Obama’s Energy Pick Steven Chu: ‘Coal is My Worst Nightmare’
Articles — By forcechange on December 12, 2008 5:15 pm
WSJ’s Environmental Capital has a great run-down of Steven Chu, President-elect Obama’s choice to head the Department of Energy. Basically, Chu is a proponent of energy efficiency and conservation as the first step in correcting America’s energy situation. He has also researched next-generation cellulosic biofuels and supports an interstate electricity transmission system that would solve one of the biggest hurdles to wide-spread adoption of renewable energy like wind and solar power.
Here are the highlights:
Chu’s marquee work at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is the Helios Project. That’s an effort to tackle what Dr. Chu sees as the biggest energy challenge facing the U.S.: transportation.
Helios has focused largely on biofuels-but not the bog-standard kind made from corn and sugar. The Energy Biosciences Institute, a joint effort funded by BP, is looking to make second-generation biofuels more viable. Among the approaches? Researching new ways to break down stubborn cellulosic feedstocks to improve the economics of next-generation biofuels, and finding new kinds of yeast to boost fermentation and make biofuels more plentiful while reducing their environmental impact.
Regarding coal, Chu has called it his “worst nightmare.”
He says that clean-coal technologies must be developed if coal is to remain an option, but he’s not very optimistic: “It’s not guaranteed we have a solution for coal,” given the unproven challenge of economically storing billions of tons of CO2 underground.
Regarding nuclear energy, Chu has warned, “The waste and proliferation issues still haven’t been completely solved.”
And regarding renewable energy, Chu supports the development of an interstate electricity transmission grid to allow for the adoption of solar and wind energy.
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The article you quoted in the WSJ is a JOKE. It selectively misuses a quote to make Dr. Chu seem like anti-nuclear environmental nut.
BUT, the very previous paragraph to his statement about proper handling of nuclear waste, he was asked:
“Should fission-based nuclear power plants be made a bigger part of the energy-producing portfolio?”
His response? “Absolutely.”
What else? Dr. Chu is ALSO a signatory to “A Sustainable Energy Future: The Essential Role of Nuclear Energy,” a DOE report released this past August.
Dr. Steven Chu supports Nuclear Energy, not as the IDEAL, but he understands its PRACTICALITY. The MO of the Obama administration is about “Get’er Done” pragmatism.
The fact of the matter is that Chu understands that although Nuclear Power should be MORE important, we must KEEP OUR EYE on the real prize, the goal of green technologies and efficiencies in order to STOP SELLING OURSELVES to Middle Eastern sultanates.