The US Secretary of Energy is not exactly a glamorous position. I mean, go ahead and name the current one. Give up? It's Samuel Bodman, whose name we've had on AutoblogGreen with some regularity and still I needed to Wikipedia the position to recall his name. But the next Secretary might become a bit better known thanks to the issues that he'll be dealing with as we shift from oil to alternatives. Today, the news is out that President-elect Barack Obama has picked Nobel-prize winning physicist Steven Chu to be his Secretary of Energy. What does Chu believe? Here are some things to keep in mind:
So, while the personal beliefs of the Secretary of Energy don't make national policy, we can at least read the tea leaves for a feel of what we might be dealing with in the coming years. Image source: Wikimedia Commons.
[Source: Domestic Fuel]
- Chu has said "corn is not the right crop for biofuels" and has personally worked on ways to make ethanol and biodiesel more efficiently.
- As for ways to power all of the plug-in vehicles we hope will become a reality during the first Obama term, coal is realistically going to be a big part of the picture. Chu, though, called coal his "worst nightmare" and is pro-nuclear.
- Chu is a believer in global warming.
So, while the personal beliefs of the Secretary of Energy don't make national policy, we can at least read the tea leaves for a feel of what we might be dealing with in the coming years. Image source: Wikimedia Commons.
[Source: Domestic Fuel]
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