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US Energy Secretary Resigns
An anonymous reader writes "Today Steven Chu, U.S. Secretary of Energy, released a letter indicating he won't continue to hold the job for President Obama's second term. He'll continue until the ARPA-E Summit at the end of February, and then perhaps a bit longer until a replacement is found. MIT's Technology Review sums up his contributions thus: 'Under his leadership, the U.S. Department of Energy has changed the way it does energy research and development. He leaves behind new research organizations that are intently focused on solving specific energy problems, particularly the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy as well as several Innovation Hubs. The latter were modeled closely on Chu's experience working at the legendary Bell labs, where researchers solving basic problems rubbed shoulders with engineers who knew how to build things. At one Innovation Hub, for example, researchers who are inventing new materials that can absorb sunlight or split water are working together with engineers who are building prototypes that could use those materials to generate fuel from sunlight. Chu also brought an intense focus on addressing climate change through technical innovation, speaking clearly and optimistically about the potential for breakthroughs to change what's possible.'"
The President got Chu'd out.
There's a West Wing episode called 'Take out the Trash' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Take_out_the_Trash_Day where it's laid down that Friday is the day to announce things because they get lost over the weekend, and by Monday there are other things to talk about. So this is a good demonstration; watch to see if the story does disappear over the weekend...
say goodbye to anything that was a renewable energy movement of any sort.
Nonsense - he got the project started, now it's time for new people to come in and make it succeed.
As Winston Churchill was the man for the PM job during WW II, he was not the man to lead the UK through peace at the end of the war.
I for one thank him for his efforts. If we can't stop our need for using energy, at least we can find better sources of it with don't mess with the environment or geopolitics.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Because plants don't do it very efficiently. If they did, we could just generate all our power from burning wood, and the forests would be able to regenerate faster than we could burn them up. Something like this won't be useful (in the sense of being able to replace most of the fossil fuels we use) unless it can be a lot more efficient than chlorophyll. And doing better than a billion years of evolution isn't that easy. People have been researching this stuff for at least 20 years (that I can remember, probably longer) and nothing practical has come of it yet. Don't expect it in the near future.
Stephen Chu was the first person to hold the title of Secretary of Energy who had the scientific background to understand how energy capture / extraction actually worked. It's kind of amazing when you think about it: his predecessors included Navy officers, politicians, lawyers, and a former Coca-Cola executive, but nobody who understood the nitty-gritty of what the Energy Department was supposed to be doing.
As far as why he resigned, I wouldn't read too much into it - the overall timing (shortly after re-election) is in line with wanting to get back in the lab rather than dealing with bureaucracy.
I am officially gone from
Dr. Steven Chu brought authority and evidence-based science to the US Cabinet. Former professor of physics at Stanford, he shared a Nobel prize for physics in 1997 for cooling and trapping atoms with laser light. he continued to publish science while serving as Secretary of Energy.
His very expertise and lifelong, professional interest were very lamely attacked by the right wing machine, typically accusing him of avocating raising oil prices and gas prices.
Having Dr. Chu there did more to forward the cause of science in the US Government in generations. How many administrations could walk down a hallway and access a scientist at the top of his game? He should be held and paraded around on slashdot's shoulders for his hard work.
It looks like he's trying to put as good a face as possible on his tenure. The real issues such as declining energy return from the world's remaining oil, what to do about the nation's vulnerable, aging, and dangerous nuclear infrastructure, the global warming consequences of frakking natural gas and increased use of coal... He can't discuss any of this without severe political and possibly personal consequences. He's bowing out while he can, and given the magnitude of the problems, I don't blame him. He can't win. He can only escape.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Nonsense. Plants don't do it efficiently because they occupy only a small area and must chemically store energy for an extended period of time, because they might not get much sunlight for six months out of the year.
Most of our power needs as a society don't require such long-term storage. The power that lights up a city is largely transient. It does not need to be stored except to provide a temporary reserve for when energy production is not available, and even then, only to the extent that we don't have enough of a superconducting power grid to bring in power from other areas that are capable of producing power. Similarly, our production capacity need not be self-contained within a single small area; we are capable of moving energy from place to place with relative ease.
We should have no difficulty powering the future with solar power. We just have to spend the money to build superconducting grids, solar towers, and other similar systems. The only reason we're not doing it on a large scale is that the folks designing the hardware haven't gotten the cost down to a point where it is cheaper than burning quarter-billion-year-old dead plants and animals yet.
Better battery technology would be useful for certain things, such as laptops, cars, etc., but it isn't essential. Given a superconducting power grid and ultracapacitors, it would not be catastrophic if you had to stop your car and plug in for ten seconds to recharge every couple of hours of driving. And that's possible with the power storage technology we have today, although the cost is still prohibitive.
The only thing we're really missing is infrastructure and capacity. There is no huge gaping hole in our energy tech picture. There is only a lack of resources to build what needs to be built.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Methinks there's far more to it than you imply... Reaching the tech to do what you're describing here takes more than just resources; it takes some significant changes in our understanding of Physics.
Let's look at your idea: you want something that can charge an electric car's battery in 10 seconds. Ok; a typical Prius battery is rated at about 4 kWh. That's roughly 15 million Joules of energy. To deliver that much energy in 10 s, you need a power supply that provides 1.5 million watts of power. At the battery voltage (~275 V), that's a current of over 5000 A, or only an order of magnitude less than a typical lightning strike.
Even assuming it's technically feasible to have a superconducting grid (unlikely without high, as in ambient, temperature superconductors), the cable from your power supply to the car battery probably won't be made of the same stuff if it's necessary for a person to manipulate it (eg. connect it to the car that is parked anywhere within a few 10s of centimeters from the supply). If copper wire is used, there is no standard size of wire made that can handle 5 kA for a period of 10 s, and even if you made one it would no longer qualify as "possible for a person to manipulate it".
So: building your superconducting grid itself requires new physics that we don't have yet, not just adequate resources. Even with said grid, charging a battery in the amount of time you suggest deals with extremely high currents that are likely unsafe to use.
I'm not saying your idea is impossible, just pointing out that there is much more to this problem than just a lack of resources.
Actually, even plants don't do it efficiently enough to replace the stored energy in oil, gas and coal. At least, they couldn't replace it without horrendous ecological consequences. We can't "grow, baby, grow" our way out of our energy trap any more than we can "drill, baby, drill." We either go nuclear and hope for at least adequate battery technology, or we forget about industrial scale civilization and starve and die on a massive scale come 2100 or thereabouts.
Uranium: The other fossil fuel
Plutonium: The other renewable energy
Breeder reactors: The other recycling program
Central United States: The other location safe from tsunami
No energy left.
First the billions of taxpayer money spent on BS renewable energy companies then a failure to move nuclear power forward. Better to have hired a Finance expert.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2013/0130/Georgia-nuclear-power-plant-could-be-Solyndra-redux-report-says
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Steven Chu was a Nobel Prize Winner. Clearly Obama has gone power-mad and demanded that Chu build him an Army of Super Drones powered by the Arc Reactor in Iron Man. Chu refused, and when Obama threatened him Chu resigned in protest. Truth is Chu didn't do it on principal. He did it because the Arc Reactor is impossible and Iron Man is just a movie, but how could he explain that to a lawyer? Now as Steven Chu drives back takes the long and lonely drive back to St. Louis, if he looked in his rear vision mirror, he might see a star. A star closer than it should be, following him. The Drone Lord does not take "No" for an answer. TO BE CONTINUED...
PS. This is a joke.
So is this: "Obama Begins Inauguration Festivities With Ceremonial Drone Flyover" http://www.theonion.com/articles/obama-begins-inauguration-festivities-with-ceremon,30974/
So are these: "Obama’s CIA pick calls drone attacks ‘ethical and just’" http://www2.macleans.ca/2013/02/01/czar-of-the-drones/ http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/07/john-brennan-cia-drones-obama