steven chu

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Tesla CEO Elon Musk offered a sort of parting gift to Energy Secretary Steven Chu Tuesday, as the pair were about to conclude a session at the ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit near Washington, D.C.[read more]

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A bipartisan group of U.S. senators has written Energy Secretary Steven Chu, urging the government to support liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports for the good of our economy and to improve our trade balance.[read more]

Secretary of Energy Steven Chu announced his resignation today in a letter to staff of the Department of Energy he helmed for the last four years. Chu's departure had been anticipated, but today's official announcement now begins the process of assessing his legacy and the speculation as to his replacement.[read more]

On a global scale the nuclear industry had its share of pluses and minuses in 2012. Japan’s Fukushima crisis continues to dominate any list of the top ten nuclear energy issues for the year. (See more below on Japan’s mighty mission at Fukushima.) In the United States, while the first new nuclear reactor licenses in three decades were issued to four reactors, the regulatory agency that approved them had a management meltdown.[read more]

Stephen Chu/Energy.gov

 

Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Steven Chu is widely expected to leave the administration and there has already been widespread speculation about his possible replacement. The Washington Post, National Journal, Politico, Greentech Media, and E&E have all compiled lists of possible contenders. But do any of them have a clear understanding of the innovation process?[read more]

US DOE via Wikimedia Commons

As my colleague Clifton Yin and I have written recently, U.S. clean energy innovation policy is at an inflection point. The decisions made in the coming months and years will shape America’s ability to address its climate and energy challenges as well as its international competitiveness in the clean tech industry. As such,...[read more]

James Hansen used to say he couldn't imagine a better person to head the DOE than Stephen Chu.  Both men entered political life to do something about getting civilization to respond to the evidence for climate change.   Yet the Keystone XL issue has them on opposing sides.  Hansen led those protesting the...[read more]

The Keystone XL pipeline proposal is one of the most controversial energy issues facing America today, roiling the energy industry and bringing protests to the White House’s front step. Supporters say it would provide a secure source of energy and jobs, but opponents say oil-sands crude will threaten fragile ecosystems and worsen global warming. The Obama Administration hasn’t yet made its decision, but comments by cabinet members, including Energy Secretary Steven Chu, hint at an approval.[read more]

Solar power continues along its firmly established downward cost curve and edges ever closer to achieving the historic milestone of grid parity. Today it just got a huge boost that will help it scale out in this country and will go a long way towards tipping the long term balance in favor of solar. In fact as the industry achieves scale...[read more]

Shreya Indukuri and Daniela Lapidous, ACE Youth Advisory Board members and juniors at the Harker School in San Jose, CA, paid a visit to the White House yesterday, but they didn't just go for a tour. Through working with ACE, this energy-smart duo is scaling up their efforts to spur efficient energy use in America’s high schools – and sharing their ideas with America’s leaders.[read more]

FuelFix has the run down on the first day of the U.S. Department of Energy’s hearings on shale gas fracking regulation. The title above offers captures much of the tone: Company execs urged regulation of fracking at the state level, rather than federal level; Environmental groups saw significant pro-energy industry bias among...[read more]

Concentrated solar photovoltaic energy or CPV is a relative newcomer to the solar power arena and is showing signs of entering into a phase of very rapid growth. It works by concentrating the sun onto a small area of active PV, which operates at around twice the efficiency of normal PV, and promises savings because it requires only a...[read more]

Detroit’s the Motor City. California’s car culture is unsurpassed. But when the electric car industry staged an “innovation motorcade” of electric cars and trucks today, it did so in Washington, D.C.–fittingly, because, without the government, there would simply be no electric car industry. Indeed, the market for electric cars is so...[read more]

As part of the Department of Energy's SunShot Initiative, Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced nearly $170 million in available funding over three years to support a range of solar photovoltaic (PV) technology areas.  The SunShot Initiative aims to reduce the total cost of solar energy systems by about 75 percent - to roughly $1...[read more]

After Fukushima, it seems obvious that the nuclear industry needs to get a better handle on what can happen in these "unlikely" scenarios.  The tactic of professing to have confidence that something is so unlikely you might as well say it can't happen loses its credibility the instant all hell breaks loose.  Human credibility...[read more]