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SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2010 Chu puts lean and green into nation’s energy policy chu from G1
top officials awaiting their swear- ing-inceremony. “Be nice, but don’t be patient,”
he told them, according to one of the officials.
On the road Earlier this fall,Chutook one of
his many one-day trips to visit Energy Department projects and companies or institutes hoping to landfunding. His first stop: Applied Photo-
voltaics, which is run from a ga- ragelike space in a commercial building in Pennington, N.J. He sits at a small table with the com- pany’s directors. The doughnuts gountouched. One of the founders, Jeff Szcze-
panski, dressed in a blue blazer and a wide tie with a giant yellow sun, is the salesman, or “eye can- dy,” asheputs it.Theother,Robert Lyndall, who sports a graying beard and ponytail, is the engi- neer. They are looking for money to manufacture thin-film solar cells that can be embedded into construction materials. It isn’t a novel idea, but few companies are producing it. Chu is curious. He asks about
amorphous thin film, substrates, efficiency and degradation. Then he wants to know why architects aren’t using the panels as roofing material. The answer is a combi- nationofoldhabits, lackof experi- ence, price—and availability. The Applied Photovoltaics team thinks themarket is there. Aides sayChu’sability tounder-
stand and absorb technical infor- mation sets him apart from the previous 11 energy secretaries—a financier, three business execu- tives, anadmiral, two governors, a U.S. senator andotherpoliticians. “When was the last time the
boss knew more about what he was being briefed on than the people doing the briefing?” said David Sandalow, assistant secre- tary for policy and international affairs. In Pennington, Chu is noncom-
mittalabout themoney.Thestimu- lusbillprovidestaxcreditsforcom- paniessuchasthisone,but itneeds cash or a grant. Downstairs, a few local reporters are waiting. Chu, standing beside Rep. RushD.Holt (D-N.J.),putsonhispoliticalhat. “Lots of great things start in
garages,” he says. “It is ideas like this that will disseminate things like solar.”
‘Intellectual integrity’ At the Princeton Plasma Phys-
ics Laboratory, Chu is greeted as something akinto a rock star.Chu earnedhisNobelPrize forworkhe did in New Jersey at Bell Labs, where he figured out howto effec- tively freeze atomic particleswith lasers. Holt introduces him, saying
Chu “brings a level of intellectual integrity that quite frankly the de- partmentneeded.” Chu’s talk spans environmental
history, deep-water drilling and energy efficiency. Explaining why electric car batteries are large and heavy, he uses a common mea- surementof energy andnotes that a lithium ion battery stores 0.54 megajoulesperkilogram.Body fat has 38 megajoules per kilogram, andkerosenehas 43. He shows temperature records
from1880to 2009. “We may not currently under- stand all the bumps and wiggles,
ALEX WONG/GETTY IMAGES Energy Secretary Steven Chu pedals to work. TheNobel Prize-winning physicist’s ability to absorb technical information sets him apart from his predecessors.
but we understand the overall trend,” he says. “What’s going to happenis it’s going towarmup.” Chu points to a study about
Greenland’s climate andglaciers. “This is remarkable data,” he
says. “Theworldis changing.” Concern about global climate
change helped bring Chu out of the physics lab and classroomand intopublicpolicy. “Many of our best basic scien-
tists realize that this is getting down to a crisis situation,” he said in a 2007 interviewwhen promot- ing a report onclimate change. At Princeton, he projects pho-
tos of scientists — such as Enrico Fermi andJ.RobertOppenheimer —who were among the fathers of the atombomb duringWorldWar II.He says climate change poses a newthreat to rally against. “Scientistshavecometotheser-
vice of our country in times of nationalneed,”he says. Chu’s scientific bent was unex-
pectedly useful over the summer, when the Obama administration was desperate to stop the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Chu was dispatchedtoBP’sHoustonoffices to seewhat couldbedone. He recommended that BP use
gamma rays to see into the blow- outpreventer; its several inchesof steel were obscuring other meth- ods of figuring out whether the shear ramswereclampingintothe drillpipe. He also tapped into his Stan-
fordnetworkto getnames of engi- neers who could give advice, and he told Obama early on that the flow rate of oil pouring into the gulf might be greater than what BP was letting on.Weeks later, he marveled about howlittle innova-
tion there was in the deep-water drilling business and how few gauges and backup mechanisms were installedontheblowoutpre- venter. But his crash course in the per-
ils of offshore drilling has rein- forced his concern about energy efficiencyandalternativestofossil fuels. In his talk at the plasma lab, he
says, “Wekeptgoingout intodeep- eranddeeperwateruntilwegot in deepwater.”
To fund or not to fund After Chu’s talk, he’s taken on a
quick tour of the facility, which is seeking to harness nuclear fusion so it can be tapped. Temperatures in fusion experiments can rise to 30milliondegrees, threetimes the surface temperature of the sun. The lab carries out these experi- ments indevices thatconfineplas- ma — a hot, electrically charged gas that is the fuel for fusion ener- gyproduction—byusingmagnet- ic fields inside a vacuumchamber. It’s a wildly expensive venture, and the prospects of success are remote. First, they showChu amachine
with wires heading different di- rections, likeadevicehavingabad hairday.Thenthey takehimtosee the stellarator, which looks like a contemporary sculpture. “Thisisthetypeofmachinethat
willmake fusion a reality,” one lab official tellsChu. The project was terminated
half built. “Frank Gehry would be proud,”
Chusays. Chu follows along as the direc-
tor talks about tolerances, mag- netic fields,mathematical formu-
las and alloys. If completed, lab director Stewart Prager says, the project would put the United States in the lead worldwide in fusion research and cost less than alternative approaches. But the project ran way over
budget, and Chu isn’t sure the department can deliver the $90million needed to resume the work. Laterhe says, “There isnoguar-
antee that fusion will be a com- mercial source of energy.” Even if he believes in it, he adds, “the question is: Will we be able to build it three times better and less costly in5, 10 or 15 years?” His last stop of the day is the
PhiladelphiaNavyYard,wherethe Energy Department has decided to devote $122 million over five years to help create an energy “hub,” one of three new federally funded research centers nation- wide.The idea is dear toChu,who seems to pine for his years at Bell Labs,where scientists havewon a totalof sevenNobelPrizesandone teaminventedthe transistor. But in Philadelphia, minds are
focused on jobs. The mayor is there, and so is Gov. Ed Rendell (D), inthe closingdaysofhis term. Rendell isapro,but this isn’tChu’s element. He sounds awkward here, telling a story that falls flat about a tenure candidate who went toPennStateinsteadofStan- ford. Still, he finishes with his centralmessage: “This is the kind of center that canpropel the coun- try forward.”
Policy focused on jobs It remains unclear just what
will propel the country’s energy policy.
Themidtermelectionsmade it
harder to pushahead.The depart- ment has used up most of the stimulusmoney. Andwith the big federal budget deficit, many crit- ics say the department’s grants and loans amount to subsidies for renewable energy that shouldn’t be extended. Tough publicity lies aheadwhensomeof thebeneficia- ries, such as new battery or solar- panel manufacturers, inevitably fail — if there were no risk of failure, privatemoney would step up. The first grant recipient, a solar firm, has already delayed someplans. “We’re looking very hard at
what would bring [solar-power costs] down by a factor of four,” Chu says. “I’m confident that we can reduce it by a factor of two. The last factor of twowillbemuch harder.” In the meantime, many people
are judging the energy portions of the stimulus programs on the ba- sis of jobs.Obama has turned to it time and again. A Council of Eco- nomicAdvisers report in July said nearly 200,000 jobs had been cre- ated, impressive in the context of the renewable-energy industry but smallwhenmeasured against thehuge economy. The bigger picture on climate
change is cloudy, too. The Obama administration’s
pushforclimatelegislationhashit a brick wall in the Senate. Many lawmakers favored legislation thatwouldhave raisedthepriceof oilandcoal todiscouragetheiruse andmake renewable energymore competitive; Chu belongs to that camp. Other lawmakers oppose higher fossil fuel prices, saying it will hurtmanufacturers and con-
sumers. Chu—who lacked the political
skills of earlier energy secretary Bill Richardson or the Washing- ton policy stature of Carter-era secretary James R. Schlesinger — has played a minor role in the administration’s climate-change efforts.His support for expanding nuclear power has put off many environmentalists who back his renewable agenda. And he has alienated the oil and coal indus- tries aswell—he once called coal his “worstnightmare.” “Are we willing tomake invest-
ments today for our children?” Chu asks. “Or are we going to say we’d rather not increase the price of electricity half a cent a kilowatt hour, because we would rather take the money and spend it to- day?” His biggest disappointment, he
says, is that “twoor threeyearsago I thought America and the world was really going to break forward andrecognize that climate change is important, and now they are backtracking on that. The world economic recession has some- thing to do with that, but the people who are against [climate action] have also tried to muddy thewaters.” “Ironically,”he adds, “inthe last
coupleof yearsweknowmore and every year it gets more compel- ling.” The physicist sees a clear con-
nection between addressing cli- mate change and U.S. economic interests. “People don’t appreciatewhat’s
going on,” he says, “that we are laying the groundwork for pros- perity.”
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