Physicist tipped for US energy post : Nature News & Comment

As the administration of US President Barack Obama prepares for a renewed push towards cleaner energy and reduced greenhouse-gas emissions, the White House appears to have chosen another physicist to head the effort. The leading candidate to replace departing energy secretary Steven Chu is Ernest Moniz, director of the Energy Initiative at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge. He would bring to the office a pragmatic support for nuclear power and natural gas, along with a candid desire to, in his own words, “innovate like hell” on basic energy technologies. Colleagues at MIT are waiting for a confirmation of the appointment, which could come as early as this week. “Ernie is a real people person, and he took us to a whole new level in terms of both size and visibility,” says Howard Herzog, a participant in the Energy Initiative who works on carbon capture and sequestration technologies at MIT.

Physicist tipped for US energy post : Nature News & Comment.