Steven Chu

One of the greatest pleasures of the ARPA-E conference was seeing and hearing ARPA-E's founder, outgoing US Energy Secretary Steven Chu speak. He is an excellent speaker, and he gave what was essentially an encouraging pep talk to the folks in the energy sector who were present. He pooh-poohed some dire predictions about energy technology development, and pointed out that (1) we were still doing well with producing petroleum, but (2) that we are nevertheless poised to do awesome things with renewable energy development. He threw out a quote from Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani, the near-mythological Saudi oil minister during the 1970's, that has since become an aphorism: "The Stone Age didn't end for lack of stone, and the oil age will end long before the world runs out of oil." "Better technology" was how Chu paraphrased it. Better technology was on the horizon.

He even delighted in his own mention in The Onion, placing a screenshot from the article across the giant screen in the lecture hall:


and reminding us of how he had addressed it, via Facebook:
I just want everyone to know that my decision not to serve a second term as Energy Secretary has absolutely nothing to do with the allegations made in this week’s edition of the Onion. While I’m not going to confirm or deny the charges specifically, I will say that clean, renewable solar power is a growing source of U.S. jobs and is becoming more and more affordable, so it’s no surprise that lots of Americans are falling in love with solar.

I had recalled reading about the entire exchange in my hometown rag, and being impressed with his humor and aplomb. I like this brave new world we live in, where government officials are not only brilliant, highly educated, and likeable while lacking in any false modesty, but also humorous and human. I'm very sad to see Chu step down.