Steven Chu, Nobel laureate and director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, will go before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee for his confirmation hearing on Tuesday, where he’s certain to be grilled about his positions on key energy and climate issues. Here’s a guide to what Chu thinks—or at least what he’s said in the past.
“Coal is my worst nightmare”
Chu is no fan of coal. “Coal is my worst nightmare,” he said repeatedly in a speech earlier this year. He says “clean coal” technologies would need to be developed in order to keep the fossil fuel in the energy portfolio in a carbon-constrained world, but notes, “It’s not guaranteed we have a solution for coal.”
As energy secretary, Chu will address the issue of government funding for coal research. The Department of Energy has been a major funder of projects to turn coal into liquid fuel, as well as the controversial FutureGen pilot program that was supposed to build the nation’s first zero-emission, “clean coal” power plant in Illinois. The Bush administration abandoned the effort after the price tag ballooned to $1.8 billion, moving the money to other projects and aiming to get carbon-capture-and-sequestration technologies in place at other power plants. But supporters (including President-elect Barack Obama) have sought to keep it alive.
Nuclear power
Chu’s comments on nuclear power have drawn fire from both nuke opponents and supporters. In a 2005 interview, he said he “absolutely” thinks the role of nuclear in the country’s energy portfolio should be increased—alarming the anti-nuke crowd.
But he’s also cautious about expanding nuclear without developing better waste-disposal systems. “The waste and proliferation issues still haven’t been completely solved,” he has said. To make nuclear power a viable option, “we’ve got to recycle the waste,” he says, as there is not enough capacity at Yucca Mountain, the site in Nevada currently being developed for long-term storage. “[I]f you take all the waste we have now from our civilian and military nuclear operations, we’d fill up Yucca Mountain. So we need three or four Yucca Mountains. Well, we don’t have three or four Yucca Mountains.”
Climate change
Chu says his realization that climate change is among the most pressing issues of our era developed over time, as did the realization that a price on carbon is needed. “In the last five or six years, I was following this as an interested citizen,” he told PBS last year. “And it became more and more apparent to me that the dangers, the potential risks of climate change were looking like they were more and more likely, and that ... as a scientist, a responsible scientist, you really have to think of what you can do to help with this problem.”
Chu has stressed the importance of curbing greenhouse-gas emissions. “These are serious predictions,” he said in another interview last year, discussing the latest climate science. “It’s prudent risk management. It’s like saying, ‘Your house will burn down in the next 10 years—50 percent probability. By the way, do you want fire insurance?’”
Chu is now a member of the Copenhagen Climate Council, an international effort to “create global awareness of the importance of the U.N. Climate Summit, in Copenhagen, in December 2009.”
“We need new technologies”
In recent years, Chu has become an outspoken advocate for carbon-neutral energy sources and policies that support their development. “I think political will is absolutely necessary,” he said in a speech at the National Clean Energy Summit in August 2008. “But we need new technologies.”
In 2007, he formed a research collaboration between the Lawrence Berkeley lab, UC-Berkeley, and energy giant BP, through which BP agreed to fund a $500 million biofuels institute at the school. The partnership was controversial both within the scientific community and on the Berkeley campus. One student group staged a mock graduation ceremony with oil-stained diplomas. The lab also secured a $125 million grant from the Department of Energy to found the Joint BioEnergy Institute.
Chu’s work at the Lawrence Berkeley lab has focused largely on advanced biofuels, artificial photosynthesis, and solar technologies. The lab has in recent years worked on creating photovoltaic cells that can be painted on to surfaces, sometimes called “solar paint,” and on technology that can convert solar energy to liquid fuel by mimicking plant photosynthesis. Through its Helios Project, the lab has worked on developing methods to “store” solar energy in the form of renewable transportation fuels derived from algae and other biomass. (See this Tom Philpott post for more on Chu’s ideas about cellulosic ethanol.)
Chu has frequently noted the importance of energy efficiency in weaning the country off fossil fuels. He has lobbied for the creation of an Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) at the Department of Energy to fund innovative, high-tech methods to address the energy crisis. And he has advocated for an interstate electricity transmission system, paid for by ratepayers, to address the access problems associated with many renewable energy sources.
Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success
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dobermanmacleod Posted 7:04 pm
12 Jan 2009
"The vast majority of new power stations in China and India will be coal-fired; not "may be coal-fired"; will be. So developing carbon capture and storage technology is not optional, it is literally of the essence." --"Breaking the Climate Deadlock," Tony Blair, June 26, 2008
But, Vaclav Smil, an energy expert at the University of Manitoba, has estimated that capturing and burying just 10 percent of the carbon dioxide emitted over a year from coal-fire plants at current rates would require moving volumes of compressed carbon dioxide greater than the total annual flow of oil worldwide -- a massive undertaking requiring decades and trillions of dollars. "Beware of the scale," he stressed."
By the way:
"Contrary to the conventional wisdom that China is outpacing the rest of the world in building coal plants, the International Energy Agency has projected that between 2011 and 2020 the OECD (most of Europe plus the U.S.), with 150 million fewer people than China, will build 10 percent more coal capacity than China (184 GW for the OECD vs. 168 GW for China)." --"Schwarzenegger's folly," Gristmill, 16 Oct 2008
China is aiming to increase its coal production by about 30 percent by 2015 to meet its energy needs, the government has announced, in a move likely to fuel concerns over global warming. Beijing plans to increase annual output to more than 3.3 billion tonnes by 2015, said Hu Cunzhi, chief planner of the land and resources ministry, said on Wednesday. --AFP, 9 January 2009
Finally:
"We underestimated the risks ... we underestimated the damage associated with temperature increases ... and we underestimated the probabilities of temperature increases." -- Sir Nicholas Stern, author of "The Stern Report," April 17, 2008
"Few seem to realise that the present IPCC models predict almost unanimously that by 2040 the average summer in Europe will be as hot as the summer of 2003 when over 30,000 died from heat. By then we may cool ourselves with air conditioning and learn to live in a climate no worse than that of Baghdad now. But without extensive irrigation the plants will die and both farming and natural ecosystems will be replaced by scrub and desert. What will there be to eat? The same dire changes will affect the rest of the world and I can envisage Americans migrating into Canada and the Chinese into Siberia but there may be little food for any of them." --Dr James Lovelock's lecture to the Royal Society, 29 Oct. '07
If this material interests you, I can be reached at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
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dobermanmacleod Posted 7:11 pm
12 Jan 2009
If you doubt what I am saying, I would be glad to wager a small bet (terms upon agreement).
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Curtis Moore Posted 4:02 am
13 Jan 2009
Ships at sea account for as much air pollution as the entire continents of either North America or Europe because they burn bunker fuel, which is so thick with carbon, sulfur and other contaminants that at room temperature it is solid. Switch those ships from bunker to fuels like distillate and slap pollution control devices on them, and the world's air pollution would be cut by roughly 12 percent. There are literally hundreds of on-the-shelf ways to eliminate the pollutants that cause global warming--and some of these have atmospheric lifetimes of a few minutes or a few days--so the cooling benefits would be virtually immediate. Plus, millions of lives would be saved.
I've written two books on this subject--Green Gold: Japan, Germany and the Race for Environmental Technology in 1994--and most recently Saving Ourselves: How We Can and Why We're Not: The Roles of Corporate America and the Republican Party in Perpetuating Global Warming, which can be found at saving-ourselves.com (don't jump to the conclusion that I'm some rabid Democrat from La La land--I was Republican counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works for 11 years after working several years for Delaware Republican Bill Roth).
We do not have the luxury of waiting. The planet is racing toward a dozen or so tipping points, beyond which it will be impossible to return to a livable climate. These, too, are explained at saving-ourselves.com.
Industries, and companies like electric utilities and car makers, do not want this information known because they stand to make literally trillions of dollars selling reductions as part of a "cap and trade" system, an utterly bankrupt approach that has failed every time its been tried, but that should be the subject of another comment.
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CCC Web Editor Posted 6:41 pm
13 Jan 2009
And, for a more personal look at how Chu feels about the climate change threat, watch this video where he likens the danger of global warming to "Titanic the sequel":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zA10n3Mdwcs
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anyone Posted 6:38 am
19 Jan 2009
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy07osti/41435.pdf
New nuclear has reached costs between 25 cents and 30 cents per kWh:
http://climateprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/nuc ...
The US installed 7500 MW of windpower in 2008 alone:
http://strandedwind.org/node/212
South dakota alone has enough wind to power half the US: http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2007/05/14/s ...
And interconnected Windfarms can provide baseload:
http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/winds/aj07_jamc.pdf
In addition, as opposed to nuclear power, wind produces more power during day time, when electricity demand is at least doubled.
http://www.windpower.org/en/tour/wres/variab.htm
Thinfilm photovoltaics will reach costs of below $1000/kW by 2010.
http://guntherportfolio.blogspot.com/2007/09/oerlikon-sol ...
120,000 km2 of the US is built. If only 10% of that area has roof area, that leads to a maximum solar flux of 12,000 GW or 1,200 GW at only 10% efficiency.
Spain installed 2.5 GW of photovoltaics in 2008. 2.5 GW of PV in one single year. On the other hand the new nuclear power plant in Finnland is being built since 2005, won't be finished before 2012 and will have a cost overrun of at least 50%.
http://www.solarserver.de/news/news-9915.html
92 x 92 sq mi (or about 8% of Nevada) is enough to power the entire US with solar thermal alone.
http://www.ausra.com/
HVDC can transmit power from coast to coast with losses of only 3% per 1000 km at costs of €70/kW per 1000 km (transmission line only).
http://www.abb.com/cawp/GAD02181/C1256D71001E0037C1256834 ...
http://www.iset.uni-kassel.de/abt/w3-w/projekte/LowCostEu ...
China has 10 more solar thermal capacity than nuclear power capacity installed, because its cheaper to heat water on a roof than to waste expensive nuclear electricity in electric heaters.
http://www.ren21.net/pdf/RE2007_Global_Status_Report.pdf
Also, China currently installs almost 200 times more solar thermal capacity annually than the US.
http://www.ren21.net/pdf/RE2007_Global_Status_Report.pdf
Geothermal can provide 100GWe in the US and as opposed to nuclear power with little investment in R&D according to MIT.
http://geothermal.inel.gov/publications/future_of_geother ...
Needless to say, that there is still
biomass http://www.jenbacher.com
wave http://www.pelamiswave.com/
tidal
small hydro
and most importantly: Efficiency
However, if no new nuclear power plants would be built, expensive government agencies such as IAEA and Euratom promoting nuclear energy, would not be needed anymore and leave many government-officials jobless.
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