Dr. Chu goes to Washington...

... and ends up hungover, waking up next to a solar panel. In a clever combination of the politician's non-denial denial of the affair and his characteristic dry wit while more or less staying true to what he believes in:

“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 US jobs and is becoming more and more affordable, so it’s no surprise that lots of Americans are falling in love with solar.”

His wife purportedly expressed skepticism: "Is that really you? You don't have hair on your chest."

In a sense, Prof. Steve Chu's stint in Washington D.C. does indeed feel like the Frank Capra's movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. He even showed an excerpt of it (2m16s until about 2m37s). The naïve and nerdy physicist who's an ardent advocate for renewable energy and had to be forced to talk about the oil and gas industries as SoE.

He talked about many many examples of how a technology was initially derided and dismissed even by subject experts until it found an agent of dissemination who made it economically feasible and popular. And then it becomes as obvious to anyone. Like James Watt to the steam engine and Henry Ford to the automobile. A log-log-linear learning curve, if you will.

"[Refrigerator size] is not plateauing because of the size of the American appetite. It's plateauing because of the size of the kitchen door."

He clearly enjoyed his time at Bell Labs. Of the "flat structure where everyone argued about ideas but respected one another as people." I wish I could always find such places to do my work in... If there are more articulate scientists with social conscience, perhaps the Earth would not be totally destroyed after all...

"We Do Not Inherit the Earth from Our Ancestors; We Borrow It from Our Children."

At the end of the talk, he quoted Apollo 8 astronauts and showed the entirety of Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot.

Two members of the audience asked him questions along the line of "how do you encourage scientists/ students/ student-scientists to be involved in policy? Any advice?" I don't remember what he said exactly, but it had the gist of Dory the blue tang's "just keep swimming just keep swimming just keep swimming swimming swimming"

Mwahaha sorry about the earworm. And if anyone can comment on the feasibility of fusion as an energy source, it would be the veteran laser guru.

Capitalism and Psychopathy

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Ha. Ha. Ha.

The ultimate behavioral economics dissertation topic: Capitalism and Psychopathy
     Chapter 1: Motivation
     Chapter 2: History and philosophy of capitalism
     Chapter 3: Psychopathy in history
     Chapter 4: Evolutionary origins and the neuroscience of psychopathy 
     Chapter 5: Psychopathy and (the rampant) capitalism (that is contemporary America)
     Chapter 6: Where to go from here?

In a culture that idolizes Steve Jobs but not Bill Gates, anyone who dares publish that thesis will never get a job in the United Freaking States and therefore must move to Canada or Scandinavia.

Interdisciplinary approach to the energy issues

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Met students from all different fields of science, economics, business, and law. [Insert "synergy" here]

Really got a comprehensive view of how to solve the energy problems, although a lot more breadth than depth. Lots of brief talks (engineers/scientists thought were too non-technical and some MBA/law students thought were too technical). I learned more about carbon capture & sequestration, geothermal powers, wind turbines, aviation and automotive research, etc. On the non-science side, there's carbon tax, cap & trade, behavioral economics, and that McKinsey greenhouse gas abatement cost graph...

Fun tours to local habitats and companies and labs...

A splendid solution to current social ires

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During lunch with some labmates today, I proposed legalizing marijuana to be more eco-friendly and create more jobs, generate more revenues, etc. New businesses would be established, aaaand... also alleviate the overcrowding in many jails. I mean, if tobacco is legal, why can't marijuana be too :-P Everyone liked my idea (ha ha ha ha ha) except for the resident hard-liner who opposes all legalization of drugs. Oh well.