Rosenfeld wins Fermi Award

“Wow—I’m touched.”

That, said Arthur H. Rosenfeld, was his reaction on learning he was the winner of the coveted Enrico Fermi Award, the federal government’s oldest award for scientific achievement.

Rosenfeld, a member of the California Energy Commission whose career has focused on energy efficiency and savings—and who holds the distinction of being Fermi’s last graduate student—received the honor from the US Department of Energy “for a lifetime of achievements ranging from pioneering scientific discoveries in experimental nuclear and particle physics to innovations in science, technology, and public policy for energy conservation that continue to benefit humanity. His vision not only underpins national policy but has helped launch an industry in energy efficiency.”

The former longtime experimental particle physicist now leads the California Energy Commission’s R&D and demand-response committees and is active in its energy-efficiency committee. Rosenfeld earned his PhD in 1954 from the University of Chicago, and in 1955 he joined the physics group at the University of California, Berkeley, where for the next 18 years he was a key developer of bubble-chamber physics. But in 1973, after OPEC began its embargo on oil sales to the West, Rosenfeld recognized the potential for energy savings in the building sector and founded a program that grew into the Center for Building Science at DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Under Rosenfeld’s direction, the center developed numerous technologies to boost energy efficiency, including electronic ballasts for fluorescent lighting—a key component of compact fluorescent lamps—and low-emissivity windows, which have a coating that allows light in but blocks heat from entering in the summer or escaping in the winter.

Rosenfeld also developed DOE-2, a computer program for energy analysis and design of buildings that in 1978 was incorporated into California’s building code, which has served as a model for other building codes around the nation.

Since joining the California Energy Commission in 2000, Rosenfeld has been implementing the demand-side technology and incentives he advocated during the previous 30 years. Rosenfeld received his award, including a medal and $375 000, in June during a ceremony in Washington, DC. With the purse he plans to set up the Rosenfeld Fund with San Francisco’s Energy Foundation to finance projects in energy efficiency worldwide.

The Fermi Award was established in 1956 as a memorial to the 1938 Nobel laureate in physics, who achieved the first nuclear chain reaction and thereby initiated the atomic age. The honor recognizes scientists of international stature for their exceptional achievement in the development, use, control, or production of energy, defined to include the science and technology of nuclear, atomic, molecular, and particle interactions and their effects on humankind and the environment.