ORNL chief lauds Obama's DOE choice
"I have a tremendous amount of respect for him," Mason said.
Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Mason have participated in lab director meetings and also joined forces on occasion to preach the merits of funding science research.
Mason said Chu's selection as energy secretary is anything but business as usual. "There's clearly an understanding that in tackling the energy problem, it's not sufficient to just push for current deployment of existing technology, but looking for a transformational breakthrough," the ORNL director said.
"That's very promising for Oak Ridge because that's really where we are as an institution," he said.
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which Chu has directed since 2004, has been strongly involved in development of renewable energy sources, Mason said, noting that Berkeley, in California, has one of the DOE's new biosciences centers - as does ORNL.
Because Chu is already familiar with the DOE system of national labs, there won't be a learning curve, Mason said, and that's a big advantage in moving forward to address research priorities.
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Doug Ford, Scott Moe and Blaine Higgs made the announcement and signed a memorandum of understanding on Sunday in advance of a meeting of all the premiers.
They will be working on the research, development and building of small modular reactors as a way to help their individual provinces reduce carbon emissions and move away from non-renewable energy sources like coal.
Small modular reactors are easy to construct, are safer than large reactors and are regarded as cleaner energy than coal, the…
