Steven Chu, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist who is President Obama's energy secretary, recently gave a speech in which two key words never passed his lips. He talked about energy efficiency, electricity transmission lines and renewable energy sources. He waxed eloquent about technology and the need to fund energy research. But afterward, Chevron vice chairman Peter Robertson noted disconsolately that "it would be nice to hear a bit about oil and gas." Oil and natural gas, however, are not what's lighting up the Obama energy agenda. The new president is setting out to change the very nature of American energy, from the way we use it to the way we generate it.This isn't the first time a president has set an ambitious energy policy agenda, but this time it's not only about U.S. independence from oil imports; it's also about slowing climate change that most scientists say threatens to inflict catastrophic damage on the environment and the economy over the next four decades.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/03/AR2009040302794.html