Some cool exporter china images:
DOE Secretary Steven Chu
Image by jurvetson
At HP this morning, flanked by Anna Eshoo and Steve Westly.
Meta-observation: he talked about China 11 instances, and no other foreign country. China is investing B per month into cleantech.
“The U.S. can lead in technology or we can stick to. Will be an exporter or importer? Even creating nations want to be a leader, possessing missed the industrial and bio revolutions.”
“I am very hopeful that we will get a climate bill this year. In this organization you have to stay optimistic. Scientists can be the most optimistic of individuals. It’s a selection impact. Early in grad college, I wondered how I could leave a mark, and by the finish I realized that there have been a lot of items to be found. Progress requires a lot of — what’s the Chinese expression? — chutzpah.” [being aware of laughter]
“Power electronics is a long-ignored huge hole. The talented EE’s have not gone into this field. So if you take technologies at the edge like this, and give it a small nudge, it will explode.”
I asked him about his views on the new nukes – offered his atomic physics background and Stewart Brand’s observation that these who know the most are the least scared.
“The waste situation is solvable, and they are now a lot, considerably safer. Nuclear is baseload and we will need to have that. Once wind gets to 20-25% of the power mix, you have to be careful offered intermittent outages you want two-way flow in the grid and hot spinning resources that can kick in. It will take 50-80 years to realize a renewable transition. In the meantime, we need to have to fund the smart grid. It’s infrastructure like the highways. It’s a national security concern.”
From other Q&A subjects, he was bullish on subsequent gen biofuels and PACE bonds for weatherization (“70-80M U.S. properties could benefit from this”)