Obama and the Energy Economy

Blogging at this blog will continue to be slow in the next few weeks. However, I will continue to post occasionally and am also looking at what the best way to share links (Twitter, del.icio.us, etc.) is.

In the mean time, here are links to two articles of interest.

1. Editorial at the R&D Magazine (emphasis mine)

The slumping U.S. economy is the top story these days and is covered in this issue with respect to its impact on government labs, funding, and the world of R&D. Energy is another hot topic as well, with fluctuating fuel prices, the environmental impact of fuels, and climate change being the hot-button topics. Uniting these issues is President-elect Barack Obama and his clean-energy initiatives. In an interview with Time in October, Obama observes that, “from a purely economic perspective, finding the new driver of our economy is going to be critical. There is no better potential driver that pervades all aspects of our economy than a new energy economy.”

2.  Obama has given a clear indication that his administration will show a dramatic policy shift on energy and climate issues than the outgoing Big-Oil friendly Bush administration.

More details from Huffington Post.

A Chinese-American, Chu is a professor of physics and molecular and cell biology at the University of California-Berkeley and has been the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory since 2004, where he has pushed aggressively for research into alternative energy as a way to combat global warming.

President-elect Barack Obama intends to round out his environmental and natural resources team with a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and three former Environmental Protection Agency officials from the Clinton administration.
The president-elect has selected Steven Chu for energy secretary, Lisa Jackson for EPA administrator, Carol Browner as his energy "czar," and Nancy Sutley to lead the White House Council on Environmental Quality, Democratic officials with knowledge of the decisions said Wednesday.