Nobel Laureate Steve Chu slated to head US DOE; Lisa Jackson, EPA administrator

In Washington, news outlets are reporting that Nobel Laureate Dr. Steven Chu will be appointed Secretary of Energy by President-elect Barack Obama. Chu is one of the country’s most distinguished scientists and shared the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics.  He has been the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory since August 2004.

Dr. Chu is the author of ‘Lighting the Way: Toward A Sustainable Energy Future’, published by 13 National Science Academies, outlining a plan to avert a looming energy crisis. The plan calls for implementation of biofuels and carbon-negative bioenergy, and for the energy needs of the world’s 2 billion poorest people to be considered first. Dr. Chu was profiled in Biofuels Digest last February.

He was instrumental in forging the partnership between Berkeley, the Lawrence Berkeley Lab, Sandia National Laboratories, the University of California-Davis, and the Carnegie Institution of Science,  that resulted in the formation of the Joint Bioenergy Institute (JBEI).

“Long before renewable energy and global warming moved to the forefront of the national consciousness,” said JBEI CEO Jay Keasling at the JBEI dedication last week, “Steve Chu envisioned the Helios Program at Berkeley Lab to develop new sources of transportation fuels from sunlight. Steve’s steadfast support of JBEI from concept to implementation has helped to make JBEI what it is today.”

President-elect Obama is also now expected to name Lisa Jackson as EPA administrator. Jackson, who served 20 years at EPA and was formerly New Jersey’s environmental protection commissioner before becoming New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine’s chief of staff. Los Angeles deputy mayor Nancy Sutley was tipped to head the White House Council on Environmental Quality, while Carol Browner is slated to become head of a new White House coordinating council on energy, climate and environmental policy.

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