Steering a National Lab Into the Light - New Energy Sec. Steven Chu (2005 Science)

[kristopher]

Steering a National Lab Into the Light
Robert F. Service

Steven Chu is on a crusade to make solar power work. His weapon is Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Drive past the guardhouse at the entrance to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), and you travel about 250 meters on Chu Road before it splits off onto other tentacles of the lab overlooking San Francisco Bay. Despite its short length, it's a fitting entrée. The road is named for 1997 physics Nobelist Steven Chu, who became the lab's sixth director 2 years ago and ever since has been working to steer its research in a new direction. His focus: a sweeping agenda aimed at making solar energy a practical, commercial, and world-changing reality.

Since taking his new job, Chu, 58, has traveled the globe making the case for solar power. Some of the refrains are familiar: retreating glaciers, more-damaging storms, and sea-level rise. Some, though, are less well known, such as how increased water evaporation from soils could jeopardize farming in the Midwestern United States. "Sustainable, carbon-neutral energy is the most important scientific challenge we face today," Chu is fond of saying.

On the supply side, Chu says current carbon-neutral energy sources face a host of problems. Wind, nuclear power, and biofuels are unlikely anytime soon to meet all of the needs of a civilization that in 2005 was using energy in all forms at a rate of about 16 trillion watts, with roughly 80% of it coming from fossil fuels. Solar power also has limitations, but the sun beams more energy toward Earth in an hour than all 6 billion of us use in a year. The challenge is finding ways to capture and store that energy that are cheap and efficient.

To meet that challenge, Chu has launched three separate initiatives to yoke at least part of LBNL research to a solar agenda. The first is a proposal to team up with fellow national labs Sandia and Lawrence Livermore and build one of two $125 million BioEnergy Institutes to be funded by the Department of Energy (DOE) that, over 5 years, will propel advances in nanotechnology and synthetic biology into better ways of making biofuels. Second is to win a $500 million pot put up by the oil giant BP for a biofuels institute (see p. 790). Finally, an initiative called Helios will look beyond bioenergy to include topics such as nanotech-based photovoltaics and fuel-generating catalysts. Although none of the proposals had been funded by the time Science went to press, Chu already has verbal commitments from private sources of about $50 million and up to $70 million from the state of California. "You try to make some rain and get some funding," Chu says.

If that funding comes...

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/315/5813/784?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=Chu&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=HWCIT

[bananas]

1. k&r!

[kristopher]

3. The right person for the job.

I'd wager it's no coincidence it comes after yesterday's meeting with Gore. I hope he can help deal with China on moving away from fossil fuels.

[Greyskye]

2. Oh great, an ignorant yuppie fundie as Energy Sec.

Doesn't he know that nuclear is the only way to get exojoules of energy? We're dooooooomed!












:sarcasm:

[kristopher]

4. I expect our friend's head has already exploded... nt

[Dogmudgeon]

5. Steven Chu: strongly pro-nuclear

Anti-carbon; pro-solar, pro-wind, and pro-nuclear.

I like that combination.

http://www.ne.doe.gov/pdfFiles/rpt_SustainableEnergyFuture_Aug2008.pdf">A Sustainable Energy Future: The Essential Role of Nuclear Energy (5th paper under "Learn More About Nuclear Energy")

--p!

[Dead_Parrot]

6. Shhh. You'll break their rhythm. nt

[Dogmudgeon]

7. I can dig it

It's been an hour with no witty retorts. This must be getting a reaction. Maybe.

I guess the discussion of David Axelrod's previous job should wait a few days.

--p!

[Dead_Parrot]

8. Maybe they're reading the DOE report

Might take a while - check back in another 24 hours or so.

[kristopher]

9. I don't think so.

I think his stance on nuclear is actually very similar to my own. In the caricatures that develop on these boards, the nuances of people's positions get subsumed to extremist rhetoric. If you were paying attention when I started posting (no reason you should have, of course) you would have read that I consider nuclear to be a technology that should be used if we are forced by climatic conditions to employ all means at our disposal to halt greenhouse emissions and mitigate the effects of processes already in progress. I also wrote that, unfortunately there was little likelihood for widespread support of such a dedication of resources. I still hold those beliefs.

Given that choices based on constrained must be made, nuclear drops from the list of preferred options due to its cost, fuel supply issues, nuclear proliferation concerns and unsolved waste disposal issues.

I believe that Chu shares my view. The nukenuts here are so busy with meaningless critiques of work such as that by Jacobson that they fail to realize that the assessment made by Jacobson is representative of a body of work that all leads to the same conclusion. It isn't based on irrational fear, stupidity or lack of information. It is a position that reflects a great deal of study and informed debate among some of the finest minds in this country.

So what direction will Chu pursue? Energy efficiency, switch to EV and better batteries/storage technologies, solar, biofuels and wind, in that order is my prediction. Will he act to preserve the present generating capacity from nuclear? I would expect that he will. However, like Gore, I don't believe he considers nuclear energy in its present or near future incarnations to be the most effective straight-line route to solving the climate problem.

[NNadir]

10. You are full, as usual, of shit.

Your anti-nuke fundementalist rhetoric is in no way nuanced, but that's no surprise really, since anti-nukes are typically brats are, as we've seen here time and time again, nothing more than <em>consumers</em>, and in these times, a person who is a consumer while claiming to be an environmentalist is well, full of shit, and we aren't talking shit for the swell yuppie methane digester on every 500 acre plot that the family owns either.

Now why don't you take that big fat truck of yours out for a spin on a pristine river bed while muttering about how conservation will save us.

[kristopher]

11. ...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=178339&mesg_id=178345

:hi:

[bananas]

12. NNadir is full, as usual, of shit.

[jpak]

22. I strongly disaree

NNadir is full of very unbalanced neurotransmitters - not enough meds - and shit.

:evilgrin:

[GliderGuider]

13. Hmmm...

In the caricatures that develop on these boards, the nuances of people's positions get subsumed to extremist rhetoric. If you were paying attention when I started posting (no reason you should have, of course) you would have read that I consider nuclear to be a technology that should be used ...

This is coming from the same guy who wrote this extremist caricature of my rather nuanced views on nuclear power:

Make sure you share with them your ideas (as outlined in your tremendously insightful "Peak Oil" analysis) that nuclear is the only chance we really have.

The cognitive dissonance must be absolutely deafening in there.

[kristopher]

15. No dissonance.

I see your writing as having a deliberate function. Not knowing you except by your words here I can't ascribe the motivation, but I have no doubt whatsoever you write with the intent of perpetuating the status quo.
I used to travel with the carnival when I was young, and became more familiar than most with the way scams are designed and implemented. Your writing strongly recalls those lessons.
But hey, it's still a free country for most of us, so have at it.

[GliderGuider]

16. What does that have to do with your misrepresentation of my position on nuclear power?

Which I made absolutely explicit here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=177136&mesg_id=177230

My purpose is not to "preserve the status quo", which would be impossible anyway. It's to get people to consider the technological proposals that are being touted in a wider context. I have decided that within that wider context proposals like wind, solar and biofuels hold little promise. That's a point of view and an opinion, not a scam.

[kristopher]

17. I've read what you've written.

I don't feel I've misrepresented your position on nuclear power or the status quo. You deliberately strive to create feelings of hopelessness and despair, you attempt to foster an atmosphere where action is displaced by resigned acceptance of whatever dire inevitability is just ahead.
The one single spark of hope you ever offer is the possibility that nuclear power could, if we could only come together and use it, at least postpone the collapse that is always just around the corner.

I don't know why you write as you do, but I do KNOW that you do it.

[GliderGuider]

18. When have I ever offered the possibility that nuclear power could postpone the collapse?

I write as I do because I see people dancing in fairy rings around wind turbines as though they were divine totems, paying virtually no attention to the supply-side implementation difficulties that Even the sainted Dr. Chu recognizes.

I think that instilling false hope in a scientifically gullible public is contemptible, and I think a counterbalancing opinion is sorely needed.

[kristopher]

19. A degree of pessimism is healthy

You are dedicated to spreading Fear Uncertainty and Doubt. There is a very obvious and substantial difference.

[GliderGuider]

20. I am dedicated

...to presenting the other side of the coin, in order that people might consider a fuller range of possibilities when making their decisions. If that causes you fear, uncertainty and doubt, I can't help that.

And you still misrepresent my position on nuclear power.

[bananas]

25. In defense of GliderGuider ...

I've seen him change his point of view a number of times,
his posts here and on the peak-oil websites document his personal journey.
He has the important ability to "agree to disagree",
and more than that is able to keep an open mind and consider different perspectives.
I understand his position, I think it's been reinforced by the actions of the Bush administration, so I'm hoping the dialog around here becomes more positive once Obama starts making policy.

I admire GliderGuider for putting himself out there publicly,
he uses his real name,
he's been interviewed on tv about peak oil,
he doesn't pretend to be someone he's not.

When kristopher says, "You deliberately strive to create feelings of hopelessness and despair", I think that's because GliderGuider is just trying to get us to see his point of view, something we all do. But as I said, he's kept an open mind, and I think over the next few years he'll start to see things in a more positive light.

On the other hand, the Republicans and short-sighted corporate interests might sabotage the new administration, in which case I may start sounding a lot more like GliderGuider.

[GliderGuider]

21. I strongly resent being accused of supporting the status quo

I'm an anarcho-primitivist.

As such I believe that civilization has turned out to be the worst wrong turn humanity could possibly have taken. I want to see us get off this Goddess-forsaken path of planetary death as quickly as possible. That means letting this vast, over-elaborated edifice crumble under its own weight, doing nothing to prevent it, and then letting the debris decompose into a new ecological niche for a truly sustainable human race.

Does that sound like status quo to you? :evilgrin:

[kristopher]

23. I'm not going to engage in discussion of your motives.

I can however judge the functionality of your words as presented. They support the status quo.

[GliderGuider]

24. Given that maintaining the status quo will result in us going over a cliff, one could conclude...

One could conclude that anyone who understands that outcome but still consciously supports the status quo actually wants to foster a status that is anything but quo.

It's almost like a Zen koan.

[GliderGuider]

14. It's really great to see a man of Chu's credentials in power.

I hope that his scientific dedication to reality will armour him somewhat against the pressures that are sure to descend on him from the energy-industry lobbyists. It will be fascinating to watch how someone with a Nobel prize in the hardest of hard sciences manages in the Washington pressure cooker.

I hope he exceeds our already-high expectations.

Gesundheit!