Skip to main content

Obama's Cabinet Picks: Energy Secretary

By
Obama's Cabinet Energy SecretaryWith the announcement of the new Secretary of Energy possibly occurring this week, two more names have been scratched off the shortlist. Per The Kansas City Star, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius has removed her name from consideration.
“Given the extraordinary budget challenges facing our state and my commitment to continuing the progress we’ve made in Kansas, I believe it is important to continue my service as governor of the great state of Kansas,” Sebelius said.
And in a succinctly titled Washington Post piece up at The Fix, Chris Cillizza reports that "Dorgan Won't Be Energy Secretary."
Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) is no longer under consideration to be secretary of energy in President-elect Barack Obama's administration, according to transition officials. The decision was arrived at based on a belief within the former Illinois senator's inner circle that the plains state Democrat is more valuable to them where he is.

"Senator Dorgan would be a fantastic energy secretary but, because he is too important as a red state senator and a powerful ally, he is best suited to help advance President-elect Obama's agenda in the Senate," said a transition official granted anonymity to speak candidly about internal deliberations.

According to Cillizza, candidates still being considered include three Governors: Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA), Bill Ritter (D-CO), and Jennifer Granholm (D-MI). Several from the private sector are also in the mix: Google's Dan Reicher, Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers, former Edison International CEO John Bryson, Federal Express Chairman Fred Smith and Steve Chu, the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Meanwhile, Craig Gordon and Ben Smith over at The Politico float a name not heard in a few weeks: former EPA Administrator Carol Browner.

Click here for more NNN coverage on who will be in the Obama Cabinet.

Labels:

Comments

Ondrej Chvala said…
Dr. Steve Chu would be my dream pick. He is extremely sharp and actually understands the energy issue...
December 8, 2008 at 12:34 PM
Anonymous said…
Anyone hearing anything more about Ernie Moniz? (I'm biased, I know.)
December 8, 2008 at 4:53 PM
Jason Ribeiro said…
Dan Reicher doesn't get it. He would be a disastrous pick for energy secretary. You might as well appoint Amory Lovins.
December 8, 2008 at 7:55 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Activists' Claims Distort Facts about Advanced Reactor Design

By
Below is from our rapid response team . Yesterday, regional anti-nuclear organizations asked federal nuclear energy regulators to launch an investigation into what it claims are “newly identified flaws” in Westinghouse’s advanced reactor design, the AP1000. During a teleconference releasing a report on the subject, participants urged the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to suspend license reviews of proposed AP1000 reactors. In its news release, even the groups making these allegations provide conflicting information on its findings. In one instance, the groups cite “dozens of corrosion holes” at reactor vessels and in another says that eight holes have been documented. In all cases, there is another containment mechanism that would provide a barrier to radiation release. Below, we examine why these claims are unwarranted and why the AP1000 design certification process should continue as designated by the NRC. Myth: In the AP1000 reactor design, the gap between the shield bu...
23 comments
Read more

How many nuclear plants does it take to meet the world's energy needs?

By
Several weeks ago Joshua Pearce at Clarion University in Pennsylvania released a study titled “ Thermodynamic limitations to nuclear energy deployment as a greenhouse gas mitigation technology .” In the study he stated... nuclear energy production would have to increase by 10.5% per year from 2010 to 2050 to both replace fossil-fuel-energy use and meet the future energy demands. This line, of course, made the headlines and has been picked up by several outlets and blogs . When looking into his calculations for this statement, he made one assumption error that overstated the above sentence by nearly a factor of three. Page 121, Section 4.1 of the study states: Richard Smalley pointed out that in 2004, the global economy consumed the equivalent of 220 million barrels of oil per day, which converted into electricity terms is the equivalent of 14.5 TeraWatts (TW), or 14,500,000 MegaWatts (MW) (2005). … With a nuclear plant having about 1000 MW (1 GW) of capacity, we would need 14,500...
7 comments
Read more

What Happens During a Refueling Outage?

By
You may have noticed over the past few weeks that a number of nuclear plants are shut down for refueling outages or are resuming operations after just returning from one. This type of routine outage usually occurs in the spring or fall when electricity demand is low so that nuclear reactors can replace about one-third of the spent fuel rods with new fuel and conduct other routine maintenance and repairs at the plant. To get a better sense of how refueling works at a nuclear energy facility, I spoke with Marcus Nichol, NEI’s senior project manager for used fuel storage and transportation, and asked him to explain the basics. Why does a nuclear plant need to replace one-third of its fuel? Nichol: The main purpose of a refueling outage is to replace older fuel that is depleted—meaning it can no longer efficiently produce energy from nuclear fission reactions—with new fuel. This “used fuel” has typically been used in the reactor for four-and-a-half to six years before it is pe...
6 comments
Read more