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TRANSITION: Chu brings alt-energy support, Nobel Prize to DOE (12/11/2008)
Ben Geman and Katherine Ling, E&E Daily reporters
President-elect Barack Obama's choice of Steven Chu, director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, to run the Energy Department will bring an expert backer of alternative energy to the Cabinet who will face new challenges navigating Capitol Hill.
Chu, a 60-year-old Nobel Prize laureate with an extensive scientific background, has warned of dire consequences of global warming and the need to develop low-emissions and renewable energy sources, which he has made a priority at the research lab.
Chu, an Asian-American, shared the 1997 Nobel Prize in physics and has headed the Berkeley lab, with a staff of 4,000 and a $600 million budget, since 2004.
In selecting Chu, Obama would have a DOE chief who has been far removed -- by geography and otherwise -- from the battles and maneuvering of Washington policymaking and legislation.
If confirmed, Chu will head a department with a current budget of roughly $24 billion and a mission ranging from cleaning up the massive waste from Cold War nuclear weapons production to developing renewable energy technology, and a lot in between. A large portion of the agency's budget is devoted to overseeing the nation's nuclear weapons complex.
Word that Chu will be the nominee comes as other members of Obama's environmental and energy team are coming into focus. Nancy Sutley, the Los Angeles deputy mayor for energy and environment, has been tapped to lead the White House Council on Environmental Quality for the Obama administration, a senior Democratic source said yesterday.
Lisa Jackson, the former director of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and current chief of staff for New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine (D), has emerged as the likely choice to head U.S. EPA (Greenwire, Dec. 5).
In addition, there is widespread speculation that Carol Browner, who headed EPA under President Bill Clinton, will be tapped for a new White House position overseeing energy and climate policy. Browner is helping guide energy and environmental issues for Obama's transition team.
Obama has called for programs to ensure steep cuts in greenhouse gases, including a cap-and-trade law as well as expanded investment in emerging technologies.
Speaking at an energy summit in Las Vegas over the summer, Chu spoke of the catastrophic effects if global temperatures were to rise by 5 degrees Centigrade.
"Climate change of that scale will cause enormous resource wars, over water, arable land, and massive population displacements. We're not talking about ten thousand people. We're not talking about 10 million people, we're talking about hundreds of millions to billions of people being flooded out, permanently," Chu said.
Quick praise for Chu, but challenges await
"If there's anyone who fundamentally understands where we should be going to create a new energy economy, Steven is one of them," said John Balbach, managing partner with the Cleantech Group. "The investment community sees him as a significant strong ally."
"It is quite unique for someone who understands science, global warming, and energy efficiency to be appointed the head of the Department of Energy," adds Joseph Romm, a senior fellow at the liberal Center for American progress, adding his background "compliments" the reported choice of Browner for the White House post.
The choice of Chu also won fast praise from Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, a utility industry group that has often been on the opposite of environmentalists on clean air regulations.
"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, the group's director. "An understanding of the art of the possible in energy technology will be critical to the development of a cost-effective climate change policy."
But some noted Chu will face a very new world coming to Washington and Capitol Hill. "The way things work are going to be super-different," said one lobbyist. "You cannot give someone a formula for the appropriations process. There is no equation for it."
"Running an agency like that you need to be equal parts brilliant and Machiavellian, and being good at one doesn't mean you don't have to be good at the other," adds another lobbyist, who works on the oil industry and has also worked for Democrats on Capitol Hill.
"You need to be good at both to be an effective agency chief, and he is going to need to come up to speed fast on learning the political game, how to operate within the Cabinet, how to operate with an aggressive White House staff, and how to operate within the politics of the agency even though he is the head," this source adds.
Backing a portfolio approach to energy
Chu has stated his support for many sources of energy including solar, advanced biofuels, nuclear and coal with carbon capture and sequestration.
In March 2006, for instance, he said in testimony submitted to the House Science and Technology Committee that the energy problem is the "single most important problem that has to be solved by science and technology in the coming decades.
"At present, there appear to be no magic bullets to solve the energy problem," Chu added. "While efficiencies play a huge role in defining how much energy we consume, we must also have a diversified portfolio of investments to develop sustainable sources of energy."
Chu has emphasized energy technologies at the lab. For instance, the lab is part of the Energy Biosciences Institute, a 10-year, $500 million partnership with BP PLC, University of California at Berkeley and the University of Illinois. It is largely aimed at developing next-generation biofuels.
Chu, along with the other heads of the national laboratories signed a report in August that stated the directors of the DOE national laboratories "strongly believe that nuclear energy must play a significant and growing role in our nation's -- and the world's -- energy portfolio."
And according to a 2005 interview, Chu supports nuclear energy as a solution to climate change.
"Right now, compared to conventional coal, it looks good -- what are the lesser of two evils?" Chu said. "If we can reduce the volume and the lifetime of the waste, that would tip it very much against conventional coal."
Waste is a significant issue for nuclear energy, he said, noting the U.S. may need "three or four Yucca Mountains." Chu has expressed skepticism about the Yucca Mountain waste repository, a project Obama does also not support. Chu said fission-based nuclear power plants could bring down the amount of time nuclear waste is radioactive.
The blog of the Nuclear Energy Institute, "NEI notes," said, "He would seem to fit the energy policy President-elect Obama has articulated and should, at least until that policy starts to coalesce onto paper, calm some nerves in how the Obama administration will approach nuclear energy." NEI did not want to give an official comment until Obama made an official announcement, a spokesman said.
Carbon sequestration can make "a very significant contribution" to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, Chu told the American Physical Society in a 2006 interview. But he quickly added sequestration will make the cost of electricity go up and the regulatory issues are significant.
Chu said it is possible to "put your pedal to the floor in sequestration and it's not closing the door to renewable sources."
Chu, who was born in St. Louis in 1948 and grew up in Garden City, N.Y., has undergraduate degrees in physics and mathematics from the University of Rochester and a doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley.
After getting his doctorate, Chu was offered an assistant professorship at UC Berkeley but eventually turned it down to work at Bell Labs in the late 1970s.
At Bell he was urged to think outside the box and often took on jobs others deemed "impossible," Chu described in his speech accepting the Nobel Prize in physics. Chu began his work on laser cooling and trapping atoms at Bell Labs that eventually won him the prize.
In 1987 Chu joined the faculty at Stanford, where he eventually succeeded in slowing down atoms enough for scientists to study, which helped them better understand the interplay of radiation and matter and the behavior of gases at lower temperatures.
Reporter Debra Kahn contributed from San Francisco.
Ben Geman and Katherine Ling, E&E Daily reporters
President-elect Barack Obama's choice of Steven Chu, director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, to run the Energy Department will bring an expert backer of alternative energy to the Cabinet who will face new challenges navigating Capitol Hill.
Chu, a 60-year-old Nobel Prize laureate with an extensive scientific background, has warned of dire consequences of global warming and the need to develop low-emissions and renewable energy sources, which he has made a priority at the research lab.
Chu, an Asian-American, shared the 1997 Nobel Prize in physics and has headed the Berkeley lab, with a staff of 4,000 and a $600 million budget, since 2004.
In selecting Chu, Obama would have a DOE chief who has been far removed -- by geography and otherwise -- from the battles and maneuvering of Washington policymaking and legislation.
If confirmed, Chu will head a department with a current budget of roughly $24 billion and a mission ranging from cleaning up the massive waste from Cold War nuclear weapons production to developing renewable energy technology, and a lot in between. A large portion of the agency's budget is devoted to overseeing the nation's nuclear weapons complex.
Word that Chu will be the nominee comes as other members of Obama's environmental and energy team are coming into focus. Nancy Sutley, the Los Angeles deputy mayor for energy and environment, has been tapped to lead the White House Council on Environmental Quality for the Obama administration, a senior Democratic source said yesterday.
Lisa Jackson, the former director of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and current chief of staff for New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine (D), has emerged as the likely choice to head U.S. EPA (Greenwire, Dec. 5).
In addition, there is widespread speculation that Carol Browner, who headed EPA under President Bill Clinton, will be tapped for a new White House position overseeing energy and climate policy. Browner is helping guide energy and environmental issues for Obama's transition team.
Obama has called for programs to ensure steep cuts in greenhouse gases, including a cap-and-trade law as well as expanded investment in emerging technologies.
Speaking at an energy summit in Las Vegas over the summer, Chu spoke of the catastrophic effects if global temperatures were to rise by 5 degrees Centigrade.
"Climate change of that scale will cause enormous resource wars, over water, arable land, and massive population displacements. We're not talking about ten thousand people. We're not talking about 10 million people, we're talking about hundreds of millions to billions of people being flooded out, permanently," Chu said.
Quick praise for Chu, but challenges await
"If there's anyone who fundamentally understands where we should be going to create a new energy economy, Steven is one of them," said John Balbach, managing partner with the Cleantech Group. "The investment community sees him as a significant strong ally."
"It is quite unique for someone who understands science, global warming, and energy efficiency to be appointed the head of the Department of Energy," adds Joseph Romm, a senior fellow at the liberal Center for American progress, adding his background "compliments" the reported choice of Browner for the White House post.
The choice of Chu also won fast praise from Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, a utility industry group that has often been on the opposite of environmentalists on clean air regulations.
"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, the group's director. "An understanding of the art of the possible in energy technology will be critical to the development of a cost-effective climate change policy."
But some noted Chu will face a very new world coming to Washington and Capitol Hill. "The way things work are going to be super-different," said one lobbyist. "You cannot give someone a formula for the appropriations process. There is no equation for it."
"Running an agency like that you need to be equal parts brilliant and Machiavellian, and being good at one doesn't mean you don't have to be good at the other," adds another lobbyist, who works on the oil industry and has also worked for Democrats on Capitol Hill.
"You need to be good at both to be an effective agency chief, and he is going to need to come up to speed fast on learning the political game, how to operate within the Cabinet, how to operate with an aggressive White House staff, and how to operate within the politics of the agency even though he is the head," this source adds.
Backing a portfolio approach to energy
Chu has stated his support for many sources of energy including solar, advanced biofuels, nuclear and coal with carbon capture and sequestration.
In March 2006, for instance, he said in testimony submitted to the House Science and Technology Committee that the energy problem is the "single most important problem that has to be solved by science and technology in the coming decades.
"At present, there appear to be no magic bullets to solve the energy problem," Chu added. "While efficiencies play a huge role in defining how much energy we consume, we must also have a diversified portfolio of investments to develop sustainable sources of energy."
Chu has emphasized energy technologies at the lab. For instance, the lab is part of the Energy Biosciences Institute, a 10-year, $500 million partnership with BP PLC, University of California at Berkeley and the University of Illinois. It is largely aimed at developing next-generation biofuels.
Chu, along with the other heads of the national laboratories signed a report in August that stated the directors of the DOE national laboratories "strongly believe that nuclear energy must play a significant and growing role in our nation's -- and the world's -- energy portfolio."
And according to a 2005 interview, Chu supports nuclear energy as a solution to climate change.
"Right now, compared to conventional coal, it looks good -- what are the lesser of two evils?" Chu said. "If we can reduce the volume and the lifetime of the waste, that would tip it very much against conventional coal."
Waste is a significant issue for nuclear energy, he said, noting the U.S. may need "three or four Yucca Mountains." Chu has expressed skepticism about the Yucca Mountain waste repository, a project Obama does also not support. Chu said fission-based nuclear power plants could bring down the amount of time nuclear waste is radioactive.
The blog of the Nuclear Energy Institute, "NEI notes," said, "He would seem to fit the energy policy President-elect Obama has articulated and should, at least until that policy starts to coalesce onto paper, calm some nerves in how the Obama administration will approach nuclear energy." NEI did not want to give an official comment until Obama made an official announcement, a spokesman said.
Carbon sequestration can make "a very significant contribution" to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, Chu told the American Physical Society in a 2006 interview. But he quickly added sequestration will make the cost of electricity go up and the regulatory issues are significant.
Chu said it is possible to "put your pedal to the floor in sequestration and it's not closing the door to renewable sources."
Chu, who was born in St. Louis in 1948 and grew up in Garden City, N.Y., has undergraduate degrees in physics and mathematics from the University of Rochester and a doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley.
After getting his doctorate, Chu was offered an assistant professorship at UC Berkeley but eventually turned it down to work at Bell Labs in the late 1970s.
At Bell he was urged to think outside the box and often took on jobs others deemed "impossible," Chu described in his speech accepting the Nobel Prize in physics. Chu began his work on laser cooling and trapping atoms at Bell Labs that eventually won him the prize.
In 1987 Chu joined the faculty at Stanford, where he eventually succeeded in slowing down atoms enough for scientists to study, which helped them better understand the interplay of radiation and matter and the behavior of gases at lower temperatures.
Reporter Debra Kahn contributed from San Francisco.
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