An investment of more than $500 million of federal, state, and private funds over the past decade has created a modern research environment at ORNL, with new facilities including the Advanced Materials Characterization Laboratory, the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, the Chemical and Materials Sciences Building, and state-funded joint institutes for computational sciences, biological sciences, and neutron sciences.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is a multiprogram science and technology national laboratory managed for the United States Department of Energy (DOE) by UT-Battelle. ORNL is the largest science and energy national laboratory in the Department of Energy system.^[1] ORNL is located in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, near Knoxville. ORNL's scientific programs focus on materials, neutron science, energy, high-performance computing, systems biology and national security.

ORNL partners with the state of Tennessee, universities and industries to solve challenges in energy, advanced materials, manufacturing, security and physics.

The laboratory is home to several of the world’s top supercomputers and is a leading neutron science and nuclear energy research facility that includes the Spallation Neutron Source and High Flux Isotope Reactor. ORNL hosts the Titan supercomputer; the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, the BioEnergy Science Center, and the *Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light-Water Reactors.

Research Programs[link]

ORNL conducts research and development activities that span a wide range of scientific disciplines. The laboratory's major research areas are described briefly below.

• Neutron scattering - ORNL is home to two of the most advanced neutron scattering research facilities in the world, the Spallation Neutron Source and the High Flux Isotope Reactor.

The Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) is a recently completed accelerator-based neutron source that provides the most intense pulsed neutron beams in the world for scientific and industrial research and development. With its eventual suite of up to 25 best-in-class instruments, SNS will give researchers detailed snapshots of smaller samples of physical and biological materials than previously possible. The diverse applications of neutron scattering research will provide opportunities for experts in practically every scientific and technical field.

The 85-MW High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) provides one of the highest steady-state neutron fluxes of any research reactor in the world. HFIR fulfills four missions: isotope production, materials irradiation, neutron activation, and neutron scattering, which is the focus of this report. The neutron scattering instruments at HFIR enable fundamental and applied research into the molecular and magnetic structures and behavior of materials. HFIR has 15 instruments planned or in operation. A new cold neutron source installed during a HFIR refurbishment in 2006–2007 greatly enhances the reactor’s research capabilities, particularly in the biological sciences.

• High-performance computing - The National Center for Computational Sciences (NCCS) provides the most powerful computing resources in the world for open scientific research. It is a research environment that supports advances in understanding how the physical world works and using that knowledge to address national and international concerns. The NCCS was founded in 1992 and is managed by the Advanced Scientific Computing Research program of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.

The Center is home to two massively parallel computer systems manufactured by Cray. Jaguar, the more powerful system, is devoted to open scientific research, has a peak performance of 1.759 petaflops and is the world's third fastest system.^[2] To support its concentration of computing power, the NCCS has installed high-speed fiber-optic networks to expedite data movement, a scientific visualization center that enables researchers to analyze their simulation results quickly and comprehensively, and a high-performance data archiving and retrieval system.

NCCS hosts only those projects capable of producing groundbreaking results.^[3] Each year a few research efforts that require enormous computing resources to realize their promise are given allocations of computing time that reach as much as several million processor-hours. Such unprecedented levels of computational power are key to investigating areas, such as designing fusion reactors that could provide carbon neutral, sustainable energy; engineering proteins to provide new therapies for diseases or release energy from biomass efficiently; studying climate change; and designing new materials with specialized properties.

• Nanotechnology - Basic nanoscience research at ORNL emphasizes discovery of new materials and phenomena and the understanding of underlying physical and chemical interactions that enables prediction of the composition and properties of next-generation functional materials.
• Biological systems - ORNL's initiative in complex biological systems draws on programs in bioenergy (including the laboratory's new BioEnergy Science Center (BESC) dedicated to the study of cellulosic ethanol), comparative genomics, structural biology, and computational biology and bioinformatics. This initiative focuses ORNL's expertise and facilities in a wide range of biological fields related to the challenges of observing and understanding the functioning of complex biological systems.
• Energy - ORNL is a major center for research and development on energy production, distribution, and use and on the effects of energy technologies and decisions on society. Clean, efficient, safe production and use of energy are goals for research and development. At ORNL, unique facilities for energy-related R&D are used both for technology development and for fundamental investigations in the basic energy sciences that underpin the technology.
• Materials science/Advanced materials - Scientists at ORNL are involved in studies ranging from fundamental research to the latest applications of virtually all classes of materials. ORNL's unique strengths in materials synthesis, processing, and characterization are applied to all areas of emphasis. Thousands of guest scientists come to ORNL each year to make use of its world-class facilities.
• National security - ORNL provides federal, state and local government agencies and departments with technology and expertise to support national and homeland security needs. This technology and expertise is also shared with industry to enhance America’s economic competitiveness in world markets.
• Chemical sciences - ORNL conducts both fundamental and applied research in a number of areas, including catalysis, surface science and interfacial chemistry; molecular transformations and fuel chemistry; heavy element chemistry and radioactive materials characterization; aqueous solution chemistry and geochemistry; mass spectrometry and laser spectroscopy; separations chemistry; materials chemistry including synthesis and characterization of polymers and other soft materials; chemical biosciences; and neutron science.
• Electron microscopy - ORNL's electron microscopy program investigates key issues in condensed matter, materials, chemical and nanosciences.
• Nuclear medicine - The laboratory's nuclear medicine research is focused on the development of improved reactor production and processing methods to provide medical radioisotopes, the development of new radionuclide generator systems, the design and evaluation of new radiopharmaceuticals for applications in nuclear medicine and oncology.
• Physics - Physics research at ORNL is focused primarily on studies of the fundamental properties of matter at the atomic, nuclear, and subnuclear levels and the development of experimental devices in support of these studies.
• Population - ORNL provides federal, state and international organizations with a gridded population database, called Landscan, for estimating ambient population. LandScan is a raster image, or grid, of population counts, which provides human population estimates every 30 x 30 arc seconds, which translates roughly to population estimates for 1 kilometer square windows or grid cells at the equator, with cell width decreasing at higher latitudes.^[4] Though many population datasets exist, LandScan is the best spatial population dataset, which also covers the globe. Updated annually (although data releases are generally one year behind the current year) offers continuous, updated values of population, based on the most recent information. Landscan data are accessible through GIS applications and a USAID public domain application called Population Explorer.^[5]

Facts and Figures[link]

ORNL is managed by a limited liability partnership between the University of Tennessee and Battelle Memorial Institute known as UT-Battelle.

ORNL has a staff of about 4,600 full-time staff members, including 3000 scientists and engineers.^[6] The laboratory annually hosts approximately 3,000 guest researchers^[7] who spend two weeks or longer in Oak Ridge; about 25 percent of these visitors^[8] are from industry. ORNL receives 30,000 visitors each year, plus another 10,000 precollege students.

ORNL funding exceeds $1.65 billion^[9] annually; 80 percent of that amount comes from the Department of Energy, and 20 percent is from other federal and private customers. UT-Battelle, the laboratory's management and operating contractor, has provided more than $10 million in support of math and science education, economic development and other projects in the greater Oak Ridge region.

The laboratory occupies about 4,470 acres (18.1 km²) of the 34,000-acre (140 km²) Oak Ridge Reservation (ORR), which it shares with the East Tennessee Technology Park, the Y-12 National Security Complex, the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, and the developing Oak Ridge Science and Technology Park. 20,000 acres (81,000,000 m²) of the ORR, the Oak Ridge National Environmental Research Park, is an outdoor laboratory and a national user facility. It supports DOE-sponsored research in carbon cycling, ecosystem dynamics, global climate change, and remediation studies, as well as the research of numerous colleges, universities, and other state and federal agencies.

History[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

Workers load uranium slugs into the X10 Graphite Reactor - now a National Historic Landmark, and part of Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

The facility that later became Oak Ridge National Laboratory was established as part of the Clinton Engineer Works for the Manhattan Project in 1943 during World War II, when American scientists feared that Nazi Germany was rapidly developing an atomic bomb. Both the laboratory and the nearby city of Oak Ridge were built by the United States Army Corps of Engineers in less than a year on isolated farmland in the mountains of East Tennessee. Oak Ridge became a "secret city" that within two years housed more than 75,000 residents.

The goal of the Manhattan Project activities in Oak Ridge was to separate and produce uranium and plutonium for use in developing a nuclear weapon. This work was carried out in four facilities, code-named X-10 (later to become Clinton Laboratories then Oak Ridge National Laboratory), Y-12, K-25, and S-50. X-10 was a demonstration plant for the process to produce plutonium from uranium by nuclear bombardment. Y-12 was dedicated to the electromagnetic separation of U-235. K-25 was a gaseous diffusion plant designed to separate U-235 from U-238; the S-50 liquid thermal diffusion plant was located nearby.

Working under assumed names, in 1943 Enrico Fermi and his colleagues developed the X-10 Graphite Reactor, the world's first production nuclear reactor, to demonstrate the production of plutonium. This built on work done by Fermi and his colleagues at the University of Chicago in 1942 which created the world's first experimental nuclear reactor Chicago Pile-1 and the first sustained nuclear reaction on December 2, 1942. The plutonium production piloted at X-10 was carried out on a much larger scale at the Hanford Site, which produced the plutonium used in the "Fat Man" atomic bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan in August 1945.

ORNL's involvement with nuclear weapons ended after the war.^[10] The laboratory's scientific expertise shifted in the 1950s and 1960s to peacetime research in medicine, biology, materials and physics. During this period the Graphite Reactor was used to produce the world's first medical radioisotopes for treating cancer. Following the creation of the U.S. Department of Energy in 1977, ORNL's mission broadened to include research in energy production, transmission and consumption.

The end of the Cold War and the growth of international terrorism led to a further expansion of research into a range of national security-related technologies. As the laboratory entered the 21st century, new cross-disciplinary programs in nanophase materials, computational sciences and biology has led to the term "nano-info-bio" to describe the emerging synthesis in ORNL's research agenda.

See also[link]

• American Museum of Science and Energy
• Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences
• K-25 Gaseous Diffusion Plant
• Karl Z. Morgan
• National Transportation Research Center
• Sandia National Laboratory
• Spallation Neutron Source
• Y-12 National Security Complex

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Oak Ridge National Laboratory

General Information[link]

• Oak Ridge National Laboratory Official ORNL website
• ORNL News News releases, RSS feeds, publications

Research Programs[link]

• Advanced Materials
• Biological Systems
• Chemical Sciences
• Electron Microscopy
• Energy
• High Performance Computing
• Nanotechnology
• National Security
• Neutron Science
• Nuclear Medicine
• Physics

Research Facilities[link]

• Research Facilities
• User Facilities

Research Divisions[link]

• Biosciences
• Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences
• Chemical Sciences
• Computational Sciences and Engineering
• Computer Science and Mathematics
• Engineering Science and Technology
• Environmental Sciences
• Fusion Energy
• Information Technology Services
• Materials Science and Technology
• Neutron Facilities Development
• Neutron Scattering Science
• Nuclear Science and Technology
• Physics
• Research Accelerators
• Research Reactors

History[link]

• Laboratory History website
• Historical Photo Gallery

Related Organizations and Facilities[link]

• U.S. Department of Energy
• U.S. Department of Energy, Oak Ridge Office
• UT-Battelle Laboratory's management and operating contractor
• Battelle Memorial Institute
• University of Tennessee
• Oak Ridge Associated Universities
• Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education
• East Tennessee Technology Park Former K-25 Gaseous Diffusion Plant Site
• Y-12 National Security Complex
• American Museum of Science and Energy

Additional resources[link]

Coordinates: 35°56′00″N 84°19′00″W / 35.933333°N 84.316667°W / 35.933333; -84.316667

• ORNL: The first 50 years
• Oak Ridge National Laboratory at the Open Directory Project
• Oak Ridge National Laboratory's YouTube Channel
• Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Flickr photostream
• Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Twitter feed
• Site X:Oak Ridge, TN A map of Manhattan Project Era Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
• Historic photos of X-10 (now ORNL) by Ed Westcott
• The U.S. Department of Energy’s Ten-Year Plans for the Office of Science National Laboratories

v t e Manhattan Project Sites Clinton Engineer Works Hanford Engineer Works Oak Ridge National Laboratory Los Alamos National Laboratory Berkeley Radiation Laboratory Chicago Metallurgical Laboratory Ames Laboratory Montreal Laboratory Sandia National Laboratories Trinity Test Site Dayton Project Administrators Vannevar Bush James Conant Thomas Farrell Leslie Groves Kenneth Nichols Robert Oppenheimer William Parsons Scientists Robert Bacher Hans Bethe Niels Bohr James Chadwick Arthur Compton Enrico Fermi Richard Feynman Klaus Fuchs George Kistiakowsky Ernest Lawrence William Penney Emilio Segrè Glenn Seaborg Louis Slotin Leó Szilárd Edward Teller Richard Tolman Stanislaw Ulam Harold Urey Leona Woods Chien-Shiung Wu Related articles Timeline History of nuclear weapons Nuclear weapons and the United States S-1 Uranium Committee Interim Committee Chicago Pile-1 X-10 Graphite Reactor Y-12 National Security Complex Alsos Mission Smyth Report Project Alberta Silverplate 509th Operations Group Fat Man Little Boy Enola Gay Bockscar The Great Artiste Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (debate) Atomic Spies Atomic Energy Act of 1946 Operation Crossroads Tube Alloys See also: All articles in the Manhattan Project category

v t e Agencies under the United States Department of Energy Secretary of Energy Deputy Secretary of Energy Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence · Energy Information Administration · ARPA-E Under Secretary of Energy for Energy and Environment Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management · Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability · Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy · Office of Environmental Management · Office of Fossil Energy · Office of Legacy Management · Office of Nuclear Energy, Science & Technology Under Secretary of Energy for Nuclear Security National Nuclear Security Administration Under Secretary of Energy for Science Office of Science Power Marketing Administration Bonneville Power Administration · Southeastern Power Administration · Southwestern Power Administration · Western Area Power Administration National Laboratory System Ames · Argonne (NBL · CNM · APS · ATLAS · EMC) · Berkeley (ALS · MF · NCEM · NERSCC · ESN · JGI) · Brookhaven (AGS · CFN · NSLS · NSLS II · RHIC) · Fermilab (TeV) · Idaho (RESL) · JLab · Livermore (NARAC · NIF)  · Los Alamos (CINT · DARHTF) · NETL (Albany) · NREL · Oak Ridge (SNS · CNMS · HFIR · NCCS · K-25 · Y-12) · Pacific Northwest (EMSL) · PPPL (NSTX · TFTR) · SRNL · Sandia (Z) · SLAC (SSRL) Energy Department Facilities and Reservations Fernald NLO · Hanford · Nevada Test Site (Area 19 · Area 20) · NHHOR · Rocky Flats · SRS · SPR · WIPP · Yucca Mountain Independent Agency Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

Syd Ball (born 24 January 1950, in Sydney, Australia), is a former professional tennis player from Australia.

Ball enjoyed most of his tennis success while playing doubles. During his career he won 7 doubles titles and finished runner-up an additional 14 times. Partnering Bob Giltinan, Ball finished runner-up at the 1974 Australian Open. He achieved a career-high doubles ranking of World No. 22 in 1977.

Syd is the father of current tour professional Carsten Ball.

On 30 August 2000, Ball was awarded the Australian Sports Medal for his strong commitment to tennis.^[1]

Doubles titles (7)[link]

Outcome	No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Partner	Opponents in the final	Score in the final
Runner-up	1.	1974	Australian Open, Melbourne	Grass	Bob Giltinan	Ross Case Geoff Masters	7–6, 3–6, 4–6
Runner-up	2.	1974	San Francisco, U.S.	Carpet	John Alexander	Robert Lutz Stan Smith	4–6, 6–7
Runner-up	3.	1974	Christchurch, New Zealand		Ray Ruffels	Ismail El Shafei Roscoe Tanner	W/O
Winner	1.	1974	Manila, Philippines	Hard	Ross Case	Mike Estep Marcello Lara	6–3, 7–6, 9–7
Runner-up	4.	1975	Bournemouth, England	Clay	Dick Crealy	Juan Gisbert Manuel Orantes	6–8, 3–6
Runner-up	5.	1975	Manila, Philippines	Hard	Kim Warwick	Ross Case Geoff Masters	1–6, 2–6
Winner	2.	1976	Little Rock, U.S.	Carpet	Ray Ruffels	Giuliano Pecci Haroon Rahim	6–3, 6–7, 6–3
Winner	3.	1976	Brisbane, Australia	Grass	Kim Warwick	Ismail El Shafei Brian Fairlie	6–4, 6–4
Runner-up	6.	1976	Sydney Indoor, Australia	Hard	Kim Warwick	Ismail El Shafei Brian Fairlie	6–4, 4–6, 6–7
Winner	4.	1976	Sydney Outdoor, Australia	Grass	Kim Warwick	Mark Edmondson John Marks	6–3, 6–4
Runner-up	7.	1977	Adelaide, Australia	Grass	Kim Warwick	Cliff Letcher Dick Stockton	3–6, 6–4, 4–6
Runner-up	8.	1977	Denver, U.S.	Carpet	Kim Warwick	Colin Dibley Geoff Masters	2–6, 3–6
Winner	5.	1977	Hong Kong	Hard	Kim Warwick	Marty Riessen Roscoe Tanner	7–6, 6–3
Winner	6.	1977	Adelaide, Australia	Grass	Kim Warwick	John Alexander Phil Dent	3–6, 7–6, 6–4
Runner-up	9.	1978	Brisbane, Australia	Grass	Allan Stone	John Alexander Phil Dent	3–6, 6–7
Runner-up	10.	1978	Sydney Outdoor, Australia	Grass	Bob Carmichael	Hank Pfister Sherwood Stewart	4–6, 4–6
Winner	7.	1980	Perth, Australia	Hard	Cliff Letcher	Dale Collings Dick Crealy	6–3, 6–4
Runner-up	11.	1981	Cleveland, U.S.	Grass	Ross Case	Erik Van Dillen Van Winitsky	4–6, 7–5, 5–7
Runner-up	12.	1982	Richmond WCT, U.S.	Carpet	Rolf Gehring	Mark Edmondson Kim Warwick	4–6, 2–6
Runner-up	13.	1982	Newport, U.S.	Grass	Rod Frawley	John Andrews John Sadri	6–3, 6–7, 5–7
Runner-up	14.	1982	Melbourne Indoor, Australia	Grass	Rod Frawley	Francisco González Matt Mitchell	6–7, 6–7

References[link]

External links[link]

• Syd Ball at the Association of Tennis Professionals
• Syd Ball at the International Tennis Federation

Steven Chu
12th United States Secretary of Energy
Incumbent
Assumed office January 21, 2009
President	Barack Obama
Deputy	Daniel Poneman
Preceded by	Samuel Bodman
Personal details
Born	(1948-02-28) February 28, 1948 (age 64) St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.
Political party	Democratic Party[1][2]
Spouse(s)	Lisa Chu-Thielbar (Divorced) Jean Fetter (1997–present)
Alma mater	University of Rochester (BA, BS) University of California, Berkeley (PhD)
Website	Official website

Steven Chu (Chinese: 朱棣文; pinyin: Zhū Dìwén)^[3] is an American physicist and the 12th United States Secretary of Energy. Chu is known for his research at Bell Labs in cooling and trapping of atoms with laser light, which won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997, along with his scientific colleagues Claude Cohen-Tannoudji and William Daniel Phillips.^[3] At the time of his appointment as Energy Secretary, he was a professor of physics and molecular and cellular biology at the University of California, Berkeley and the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where his research was concerned primarily with the study of biological systems at the single molecule level.^[4] Previously, he had been a professor of physics at Stanford University. He is a vocal advocate for more research into renewable energy and nuclear power, arguing that a shift away from fossil fuels is essential to combating climate change.^[5][6][7] For example, he has conceived of a global "glucose economy", a form of a low-carbon economy, in which glucose from tropical plants is shipped around like oil is today.^[8]

Personal life[link]

Chu, a Chinese American,^[9] was born in St. Louis, Missouri, with ancestry from Taicang, in Jiangsu province,^[10] and graduated from Garden City High School.^[11] He received both a B.A. in mathematics and a B.S. in physics in 1970 from the University of Rochester. He went on to earn his Ph.D. in physics from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1976, during which he was supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.^[12]

Chu comes from a family of scholars. His father earned an advanced chemical engineering degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and taught at Washington University in St. Louis and Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, while his mother studied economics. His maternal grandfather, Dr. Shu-tian Li earned a Ph.D. degree from Cornell University and his mother's uncle, Li Shu-hua, a notable physical scientist, studied physics at the Sorbonne before they returned to China.^[3] His older brother Gilbert Chu is a professor and researcher of biochemistry and medicine at Stanford University. His younger brother, Morgan Chu, is a partner and the former Co-Managing Partner at the law firm Irell & Manella LLP.^[13] According to Chu, his two brothers and four cousins earned three M.D.s, four Ph.D.s, and a J.D. among them. In 1997, he married Jean Fetter, a British American and an Oxford-trained physicist.^[9] He has two sons, Geoffrey and Michael, from a previous marriage to Lisa Chu-Thielbar.^[3]

Beside his scientific career, Chu has also developed interest in various sports, including baseball, swimming and cycling. He taught himself tennis by reading a book in the eighth grade, and was a second-string substitute for the school team for three years. He also taught himself how to pole vault using bamboo poles obtained from the local carpet store.^[3] Chu said he never learned to speak Chinese because his parents always talked to him and his brothers in English, although he said (in 1997) that he was trying to learn Mandarin, believing that if he could stay in China for "at least six months", he would become fluent.^[9]

Career and research[link]

Steven Chu lecturing.

After obtaining his doctorate degree, Chu remained at Berkeley as a postdoctoral researcher for two years before joining Bell Labs, where he and his several co-workers carried out his Nobel Prize-winning laser cooling work. He left Bell Labs and became a professor of physics at Stanford University in 1987,^[3] serving as the chair of its Physics Department from 1990 to 1993 and from 1999 to 2001. While at Stanford, Chu, together with three other professors, initiated the Bio-X program, which focuses on interdisciplinary research in biology and medicine,^[14] and played an important role in securing the funding of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology.^[15] In August 2004, Chu was appointed as the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a U.S. Department of Energy National Laboratory, and joined UC Berkeley's Department of Physics and Department of Molecular and Cell Biology.^[16] Under Chu's leadership, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has been a center of research into biofuels and solar energy technologies.^[5] He spearheaded the laboratory's Helios project, an initiative to develop methods of harnessing solar power as a source of renewable energy for transportation.^[16]

Chu's early research focused on atomic physics by developing laser cooling techniques and the magneto-optical trapping of atoms using lasers. He and his co-workers at Bell Labs developed a method of cooling atoms by employing six laser beams opposed in pairs and arranged in three directions at right angles to each other. Trapping atoms with this method allows scientists to study individual atoms with great accuracy. Additionally, the technique can be used to construct an atomic clock with great precision.^[17]

While at Stanford, Chu's research interests expanded into biological physics and polymer physics at the single molecular level. In the field of biological physics, he studied enzyme activity and protein and RNA folding using techniques such as fluorescence resonance energy transfer, atomic force microscopy, and optical tweezers. Chu's research in polymer physics made use of individual molecules of DNA to study polymer dynamics and phase transitions associated with these dynamics. He further continued his research in atomic physics as well, developing new methods of laser cooling and trapping.^[18]

Energy and climate change[link]

Chu has been a vocal advocate for more research into renewable energy and nuclear power, arguing that a shift away from fossil fuels is essential to combat global warming.^[5][6][7] He also spoke at the 2009 and 2011 National Science Bowl about the importance of America's science students, emphasizing their future role in environmental planning and global initiative. Chu said that a typical coal power plant emits 100 times more radiation than a nuclear power plant.^[19]

Chu warns that global warming could wipe out California farms within the century.^[20]

He has joined the Copenhagen Climate Council,^[21] an international collaboration between business and science, established to create momentum for the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.

Chu was instrumental in submitting a winning bid for the Energy Biosciences Institute, a BP-funded $500 million multi-disciplinary collaborative project between UC Berkeley, the Lawrence Berkeley Lab and the University of Illinois. This sparked controversy on the Berkeley campus, where some fear the alliance could harm the school’s reputation for academic integrity.^{[22][23][24][25]}

Based partially on his research at UC Berkeley, Chu has speculated that a global "glucose economy", a form of a low-carbon economy, could replace the current system. In the future, special varieties of high-glucose plants would be grown in the tropics, processed, and then the chemical would be shipped around like oil is today to other countries. The St. Petersburg Times has stated that Chu's concept "shows vision on the scale needed to deal with global warming."^[8]

Chu has also advocated making the roofs of buildings and the tops of roads around the world white or other light colors, which could possibly reflect a lot of sunlight back into space and significantly mitigate global warming. The effect would be, according to Chu, similar to taking every car in the world off the roads for about 11 years.^[8] Samuel Thernstrom, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and co-director of the AEI Geoengineering Project, expressed support in The American and remarked "Chu has done the nation a service" since "the idea has an important role to play in the climate debate."^[26]

Honors and awards[link]

Steven Chu is a co-winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997 for the "development of methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light", shared with Claude Cohen-Tannoudji and William Daniel Phillips. He is a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society and the Academia Sinica, and is a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and of the Korean Academy of Science and Engineering.^[27] He was also awarded the Humboldt Prize by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in 1995.

Dr. Chu received an honorary doctorate from Boston University when he was the keynote speaker at the 2007 commencement exercises.^[28] He is a Senior Fellow of the Design Futures Council.^[29] Diablo magazine, based east of Berkeley in Walnut Creek, California, honored Dr. Chu with one of its annual Eco Awards in its April 2009 issue,^[30] shortly after he was nominated as energy secretary. Washington University in St. Louis and Harvard University awarded him an honorary doctorate during their 2010 and 2009 commencement exercises, respectively.^[31][32] He was awarded an honorary degree from Yale University during its 2010 commencement. ^[33] He was also awarded an honorary degree from the Polytechnic Institute of New York University, the same institution at which his father taught for several years, during its 2011 commencement. ^[34]

Secretary of Energy[link]

Steven Chu meeting with President Barack Obama on February 5, 2009.

His nomination to be Secretary of Energy was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate on January 20, 2009.^[35] On January 21, 2009, Chu was sworn in as Secretary of Energy in the Barack Obama administration. Chu is the first person appointed to the US Cabinet after having won a Nobel Prize.^[36] He is also the second Chinese American to be a member of the US Cabinet after Elaine Chao.^[37]

His scientific work continues, however, including a paper on gravitational redshift published in Nature (463, 926–929) in Feb 2010^[38] and a second one co-authored in July 2010.^[39][40]

Under his leadership in 2010 the Department of Energy updated the water usage regulations on toilets and showers.^[41]

In March 2011 Chu said that federal regulators should not delay approving construction licenses for planned U.S. nuclear power plants because of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. "I think those things can proceed," Chu told reporters on Capitol Hill, referring to construction license applications pending at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.^[42]

In August 2011 Chu praised an advisory panel’s report on curbing the environmental risks of natural-gas development. Chu responded to the panel’s report on hydraulic fracturing, the controversial drilling method that is enabling a U.S. gas boom while bringing fears of groundwater contamination and other harms along with it. The report called for greater data collection of air and water data, as well as “rigorous” air pollution standards and mandatory disclosure of chemicals used in the hydraulic fracturing process, among other steps. “The report ... recommends a range of tools for implementing these measures, including regulation, continuous improvement in best practices by industry, and ongoing research and development,” Chu said in a statement. “I will be working closely with my colleagues in the Administration to review the recommendations and to chart a path for continued development of this vital energy resource in a safe manner,” he added.^[43]

See also[link]

	Government of the United States portal
	Biography portal
	Energy portal
	Asian Americans portal

• United States Department of Energy
• Timeline of low-temperature technology
• Energy policy of the United States

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Steven Chu

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Steven Chu

• Secretary of Energy Steven Chu at United States Department of Energy
• The Nobel Prize in Physics 1997 from Nobel Prize with biography, lecture, diploma, photos, symposia and links
• Bio from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
  • Energy@Berkeley: Solutions for Global Warming, Berkeley University, November 13, 2007 includes link to event on YouTube
  • BP Makes Berkeley World Center for Biofuels press release on the BP collaboration February 16, 2007
  • Alternative Energy Sources March 28, 2005, Chu's PowerPoint presentation
• Boulder’s physicists give Chu thumbs-up Article on other Nobel laureates' reactions to Chu as Secretary of Energy
• Biography and Bibliographic Resources, from the Office of Scientific and Technical Information, United States Department of Energy
• UCTV Programs with Steven Chu
  • Physics Meets Biology
  • Berkeley's Nobel Tradition
  • Holding on to Atoms and Molecules with Lasers: Laser Cooling – From Atomic Clocks to Watching Biomolecules Move
  • What Can Physics Say About Life?
  • Conversations with History: A Scientist's Random Walk, with Steven Chu
• Bio and personal page from Stanford University Department of Physics
  • Steven Chu: Uncovering the secret life of molecules from Stanford [Online] Report (July 16, 1997)
• Chu's biophysics research group at University of California, Berkeley
  • Growing energy: Berkeley Lab's Steve Chu on what termite guts have to do with global warming from UC Berkeley News (September 30, 2005)
• Chu's lecture on the Helios Project for renewable energy on YouTube March 12, 2008
• "Climate Disasters a 'Significant Possibility' Interview with Steve Chu at Copenhagen Climate Council, November 3, 2008.
• Interview with Steven Chu from "Growing Energy" from the PBS series e² energy
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Steven Chu on Charlie Rose
• Steven Chu at the Internet Movie Database
• Steven Chu at WhoRunsGov at The Washington Post
• Steven Chu at the Notable Names Database
• Steven Chu collected news and commentary at The New York Times
  • Interview, April 19, 2009
• "Weird Little Bacteria" in Our Energy Future by Steven Chu in April 16, 2012 Scientific American
• Works by or about Steven Chu in libraries (WorldCat catalog)

v t e United States Secretaries of Energy Schlesinger Duncan Edwards Hodel Herrington Watkins O'Leary Peña Richardson Abraham Bodman Chu

v t e Current members of the Cabinet of the United States Obama Biden Bryson Chu Clinton Donovan Duncan Geithner Holder Jacksonc Kirkc Kruegerc LaHood Lewc Millsc Napolitano Panetta Ricec Salazar Sebelius Solis Shinseki Vilsack Zientsca c - cabinet-level; a - acting

v t e Cabinet of President Barack Obama (since 2009)   Cabinet Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (2009–present) Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner (2009–present) Secretary of Defense Robert Gates (2009–2011) Leon Panetta (2011–present) Attorney General Eric Holder (2009–present) Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar (2009–present) Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack (2009–present) Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke (2009–2011) John Bryson (2011–present) Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis (2009–present) Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius (2009–present) Secretary of Education Arne Duncan (2009–present) Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan (2009–present) Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood (2009–present) Secretary of Energy Steven Chu (2009–present) Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki (2009–present) Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano (2009–present)   Cabinet-level Vice President Joe Biden (2009–present) White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel (2009–2010) William Daley (2011–2012) Jacob Lew (2012–present) Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency Lisa Jackson (2009–present) Director of the Office of Management and Budget Peter Orszag (2009–2010) Jacob Lew (2010–2012) Trade Representative Ron Kirk (2009–present) Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice (2009–present) Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers Christina Romer (2009–2010) Austan Goolsbee (2010–2011) Alan Krueger (2011–present) Director of the Central Intelligence Agency Leon Panetta (2009–2011) David Petraeus (2011–present) Administrator of the Small Business Administration Karen Mills (2012–present)* * took office in 2009, raised to cabinet-rank in 2012 See also: Confirmations of Barack Obama's Cabinet