Ongoing projects in the following specific areas

* 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