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As Oilprice.com embarks on its Top 5 series, we thought it expedient to begin with our take on the key figures shaping and influencing U.S. renewable energy efforts, not least because the issue of energy security is being prioritized in campaigning ahead of U.S. presidential elections.
In considering from the numerous choices for these top five slots, we take into account a number of variables, including investment in renewable energy, the ability to influence policy and shape public opinion, and advocacy efforts. This goes well beyond simply counting coin – it is about innovation, imagination, vision, risk and patience. Arguably, these people will play an important role in your life and leisure, for better or worse.
These are our picks:
Steven Chu – The China Link
Co-winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1997, US Secretary of Energy Steven Chu is one of the most distinguished faces of renewable energy in the world, tasked with helping the Obama Administration invest in clean energy, reduce dependence on foreign oil, address climate change concerns and create millions of jobs while doing it. Chu has devoted a large part of his scientific career to alternative energy solutions and climate change research, in part as former director of the DoE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. While the last century saw him win the Nobel Prize, this century earned him R&D Magazine’s Scientist of the Year award for 2011. In announcing his appointment as Secretary of Energy, President Obama said that the “future of our economy and national security is inextricably linked to one challenge: energy [and] Steven has blazed new trails …”. Chu’s most tangible successes have been the government’s investment in geothermal and offshore wind projects.