President Barack Obama has nominated Steve Chu, Director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), to be Secretary of Energy.
Chu, 60, is a Nobel laureate physicist and a Professor of Physics and Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California (UC), Berkeley.
He is also one of the nation's foremost and outspoken advocates for scientific solutions to the twin problems of global warming and the need for carbonneutral renewable sources of energy. He has called these problems "the greatest challenge facing science" and has rallied many of the world's top scientists to address it.
In speeches to organizations around the globe, Chu has delivered a consistent message. "Stronger storms, shrinking glaciers and winter snowpack, prolonged droughts and rising sea levels are raising the specter of global food and water shortages. The ominous signs of climate change we see today are a warning of dire economic and social consequences for us all, but especially for the poor of the world," Chu said. "The path to finding solutions is to bring together the finest, most passionate minds to work on the problem in a coordinated effort, and to give these researchers the resources commensurate with the challenge."
Since assuming the directorship of LBNL in August 2004, Chu has put his words into action by focusing the Laboratory's considerable scientific resources on energy security and global climate change, in particular the production of new fuels and electricity from sunlight through non-food plant materials and artificial photosynthesis. At the same time he has reinforced LBNL's historic leadership in energy-efficient technologies and climate science.
"Steve Chu came to our lab with a vision for how our community could have an impact on the greatest scientific and technological challenges of our times," said LBNL Deputy Director Paul Alivisatos. "Berkeley Lab has been transformed under his leadership so that we now have programs that bring together scientists from diverse disciplines to work on biofuels, soft X-ray science, solar energy, carbon management and battery technologies, just to mention a few."
Said UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau, who has known Chu for three decades since the two men worked at Bell Laboratories in the 1970s, "Steve Chu has been relentless about addressing the technical challenges of renewable energy in a deep way. We will now have an energy policy that can mean the U.S. will have a chance of obtaining energy selfsufficiency through new technology."
More info: http://newscenter.lbl.gov/
