Daniel M. Kammen

Professor of Energy
Director of Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory (RAEL)
Professor in the Energy and Resources Group
Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy

Ph.D. Physics, Harvard University, 1988
M.A. Physics, Harvard University, 1986
A.B. Physics, Cornell University, 1984

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Biography

Professor Kammen teaches a core ERG course, ER100/200 “Energy and Society” that takes an interdisciplinary approach to all aspects of energy systems, technical, economic, environmental, social, and political. He also teaches ER120 “Renewable Energy” that combines energy resource, engineering, economic, environmental, and sociological perspectives in the study of the current state and potential future role of renewable energy technologies in both developed and developing nations.

Until 1999 he was on the faculty of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, where he offered a number of courses in the area of science and technology analysis and policy. At the undergraduate level he offered WWS308 “Process and Methods in Science and Technology Policy”; MAE319 “Topics in Renewable Energy Conversion” WWS304 “Science, Technology and Public Policy” and lectured in ENV201 “Environmental Science and Policy”. At the graduate level he offered: WWS571 “Environment and Development; WWS571c “Technology Transfer and Development”; and WWS589 “Methods in Science, Technology and Public Policy”.

Professor Kammen’s research interests include: the science, 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 R&D policy, climate change; and energy forecasting and risk analysis. He is the author of over 90 journal publications, a book on environmental, technological, and health risks (Should We Risk It?, Princeton University Press) and numerous reports on renewable energy and development. He has been featured on radio, network and public broadcasting television and in print as an analyst of energy, environmental, and risk policy issues and current events. His recent work on energy R&D policy appeared in Science, and Environment, and has been featured on PBS, KQED, CNN, and in many newspapers via the Reuters news service.

Research Interests

Areas of Interest:

Science and technology policy focused on energy, development and environmental management. Technology and policy questions in developing nations, particularly involving: the linkages between energy, health, and the environment; technology transfer and diffusion; household energy management; renewable energy; women; minority groups. Global environmental change including deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions and resource consumption. Environmental and technological risk. Management of innovation and energy R&D policy. Geographic expertise: Africa; Latin America.

Current Research Focus:

The technical development, use, and market for photovoltaics and small-scale wind energy systems in developing nations.
The energy, ecological, and health issues surrounding large-scale battery use as an early stage in electrification in developing nations.
The energy efficiency, health impacts, and relationship to forest and biomass management of household cooking stoves. Related projects include the health impacts of small-scale commercial combustion activities, such as charcoal production (Kenya); and, pottery production and glazing (Mexico).
The prospect for biomass-based electrification as a component of national energy plans in developing nations, with an initial pilot study of a 10 MW biomass integrated gassifier in Zimbabwe.
The economics of innovation and ‘learning by doing’ for renewable energy technologies.
The technical, economic, and political determinants and constraints on large-scale energy systems based on distributed fuel-cell technologies, including the potential to move entirely away from a central-station power generation society and to implemented a distributed energy supply and demand network.
Development and analysis of policies to reduce global warming through the use of renewable energy technologies and the adoption of globally equitable greenhouse gas emissions policies.
Policies to enhance the efficiency and utility of investments in energy R&D, both in developed and developing nations.
Analysis of dose-response profiles for a variety of natural and anthropogenic compounds, and the development of a general theory for dose-response behavior at low doses.The Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory (RAEL)

Professor Kammen directs the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory, which is a unique new research, development, project implementation, and community outreach facility based at the University of California, Berkeley. RAEL, housed in Etcheverry Hall with a solar roof laboratory atop Wurster Hall focuses on designing, testing, and disseminating renewable and appropriate energy systems. The laboratory’s mission is to help these technologies realize their full potential to contribute to environmentally sustainable development in both industrialized and developing nations while also addressing the cultural context and range of potential social impacts of any new technology or resource management system.

Despite the fundamental importance of energy systems, university laboratories devoted to this issue are rare, and RAEL is essentially alone in its focus on renewable and appropriate energy technologies and applications. A university laboratory focused on use-inspired basic and directly applied energy research is crucial, however, if renewables are to become a mainstream energy option. Many talented individuals wishing to work on renewable energy and environmental issues have little or no opportunity to train, examine and innovate with these energy systems. The faculty and students affiliated with RAEL are also involved in developing teaching exercises that include: battery performance and energy storage for stand-alone, micro-grid, and grid-connected renewable energy systems; efficiency and emissions optimization from biomass stoves and biogas digestion systems; design of vertical versus horizontal-axis wind turbines; management of solar concentrator systems for small-scale industrial applications; and the design of fuel cell vehicles. Kammen also serves on the US Department of Energy Nuclear Energy Research and Advisory Committee to look at the next generation, “Gen IV”, of nuclear power plants.

The RAEL is a hub for training, public-private sector collaboration, and the development of tools and materials to support sustainable energy policies and practices. RAEL facilitates research and development (R&D), as well as demonstration and commer-cialization (D&C) projects in addition to wider work on the sociology of energy management. The laboratory emphasizes research on the both basic and applied questions surrounding grid extension and the integration of renewable energy sources that will be of interest to a range of groups. The emphasis is on integration, and not isolation of renewables, and will therefore be of use to electric utilities as well, both in providing new services in developed nations, and in increasing the type and diversity of energy services in developing nations. The focus will be on applications in both developing and industrialized nation.

Selected Publications

Kammen, D. M. (2005) “An energy policy for the 21st Century”, PolicyMatters, 2 (2), 14 – 19. Bailis, R., Ezzati, M. and Kammen, D. M. (2005) “Mortality and greenhouse gas impacts of biomass and petroleum energy futures in Africa”, 308, Science, 98 – 103.

Bailis, R., Ezzati, M., and Kammen, D. M. (2005) “Biomass and Fossil Fuel Energy Futures in Africa”, Journal of Environment & Development, 14 (1), 149 – 174.

Jacobson, A., Milman, A. D. and Kammen, D. M. (2005) “Letting the (Energy) Gini out of the Bottle: Lorentz Curves of Cumulative Electricity Consumption and Gini Coefficients as Metrics of Energy Distribution and Equity, Energy Policy, 33 (14), 1825-1832.

Matson, P., Clark, W., Gadgil, A., Kammen, D. M. Liverman, D., Schimel, D. (2004) “Preface: Annual Review of Environment and Resources”, Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 29.

Lipman, T.E., J.L. Edwards, and D.M. Kammen (2004) “Fuel cell system economics: comparing the costs of generating power with stationary and motor vehicle PEM fuel cell systems,” Energy Policy, 32, 101-125.

Kammen, D. M. and Pacca, S., (2004) “Assessing the costs of electricity”, Annual Review of Energy and the Environment, 29, 1 – 44.

Ezzati, M., Bailis, R., Kammen, D. M., Holloway, T., Price, L., Cifuentes, L. A., et al.
(2004). Energy Management and Global Health. Annual Review of Environment and
Resources, 29, 383-419.