development

Berkeley sites for Lab’s second campus in the spotlight

Frances Dinkelspiel — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 21:00:11 +0000

Michael Goldin, one of the owners the Aquatic Park West site, stands in front of the view the lab would have if it located there. Photo: Frances Dinkelspiel

As the Berkeley Lab rolls into town this week to hold three public meetings about a second campus, there has been a lot of speculation about which community will be the best cheerleader. The bar has already been set high: Richmond had drummers and dancers perform at its meeting, Oakland put forward its mayor, and Alameda had a packed house.

But a curious thing happened in each community meeting. Instead of the cities wooing the Lab, the Lab wooed the cities.

Lab officials have started each gathering with a presentation that shows how Berkeley Lab is in the forefront of solving the world’s most pressing problems. With its work in developing new energy sources, medicines to fight malaria and other intractable diseases, and a search for solutions on how to capture carbon from smokestacks and other comparable projects, the Lab’s cutting-edge science has made the world a cleaner and better place, officials suggested.

Scientists from the Lab have discovered 16 new elements for the periodic table, helped pioneer refrigerators that are 74% more energy-efficient than earlier models, and developed technology that is used to make fluorescent lightbulbs, among other projects, Lab Director Paul Alivisatos told the crowd gathered in Richmond on July 21. A major focus of the Lab now is its Carbon Cycle 2.0 Initiative, which seeks ways to capture and reuse the carbon released in the air with the use of fossil fuels.

Alivisatos also wowed the crowd with statistics, like the fact there are 12 Nobel Prize winners and 13 National Science Medal winners at the Lab; more than 800 university students work there each year, and the Lab pumps $690 million annually into the Bay Area economy. Berkeley Lab “has a global reach in its activity and ambitions,” he said.

The focus on the Lab’s accomplishments is a great marketing tool – but it may also reflect recognition that building a second campus will have tradeoffs for whichever community hosts it. Since the Lab is a government institution, it won’t pay property taxes or have to comply with local zoning ordinances.

“Contrary to rumors floating around the community, there will be no new jobs at the second campus, which will consolidate work at three existing LBNL sites,” Zelda Bronstein, a former Berkeley Planning Commissioner and frequent critic of development wrote in an opinion piece in the Daily Planet. “Nor will the second campus, a government agency (the lab is managed by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy), itself yield any tax revenue. What a second LBNL campus will yield is a great deal of traffic [and] inflated property values.”

Proponents of the Lab point out that it will more than make up for the loss of property tax revenue by attracting spin-off businesses which will pay taxes. About 30 companies to date have been created using Lab technology, according to the lab website. The second campus will create a “critical mass” that will ensure the East Bay becomes a major scientific hub, supporters argue.

“LBNL has been/is/should always be a major player in Berkeley,” John DeClercq, the co-CEO of the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce wrote in a comment on Peak Democracy, a website that poses civic questions and asks for responses from the public. “Innovation, jobs, energy research — these are vital to our world, our country, our city. Berkeley should be proud to be able to be such a major contributor to world health…. We NEED this work to be done! And we NEED the proposed 2nd campus to be located in Berkeley, to better the world and to better the lives of Berkeleyans who will be employed at the 2nd campus.”

The official and public responses to the Lab have been positive so far. When Lab officials held a public meeting in Richmond on July 21, more than 400 people turned out, including the mayor, chief of police, fire chief, and Chamber of Commerce president, according to Alameda Patch. They cheered and held up welcome banners. In Alameda, more than 500 residents came to the information meeting on July 13th. Lawn signs saying “We Love LBL,” pepper front lawns around the city, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Since Berkeley has three potential sites – one near Aquatic Park, (the only one of the three that sits entirely in Berkeley) one near the Emeryville border, and one at Golden Gate Fields — and therefore three meetings — turnout at individual meetings may not be as large as it was in the other cities. In addition, the proposed sites in Alameda and Oakland are part of those cities’ redevelopment districts, meaning the city governments have gotten directly involved in luring the Lab.

Berkeley officials want the Lab to locate its second campus in Berkeley, but are not advocating any particular site since there are three possibilities, said Michael Caplan, the economic development program manager for Berkeley. The City Council did not take a formal position supporting a second campus, but individual city council members have sent letters of support, and many of them plan to show up to each of the three meetings, said Caplan.

So the reaction in Berkeley may look different than the reaction in Richmond, Alameda, and Oakland, but that does not mean Berkeley is any less enthusiastic than those cities, said Julie Sinai, chief of staff for Mayor Tom Bates.

Mayor Tom Bates is vacationing in Ireland but has taped a message touting Berkeley’s benefits that each of the three sites can use, said Sinai. “The mayor would like to see the Lab expand its second campus to one of those three sites,” said Sinai.

The Lab will be hosting three meetings in the next few days to explain the project and see what the developer of each site is proposing (note the new locations for the Albany and Emeryville meetings):

There will be a meeting tonight, Wednesday August 3rd, at 7:30 pm at the Albany High School gymnasium to discuss the Golden Gate Fields site. This 100-acre site straddles Albany and Berkeley, although the bulk of the land is in Albany. The owner of the racetrack, which pays $1.7 million annually to Albany, is the Stronach Group of Canada. That organization wants to develop the site for the Lab, tear down the race track, and is interested in constructing a hotel or shopping district.

Tomorrow, on Thursday August 4th, there will be a meeting to discuss the Aquatic Park West site at 7:00 pm at the Frances Albrier Community Center in Berkeley. The Aquatic Park West site is co-owned by Michael and Steven Goldin and the Jones Family. The Goldins would act as partners to Forest City, the developers of the 12.5 acre site off Bolivar Drive.

On Monday, August 8th, there will be a meeting to discuss the Emeryville/Emery Station/Berkeley site at 7 pm at the Hilton Garden Inn in Emeryville. The Wareham Development Group already owns a cluster of buildings in this area, and some of the Lab’s existing programs, like the Berkeley West Biocenter on Potter Street, already occupy the buildings.

By Frances Dinkelspiel. | Permalink | 17 comments |
Post tags: Aquatic Park West, Berkeley Lab, Golden Gate Fields, Jones Family, Julie Sinai, michael caplan, Michael Goldin, Paul Alivisatos, second campus, Steven Goldin, Stronach Group, Tom Bates, Wareham Development

Berkeley bids for second Lab campus fly under the radar

Tracey Taylor — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 16:30:33 +0000

Richmond City illustration of a possible LBNL second campus site

Richmond is pulling out all the stops in its bid to persuade the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab to build its second campus there. A full-blown, city-sponsored advertising campaign includes a billboard on I-80, lawn signs for residents’ front yards and “Richmond (Heart) LBNL” buttons available for all to wear.

Alameda, another bidder for the site, has put $20,000 behind a “Let’s put the (Alameda) Point to work” campaign.

Three Berkeley sites are also on the Lab’s shortlist of six — but if there’s a Berkeley welcoming committee, it’s certainly not making its efforts very visible.

The main reason for that is that the three Berkeley-related bids were submitted by private companies, unlike in Richmond and Alameda where the cities signed off on the bids.(...)

Read the rest of Berkeley bids for second Lab campus fly under the radar (745 words)

By Tracey Taylor. | Permalink | 36 comments |
Post tags: Berkeley Chamber of Commerce, Laurie Capitelli, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, West Berkeley plan

Berkeley Lab’s Advanced Light Source gets a “cool” roof

Lance Knobel — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 21:45:49 +0000

Reroofing the Advanced Light Source at Lawrence Berkeley Lab. Photo: Lawrence Berkeley Nat'l Lab/Roy Kaltschmidt

While much of the coverage of energy issues faces on big geopolitical or technological challenges (Reduce dependency on foreign oil! Make solar as cheap as coal!), some of the biggest gains in energy efficiency can come from seemingly innocent actions.

Three years ago, then-candidate Barack Obama inspired ridicule from some quarters by suggesting that checking for proper tire pressure would save as much oil as new offshore drilling could produce (turns out Obama was wrong: properly inflated tires probably save three times as much oil as new offshore drilling could produce).

Another strikingly simple approach is to encourage so-called “cool roofs”. White or reflecting roofs replacing dark roofs, can offset large amounts of carbon dioxide (a recent LBL study suggested that two years of global carbon emissions could be mitigated). The idea was pioneered by LBL’s Art Rosenfeld and Hashem Akbari, and last year Energy Secretary Steven Chu (a former director of LBL) announced new policies to implement cool roof technologies on Department of Energy facilities.(...)

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By lance. | Permalink | 4 comments |
Post tags: Art Rosenfeld, Hashem Akbari, Steve Chu

Three Berkeley sites being considered for Lawrence Berkeley Lab second campus

Frances Dinkelspiel — Mon, 09 May 2011 18:11:44 +0000

Aerial view of Lawrence Berkeley Lab/Photo: LBL

The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has selected six sites in six East Bay cities as the possible location of a second campus, Berkeleyside has learned.

Three of the six sites are either in Berkeley or partly in Berkeley, according to knowledgeable sources who asked not to be named. They are:

The Richmond Field Station. The University of California already owns this land, and it is presumed to be the front runner for the second campus.
Golden Gate Fields — This 30-acre parcel sits mainly in Albany, although a section also sits in Berkeley.
The Goldin brothers/Jones family parcel off of Bolivar Drive near Aquatic Park in Berkeley. This 12.5 acre parcel is the site of the old American Soils property.
A 64 acre parcel known as the Brooklyn Basin along Oakland’s waterfront.
A portion of the old Alameda Naval Air Station in Alameda. The city has offered this land for free to the lab as a way to quick-start development of the old base.
Wareham Development’s sites straddling Berkeley and Emeryville.

The lab received 21 proposals from eight cities interested in having the second campus. They included multiple sites in Berkeley, including the old Marchant Building, about four proposals in Oakland, one in Walnut Creek, one in Dublin, and a number in Richmond.(...)

Read the rest of Three Berkeley sites being considered for Lawrence Berkeley Lab second campus (408 words)

By Frances Dinkelspiel. | Permalink | 8 comments |
Post tags: Alameda Point, Berkeley Aquatic Park West, Brooklyn Basin, Golden Gate Fields, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Richmond Field Station, second campus

Berkeley: more excellent than expected

Lance Knobel — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 15:30:06 +0000

Looking for excellence in physics? Larger green circles show more excellence than expected.

We love maps on Berkeleyside, particularly when they demonstrate something that we knew in our hearts even without the data. (We also like maps that show us our preconceptions were wildly wrong. We just like maps.) So it was exciting to come across the recent research of Lutz Bornmann of Munich and Loet Leydesdorff of Amsterdam.

Bornmann and Leydesdorff undertook a study in spatial bibliometrics to determine which cities around the world have more scientific excellence than expected (you can read the entire draft paper here). Using data from Thomson Reuters’ Web of Science, Bornmann and Leydesdorff compared how many research papers cities produce in three fields — physics, chemistry and psychology — and then looked at how many of those papers were in the top 10% of citations in the fields.(...)

Read the rest of Berkeley: more excellent than expected (398 words)

By lance. | Permalink | 4 comments |
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