MIT Physicist Ernest Moniz on Track to Become Next US Secretary of Energy. (April 10, 2013)

With the resignation of Nobel Laureate Steven Chu as US Secretary of Energy, to join Stanford University's Physics Department, President Obama has nominated another physicist, MIT's Ernest Moniz as Professor Chu's replacement. Should Professor Moniz be confirmed, he will be the second of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) to move into a senior governmental position. Harold Varmus was nominated by President Obama as Director of the National Cancer Institute and began his tenure as NCI Director on July 12, 2010.

During his confirmation hearing by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) told Professor Moniz, "You may very well prove to be this rare nominee that generates bipartisan support," while Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), the panel's chair added, "It's clear you've built a lot of goodwill with senators on both sides of the aisle."

According to Science's David Malakoff, the MIT physicist told the senators that he would use his post to help keep U.S. science on the cutting edge. One goal of DOE research efforts, he said, should be to develop the technologies needed to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions associated with energy use, and to help "create a low carbon economy," and he intends "DOE's national laboratories to 'perform more of their work in multidisciplinary teams, for multiple years,' in order to better complement research at universities and in the private sector".

In his article, Mr Malakoff writes:

On climate policy, Moniz said he sees creating "a low carbon economy as absolutely critical." He repeated his support for investing in research on capturing carbon dioxide from power plants and pumping it underground, saying such "sequestration" technology will be an important part of curbing carbon emissions. He said long-term, "and I prefer decadal," sequestration experiments would be needed to road test the concept.

 As to a carbon tax and investing in low pollution research:

"The administration has not proposed a carbon tax and is not planning to do so," Moniz said. "Our principal job is to push the technological progress needed to make a low carbon economy possible." But the United States is probably under investing in developing less-polluting energy technologies, he said. "we are under investing by a factor of three roughly. … I think there is a lot of evidence that we have a lot more capacity... he noted that scientists have submitted many more high-quality proposals to DOE's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy than the agency can fund."

Following the hearing the chairman, Senator Wyden, issued a statement saying: "The sooner our committee can vote to recommend Dr. Moniz, the sooner he can get to work.