Washington (Platts)--10Dec2008

US President-elect Barack Obama will choose physicist Steven Chu as his
energy secretary, CNN reported Wednesday, citing sources close to the Obama
transition team.

A formal announcement will be made next week, CNN said, adding Obama has
yet to decide on who will take the top job at the Environmental Protection
Agency.

Chu, 60, is a Nobel-prize winning physicist and the director of the
Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He has advocated
for a shift to alternative sources of energy and a reduction in the greenhouse
gas emissions that are blamed for global climate change.

Platts could not reach the Obama transition office for comment on the CNN
report.

Under Chu's watch, Lawrence Berkeley has greatly expanded its alternative
energy development portfolio. In 2007 the lab entered into a deal with BP to
run the Energy Biosciences Institute, a $500-million center devoted to
developing advanced biofuels. The lab oversees DOE's new Joint Bioenergy
Institute, which also works on biofuels, and is in the process of developing
the Helios Solar Energy Research Center, which is planned for 2010.

Energy-efficiency, technologies to measure and control greenhouse gas
emissions, and electricity storage have also been emphasized under Chu. In
public comments, he has stressed energy as the key to many of the countries
national security and economic concerns, and has listed conservation,
energy-efficiency, renewable energy, and nuclear power as tools to meeting US
energy needs.

Chu won the 1997 Nobel Prize for his work on manipulating atoms with
lasers. He began his career at the Bell Laboratories, and worked at Stanford
University before going to Berkeley in 2004.

Separately, Obama is expected to establish a Council on Energy at the
White House to coordinate energy and environmental policies, with former
Environmental Protection Administration chief Carol Browner as head of the new
group, according to energy industry sources. Platts first reported the
likelihood that Obama would appoint the council on Friday.

Chu, if confirmed by the Senate, would serve on the new council.

Earlier Wednesday, speculation that Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm
might be a candidate for energy secretary increased as she met with the Obama
transition team in Chicago. But Granholm's spokeswoman, Liz Boyd, said the
governor asked for the meeting to discuss the potential for "green jobs" in
her state and to advocate for a proposed financial bailout for US automakers.

"I've tried to encourage reporters not to go there," Boyd said when asked
if Granholm was under consideration for energy secretary. "She asked for the
meeting and took two [state] civil servants with her. Clearly we were there to
talk about green jobs."

--Derek Sands, derek_sands@platts.com
--Bill Loveless, bill_loveless@platts.com