10 Things You Didn't Know About Steven Chu
Steven Chu is President-elect Obama's pick for energy secretary
1. Steven Chu was born Feb. 28, 1948, in St. Louis.
2. Chu spent most of his childhood in Garden City, N.Y., where his family was one of very few of Chinese descent. Chu's father had emigrated from China to study at MIT in 1943, and his mother did the same two years later.
3. Chu has said that he was not an outstanding student in high school. While he enjoyed a few subjects like geometry and physics, he found most of his classes "a chore." Although he graduated with an A-minus average, he thought of himself as the "academic black sheep" of his family: Many of his relatives hold graduate degrees from prestigious schools.
4. Chu attended the University of Rochester, where he graduated in 1970 with bachelor's degrees in physics and mathematics.
5. Continuing his education in physics, Chu did graduate work at UC-Berkeley. He received his doctorate from there in 1976.
6. After finishing a postdoctoral fellowship, Chu was offered a position as an assistant professor at Berkeley. He decided to take a leave of absence to work at Bell Laboratories, and he stayed there until 1987, eventually becoming head of the quantum electronics research department.
7. While he worked at Bell Labs, Chu was part of a team that won the Nobel Prize in 1997. The research involved using lasers to trap individual atoms by supercooling them.
8. Chu returned to academia in 1987 to teach physics and applied physics at Stanford University. He later became chair of the physics department there.
9. In 2004, Chu was named director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. (As a national laboratory, its work is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy.) While there, he has made combating global warming and researching renewable energy sources top priorities.
10. Chu's wife, Jean, is also a physicist and a former professor. Chu has two adult sons from an earlier marriage.
Sources:
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
- Los Angeles Times
- New York Times
- The Nobel Foundation
- San Francisco Chronicle
- San Jose Mercury News
- University of Rochester
- Washington Post
Reader Comments
One step
Mr chu wind power plan, is good, there still laid one problem as the population grown and global change, global warming their is possibility weather shift, where high winds areas can change doping to low winds, My believe is emission should be filter under ground and that spread of land use for a government agriculture development program and emission will be filter and separated natural by the earth itself while fertilizing soil and being clean by plants also raising the food supply bring down the cost for food, producing a higher supply of healthy food making healthier people cutting down health cost while opening up more business farming gowning more towns, lets start rebuilding skills and craft in our society stringing our country in more than one way
part2 to my plan implement solar power to all new roof build ed by with solar panels make all home roofs receiver of solar energy then pay home owner for what ever extra power we can store from each home owner which cut our energy cost the extra money with rebuild the economy its like free money it will be spend by home owners in maintenance of solar panels causing home owner to use less energy so they can sell more back to the government that money will come back in taxes we loss nothing, in 50 years i see America surplus of money raising in manufacturing of solar power more research in solar power less green house gases that's just my idea
EorliawPyWn
lemyaskin rulezz
Steven Chu's Energy Solution
Dr Chu knows the task; eliminate 80% of US carbon dioxide emissions by 2050. Then he mentions the need for and value of research and the global problems of carbon cap and trade. He understands the problem of electrical power grid construction; political and gaining the approvals for routing transmissions lines, etc. Dr Chu doesn't mention the fact of world oil production peaking in 2005 and the future lack of supply and high economically unsupportable cost.
Implementation of existing technology is the answer, not science. It takes 500,000 3.6 megawatt wind turbines to replace all of the imported oil with hydrogen gas fuel electrolyzed from water as motor fuel. This is 25% of US energy/fuel use. These turbines distributed on some of the 2 million square miles of windy region in the US with proper grid will be on line at rated power 24/7 and power US transportation replacing all oil based fuels and carbon free power for plug in electrical vehicles.
This is a huge economic stimulus program that costs the taxpayers nothing; wind power is the cheapest of all generating methods now. Government subsidizes power production to accelerate start-up, builds grid that is paid for by transfer charges, and coordinates wind farm layouts and royalties for turbines and grid lines with landowners. Government writes federal law since this is an interstate system that includes that renewable energy gets sold first. Investor companies, including individuals, coal and oil companies fund the construction. Oil companies are sitting on $400 BILLION now. BP, British Petroleum, and others are active now at industrial scale in wind and solar renewable power.
Getting this done is 10-years is required because of oil supply limitation and will require a war-time like industrial emergency activity. The industrial capacity built will then be able to replace the rest of US energy production currently using fossil fuels, includes uranium, in the next 30 years.
3.6 megawatt wind turbines are in series production now and are being installed all over the world by a large number of big companies including GE, Vestas, and Siemans. Production and installation rate has to be increased 100 fold now. This is a major 40-year duration industrial jobs program that produces a reliable, low cost energy that will greatly expand US economic potential, is atmospherically non-contaminating, uses little land, no agricultural resources and frees the US of dependence on imported oil. This is an energy system that requires no motor transport, uses no fuel, has no ash or radioactive waste, and requires little system operating labor.
No research is required, only implementation that will inspire system development as is always the case where high production efficiency is the objective.
There isn't much time---
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