Steven Chu

The players: Obama’s people

Obama’s green team Joe Romm says, “I honestly don’t know if it is politically possible to preserve a livable climate — but if it is, these are the people to make it happen.” I don’t know if I’d go that far, but Obama has certainly put together a team capable of great things. Coordinating is […]

Sue Tierney for deputy, names for under sec., and stuff I leaned at DOE, part 2

The Environmental and Clean Energy Ball may be a party, a once-in-four-years chance to wear my tux, but it is also a source of news about names. Everybody is buzzing over who is going to fill out the organization chart at the Energy Department under Secretary Chu.

Sue Tierney is widely expected to be nominated for deputy (as WaPo first reported here). Dr. Tierney would be a first rate deputy -- and I can say that with some confidence since not only is Sue a colleague and friend, but also my first job at the department in 1993 was special assistant for policy and planning to then Deputy Secretary Bill White (now mayor of Houston).

Deputy is a very demanding job. You are the DOE's chief operating officer. You have to make the trains run on time, and these are big, messy trains -- the nuclear weapons laboratories, the energy labs, the physics labs, and the "cleanup sites" like Hanford, which are the toxic legacy of the U.S. nuclear weapons program. If the secretary doesn't have prior experience as part of a senior leadership team managing a federal agency, the COO should. Dr. Tierney was assistant secretary of policy at DOE when I worked there.

Tierney has a unique set of qualifications at a time when we must redesign our entire energy system, change utility regulations to foster energy efficiency, and quickly site tens (and then hundreds) of gigawatts of renewable energy, along with a new, smart power grid to enable both the efficiency and the renewables (and plug-in hybrids):

Senate confirms Obama's picks to run Energy, USDA, and Interior

Just hours after President Obama took the oath of office, the U.S. Senate confirmed three Cabinet members who will play a role in shaping energy and environmental policy, National Journal reported. By voice vote, senators approved Steven Chu as Energy Secretary, Ken Salazar as Interior Secretary, and Tom Vilsack as Agriculture Secretary.

Interior's Web gurus were quick to note the official installation of their new boss. The department's site features a photo of Salazar front and center on the homepage, along with a press release with background on the new secretary. As of late Tuesday afternoon, Energy and Agriculture hadn't updated their sites to reflect their new bosses.

Check out Grist's profiles of these Cabinet members:

• Steven Chu
• Ken Salazar
• Tom Vilsack

The Senate adjourned Tuesday without taking action on Lisa Jackson's nomination to run EPA or Nancy Sutley's nomination to run the Council on Environmental Quality.

Green groups and Obama's Energy Sec. mark National Day of Service

Groups around Washington, D.C., marked Martin Luther King Jr. Day and inauguration eve with a national day of service. One service effort was the kick-off to the installation of solar panels at Sousa Junior High School in the southeastern part of the city.

The efforts were led by the League of Conservation Voters Education Fund, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Standard Solar; SunPower, Wal-Mart Inc., Waste Management Inc.; and Washington Gas Energy Services, along with the city's government. They distributed home weatherization kits to families in the neighborhood as well.

Grist couldn't make it out for the event, but apparently incoming Secretary of Energy Steven Chu stopped by and spoke to volunteers: "What you're doing today is the single most important thing we can be doing in the coming decades - promoting energy efficiency and renewable energy," Chu said. "Years ago, communities came together to raise a neighbor's barn. In the future, I hope that communities will come together, like you are today, to weatherize each other's homes, to conserve energy, make homes more comfortable, save money, and save the planet."

The groups are installing $20,000 worth of solar panels and equipment, donated by Standard Solar, Washington Gas Energy Services, and SunPower. The installation is being completed by IBEW electricians at John Kelly & Sons Electrical Construction. The panels should be up and running in a few weeks, according to the groups.

"What we did today foreshadowed the incredible economic potential of President-elect Obama's plan to create hundreds of thousands of jobs by investing in clean, renewable energy," said LCV President Gene Karpinski at the event.

What Obama's green team has to say about coal

Here at Grist, we like to say that coal is the enemy of the human race. But what do Obama's environmental nominees have to say about the dirtiest of all fossil fuels? Here's what we heard at their confirmation hearings:

Steven Chu, nominee for secretary of energy: "I am optimistic we can figure out how to use those resources in a clean way. I'm very hopeful that this will occur and I think that we will be using that great natural resource."

Lisa Jackson, nominee for EPA administrator: "Coal is a vital resource in this country. It is right now the source of generation of about 50 percent of our power. And I think that it is also important for us to say in the same sentence that it is -- the emissions from coal-fired power plants are -- the largest contributor to global warming emissions. So we have to face square-shouldered the future and the issues of coal and then move American ingenuity towards addressing them."

Ken Salazar, nominee for secretary of the interior: "Coal is a controversial subject. The fact of the matter is it powers today much of America, and there are lots of jobs it creates ... The challenge is how we create clean coal ... I believe that we will move forward with the funding of some of those demonstration projects so we can find ways to burn coal that don't contribute to climate change. I will certainly be an advocate of making that happen."

Incoming energy secretary discusses green issues

Secretary-designate of Energy Steven Chu responds to ideas submitted and voted on at change.gov, including fighting climate change, creating a smart grid, and energy independence. Again, thoughtful, intelligent stuff, but frustratingly short on concrete policy recommendations (much less promises).

Landrieu serves up monologue on oil during DOE confirmation hearing

Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu (D) made two of the more aggressively pro-drilling arguments during Tuesday's confirmation hearing for Energy Secretary-nominee Steven Chu. Neither was totally related to Chu's testimony, but both were, er, colorful.

First, Landrieu disputed Chu's citation of the fact that the United States contains only three percent of the world's oil supply, arguing that she believes there is more oil available domestically:

I listened with interest to your comments to Senator Murkowski about the known inventory in the United States of oil and gas and just wanted to point out that the emphasis is on the word known because we believe, many of us, that there are great resources that have yet to be discovered based on the fact that there's never been a comprehensive technology-driven inventory taken of oil and gas resources.

So one of the things that our chairman has been leading the effort and to some degree of success with my support and others, has been to push the United States government on behalf of the taxpayers who might be interested to actually know how much oil and gas they have. And so with so much off limit in the past and with limited access to just look, I would just urge you to be careful about the comment about four percent. It is true. We have four percent of the known reserves, but there is great evidence to suggest that there are lots of reserves that are unknown.

Her second remark pertained to pirates:

Senators prod DOE pick Chu for his thoughts on various energy sources

Barack Obama's pick to head the Energy Department, Steven Chu, got his turn in the confirmation spotlight this morning, with senators asking him to clarify some of his previous statements on contentious energy issues like coal and nuclear power.

The hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee was, for the most part, amiable, with the lawmakers warmly welcoming the Nobel Laureate physicist. But when the subject turned to Chu's previous assertion that "Coal is my worst nightmare," some coal-state senators got a little touchy. Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) inquired directly about the remark that's been "ricocheting around the internet," while others asked more in-depth questions about what coal-related policies Chu supports.

By equating coal to a nightmare, Chu said his point was, "If the world continues to use coal the way we are using it today, and the world -- I mean in particular not only the United States but China, India and Russia -- then it is a pretty bad dream." He continued, "That is to say in China, for example, they have not yet begun to even trap the sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxides. There's mercury. There's particulate matter, as well as carbon dioxide."

If anything, though, Chu's remarks at the hearing likely eased the lawmakers' fears, as he asserted that nuclear and coal will remain crucial components in the energy mix. On coal, Chu had previously said, "It's not guaranteed that we have a solution for coal" -- meaning that there is currently no proven technology to offset the C02 emissions resulting from burning coal. In today's hearing, he softened, saying he's "very hopeful" that carbon capture and sequester (CCS) technology is possible on a commercial scale. "I am optimistic we can figure out how to use those resources in a clean way. I'm very hopeful that this will occur and I think that we will be using that great natural resource."

Steven Chu’s stances on key energy issues: a primer for his confirmation hearing

Stephen Chu. Steven Chu, Nobel laureate and director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, will go before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee for his confirmation hearing on Tuesday, where he’s certain to be grilled about his positions on key energy and climate issues. Here’s a guide to what Chu thinks — or at […]