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Nobel Prize Winning Physicist As Energy Secretary
bledri writes "Officials close to the Obama transition team say that
Physics Nobel Laureate Steven Chu is the likely candidate for Energy Secretary. Some are worried that Chu is not politically savvy enough,
but I'm hopeful that a scientist will base policy on evidence.
Discuss among yourselves."
Just because someone is a great scientist does not mean the person is a good administrator or a good politician. The sad truth is that politicians will not care if he has a Nobel Prize and will think nothing of tearing him down for no reason other than they can. Everybody has limitations, and it would be better to get someone who can listen to scientists and engineers and also be a great administrator.
For the first time in *at least* 8 years, I am quite jealous of you US guys. If you ask me, people in senior positions are are not 'politically savvy enough' is *exactly* what the world needs right now.
we have to move beyond coal and oil, for all of the obvious environmental and geopolitical reasons. we can't keep dumping carbon into our atmosphere, we can't keep funding saudi wahabbism, russian neoimperialism, and venezuelan blowhards. the only we are going to do this is through science
so hopefully, we'll get the following out of washington dc:
1. more nuclear power plants
2. more funding for fusion research
3. now that we have nationalized the car industry, we put a gun to the heads of the fuckers and detroit and force them to make more, cheaper electric cars. force this on them as a priority
4. the infrastructure to allow for battery swapping nationwide
of course, the american consumer has to be dragged kicking and screaming out of his SUV and into a post-oil and coal future. so be it. the only person who is going to be the visionary to do this is a scientist. he has plenty of support in his bully pulpit role from those of us who "get it". we finally just elected an administration it seems that also gets it
where it= oil and coal need to go the way of history
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_of_Energy
Salon has a story today on Obama's pick to solve the energy crisis:
Chu must have reasonable political skills, as he the director of the Berkeley Lab, an organization with 4000 people and a budget of half a billion. The management of a scientific organization of this nature is usually quite challenging, if only because many of the people employed by it are (necessarily) independent-minded and headstrong. There is more back-stabbing in academic labs than in Washington DC.
Putting a scientist in charge of energy policy is a good idea. A factually justified, realistic energy policy is urgently needed.
Besides, during the last few years people in the public research departments have been demoralized by a political leadership that made it clearly felt that it couldn't care less about scientific data and factual reality. The DoE needs a leader who has the confidence of its staff. Chu could be that leader.
Some are worried that Chu is not politically savvy enough
Politically savvy people don't make good politicians or bureaucrats, but unfortunately that's what they usually become.
Let's hope this is an appointment and not a popularity contest. If he's smart and he has the entitlement to succeed then things may go well.
It's about time a real scientist with real ideas is put into the position where his opinion is respected. It seems most people are too worried about the politics of everything and not about results. In history we have elected generals as our presidents who have made far better choices for this country in my opinion although we've created a secretary of defense position to avoid having a military leader with the ability to make war moving decisions. We think that just because a man has been out of the service for 10 years he won't make bias decisions based on his past military history. The fact of the matter is we need people in those Government positions that actually do the work, so the outcome isn't twisted. Politics are so overrated.
This is great news coming from an administration that chooses people based on competence rather then connections and theocratic similarities.
The current buddy-buddy system got the US in the biggest hole in over 3 decades ( we may even have to go back a century ).
I admit I don't know too much about the apointee but winning a Nobel in Physics is not a small feat and indicates a factual based personality, which is exactly what we MUST have right now, and something that we always should have in any higher position.
There is hope ...
Probably somewhere in China or India.
Half of the world is there - statistically that is where the second coming should take place.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
An anonymous source says that Chu has solved the pickle matrix, and has made significant progress on the rebigulator. DOE should be a piece of cake.
Obama has impressed me and I hope he keeps going. I am worried, I just know Rod Sterling is waiting to spring the gotcha on everybody and that Twilight Zone music will crank up.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
He also has a Nobel prize and has become a moral authority on climate change and energy ever since his film, "Inconvenient Truth." He has deep experience in government and has done extensive thinking about energy and environmental policy. In short, he both knows what he's talking about and can get things done.
Perhaps Chu has that, too, but his lack of name recognition will constrain his effectiveness.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
If you mean what common parlance means by "politics" -- i.e. "getting elected"
If you mean "running a social unit, such as a state" then most of them suck.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
but all of the downside, including what you listed above, is not as big a downside as that of oil and coal
environment: we pollute our air
geopolitics: we fund our enemies
those two take the cake when compared to nuclear and electric being "messy" and all the other minor issues you list. especially regarding nuclear: lookup pebble bed reactors. we can get 10x the amount of energy out of uranium, and thorium, and produce 1/10th the waste that lasts 2 centuries rather than 10,000 years. nuclear is a no-brainer. the french and japanese have been doing it for decades, deriving most of their energy from nuclear
the french and japanese need to show the way to americans who, like you, seem to suffer from tunnel vision. it doesn't have to be oil and coal. we are using a suboptimal source for our energy needs. all of the downside to nuclear and electric do not stack up as much as the downside of oil and coal
and then we really need to master fusion, in a century, at least. because oil and coal sources are just going to get deeper and more expensive, and uranium and thorium sources aren't going to last forever either
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
where suburbs never developed, where cities remained small and compact, where we retained strong investment in our national rail and trolley infrastructure, you would have something valid to say about biking
but the automobile came and completely transformed our communities and how we live our lives. for the better? for the worse? doesn't matter. it's what happened. irreversibly
so now we are tasked with getting off oil and coal in the least painful way possible
oh sure, people will start biking more if gas goes to say, $100 gallon. but this is not an option for many people: the old, the out of shape, those who live in places that are very hot or cold, places that are very hilly, those who live 30 miles from their job, etc. that which works for the 25 year old marathon runner is not an option for most of us
of course the next step then is to see development patterns abandon the far flung suburbs model if energy sources remain difficult. but changing our lifestyles will take decades. it took decades to put us all in the suburbs, dependent on the car
but we just aren't going to abaondon the suburbs. people like their big houses, they don't like small cramped apartments. what will happen instead is people will simply use electric cars, and continue living in the suburbs. because when faced with the choice between:
1. abandoning the big house in the suburbs for a small city apartment and a bike on cold rainy days/ hot stifling days
2. using an electric car instead
people are going to pick #2, 99.9999% of the time
your doomsday scenario of everyone on bikes is just not going to happen. its not beijing, 1970. sorry to burst your fantasy bubble
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Looks like they did a lot of research to narrow down that Energy secretary short list. Arnie the actor, Colin the military guy (or the football player?) or a Nobel prize winning energy scientist. I dunno, my my gut feeling is to go with the Nobel prize scientist, but then I don't have much political savvy...
i suppose social darwinism is superior?
if a guy breaks his arm and is out of a job, what do you do? let him starve?
no, as a society you give him the healthcare he needs until he is back on his feet. are there those who abuse the system? welfare cheats? yes. so you find them and punish them
but because soomeone tries to cheat the system you'd prefer a world where society just lets people starve for the sake of setbacks in their life? setbacks we all suffer, including you?
where do you derive your support? are you very rich? do you have a lot of strong family ties? good for you! so someone who iw poor or has no family ties deserves to starve in the street? this is a superior moral or just plain logistical approach to the world in your eyes? really?
socialism is superior. wake up america
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
What's his Slashdot handle? How many digits are in his UID?
the american model is broken. you compare our lifestyles and what we worry about with say, the danish. now the danish are taxed at ridiculous rates. but they also gets weeks off every year from work. they never have to worry about their healthcare. you ever fought with an hmo over what is covered or not?
to pay for healthcare on your own, you are putting yourself in effectively the same tax bracket as the danish anyways. so the only difference then is the danish get worry free peace of mind, and we get to fight with hmos. its fucking stupid
and surveys show the danish are happier than americans. universal healthcare is such a no brainer. i can't fathom the stupidity of those in the usa that oppose it
socialism is superior to the american model. it really, really is. ok, we get lower taxes. but that just means we have to go buy on our own what is covered anyways in socialist societies. america has better healthcare? partially: better CRISIS healthcare. but the socialist model has better PREVENTATIVE healthcare. in other words, if i have a heart attack, i'd rather be in an american hosptial than a european one. but in the european hospital, i wouldn't get the heart attack in the first place!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Wait, has anyone on this forum ever talked to Nobel Laureates in any sciences? Or read about them?
The vast majority (I'd ballpark it at 80% from completely non-scientific, anecdotal experience) of Nobel Prize winners IN SCIENCE are ego-driven megalomaniacs that are addicted to prestige and influence (since salary rarely goes into 7 digits for professors, its rarely the largest motivator). As such, they've dedicated their lives to feeding their addiction, working their way up from assistant professor to Director of [Weighty Gov. Funding Cash Cow], and navigating the political landscape comes as easily as breathing.
This is no surprise. In nearly any field, there are many more workers whose merit-based achievement qualifies them for advancement than open positions for advancement, so its the self-promoters who actually land the boss's job. Sometimes the value of the work is so strong it outweighs political maneuvering, but its the exception more than the rule. The fact is, every year there are a very limited number of Nobels to hand out, and MANY researchers who have done science of a caliber to deserve them.
The fact that Chu has a Nobel AND is a Director of a Gov. Cash Cow should indicate strongly enough his political experience. The only question remaining is whether he can transplant himself into a wholly new network of players in the politic game.
P.S. I've met Chu. He's a nice guy, and from my inexperienced scientist viewpoint, he's got what it takes to play with the big boys in Washington.
Many of you miss the point. Yes at one point Chu did science. But now he is an administraitor at one of the biggest labs in the contry. He has spend his later years working for energy related issues
we can get 10x the amount of energy out of uranium, and thorium, and produce 1/10th the waste that lasts 2 centuries rather than 10,000 years.
By the way, that's another way of phrasing "waste that is 50 times as radioactive".
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
world has seen LITTLE benefit from political savvy people up till today, since the DAWN of civilization.
sorry, your concern is bullshit, because apparently you dont know much about world history, leave aside political history.
to be able to be political savvy, you have to be a politician in profession. which, leaves little room for anything else. you end up basically being a tricky bastard that can get his way by compromising whatever they can, and in the end this profits noone but the politician and the interested party.
noone here can name 5 cases in which politically savy people did great good for the betterment of mankind. i dare you too.
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