Nobel Prize-winning Physicist Steven Chu Nominated for Energy Secretary

[Greg]

From the Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/
article/2008/12/11/AR2008121103380_pf.html).

Congratulations to an accomplished individual and a true scientific
citizen.

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Concern for Climate Change Defines Energy Dept. Nominee

By Steven Mufson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 12, 2008; A09

The man tapped to be the next secretary of energy, Nobel Prize-winning
physicist Steven Chu, recently compared the danger of climate change
to a problem with electrical wiring in a house.

Suppose, he said, you had a small electrical fire at home and a
structural engineer told you there was a 50 percent chance your house
would burn down in the next few years unless you spent $20,000 to fix
faulty wiring.

"You can either continue to shop for additional evaluations until you
find the one engineer in 1,000 who is willing to give you the answer
you want -- 'your family is not in danger' -- or you can change the
wiring," Chu said in a presentation in September.

Because of the danger of climate change, he said, the United States
and other countries also need to make some urgent repairs. He said
governments need to "act quickly" to implement fiscal and regulatory
policies to stimulate the deployment of technologies that boost energy
efficiency and "minimize" carbon emissions.

Chu's views on climate change would be among the most forceful ever
held by a cabinet member. In an interview with The Post last year, he
said that the cost of electricity was "anomalously low" in the United
States, that a cap-and-trade approach to limiting greenhouse gases "is
an absolutely non-partisan issue," and that scientists had come to
"realize that the climate is much more sensitive than we thought."

He said people who said they were uncertain whether climate change is
being caused by humans were "reminiscent of the dialogue in the 1950s
and '60s on tobacco." (At that time, many argued that there was
insufficient evidence linking smoking to cancer.)

He put aside the atomic and molecular biophysics research he had been
doing as a Stanford University professor to become head of the
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in 2004 and steer it toward
projects aimed at slashing the country's emissions of greenhouse gases
that hasten climate change. He created the Helios Project, a center
that seeks to use solar energy to generate chemical fuel at a low
cost.

The laboratory's scientists, including 11 Nobel laureates, have
altered yeast and bacteria into organisms that produce gasoline and
diesel, improved techniques for converting switchgrass into the sugars
needed to produce transportation fuel, and used nanotechnology to
improve the efficiency of photovoltaic cells used in solar panels,
among other projects.

Chu said in remarks prepared for a recent meeting in Washington that
while private companies such as DuPont and Duke Energy were investing
in new technology, "most companies are reluctant to invest in research
into transformational technologies that may not see commercialization
for 10 years, even though such technologies could dramatically change
the entire energy landscape."

Chu worked from 1978 to 1987 at AT&T Bell Laboratories, where he did
the work that led to his Nobel Prize in 1997. Other scientists at Bell
Labs have made scientific breakthroughs leading to advances such as
the invention of the transistor, Chu said. But, he added, "the great
industrial research institutes such as Bell Labs are now mere shadows
of their former glory." (Alcatel-Lucent, the current owner of Bell
Labs, said earlier this year that it was cutting back basic science,
material physics and semiconductor research.)

Chu, who declined to comment yesterday for this story, said that meant
government support for research at universities and the national labs
was "our only hope to supply the science required to create
transformative energy solutions."

Chu's belief that technology and innovation can help solve energy and
climate problems appeals to both environmentalists and to many people
in the energy industry, though many environmentalists stress that
current technology can go a long way toward slashing energy use.

"His experience seems to dovetail perfectly with the President-elect's
commitment to bringing new energy technology to market in a timely
fashion," said Scott Segal, a Bracewell and Giuliani partner and
director of the coal and power industry-backed Electric Reliability
Coordinating Council. "An understanding of the art of the possible in
energy technology will be critical to the development of a cost-
effective climate change policy."

"He is one of the few guys I know in academia who also has a practical
and commercial side," said Terry Tamminen, an energy and environment
expert and former chief policy adviser to California Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger (R). "He recognized that he could do so much more with
knowledge other than teach classes."

Chu's nomination, expected to be announced next week, would require
Senate confirmation.

The Energy Department is an odd beast. Thirty-six percent of its $25
billion budget is related to national security, dealing with nuclear
materials from such devices as decommissioned nuclear weapons and
naval reactors. Another 25 percent of its budget goes to environmental
management and civilian nuclear waste management.

Another sizable chunk goes to the national laboratories, usually
difficult for the central office to manage. In addition to Lawrence
Berkeley, they include Oak Ridge, Lawrence Livermore, Sandia, Savannah
River, Los Alamos, Argonne, Brookhaven and National Renewable Energy
Laboratory.

"He's run one of these labs. He gets it," said a Democratic source
familiar with the Obama transition team's thinking.

The department could become more central to practical energy issues
because of President-elect Barack Obama's interest in promoting
renewable energy and carbon capture and storage for coal-fired plants.
A program to promote electric cars through infrastructure spending
could involve the Energy Department. The department also sets
appliance standards and other energy efficiency goals.

The son of highly educated Chinese immigrants, Chu was born in St.
Louis in 1948. His father studied chemical engineering at MIT, and his
mother studied economics there. Chu describes himself as the "academic
black sheep" in a family full of graduate degrees and Ivy League
graduates. He went to the University of Rochester. There he read a
textbook by the famous physicist Richard Feynman and said he found it
"mesmerizing and inspirational." He went to graduate school at the
University of California at Berkeley before taking a job at Bell Labs.
There he and another scientist did their prize-winning research,
trapping atoms with laser cooling techniques.

Chu has used his post at Lawrence Berkeley to preach the importance of
climate issues. He has met with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and he was
co-chair of a committee that produced a report called "Lighting the
Way: Toward a Sustainable Energy Future."

In the interview with The Post last year, Chu said that he had
confidence in mankind's ability to solve its energy problems. The
challenge, he said, was to create things from nature that nature
cannot make on its own. People figured out how to use titanium blades
in jet engines, an improvement over bird wings, he said. "Maybe we can
build a better photosynthesis machine," he said.