Energy Secretary Pick Steven Chu on Climate Change, In His Own Words

At last, a champion of climate science as US energy chief.

Dr. Steven Chu, 1997 Nobel Laureate in Physics and head of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, has been tapped to be the 12th Secretary of Energy of the United States.

This hour-long video lecture that Chu delivered at the 2007 Nobel Conference provides an excellent window into the ideas and politics of a man who could remake US energy policy. It's titled: The World's Energy Problem and What We Can Do About It. A snapshot:

In the end, it’s not about energy, it’s about carbon dioxide emissions.

The energy problem is global climate change, argues Chu. And we can beat it "by maximizing efficiency and also developing new clean sources of energy." Government regulation is vital, he says.

We share a common Earth. [Climate change] is the ultimate commons problem. Free market incentives will not take care of this.

At the outset of the 2007 speech, Chu says that he wants to "show the urgency of the climate problem" -- and "how it can be solved and that it must be solved."

He begins with climate science. Chu is clear: The climate is in fact changing and that is "most likely" due to humans. He explains that on the time scale of 420,000 years, the greatest increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, by far, has occurred over the last 150 years:

On geological time scales that's an instant.

The culprit? Increases in carbon dioxide traced to fossil fuels, beginning with the start of the Industrial Revolution in 1750. Before that, the concentration of greenhouse gases was fairly flat. says Chu:

This is man-made, this is human.

He states that the planet is already seeing the increased damage from storms, floods and wildfires. And:

We are beginning to see the sea level rise. We are just beginning to see species extinction and disease, especially water-born disease that are affected by temperature, like malaria. [These diseases] are expected to increase and be killing millions more per year.

Forests are already retreating, glaciers are melting, rivers are running dry. Climate-caused water shortages -- one of Chu’s greatest concerns -- could "affect most people of the world."

The US must act: "The richer countries have to set the example and have to do the lion’s share of the reduction."

On coal, Chu states: "We need to minimize our use of coal, but we are beginning to go back to coal -- and that’s an issue." (The WSJ Environmental Capital quotes him as saying that, "Coal is my worst nightmare.")

On clean energy, wind is a real success story, says Chu. The price of generating electricity by wind is now "within striking distance of natural gas." Next step: a long-distant, efficient transmission line to take wind energy (and desert solar energy) from areas with no people to the nation's population centers.

Chu says he’s against turning corn into motor fuel.

We can indeed make fuel out of crops. Corn is not the right crop. The reason it’s not the right crop is because the amount of energy you put into making a fuel and growing the corn and fertilizing the corn fields and plowing the fields is within ten or 20 percent of the amount of energy you get by making it into the ethanol that you can put in your car.

Also, the amount of CO2 you create by growing corn is again within 20 percent of the amount of carbon dioxide you make by drilling and refining oil and putting into your car.

There are better ways, such as cellulosic grass-based ethanol grown on unfertilized and unirrigated lands, says Chu. Indeed, making these second-generation biofuels has been central to his work at the Berkeley Lab.

On efficiency, Chu explains his position in a speech to the National Energy Summit in Nevada this summer: "I cannot impress upon you enough how important energy efficiency is."

Just refrigerator efficiency -- bigger refrigerators by the way -- saves more energy than all we’re generating from renewables [today], excluding hydroelectric power.

Chu told Reuters last year: "If I were emperor of the world, I would put the pedal to the floor on energy efficiency and conservation for the next decade." Good thing that emperor of the US Department of Energy should suffice -- and that he’s just a Senate confirmation away from that post.

It’s hard not to be hopeful over the prospect of Chu's official selection -- and of the restoration of science in US energy policy. Enjoy it -- even as the naysayers come along and try to squash your hope.

And with that, a final encouraging quote, from our likely next energy chief:

We believe that aggressive support of energy science and technology, coupled with incentives that accelerate the current development and deployment of innovative solutions can transform the entire landscape of energy demand and supply.

What the world does in the coming decade will have enormous consequences that will last for centuries. It is imperative that we begin without further delay.

On December 10, 1950, William Faulkner, the Nobel Laureate in Literature, spoke at the Nobel Banquet in Stockholm:

...I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.

With these virtues the world can and will prevail over this great energy challenge.

Steven Chu (USA) and Jose Goldemberg (Brazil)

Co-Chair’s Preface

"Lighting the Way: Toward a Sustainable Energy Future."

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