This week, CARES has begun the roll out of a new site that will house all the energy and sustianability projects that CARES has been working over the past 3 years.

The new site is cares.berkeley.edu .  We plan on completing the intergration of our websites within 3 weeks. 

Good News: CARES won 2nd place at the Big Ideas @ Berkeley project competition within the Social Justice, Community Engagement competition category.

Yael lead the project proposal entitled "Students-Community Collaborative Design Challenge" focused on the use of Design Challenges for providing solutions to underserved communities.

We are looking forward to using these funds to aid us in the co-design of more culturally inspired buildings with our Native American partners! 

On Saturday, December 4th, members from CARES and engineering students from Berkeley's ENG39F CARES seminar class held a Renewable Energy Workshop with members of the Pinoleville Pomo Nation on solar and wind energy systems.

The wind and solar energy session focus on elementary, middle and high school students while the adults attended a planning session where objective were laid out for metering the microhydro and wind energy potential of the PPN lands.

I really enjoyed seeing all the faces of the youth light during these sessions.  Everyone seemed really engaged and seemed eager to pursue careers in the renewable energy fields. 

Plus, the PPN gave Alice and I some tokens of their appreciation of dedication to this partnership for almost 3 years.   

Go here for the pictures from that day.

Today, I had a great opportunity to speak with Gov. Gray Davis about my work with the Pinoleville Pomo Nation during the unveiling of his plaque in the CITRIS Headquarters.

During his time as Governor, Gov. Davis championed energy efficiency and research in renewable energy technology. 

He seemed to be really glad that there are researchers at Berkeley working in CITRIS to carry on some of his initiatives in the realm of energy.

Go here to see the full set of images from that day. 

On Friday, September 17th 2010, I was able to work with members of the Pinoleville Pomo Nation to install a 20 m (60 ft) anemometer to measure the wind speed for power generation.

This work was fund by the Department of Energy and the Tribal Energy Program as apart of a renewable energy feasibility study grant the PPN received.

I had a great time working with everyone and I look forward to getting other CARES student to help out in the microhydro and pyranometer meters as well.

Please go here for the full set of images from that day.

Professor Alice Agogino, Mr. Daniel Wilson, and I will be teaching a freshman and sophomore seminar Engineering 39F entitled "Community Assessment of Renewable Energy and Sustainability (CARES)" .

This seminar is on CARES (Community Assessment of Renewable Energy and Sustainability) with application to the Pinoleville Pomo Nation.

CARES research has shown that living sustainably, having access to accurate environmental data, and having implementable solutions are of major concerns to consumers.

CARES seeks to help reduce climate change by being the first to close the loop of assessment, advisement and implementation of a more sustainable lifestyle.

This seminar will cover approaches to community assessment of renewable energy, with a focus on conservation, geothermal, microhydo-electric, solar photovoltaic, solar hot water heating, and wind energy.

We will also explore issues associate with creating a “green corridor” with electric vehicles in the San Francisco Bay Area with connections to Northern California tribes. Related website: http://best.berkeley.edu/ and http://www.planetcares.org/. Enrollment is limited to ten students.