Who Is Steven Chu? A Nobel Physicist Who Believes In Bold Energy Transformation
Who Is Steven Chu? A Nobel Physicist Who Believes In Bold Energy Transformation
Numerous media outlets are reporting Dr. Steven Chu will be President-elect Obama’s choice to head the Department of Energy. Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, is the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California where he has been addressing the climate crisis by pushing breakthrough research in energy efficiency, solar energy, and biofuels technology.
Colleagues who know Chu best say “he’s not a manager, he’s a leader.” In an interview with the Wonk Room, David Roland-Holst, an economist at the Center for Energy, Resources and Economic Sustainability at UC Berkeley, described Chu as a “very distinguished researcher” and “an extremely effective manager of cutting edge technology initiatives.”
This past summer, Dr. Chu spoke at the National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas, convened by the Center for American Progress, UNLV, and Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV). In one of the lighter moments during his remarks, Chu claimed that efficiency gains and lowered costs have been shown to be possible when the jobs were assigned to engineers, not lobbyists. Chu also laid out in stark terms the climate crisis that we now face:
Consider this. There’s about a 50 percent chance, the climate experts tell us, that in this century we will go up in temperature by three degrees Centigrade. Now, three degrees Centigrade doesn’t seem a lot to you, that’s 11° F. Chicago changes by 30° F in half a day. But 5° C means that … it’s the difference between where we are today and where we were in the last ice age. What did that mean? Canada, the United States down to Ohio and Pennsylvania, was covered in ice year round.
Five degrees Centigrade.
So think about what 5° C will mean going the other way. A very different world. So if you’d want that for your kids and grandkids, we can continue what we’re doing. Climate change of that scale will cause enormous resource wars, over water, arable land, and massive population displacements. We’re not talking about ten thousand people. We’re not talking about ten million people, we’re talking about hundreds of millions to billions of people being flooded out, permanently.
Joe Romm cautions that the 3°C figure is just a mid-range warming even if we’re able to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Watch Chu’s remarks:
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Wow, smart people. How refreshing…
December 10th, 2008 at 6:05 pmWait a minute, letting science dictate energy policy?
That’s crazy talk!
What about all those energy lobbyists?
Who will speak for them?
Hooray!
December 10th, 2008 at 6:08 pmIsn’t it?!! People who are experts in their fields; people who were right about things. People who understand science. Very exciting!
December 10th, 2008 at 6:09 pmbut 3 celsius is 5.4 fahrenheit, not 11. 5 celsius is 9 fahrenheit.
December 10th, 2008 at 6:14 pmThis makes former SoE John Deutsch look like a rank amateur (in the interest of full disclosure, Deutsch was my PhyChem prof; I disliked [and skipped most of] his lectures).
Cheers,
December 10th, 2008 at 6:22 pmIt’s a small world, I listened to him in person at the Nobel Conference last fall at Gustavus. If I knew he could be put in a position like this I’d probably have taken notes and pictures.
This was definitely the solemn but reasoned assessment he gave more than a year ago, and would be a bold choice. Quite the contrast from all the Steve Johnsons or deniers/hedgers.
I can’t think of a reason God would disapprove of good science, but I can think that hurting the planet isn’t so great.
December 10th, 2008 at 6:24 pmYou mean Chu won’t have to run his decisions or paperwork by God, Jesus or the Holy Spirit?
Now just wait for the pro-religion-in-science protesters to show up. You know Billo has to wage another phony war at some point.
December 10th, 2008 at 6:30 pmYou had me at “engineers, not lobbyists”.
December 10th, 2008 at 6:30 pmIt sounds, on its face, like Chu is a good choice for the Energy Department. As for Lisa Jackson, thumbs down. There are better candidates (whatever happened to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr?), and the woman already has a rep that is less than friendly to real environmental concerns. It’s WAY too important a cabinet position to be thrown away for a political favor, which is what it sounds to me like.
December 10th, 2008 at 6:32 pmGreat Pick! Jump all over it until we wake up and get kraken on solving this! NOW!
December 10th, 2008 at 6:32 pmAnybody heard about Interior? I heard rumors it way my Rep, Jay Inslee…??
December 10th, 2008 at 6:35 pmObama is appointing qualified, competent individuals to lead important gov’t agencies… I wonder how the fascist reich-wingers will spin that?
December 10th, 2008 at 6:39 pmWow, media nuts, attack this appointment!!! I am sure they will find some one like George Will or Bill Kristol to attack Chu for being “too competent and thus forces future administration to be likewise. Ha ha ha
December 10th, 2008 at 6:46 pmI envisioned the trolls eyes clouding over when Steven Chu began to speak. This is fantastic. Intelligent people as leaders in our government.
December 10th, 2008 at 6:46 pmGood choices! Keep going, Obama.
OT – on the other side:
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, wants to slow down the process of confirming Eric Holder attorney general, citing lingering concerns about the nominee’s role in the 2001 pardon of Marc Rich.
After all we know about the repugnicans, Specter wants to obstruct an appointment.
December 10th, 2008 at 7:11 pmGreat, so we will have an energy czar who can’t convert from C to F. Wow, continuing the fantastic Bush tradition of morons. Why couldn’t we get someone good for the job?
December 10th, 2008 at 7:12 pmWOW! This is a cutting edge appointment! We’re getting a distinguished academic AND a Nobel prize winner – amazing!
December 10th, 2008 at 7:17 pmWhy couldn’t we get someone good for the job?
December 10th, 2008 at 7:18 pmWhat is your major malfunction, JimboSlice?
You ranted on back at the Koal King thread, totally twisting the whole issue into knots, now you come here and say these personnel choices to address energy issues are no better than the last two Secretaries of Energy?
Get a grip.
REAL CHANGE:
No wonder the right wing moonbats are freaking out.
December 10th, 2008 at 7:28 pmSo you picky nincompoops, do you think he meant to say 5 degrees in the first sentence? ‘Cause that’s 11 F. Perhaps if he had said 3 C both times you might have a case.
December 10th, 2008 at 7:43 pmSteve in CNJ Says:
but 3 celsius is 5.4 fahrenheit, not 11
Just what I was gonna say. 3C is not 11F,
it is 5.4
I don’t see how CHU could have made this much of a mistake. Was it a reporter? Shirley not TP!
December 10th, 2008 at 7:45 pmMy god . . . intelligent, neigh unto brilliant people in the Federal Government? Wow. No wonder conservatives are terrified.
December 10th, 2008 at 7:45 pmquick in your head make it Kelvin…
December 10th, 2008 at 7:45 pmwho you calling a picky nincompoop? :)
December 10th, 2008 at 7:46 pmChu looks good, but Lisa Jackson spent her time at NJDEP letting industry get its way, and silencing the scientists in the department. A very disappointing appointment.
December 10th, 2008 at 7:48 pmKnow I’m like the skunk at the garden party, but 5C ain’t 11F, either. It’s 9.0!
Help me out here, dbadass. Anybody?
December 10th, 2008 at 7:52 pmI guess you Keith! :) Nincompoop is word I’ve known for a long time but haven’t thought of for a long time and it just popped in my head when I read the beefs.
December 10th, 2008 at 7:53 pmUmmm Kelvin is an absolute pressure scale, like Rankine, and they do not have degrees. Both C and F are both relative temperature scales and thus have degrees.
So you can’t really convert between C and K, because 5 C is 278.15 K, while a change of 5 C is the same as a change of 5 K.
This all brings us back to a great point, included in any new energy bill should be the adoption of the metric system. Quick convert 175 ft into miles, now try converting 175m into km.
December 10th, 2008 at 7:53 pmLOL Kieth, you are correct! It’s 9.
I guess we can just poop on this choice then. /snark
December 10th, 2008 at 7:54 pm1 degree C is about equivilent to slightly less than 34 F. Either way who cares. Let’s talk about molecular motion. Oh and the metric system hasn’t existed for sometime now. Shall we call it SI?
December 10th, 2008 at 7:58 pmJimboSlice Says:
Quick convert 175 ft into miles, now try converting 175m into km.
Right Jimbo. Inches, feet yards, miles is very hard to calculate. So are ounces, pints, quarts, gallons.
I lived a lot in London and they were resisting change, especially the police headquartered at New Scotland Meter. :)
December 10th, 2008 at 8:03 pmI will call it SI when I start calling my freedom fries french fries again.
December 10th, 2008 at 8:03 pmNo doubt those freedom fries are the white trash industrially produced no taste no sophistication type. Might I suggest Pomme Frits?
December 10th, 2008 at 8:10 pmNASA scientist James Hansen said (Feb 2007):
“…The last time a large ice sheet melted sea level went up at a rate of five meters per century. That’s one meter every 20 years. And that is a kind of sea level rise, a rate which the simple ice sheet models available now just cannot produce because they don’t have the physics in them to give you the rapid collapse that happens in a very nonlinear system.”
Tufts Univ study:
FOUR DEGREE RISE IN GLOBAL TEMPERATURE
“Melting of the West Antarctic ice sheet will gradually increase sea levels by five to six meters, putting vast tracks of land underwater and producing millions of environmental refugees. In Bangladesh, where half the population lives in areas less then five meters above sea level, permanent flooding and shortages of drinking water could result in 30
40 million people being displaced from their homes. Elsewhere entire regions will have no agricultural production whatsoever as a result of the changing climate.”
http://www.foe.org/new/releases/october2006/climatechange10132006.html
December 10th, 2008 at 8:28 pmKeith that is all fine and good, but telling people what the dangers are is meaningless, you need to tell them what the solutions are, and so far Obama/Gore/Chu have not put out any workable solutions that would mitigate future CO2 emissions and adapt to changes we have already “bought” from our past emissions.
I think the public generally agrees that global warming / climate change is real and is bad, what they don’t agree on is what to do about it. If you can’t agree on what to do about it, and don’t do anything about it then your s * t out of luck.
I would have liked Obama to pick someone focused on developing and implementing mitigation and adaptation strategies. I am delighted that he didn’t pick Al Gore who is focused on way too heavily on impacts. It is nice that Chu is focused on mitigation, but it seems like he is a theoretical scientist, and that doesn’t always translate well into figuring out what strategies are the best in wide-scale application.
December 10th, 2008 at 8:41 pmI hate discrimination!!!
Why is he selecting a smart guy for this job?
Couldn’t he pick another lawyer, some lame former politician, a golfing buddy, or a director of some horsing association?
They need a job too you know… and they don’t have a Nobel Prize to help them either.
December 10th, 2008 at 8:50 pmAfter the last eight years, I’m utterly dumbfounded by this appointment. Not that I expected less from Obama.
But, wow.
Just. Wow.
:)
December 10th, 2008 at 9:29 pmSure hope Dr. Chu will remember that 96% of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is natural, not manmade.
December 10th, 2008 at 9:37 pmAssuming he does, he will quickly focus on engineering and ignore the Gorons who believe climate model fantasies.
Temperature is going down, as measured worldwide by NOAA satellites. Nice to see we have someone who understands physics in this position – unlike Jimboslice. “Kelvin is an absolute pressure scale”????? Good grief.
We’re getting our country back!! No more stupid, unqualified. kiss assess to sing the dead songs of the right wing nut cases. Real science, real intellect – oh my god, we have come home again. Thank you Obama – and thank you to the people of the United States.
December 10th, 2008 at 10:00 pmoops, shoud have been asses – oh well, my excitement is beyond measure – for all of us and our children, grandchildren and the great ones…. Peace to all.
December 10th, 2008 at 10:05 pmAmazing how many folks will just rant about a misspoken word.
IF you watch the video, you’ll see that the chart used at the time he spoke clearly shows 5 degrees C…
As is common with many folks when speaking publicly, the good doctor simply misspoke. It is OBVIOUS that he should have said ‘5′ instead of 3.
For those of you who can speak in public perfectly: do it.
December 10th, 2008 at 10:07 pmI agree JonKnight – having done a lot of public speaking myself through the years – and then the video taping to boot. It’s easy to mess things up a bit. The detractors will use whatever they can to suggest that this quite distinguished and intelligent man is not right. What were they saying when Heck uv a job Brownie was letting New Orleans drown? Nothing. Silence. What is wrong with people who do not want this administration to succeed and begin to solve the problems we are facing? They called us war protesters unAmerican and unpatriotic — how should we appropriately identify them?
December 10th, 2008 at 10:15 pmI think he meant to say 5C the first time, as he did in the second. 5C would convert to 11F.
luckyleif Says:
Sure hope Dr. Chu will remember that 96% of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is natural, not manmade.
The problem is the margin in that remaining 4%. A little makes a lot of difference. Using red herrings to discredit the importance of this issue is… bad.
luckyleif Says:
Temperature is going down, as measured worldwide by NOAA satellites. Nice to see we have someone who understands physics in this position
http://www.global-warming-and-the-climate.com/images/150-yr-global-temperatures.gif
Kindly explain what you’re talking about in relation to the link above.
luckyleif Says:
unlike Jimboslice. “Kelvin is an absolute pressure scale”????? Good grief.
I think the Kelvin system assumes pressure remains constant – well, there’s no point in arguing about such things on the tubes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelvin
Kelvin = Centigrade + 273.15
But then again, you’re the guy who thinks the planet is cooling, so…
December 10th, 2008 at 10:18 pmJimboSlice Says:
Keith that is all fine and good, but telling people what the dangers are is meaningless, you need to tell them what the solutions are, and so far Obama/Gore/Chu have not put out any workable solutions that would mitigate future CO2 emissions and adapt to changes we have already “bought” from our past emissions.
I think the public generally agrees that global warming / climate change is real and is bad, what they don’t agree on is what to do about it. If you can’t agree on what to do about it, and don’t do anything about it then your s * t out of luck.
When the Executive branch of government refuses to admit that the problem exists, that kind of prevents any problem-solving from going forward, from the get-go. This is the sort of situation in which no one company or even industry is in any position to tackle; only a signal from government that it is willing to get involved will move any kind of progress forward. That signal has not heretofore been given.
The first step is to recognize the scope of the problem; that opens the doors to working out solutions to the problem. I have a feeling that very soon we’ll be inundated with more ideas than will be workable, and the next task will be to winnow them down and prioritize them.
However, sitting back and say “don’t even talk about it until we have a complete solution” is actually a way to prevent anything from being done. It’s also one that has been employed by the Bush administration repeatedly, particularly in talking about “silver bullet” technological solutions to energy dependence. As in, “Just sit down and wait, someday technology will fix everything. Until then, go buy another SUV!”
December 10th, 2008 at 10:24 pmLuckyleif:
December 10th, 2008 at 10:25 pmSo, are you saying that 96% of all the CO2 in the atmosphere is natural and 4% is “manmade” (I didn’t know man was in the creation of matter business)? Or are you saying that 96% of the recent increase in CO2 (150 yrs or so) is natural? I think you mean the former, and if that is the case, I’d like to know why a 4% change can’t make a difference. I would love to see evidence that a 4% change in CO2 cannot cause a temperature difference. In other situations (e.g. non-linear threshold responses) a 4% change can make all the difference in the world. For example, if my body temperature increases or decreases by 4%, I could be in big trouble. I know that is an apples and oranges comparison to global temperatures and CO2, but you provide no rationale for why a 4% change is meaningless. So, if you could point me in the direction of some scientific literature that demonstrates your supposition, I would appreciate it.
Chu is a great pick. Hopefully, he will be not be engineer-only biased.
December 10th, 2008 at 10:27 pmSorry, I meant to say Kelvin is an absolute temperature scale, which is it.
December 11th, 2008 at 12:19 amElBruce, don’t get me wrong, I am totally on your side—-but why can’t scientists get the conversion from C to F right?
December 11th, 2008 at 12:56 am5C is most definitely NOT 11F, it is 9.00F!!!
ckyleif Says:
Sure hope Dr. Chu will remember that 96% of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is natural, not manmade.
Assuming he does, he will quickly focus on engineering and ignore the Gorons who believe climate model fantasies.
====
Sorry. Real scientists don’t get their cues from Rush Limbaugh.
December 11th, 2008 at 9:59 amEither Obama is showing his inexperience or simply indulging in political deal-making. Corzine, a lifelong Wall Streeter, is the elast person qualified to head the EPA.
December 11th, 2008 at 2:28 pm