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The Institute continues to build an exciting series of programs and events. In the past two months, we hosted an  Executive Roundtable on Fast-tracking the Adoption of LED Lighting and an Energy Leadership Lecture by Amory Lovins, Cofounder, Chairman, and Chief Scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute.

Spring quarter will be no exception, and is packed with great events. The Santa Barbara Summit on Energy Efficiency is May 12-13 and includes keynotes by Dan Reicher, Director of Climate Change and Energy Initiatives at Google, Richard Newell, Administrator of the U.S. EIA, and Michael Peevey, President of the CPUC.  We also have upcoming lectures by David MacKay and Larry Smarr.  We hope you will join us for one or all of these events!

John Bowers
Director, the Institute for Energy Efficiency
 

Feature Article

The Bright Future of LED Lighting
Article by Ned Stafford in the Royal Society of Chemistry
LED lights offer many advantages over traditional sources of lighting, including low power consumption, a long life, and no radiated heat, but barriers such as high prices and technological difficulties have prevented them from entering the mainstream residential lighting market. LED lighting is already prevalent throughout the commercial sector which uses more lights for more hours than homes and thus investment is paid back more quickly. Now with prices coming down, manufacturers predict 2010 as the year LEDs will become prevalent in the household lighting market. Read Article
 

Feature Video

Amory Lovins at UCSB 
Amory Lovins visited UC Santa Barbara in March to present "Reinventing Fire", the Rocky Mountain Institutes' vision and pathway to a fossil-free future for the United States. Lovins discussed various profitable approaches to solve climate change and oil dependence, including installing wind and solar energy, exploiting industrial cogeneration, and running idle combined- cycle gas plants. Energy efficiency was highlighted as the quickest, largest, and least expensive opportunity for moving toward a sustainable energy future. View Video and Presentation
 

Institute News

Registration Open for the Second Annual Santa Barbara Summit on Energy Efficiency
The Institute for Energy Efficiency at UC Santa Barbara today announced the initial speaker lineup for the second annual Santa Barbara Summit on Energy Efficiency, to be held at the Four Seasons Biltmore in Santa Barbara on May 12-13, 2010. The Summit will bring together global leaders and stakeholders in energy efficiency technology, implementation, and policy for two days of in-depth discussions and industry updates in this fast-moving sector.Read More ...