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Energy Czar From LNL

Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2008 12:49 pm
by MSimon
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122893698047595329.html

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President-elect Barack Obama has picked a Nobel laureate, a former Environmental Protection Agency administrator, and officials from New Jersey and Los Angeles to run his energy and environmental initiatives, putting heft into roles likely to dominate domestic policy in his first years in office.

Steven Chu, 60 years old, director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, will be nominated as secretary of energy, Democratic officials said Wednesday. Carol Browner, 52, who headed the EPA under President Bill Clinton, will coordinate energy policy from the White House in a new "energy czar" role.
It is hard to say if this is good or bad. Is he a Tokamak guy? Or is he open to other approaches?

Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2008 5:07 pm
by Mike Holmes
Well, big picture, I think it's good for nuclear energy in general. I mean he'll take the easy road, and institute more fission plants at first. This could mean more money, in general, for other endeavors.

Assuming we have any money left. :-)

Mike

Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2008 11:47 am
by cybrbeast
Just signed up to share this. I've been reading this forum for a while.
Steven Chu gave a google tech talk. He mostly talked about non-nuclear alternative energy. But at the end was asked what he thought about Polywell at the end. He gave an ambiguous answer, he was looking into it.

Here is the talk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JS17g47- ... annel_page

Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2008 12:35 pm
by MSimon
Mike Holmes wrote:Well, big picture, I think it's good for nuclear energy in general. I mean he'll take the easy road, and institute more fission plants at first. This could mean more money, in general, for other endeavors.

Assuming we have any money left. :-)

Mike
They can always print more.

Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2008 12:55 pm
by MSimon
cybrbeast wrote:Just signed up to share this. I've been reading this forum for a while.
Steven Chu gave a google tech talk. He mostly talked about non-nuclear alternative energy. But at the end was asked what he thought about Polywell at the end. He gave an ambiguous answer, he was looking into it.

Here is the talk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JS17g47- ... annel_page
The Bussard Fusion bit is at around 1 hour 1 minute and 10 seconds into the tape.

I have a post up at:

http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/200 ... ssard.html

cross posted at:

http://iecfusiontech.blogspot.com/2008/ ... ssard.html

Simon

Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2008 2:38 pm
by Mike Holmes
Seems like a suitable answer for the technology at this point. That is, he, too, seems to be in a "wait and see" mode at the moment. As long as he's aware of it, I doubt he could fail to respond, should the results of the testing turn out to be good.

Mike

Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2008 5:44 pm
by TallDave
Halcyon days for those of us trying to get more attention to this effort. We now have an energy secretary who has some familiarity with the concept.

Rough transcript:
(asked if he's evaluated Bussard's fusion idea)

“Partly. (chuckle) And, I was discussing with people at Google for, I don’t know, an hour, hour and a half, and it’s continuing, and… let me just say, so far, there’s not enough information, so I can give an evaluation of the probability that it might work, or not. But I’m trying to get more information, I’ve talked to them a little bit.”

Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2008 5:51 pm
by RHarris
This is good news. "Wait and see" means that you expect something to be happening while you're waiting. And something happening means funding.

Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2008 6:26 pm
by drmike
The very fact there is a physicist in charge of all the national labs is astounding. That he's a Nobel winner is even more amazing. I think the
key political notion we need to keep him interested is to point out that
fusion is an alternative energy source. Polywell is just one of many
fusion methods - they all need more research.

Research is what drives the national labs, and having somebody in charge
who actually understand all that goes on inside of them is a huge change
in the way the US has operated for the past 20 years. I think it was a
great choice, but I guess time will tell how much difference it really makes.

Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2008 7:11 pm
by kurt9
Perhaps, like us, Steven Chu is awaiting the results of the peer review panel.

Nuances.

Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2008 8:16 pm
by Helius
This tech talk was over 20 months ago. I wonder how Dr. Chu views the nuances Dr. Nebel referred to? I wonder if the word 'nuance" is as intriguing to him as it is to us?

To me, Nuance could mean anything from subtle and understated, which I think he means, to strange and unexpected surprises which demand a forking of research initiatives, such as if there were regions of reverse beta decay or other strange phenomena with bizarre implications.

Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2008 9:28 pm
by MSimon
Instapundit linked to this:

http://www.classicalvalues.com/archives ... nergy.html

I also linked back to a post at Dean Esmay. ;-)