On Thursday, this picture appeared of the airplane in the Journal.
Showing posts with label Energy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Energy. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Solar plane
On Thursday, this picture appeared of the airplane in the Journal.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
National Security posts revamped
A fascinating story; a small piece appeared in today's WSJ.
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama is merging the domestic and foreign sides of the White House national-security team, effectively eliminating a division created after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Just because it was put in place eight years ago does not mean it needs stay on permanently.
The White House will use the reorganization to make broader changes as well. Among them is the creation of positions at the National Security Council focused on cybersecurity, energy, the environment and the threat of terrorism involving weapons of mass destruction, officials said Tuesday.
All three are critical to national security.
Mr. Obama's decision to merge the teams carries some political risk, as Republicans have been stepping up attacks on the administration's handling of national-security matters.
Whether the charges that the President is lax on national security convince anyone other than the usual suspects on the right wing is highly debatable. Republicans are looking for something, anything, to hang their hats on, and are trying everything to see what might work.
The president said Tuesday that the change reflects "the fundamental truth that the challenges of the 21st century are increasingly unconventional and transnational, and therefore demand a response that effectively integrates all aspects of American power."
Indeed.
Homeland-security duties will be folded into the NSC, said John Brennan, deputy national-security adviser for homeland security. Mr. Brennan said the separate White House staffs made sense in the early days after the Sept. 11 attacks, when the Department of Homeland Security was still young and benefited from additional oversight and input. The department "has become a more capable department and is able to address a lot of these issues now on their own," he said.
In effect, government is being streamlined and reduced, which should, of course, appeal to the supposed advocates of smaller government -- except that it isn't their idea.
The move follows a review that started in February. Retired Marine Gen. James Jones, who heads the NSC, said foreign and domestic distinctions are often moot. He also suggested the prior system might have blinded officials to imminent danger. "There is no right hand, left hand anymore. There's a single vector," Gen. Jones told reporters.
Vector, not silos; new buzzword? Still, he's right.
Sen. Susan Collins, the top Republican on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said Mr. Obama is entitled to "considerable deference" on the national-security structure. But the Maine senator also said she is concerned that the structure would lead to confusion among staff and dilute the focus of the top official at the NSC in charge of counterterrorism.
How so?
In the months before the Sept. 11 attacks, President George W. Bush downgraded the status of the White House official in charge of counterterrorism, a move that drew substantial criticism in the aftermath. Following the attacks, he created the White House Homeland Security Council as a sort of parallel entity to the NSC.
Hey, smart move: downgrade counter-terrorism. Right on the mark, again. And, once proven wrong, what did he do? Grow government, of course, while continuing to invoke the aura of that Big-government advocate, Ronald Reagan.
Even though its dedicated staff will be gone, the Homeland Security Council itself survives under Mr. Obama's plan as a sort of discussion forum for domestic-security policy. Mr. Obama also said Tuesday that his top counterterrorism official would maintain a direct reporting line into the Oval Office.
Among the other shifts at the NSC, a new entity, dubbed the Global Engagement Directive, will aim to coordinate public diplomacy, foreign assistance and international communications at a single White House desk.
Streamline government; what a great idea.
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama is merging the domestic and foreign sides of the White House national-security team, effectively eliminating a division created after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Just because it was put in place eight years ago does not mean it needs stay on permanently.
The White House will use the reorganization to make broader changes as well. Among them is the creation of positions at the National Security Council focused on cybersecurity, energy, the environment and the threat of terrorism involving weapons of mass destruction, officials said Tuesday.
All three are critical to national security.
Mr. Obama's decision to merge the teams carries some political risk, as Republicans have been stepping up attacks on the administration's handling of national-security matters.
Whether the charges that the President is lax on national security convince anyone other than the usual suspects on the right wing is highly debatable. Republicans are looking for something, anything, to hang their hats on, and are trying everything to see what might work.
The president said Tuesday that the change reflects "the fundamental truth that the challenges of the 21st century are increasingly unconventional and transnational, and therefore demand a response that effectively integrates all aspects of American power."
Indeed.
Homeland-security duties will be folded into the NSC, said John Brennan, deputy national-security adviser for homeland security. Mr. Brennan said the separate White House staffs made sense in the early days after the Sept. 11 attacks, when the Department of Homeland Security was still young and benefited from additional oversight and input. The department "has become a more capable department and is able to address a lot of these issues now on their own," he said.
In effect, government is being streamlined and reduced, which should, of course, appeal to the supposed advocates of smaller government -- except that it isn't their idea.
The move follows a review that started in February. Retired Marine Gen. James Jones, who heads the NSC, said foreign and domestic distinctions are often moot. He also suggested the prior system might have blinded officials to imminent danger. "There is no right hand, left hand anymore. There's a single vector," Gen. Jones told reporters.
Vector, not silos; new buzzword? Still, he's right.
Sen. Susan Collins, the top Republican on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said Mr. Obama is entitled to "considerable deference" on the national-security structure. But the Maine senator also said she is concerned that the structure would lead to confusion among staff and dilute the focus of the top official at the NSC in charge of counterterrorism.
How so?
In the months before the Sept. 11 attacks, President George W. Bush downgraded the status of the White House official in charge of counterterrorism, a move that drew substantial criticism in the aftermath. Following the attacks, he created the White House Homeland Security Council as a sort of parallel entity to the NSC.
Hey, smart move: downgrade counter-terrorism. Right on the mark, again. And, once proven wrong, what did he do? Grow government, of course, while continuing to invoke the aura of that Big-government advocate, Ronald Reagan.
Even though its dedicated staff will be gone, the Homeland Security Council itself survives under Mr. Obama's plan as a sort of discussion forum for domestic-security policy. Mr. Obama also said Tuesday that his top counterterrorism official would maintain a direct reporting line into the Oval Office.
Among the other shifts at the NSC, a new entity, dubbed the Global Engagement Directive, will aim to coordinate public diplomacy, foreign assistance and international communications at a single White House desk.
Streamline government; what a great idea.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Streetlamps go green
Raley's supermarket in West Sacramento, Calif., recently had LED lights installed with funding from the Department of Energy.
Streetlights were the first big users of electricity. Now, they are being re-engineered to improve efficiency, but at a cost that today's municipalities might have a tough time covering.
Raley's supermarket in West Sacramento, Calif., recently had LED lights installed with funding from the Department of Energy.
But the cost savings will take time to materialize. Street and highway lights use about 2% of the nation's electricity, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Many cities have LED traffic signals, but because of the high cost of producing white light with LED, local governments have been reluctant to install them in streetlights. The effort is further complicated not only by strapped municipal coffers, but resistance from star-gazers and others who object to LEDs brighter glare.
One of my pet peeves is seeing municipal lights on during the day; often, in the parks.
LED, or light-emitting diodes, are electronic lights based on semiconductor technology. They use less energy and last longer than the sodium vapor-powered lights typically used in urban street lighting.
Unlike regular streetlamps, LED lights can be programmed to respond to specific commands. For example, a city could dim the lighting on commercial strips after business hours, or turn up the lights after bars close, says Jim Helmer, director of San Jose's transportation department. Streets around Little League baseball diamonds could be made brighter as people walk to their cars, and then turned down afterward.
Streetlights were the first big users of electricity. Now, they are being re-engineered to improve efficiency, but at a cost that today's municipalities might have a tough time covering.
Raley's supermarket in West Sacramento, Calif., recently had LED lights installed with funding from the Department of Energy.
But the cost savings will take time to materialize. Street and highway lights use about 2% of the nation's electricity, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Many cities have LED traffic signals, but because of the high cost of producing white light with LED, local governments have been reluctant to install them in streetlights. The effort is further complicated not only by strapped municipal coffers, but resistance from star-gazers and others who object to LEDs brighter glare.
One of my pet peeves is seeing municipal lights on during the day; often, in the parks.
LED, or light-emitting diodes, are electronic lights based on semiconductor technology. They use less energy and last longer than the sodium vapor-powered lights typically used in urban street lighting.
Unlike regular streetlamps, LED lights can be programmed to respond to specific commands. For example, a city could dim the lighting on commercial strips after business hours, or turn up the lights after bars close, says Jim Helmer, director of San Jose's transportation department. Streets around Little League baseball diamonds could be made brighter as people walk to their cars, and then turned down afterward.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Energy Secretary Serves Under a Microscope
Energy Secretary Steven Chu won a Nobel in physics in 1997.
Dan Leistikow, the Energy Department’s director of public affairs, said that Dr. Chu was a scientist, not a politician, and should be given a little time to adjust.
Indeed he should. What a glorious event it was to see a scientist become head of the Department.
“A Nobel scientist is more likely to figure out Washington than a career politician is to figure out how to deal with carbon sequestration,” Mr. Leistikow said.
Touche.
As a physicist, Steven Chu has seen atoms suspended in a powerful laser beam and DNA stretched out in a vacuum chamber.
But in his new job as energy secretary, Dr. Chu is observing phenomena he never saw in the science laboratory.
At a recent Senate hearing, for example, he witnessed a junior cabinet member (himself) being systematically dissected by a senior senator (John McCain).
Mr. McCain, Republican of Arizona, was unhappy when Dr. Chu affirmed the Obama administration’s intention to suspend work at a planned nuclear waste site in Nevada. “What’s wrong with Yucca Mountain, Dr. Chu?” he demanded repeatedly as Dr. Chu tried to explain.
“I think we can do a better job,” Dr. Chu finally replied.
For a slight, soft-spoken Nobel laureate, Washington has been an initiation that he has likened to being “dumped in the deep end of the pool.” Dr. Chu, 61, was chairman of Stanford’s physics department and ran a national research laboratory. But in addition to being verbally slapped around by Mr. McCain, he has been forced to backtrack on some ill-informed comments about OPEC and ordered to spend quickly tens of billions of dollars in stimulus money with virtually no top-level help.
Dr. Chu is still mastering skills like ducking a tough question from a reporter and delivering the all-purpose “I’ll get back to you on that.”
He has admitted his naïveté on certain policy questions, like OPEC production quotas, and is still getting used to the scrutiny that comes with a cabinet job.
Energy Secretary Steven Chu toured a home in Milwaukee that was getting new appliances to help cut down on its electric bills.
Yet as he takes on one of the toughest policy and management challenges in government, Dr. Chu brings certain assets that none of his peers or predecessors have had: a Nobel Prize, a YouTube following (for his lectures on climate change) and an unofficial theme song (“Dr. Wu” by Steely Dan). He is a major celebrity in Taiwan, where scientific achievement is rewarded with rock star status. He is a member of Academica Sinica, Taiwan’s most distinguished scholarly society, as was his father.
Quite something, father and son both members of the Academy. O, to live in a society in which scientists are held in such high regard.
He comes from a family of academic overachievers. His father emigrated from China to study chemical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and retired as a professor at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn. His mother studied economics in China and at M.I.T. One brother, Gilbert, is a professor of medicine and biochemistry at Stanford; the other, Morgan, is a highly regarded intellectual property lawyer in Los Angeles. Dr. Chu once described himself as the academic black sheep of the family.
Wow; impressive.
Morgan Chu said of his brother, “He’s acclimating very well, all things considered.” He added, “He has a wonderful set of skills for the job — an unbending respect for discovering the unvarnished truth and a willingness to challenge established dogma.”
Matt Rogers, an energy expert with McKinsey & Company whom Dr. Chu brought in last month to help speed the pace of Energy Department spending, said it would be a mistake to dismiss Dr. Chu as just a science geek. “He is a kind man; he is a nice man,” Mr. Rogers said. “But he is not a patient man. People are going to have to take a deep breath and realize they’re going to be moving at a much quicker pace than they were used to.”
Good to hear that.
Borrowing an analogy from the world of physics, he said that in Washington, Newton’s first law — a body in motion tends to stay in motion — does not apply. “In a bureaucracy, if you start something in motion, it either stops or gets derailed,” he said. “You have to keep applying force.”
He intends to keep applying that force, he said, because it could help solve the world’s energy and climate change problems.
Dan Leistikow, the Energy Department’s director of public affairs, said that Dr. Chu was a scientist, not a politician, and should be given a little time to adjust.
Indeed he should. What a glorious event it was to see a scientist become head of the Department.
“A Nobel scientist is more likely to figure out Washington than a career politician is to figure out how to deal with carbon sequestration,” Mr. Leistikow said.
Touche.
As a physicist, Steven Chu has seen atoms suspended in a powerful laser beam and DNA stretched out in a vacuum chamber.
But in his new job as energy secretary, Dr. Chu is observing phenomena he never saw in the science laboratory.
At a recent Senate hearing, for example, he witnessed a junior cabinet member (himself) being systematically dissected by a senior senator (John McCain).
Mr. McCain, Republican of Arizona, was unhappy when Dr. Chu affirmed the Obama administration’s intention to suspend work at a planned nuclear waste site in Nevada. “What’s wrong with Yucca Mountain, Dr. Chu?” he demanded repeatedly as Dr. Chu tried to explain.
“I think we can do a better job,” Dr. Chu finally replied.
For a slight, soft-spoken Nobel laureate, Washington has been an initiation that he has likened to being “dumped in the deep end of the pool.” Dr. Chu, 61, was chairman of Stanford’s physics department and ran a national research laboratory. But in addition to being verbally slapped around by Mr. McCain, he has been forced to backtrack on some ill-informed comments about OPEC and ordered to spend quickly tens of billions of dollars in stimulus money with virtually no top-level help.
Dr. Chu is still mastering skills like ducking a tough question from a reporter and delivering the all-purpose “I’ll get back to you on that.”
He has admitted his naïveté on certain policy questions, like OPEC production quotas, and is still getting used to the scrutiny that comes with a cabinet job.
Energy Secretary Steven Chu toured a home in Milwaukee that was getting new appliances to help cut down on its electric bills.
Yet as he takes on one of the toughest policy and management challenges in government, Dr. Chu brings certain assets that none of his peers or predecessors have had: a Nobel Prize, a YouTube following (for his lectures on climate change) and an unofficial theme song (“Dr. Wu” by Steely Dan). He is a major celebrity in Taiwan, where scientific achievement is rewarded with rock star status. He is a member of Academica Sinica, Taiwan’s most distinguished scholarly society, as was his father.
Quite something, father and son both members of the Academy. O, to live in a society in which scientists are held in such high regard.
He comes from a family of academic overachievers. His father emigrated from China to study chemical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and retired as a professor at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn. His mother studied economics in China and at M.I.T. One brother, Gilbert, is a professor of medicine and biochemistry at Stanford; the other, Morgan, is a highly regarded intellectual property lawyer in Los Angeles. Dr. Chu once described himself as the academic black sheep of the family.
Wow; impressive.
Morgan Chu said of his brother, “He’s acclimating very well, all things considered.” He added, “He has a wonderful set of skills for the job — an unbending respect for discovering the unvarnished truth and a willingness to challenge established dogma.”
Matt Rogers, an energy expert with McKinsey & Company whom Dr. Chu brought in last month to help speed the pace of Energy Department spending, said it would be a mistake to dismiss Dr. Chu as just a science geek. “He is a kind man; he is a nice man,” Mr. Rogers said. “But he is not a patient man. People are going to have to take a deep breath and realize they’re going to be moving at a much quicker pace than they were used to.”
Good to hear that.
Borrowing an analogy from the world of physics, he said that in Washington, Newton’s first law — a body in motion tends to stay in motion — does not apply. “In a bureaucracy, if you start something in motion, it either stops or gets derailed,” he said. “You have to keep applying force.”
He intends to keep applying that force, he said, because it could help solve the world’s energy and climate change problems.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Is a New Food Policy on Obama’s List?
Parents want better public-school lunches. Consumer groups are dreaming of a new, stronger food safety system. Nutrition reformers want prisoners to be fed less soy. And a farmer in Maine is asking the president-elect to plow under an acre of White House lawn for an organic vegetable garden.
Although Mr. Obama has proposed changes in the nation’s farm and rural policies and emphasizes the connection between diet and health, there is nothing to indicate he has a special interest in a radical makeover of the way food is grown and sold.
Some want him to appoint a chef who cooks with local ingredients; some want their guy in Agriculture. Get in line.
As for Michelle Obama, she has said in interviews that she tries to buy organic food and watches the amount of high-fructose corn syrup in her family’s diet. And, as she confided on “The View” on ABC, “We’re bacon people.”
Pig is good.
Food advocates aren’t the only ones whose hopes for the new administration received a quick kick to the curb. A coalition of more than 140 environmental groups and scientists sent letters supporting one candidate to lead the Department of the Interior. Mr. Obama chose someone else. Multiply that by every special interest and it becomes clear that just because changing the food system is the first priority for some, it isn’t so for everyone. The pragmatists among the food reformers understand.
Some complain that Tom Vilsack is just another shill for Monsanto and corporate agribusiness. He ain't a radical, for sure, but seems to have a little different outlook on things. Yes, he was Iowa governor, likes corn-based ethanol. But, let's be realistic.
“This president is taking over when the economy is the worst it has been in our lifetime and we are in the middle of wars,” said Ann Cooper, the chef who transformed the school food program for the Berkeley Unified School District in California and is about to do the same in Boulder, Colo. “I think it’s somewhere between naïve and fairy tale to think his No. 1 focus is going to be on food.”
Precisely.
Still, she has her own little wish, which is that the new president will move responsibility for school food programs to the Department of Education or the Department of Health and Human Services from the Department of Agriculture. That way, the focus might shift away from the commodity foods that are the backbone of most school lunches and toward menus tailored to the health and development of children.
Now, that makes a lot of sense, and is practical.
A chef who cooks local and organic food and picks some of it from a presidential garden could change things faster than any cabinet appointment, Ms. Reichl said. “It’s like the hat manufacturers being furious because J. F. K. didn’t wear a hat, and suddenly everyone in America stopped wearing hats,” she said. “It’s that simple.”
That also makes sense.
For sustainability: Paul Willis, right, and his Iowa neighbor David Murphy have favorite candidates for top jobs in the Department of Agriculture.
Although Mr. Obama has proposed changes in the nation’s farm and rural policies and emphasizes the connection between diet and health, there is nothing to indicate he has a special interest in a radical makeover of the way food is grown and sold.
Some want him to appoint a chef who cooks with local ingredients; some want their guy in Agriculture. Get in line.
As for Michelle Obama, she has said in interviews that she tries to buy organic food and watches the amount of high-fructose corn syrup in her family’s diet. And, as she confided on “The View” on ABC, “We’re bacon people.”
Pig is good.
Food advocates aren’t the only ones whose hopes for the new administration received a quick kick to the curb. A coalition of more than 140 environmental groups and scientists sent letters supporting one candidate to lead the Department of the Interior. Mr. Obama chose someone else. Multiply that by every special interest and it becomes clear that just because changing the food system is the first priority for some, it isn’t so for everyone. The pragmatists among the food reformers understand.
Some complain that Tom Vilsack is just another shill for Monsanto and corporate agribusiness. He ain't a radical, for sure, but seems to have a little different outlook on things. Yes, he was Iowa governor, likes corn-based ethanol. But, let's be realistic.
“This president is taking over when the economy is the worst it has been in our lifetime and we are in the middle of wars,” said Ann Cooper, the chef who transformed the school food program for the Berkeley Unified School District in California and is about to do the same in Boulder, Colo. “I think it’s somewhere between naïve and fairy tale to think his No. 1 focus is going to be on food.”
Precisely.
Still, she has her own little wish, which is that the new president will move responsibility for school food programs to the Department of Education or the Department of Health and Human Services from the Department of Agriculture. That way, the focus might shift away from the commodity foods that are the backbone of most school lunches and toward menus tailored to the health and development of children.
Now, that makes a lot of sense, and is practical.
A chef who cooks local and organic food and picks some of it from a presidential garden could change things faster than any cabinet appointment, Ms. Reichl said. “It’s like the hat manufacturers being furious because J. F. K. didn’t wear a hat, and suddenly everyone in America stopped wearing hats,” she said. “It’s that simple.”
That also makes sense.
Steve Brodner -To advocates who have watched calls for changes in food policy gather political and popular momentum, Barack Obama looks like their kind of president.
For sustainability: Paul Willis, right, and his Iowa neighbor David Murphy have favorite candidates for top jobs in the Department of Agriculture.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Change is here, it seems
Dec. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Barack Obama’s choice of a Clinton administration veteran to head a new White House energy office and a Nobel Prize-winning physicist as energy secretary will redefine the way policy is made and applied in the U.S.
The pundits, Chris Matthews included, keep wondering about the change promised by Obama. Of course, that he got elected is the first manifestation of change. His method of assembling his Administration, and its composition, are other such manifestations.
At stake is the success of Obama’s plan to invest $150 billion in alternative energy technologies that will create jobs and cut emissions of gases linked to global warming. Chu, who won the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics, will help decide how to spend the money. Browner, who led the Environmental Protection Agency under Bill Clinton, will coordinate the efforts of at least 13 federal agencies and commissions.
Delegation of authority to strong personalities who will be charged with getting things done.
Browner is likely to focus on big-picture energy issues sweeping across all federal agencies, while Chu will be responsible for making sure the Energy Department develops the technologies needed to allow solar, wind and biomass to compete with oil and coal, said Arvizu and other analysts.
Browner might be in charge of the big picture, opines one analyst; Chu might handle the details, the nuts and bolts, as it were.
Mike Lubell, a physics professor at the City College of New York who has known Chu for 30 years, said having a scientist as an energy secretary will be vital in helping remove obstacles to achieving Obama’s goals. “Almost anything you look at in the energy arena today, the solutions are not cost competitive,” Lubell said.
Chu might be a visionary, as well.
In particular, mysteries regarding how to store energy when the wind is not blowing or the sun is not shining have to be unlocked, Lubell said. Battery technology has to be improved, carbon sequestration has to be developed and cellulosic ethanol has to be made more affordable. “These are big science and technology problems,” he said.
There is plenty of skepticism, too: Republicans and business interests are already decrying more bureaucracy. Time will tell. I like it.
The pundits, Chris Matthews included, keep wondering about the change promised by Obama. Of course, that he got elected is the first manifestation of change. His method of assembling his Administration, and its composition, are other such manifestations.
At stake is the success of Obama’s plan to invest $150 billion in alternative energy technologies that will create jobs and cut emissions of gases linked to global warming. Chu, who won the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics, will help decide how to spend the money. Browner, who led the Environmental Protection Agency under Bill Clinton, will coordinate the efforts of at least 13 federal agencies and commissions.
Delegation of authority to strong personalities who will be charged with getting things done.
Browner is likely to focus on big-picture energy issues sweeping across all federal agencies, while Chu will be responsible for making sure the Energy Department develops the technologies needed to allow solar, wind and biomass to compete with oil and coal, said Arvizu and other analysts.
Browner might be in charge of the big picture, opines one analyst; Chu might handle the details, the nuts and bolts, as it were.
Mike Lubell, a physics professor at the City College of New York who has known Chu for 30 years, said having a scientist as an energy secretary will be vital in helping remove obstacles to achieving Obama’s goals. “Almost anything you look at in the energy arena today, the solutions are not cost competitive,” Lubell said.
Chu might be a visionary, as well.
In particular, mysteries regarding how to store energy when the wind is not blowing or the sun is not shining have to be unlocked, Lubell said. Battery technology has to be improved, carbon sequestration has to be developed and cellulosic ethanol has to be made more affordable. “These are big science and technology problems,” he said.
There is plenty of skepticism, too: Republicans and business interests are already decrying more bureaucracy. Time will tell. I like it.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Google's energy ideas
This company is amazing. Makes sense, of course, that it has an interest in energy, considering how much energy it must use in its server farms.
Google’s Energy Ideas Might Emerge Under Open Source Licenses — Or Not
By Miguel Helft Bill Weil (left), Google’s “Green Energy Czar,” and Dan Reicher, the company’s Director for Climate Change and Energy Initiatives, straddle the solar-panel-covered roof at Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., last week. The company has big energy plans. (Photo: Peter DaSilva/The New York Times)
Much of what Google is planning as it considers forays into the energy business is a tightly guarded secret. True to form, the company likes to reveal little about its future products until they are ready to be unveiled.
So the task of understanding exactly what the company is up to involves a bit of reading between the lines.
“We can’t really talk too openly about what we are doing just yet,” said Ed Lu, who works in advanced projects at Google. Mr. Lu, a former NASA astronaut, said he could only talk in general terms. “The big area that we are looking at is energy information,” he said.
At Google, Mr. Lu is often referred to as “Ed the astronaut.” He has flown two Space Shuttle missions, spent six months on the International Space Station and orbited the earth about 3,300 times.
He chose to explain Google’s thinking with an analogy. Buying electricity today, he said, is a bit like going to a grocery store where the items have no prices and where you get billed a month later for your purchases. Some engineers in Mr. Lu’s team, are working on tools to turn energy buyers into more informed consumers, he said.
“We see that there is a need here that isn’t being met,” Mr. Lu said. As often is the case with Google, the company plans to introduce a product first and figure out how to profit from it later. Asked when the first Google energy information product would be ready, he said: “We are pretty close. It’s pretty exciting.”
Meanwhile, William E. Weihl, green energy czar at Google, said engineers on his team are doing research and development work in solar, wind and geothermal energy technologies. He described the work, in part, as a hedge against the possible failure of outside companies in those fields that Google has invested in.
As to how Google would commercialize its own energy research — and the intellectual property that rises from it, Mr. Weihl said, “We could potentially start a company to commercialize the IP technology we develop.” Or, he said, Google could also take another approach: Offering up the technology under an open source license, so that others could benefit from it –- and so that Google could benefit in the from of cheaper energy.
He later added: “If there seems that there is a good bet to place by doing it internally, we might do that.”
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