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Steven Chu inched closer to confirmation as President Barack Obama’s Secretary of Energy January 13, drawing praise from the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee. The committee was expected to back his appointment later this week. Chu, a Nobel Prize winning physicist who is director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, fielded a wide range of questions from federal lawmakers. They included how to build transmission lines to tap renewable energy, develop clean coal technology, and streamline the federal nuclear power plant loan guarantee program. Top of his agenda, however, was global warming. “Climate change is a growing and pressing problem,” Chu told the committee. Without action, he said, Earth would experience “disruptive” climate changes within the lifetime of people living today. He pledged to back Obama’s plan for carbon cap-and-trade, though he urged lawmakers to keep the program as simple as possible to maximize its effectiveness. During the hearing, it became clear that Chu is perceived as an administrator who will put science front and center in developing climate change and energy programs. Lawmakers also applauded his scientific achievements Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) praised Chu’s accomplishments and said he would bring a needed “passion” for science to the department. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) noted that Chu has successfully brought scientists from different disciplines together at the national laboratory to work on developing carbon neutral forms of energy. Chu pointed out that he has spent 75 percent of his time at the lab overseeing its operation. He said he would work to manage the DOE more effectively, including efforts to streamline the federal loan guarantee program for new nuclear power plants. The scientist also pledged to work on tailoring siting for new transmission lines to bring wind and solar energy from remote areas into population centers without stepping on state and local toes. “This is by far and away the biggest obstacle,” he said. He also backed continuing to develop domestic oil and gas resources, but noted that energy efficiency in buildings and vehicles should be the nation’s top priority. The nominee pledged to focus on developing clean coal technology and used the occasion to clarify his widely quoted statement that coal is a “nightmare.” “I said that in the following context,” said Chu, “that if the world continues to use coal as it uses it today.” Because coal is an abundant resource, Chu said people will continue to burn it for power, so “it’s imperative we learn to use coal as cleanly as possible. This is not only an opportunity, but something the U.S. with its great technological leadership should rise to the occasion.” The nominee also pledged to streamline the department’s nuclear plant loan guarantee program and to re-examine the issue of how to dispose of nuclear waste in light of emerging science. Chu, who comes from a long line of scientists and engineers in his family, has become a champion for some big and novel ideas about how to solve what he calls “the world’s energy problem.” Many of the ideas, like energy intelligent buildings and artificial photosynthesis, combine technologies and scientific disciplines. He started his career at Bell Labs. There, he succeeded where many other experimental physicists had failed in measuring the energy levels of positronium, a fleeting atomic particle that changes to gamma rays almost as soon as it is born. Chu went on to win the Nobel Prize for physics in 1997 while a professor at Stanford for figuring out how to use laser light to slow down and isolate normally fast moving atoms and molecules long enough to study them in the laboratory. At the national lab, he has kept his hand in experimentation, but chiefly is occupied with administering the “team science” that the lab’s founder Ernest Lawrence championed beginning in the 1930s. He directs 3,800 employees and an annual budget of $500 million. He also helps administer the $500 million BP-University of California at Berkeley project to develop sustainable forms of energy to combat climate change and help humanity transition beyond the age of fossil fuels. The full Senate must approve his appointment to DOE.

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