Access
This article is part of Nature's premium content.
Published online 12 January 2009 | 457, 241 (2009) | doi:10.1038/457241a
News
Steven Chu prepares for power
Energy agency may be in for a shake-up.
On 13 January, the US Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources was scheduled to hold a hearing on president-elect Barack Obama's nomination of Steven Chu for head of the Department of Energy (DoE). If confirmed as expected, Chu may well set sparks flying at the staid agency.
To read this story in full you will need to login or make a payment (see right).
Comments
Reader comments are usually moderated after posting. If you find something offensive or inappropriate, you can speed this process by clicking 'Report this comment' (or, if that doesn't work for you, email webadmin@nature.com). For more controversial topics, we reserve the right to moderate before comments are published.
Washington is the confluence of overwhelming ignorance with overweening arrogance. One cannot imagine Federal management in which being an alphabet soup of incompetence is not the way of doing things. Stephen Chu, indeed the entire Obama klatsch, will be no less than entertaining. Does realization of the absurd require suicide? Camus answers: "No. It requires revolt."
Chu could be thought of as the Steve Jobs of energy, and that is not a bad thing. His decisiveness and vision are exactly what we need right now.
Research into utilization of solar energy, a clean source of energy, needs more push. With Chu as head DoE of a country that leads the scientific research, the field will get its due attention. Here is a chance for Chu to get another Nobel!
Research into utilization of solar energy, a clean source of energy, needs more push. With Chu as head DoE of a country that leads the scientific research, the field will get its due attention. Here is a chance for Chu to get another Nobel!
The three changes I hope most to see Mr. Chu embrace are in the area of the hydrogen economy: (1) thermochemical water splitting, as in development at Savannah River and elsewhere, seems one of the shortest routes to oil use diminution; (2) of the many ways forward, several require no Federal funding?only the public identification by DOE of new market opportunities can suffice to shift many paradigms; and (3) excessive focus on the hydrogen automobile has diverted attention and resources from much easier H2 applications, especially standby power generation and urban passenger rail, including hydrolleys; that needs changing.
It would be great if he would take a strong educational role with regards to anthropogenic global warming. It will take someone of his scientific and administrative stature to help convince the bulk of mainstream America that global warming is real and it is due to CO2. If he takes an active public role in the discussion, he could serve as the C. Everett Koop (the Surgeon General who convinced mainstream America that cigarette-smoking is a health hazard) of carbon-dioxide. We need that conviction to get anything serious done.