UC Berkeley Press Release

Nobel laureates, chancellor to discuss energy self-sufficiency

By Kathleen Maclay, Media Relations | 17 January 2007

BERKELEY – Six Nobel laureates will gather at the University of California, Berkeley, with Chancellor Robert Birgeneau this Saturday (Jan. 20) to discuss energy self-sufficiency in the 21st century.

The program will include presentations by:

• Steven Chu, director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the 1997 winner of the Nobel Prize in physics
• Donald Glaser, a UC Berkeley physics professor emeritus and winner of the 1960 Nobel Prize in physics
• Yuan T. Lee, a UC Berkeley chemistry professor emeritus and winner of the 1986 Nobel Prize in chemistry
• Daniel McFadden, a UC Berkeley economics professor who won the 2000 Nobel Prize in economics
• George F. Smoot, a UC Berkeley physics professor and winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in physics
• Charles Townes, a UC Berkeley emeritus professor of physics and winner of the 1964 Nobel Prize in physics

The 2-4 p.m. event in the Pauley Ballroom of the Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union will include a question and answer session following the presentations.

UC Berkeley has developed a reputation as a leader in research on energy issues such as global warming, conservation and evolving markets.

It is one of five universities in the world that is competing to win a $500 million grant from the British Petroleum Energy Biosciences Institute for long-term research into the production of alternative fuels. Some $40 million in additional state money would supplement the grant.

Chancellor Birgeneau recently announced the initiation of a program to implement a campus-wide climate protection plan that expands the administration's action toward a "greener Berkeley" and recognizes the coalitions that have developed in the campus community around sustainability issues.

The campus recently joined the California Climate Action Registry, pledging to measure, report and reduce greenhouse gas emissions as a means of mitigating climate change. More than 75 major companies, cities, government and non-governmental agencies have become members of the registry, which is committed to tracking and making public their greenhouse gas emissions.

A Web site highlighting some of UC Berkeley's energy research and experts is online at: http://energy.berkeley.edu/.