I'm pleased to announce that the grand opening of the co-designed homes at the Pinoleville Pomo Nation
will featured in an Open House next Friday, Sept. 21 in Ukiah, CA at 10 am.  

Please come if you can!!!

Since March 2008, the Community Assessment of Renewable Energy and Sustainability (CARES) has been partnering with the Pinoleville Pomo Nation (PPN) near Ukiah, CA to co-design culturally-inspired, sustainable housing and renewable energy power systems that utilize sustainability best practices, renewable energy technology, and reflect the long-standing culture of the Pinoleville Pomo Nation.

During that time, this partnership has secured roughly $1.5 million via CITRIS, DOE, HUD, and EPA for construction and funded 2 PhDs and 2 MS projects in the College of Engineering and the Department of Architecture.

Two of the co-designed homes have been built and the PPN conducted “green jobs” training sessions on strawbale construction materials, grey water, and renewable energy systems for its citizens and local labors participating in their construction.  

This partnership has been honored with the 2010 Chancellor’s Award for Public Service in the Civic Engagement and has also been featured in UC Berkeley’s College of Engineering's Innovations (October 2008), College of Engineering's Engineering News (December 2008), College of Engineering's ForeFront (Spring 2009), and the University Relations’ Promise of Berkeley (Fall 2009). 

Also see Luce video of the project here.

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.

This past weekend, Josiah of RAEL and I went to the The Tuolumne Band of Mewuk Indians Acorn Festival and had solar energy booth.

We worked with the youth of the Mewuk and surrounding communities to design and build solar cars.

I had a lot of fun and I hope to continue to work with the Mewuk and RAEL.

Go here to see the full gallery of photos.

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.

CARES is branching out to other Native American tribes in Northern California to work on sustainability and renewable energy related research.

In particular, we are starting to work with the Kashia Band of Pomo Indians located near Stewarts Point.

On Wednesday, August 11th, Kashia will be bringing 10 youths with ages ranging from 13 to 20 years to tour UC Berkeley.

CARES will be giving a tour of the CITRIS Technology museum and having a poster session during the lunch hour.

I would love if some of the BEST and BID students could talk about their work and eat lunch with the students.
The full schedule of event is here and pictures are here.

SWEET!!!  CARES won a $75K seed CITRIS grant to start a CARES center at Berkeley to codesign & build green it & energy systems for Native Nations.

The center will be called Native American Community Assessment for Renewable Energy and Sustainability (Native CARES) and will include Native American partners such as the Pinoleville Pomo Nation, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and Sandia National Laboratories.

Thanks to everyone that's supporting our efforts to helping  communities improve their overall level of sustainability and meet their triple bottom line requirements!

CARES has seen much success since we won the E Team grant in 2007 from NCIIA.  I believe that this grant is a another key step in establishing CARES as a major force in the sustainability arena.