Climate Concern Defines Energy Dept. Pick

Washington Post: Steven Chu's Views Would Be Among The Most Forceful Ever Held By A Cabinet Member

(Washingtonpost.com)  This story was written by Steven Mufson.

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The man tapped to be the next secretary of energy, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Chu, recently compared the danger of climate change to a problem with electrical wiring in a house.

Suppose, he said, you had a small electrical fire at home and a structural engineer told you there was a 50 percent chance your house would burn down in the next few years unless you spent $20,000 to fix faulty wiring.

"You can either continue to shop for additional evaluations until you find the one engineer in 1,000 who is willing to give you the answer you want -- 'your family is not in danger' -- or you can change the wiring," Chu said in a presentation in September.

Because of the danger of climate change, he said, the United States and other countries also need to make some urgent repairs. He said governments need to "act quickly" to implement fiscal and regulatory policies to stimulate the deployment of technologies that boost energy efficiency and "minimize" carbon emissions.

Chu's views on climate change would be among the most forceful ever held by a cabinet member. In an interview with The Post last year, he said that the cost of electricity was "anomalously low" in the United States, that a cap-and-trade approach to limiting greenhouse gases "is an absolutely non-partisan issue," and that scientists had come to "realize that the climate is much more sensitive than we thought."

He said people who said they were uncertain whether climate change is being caused by humans were "reminiscent of the dialogue in the 1950s and '60s on tobacco." (At that time, many argued that there was insufficient evidence linking smoking to cancer.)

He put aside the atomic and molecular biophysics research he had been doing as a Stanford University professor to become head of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in 2004 and steer it toward projects aimed at slashing the country's emissions of greenhouse gases that hasten climate change. He created the Helios Project, a center that seeks to use solar energy to generate chemical fuel at a low cost.

The laboratory's scientists, including 11 Nobel laureates, have altered yeast and bacteria into organisms that produce gasoline and diesel, improved techniques for converting switchgrass into the sugars needed to produce transportation fuel, and used nanotechnology to improve the efficiency of photovoltaic cells used in solar panels, among other projects.

Chu said in remarks prepared for a recent meeting in Washington that while private companies such as DuPont and Duke Energy were investing in new technology, "most companies are reluctant to invest in research into transformational technologies that may not see commercialization for 10 years, even though such technologies could dramatically change the entire energy landscape."

Chu worked from 1978 to 1987 at AT&T Bell Laboratories, where he did the work that led to his Nobel Prize in 1997. Other scientists at Bell Labs have made scientific breakthroughs leading to advances such as the invention of the transistor, Chu said. But, he added, "the great industrial research institutes such as Bell Labs are now mere shadows of their former glory." (Alcatel-Lucent, the current owner of Bell Labs, said earlier this year that it wa cutting back basic science, material physics and semiconductor research.)

Chu, who declined to comment yesterday for this story, said that meant government support for research at universities and the national labs was "our only hope to supply the science required to create transformative energy solutions."

Chu's belief that technology and innovation can help solve energy and climate problems appeals to both environmentalists and to many people in the energy industry, though many environmentalists stress that current technology can go a long way toward slashing energy use.

"His experience seems to dovetail perfectly with the President-elect's commitment to bringing new energy technology to market in a timely fashion," said Scott Segal, a Bracewell and Giuliani partner and director of the coal and power industry-backed Electric Reliability Coordinating Council. "An understanding of the art of the possible in energy technology will be critical to the development of a cost-effective climate change policy."

"He is one of the few guys I know in academia who also has a practical and commercial side," said Terry Tamminen, an energy and environment expert and former chief policy adviser to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R). "He recognized that he could do so much more with knowledge other than teach classes."

Chu's nomination, expected to be announced next week, would require Senate confirmation.

The Energy Department is an odd beast. Thirty-six percent of its $25 billion budget is related to national security, dealing with nuclear materials from such devices as decommissioned nuclear weapons and naval reactors. Another 25 percent of its budget goes to environmental management and civilian nuclear waste management.

Another sizable chunk goes to the national laboratories, usually difficult for the central office to manage. In addition to Lawrence Berkeley, they include Oak Ridge, Lawrence Livermore, Sandia, Savannah River, Los Alamos, Argonne, Brookhaven and National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

"He's run one of these labs. He gets it," said a Democratic source familiar with the Obama transition team's thinking.

The department could become more central to practical energy issues because of President-elect Barack Obama's interest in promoting renewable energy and carbon capture and storage for coal-fired plants. A program to promote electric cars through infrastructure spending could involve the Energy Department. The department also sets appliance standards and other energy efficiency goals.

The son of highly educated Chinese immigrants, Chu was born in St. Louis in 1948. His father studied chemical engineering at MIT, and his mother studied economics there. Chu describes himself as the "academic black sheep" in a family full of graduate degrees and Ivy League graduates. He went to the University of Rochester. There he read a textbook by the famous physicist Richard Feynman and said he found it "mesmerizing and inspirational." He went to graduate school at the University of California at Berkeley before taking a job at Bell Labs. There he and another scientist did their prize-winning research, trapping atoms with laser cooling techniques.

Chu has used his post at Lawrence Berkeley to preach the importance of climate issues. He has met with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and he was co-chair of a committee that produced a report called "Lighting the Way: Toward a Sustainable Energy Future."

In the interview with The Post last year, Chu said that he had confidence in mankind's ability to solve its energy problems. The challenge, he said, was to create things from nature that nature cannot make on its own. People figured out how to use titanium blades in jet engines, an improvement over bird wings, he said. "Maybe we can build a better photosynthesis machine," he said.

[m_moonshine]

GREENHOUSE EFFECT

This Greenhouse Effect is not so complicated. Have you ever been in a greenhouse? Maybe not. But I''m sure you''ve been in a car parked in the hot summer sun. It''s the same thing.

The surface of the sun is white hot, radiating energy across the visible spectrum and into ultraviolet. The surface of a cooler object, like a car dashboard, radiates mostly in the invisible infrared range. Glass is made to be transparent to visible light, but absorbs lower enery infrared. When you roll up the windows. the glass allows entry of ultraviolet but blocks escape of infrared from the interior. The windows act as a heat trap, and the interior of the car gets hotter. Don''t believe me? Please try it for yourself. (And please don''t take any pets or small children with you.)

It happens that there also gases which absorb infrared radiation. Carbon dioxide is one. When you raise its concentration in our atmoshpere, it traps solar heat. Period.

In the absence of all other factors, trapping heat in the atmosphere will cause temperatures to rise. You can wave your hands around and say there could be feedback mechanisms or whatnot that will reduce or reverse the effect. But frankly, the science behind that stuff is much weaker than the evidence that global warming is underway.

So why does anyone argue against taking precautions against possible harmful effects of global warming?

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

[m_moonshine]

Two comments.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST
It''s human nature to be influenced by personal benefits when trying to make an objective decision. So asking anyone to read an Imhofe blog about this subject is like going to the Marlboro web site for health advice. Imhofe was the US Snator from Oklahoma who acted as an oil company hack for many years - before being voted out of Congress - and apparently he''s still on the payroll. I''m sure he''s weel paid, but I wouldn''t trust a word he says.

[nazdackster]

But we have climate records going back hundreds of thousands of years that show CO2 levels and world temperatures moving together upwards and downwards, time after time.

No, you have climate proxies that show temperature and CO2 go together. Like I said, temperature does drive CO2, there''s no doubt about that (warmer water cannot hold as much CO2 in solution as colder water). Building a case that any excess CO2 possibly introduced by humans causes the reverse effect is dubious at best. There will be a small effect, but that effect has already happened to a very large degree. Doubling CO2 again and again will have negligible effect. Google "imhofe blog" to read what (many former IPCC) scientists are saying now...

The next question you can ask is dollars per degree. Ask someone what it will cost to drop temperature one degree (your choice, fahrenheit, kelvin, whatever). Hang on to your pocketbook...

I''m all for conservation, but not for the wrong reasons or by misallocating resources.

[m_moonshine]

And don''t try to argue that since we don''t fully understand what''s going on with our planet, we shouldn''t worry about it. That''s the point. WE DON''T KNOW what long term effects will result from rising levels of CO2. That''s why sensible people want to take a conservative approach. (Ha! Remember when "conservative" meant preserving things the way they are instead of reckless gambling with the environment, the economy, the federal deficit, and fantastical rewriting of the Constitution?)

And es, there are other greenhouse gases that may turn out to be important. But we have climate records going back hundreds of thousands of years that show CO2 levels and world temperatures moving together upwards and downwards, time after time. And we know we are dumping lots of CO2 into the atmosphere because burning oil, coal, and gas is what powers our modern life.

So maybe we should try to do the right thing and develop alternatives. After all, we''re exporting tons of money to buy this stuff from foreign countries and it''s all going to run out pretty soon anyway. Why not do something smart about it?

After all, the Presidential IQ just went up by about 50 points. Now''s our chance!

[m_moonshine]

Global warming skeptics - an endangered species? I guess not.

Don''t take this so personally. Your SUV or Hummer isn''t the only cause of global warming. (I''m guessing you don''t ride a bike to work.) The rise in CO2 emissions has been going on ever since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in the 1800''s. That''s when new uses for energy outstripped the supply of firewood, and led to the use of fossil fuels like coal and oil. We''re just now realizing that there are side effects to this process.

[CNH]

Some cynics have been critical of the appointment because they claim that Chu has no experience in the arena of DC politics. Remember that Chu has most recently been the top administrator at the Berkeley National Laboratory which receives the bulk of its funding from....the Department of Energy. By necessity, he has become very familiar with the inner workings of this federal department and no doubt has contacts in Congress as well.

[downsteamjim]

It''s a shame that his nobel prize wasn''t related to climate change. Apparently, a nobel prize makes you an expert on everything. I hope he tells us who will win the SuperBowl.

[octavianfdlr]

at 07:26 PM : Dec 12, 2008, nowaymcgoo posted:
"WOW!!!

You know more than a Nobel-Prize winning physicist!!!"

in response to the statement by nazdackster: "Anyone who has looked at the data couldn''t possibly agree that CO2 has any significant effect on global temperatures."
__________________

WOW!!! You cannot even understand plain English, nowaymcgoo!!!

The Nobel Physics Prize-winning physicist never said that he had looked at the data: he is just going on what the IPCC has said.


The IPCC HAS looked at the data, after being told to conclude that human activity is causing global warming. The IPCC said that we KNOW that human activity is causing global warming because the last century has seen greater warming (one degree) and faster warming (one one-hundredth of a degree per year) than ever before in the experience of our species. The Nobel Prize winning scientists of the IPCC KNOW that our species experienced a three-degree rise in a single decade when the most recent glacial maximum was ending.

So why do these Nobel Peace Prize winning scientists claim that one degree is greater than three, and that one one-hundredth of a degree per year is greater than thirty? Because they know that they are being paid to lie.

How do you think the AGW bunch came up with the figure they claim that anti-AGW scientists have been paid to deny AGW? They know how much it costs to buy a Nobel Peace Prize winner -- they''ve bought thousands of them!

[lloydbest1]

A question for nazdackster...

What about Methane, water vapor and NO(X)''s? Even if CO2 is not the AGW bogeyman most scientists believe it to be we still have to deal with these other three, all of which are more potent heat retainers than CO2. All but the water vapor are increasing their concentrations faster than CO2 and are doing so directly as a result of mankind''s activities.
It''s not just the gas, either. Deforestation upps the temperature with no addition of gasses attributed to heat retention. Vast tracts of marginal land undergoing desertification (yeah, that is a word) also contribute to a global temperature rise - again without the addition of CO2 or any other "greenhouse" gas.
I''m not entirely convinced we are the cause of this recent (and ongoing!) temperature rise either but I, at least, am willing to give the vast majority of experts in the field who say we are the benefit of the doubt over the much fewer number of those who believe AGW is hogwash.

[bjcone8559]

This is like being in a bad episode of "The Twilight Zone". Anyone who has looked at the data couldn''''t possibly agree that CO2 has any significant effect on global temperatures. CO2 levels are affected by global temperature, (virtually instantaneously, a study I will release soon), but not the other way around.

The evidence of CO2 induced warming is so weak and has been so utterly discredited now, yet the media and Al Gore still spout this rubbish?

Want to do your part for AGW? Take a science class! Read the scientific literature every day and take an interest in the facts. Do so and it will only be a matter of weeks or months, and it will be impossible for you to conclude that AGW related to CO2 has a leg to stand on. Al, you can go first.


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Posted by nazdackster



WOW!!!

You know more than a Nobel-Prize winning physicist!!!

Who are you?? And are there other geniuses such as yourself spending their time in these blogs??

[nazdackster]

This is like being in a bad episode of "The Twilight Zone". Anyone who has looked at the data couldn''t possibly agree that CO2 has any significant effect on global temperatures. CO2 levels are affected by global temperature, (virtually instantaneously, a study I will release soon), but not the other way around.

The evidence of CO2 induced warming is so weak and has been so utterly discredited now, yet the media and Al Gore still spout this rubbish?

Want to do your part for AGW? Take a science class! Read the scientific literature every day and take an interest in the facts. Do so and it will only be a matter of weeks or months, and it will be impossible for you to conclude that AGW related to CO2 has a leg to stand on. Al, you can go first.