Monday, December 15, 2008

Chu Is An Excellent Choice For Energy Secretary

Joseph Romm lists five reasons why he's such a big fan of Chu:
1. He isn’t fooled by clean coal claptrap. Earlier this year he said, “Coal is my worst nightmare“:
If coal is to stay part of the world’s energy mix, he says, clean-coal technologies must be developed. But he’s not very optimistic: “It’s not guaranteed we have a solution for coal,” he concluded, given the sheer scope of the challenge of economically storing billions of tons of carbon dioxide emissions underground.

Worried about radioactivity? Coal’s still your bogeyman. Dr. Chu says a typical coal plant emits 100 times more radiation than a nuclear plant, given the flyash emissions of radioactive particles.

2. The lab he runs is responsible for developing the technologies that have paid for all the clean energy research the tax payers have ever supported (see Energy efficiency, Part 5: The highest documented rate of return of any federal program). So while even the most knowledgeable clean energy experts focus too much on supply side solutions, Chu will ensure efficiency gets the equal time it deserves.

Continue reading.

1 comment:

Nate said...

As I've said before, my Pops works for MidAmerican. For some reason or another, he's not a fan of Browner for EPA. Not sure if she's too "tree-hugger" for him or what. Typically my father has shown a good balance of environmental concerns as well as knowing what's best for an energy company, so I trust his opinion on most of these issues. Should be interesting to see if his prophecies pan out.