Steve Chu to Be Named Energy Secretary

Steve Chu—the Nobel Prize winning physicist who runs the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab—has been selected to become the U.S. Secretary of Energy, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The appointment will likely be hailed by a large number of people in the greentech world. Chu left Stanford to become the director of the Berkeley lab in 2004 so that he could help promote energy research within the federal government. He has been one of the driving forces behind the effort to commercialize technologies developed inside the national labs and at the University of California.

One of Chu’s big accomplishments has been the $500 million research pact between the University of California-Berkeley, the University of Illinois and petroleum giant BP. (Steve Koonin, BP’s chief scientist formerly with Caltech, was also instrumental in that deal.)

Chu speaks often at greentech events, warning about the dangers of global warming, the need for more research and the economic benefits of developing a green industry.

He’s also a great interview. Here’s a lengthy one he gave me in 2006.