President-elect Barack Obama today announced that he is giving the nod to Dr Steven Chu, Director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, as his new Energy Secretary, a choice which is both knowledgeable about and friendly to nuclear power. Dr Chu has been a very strong advocate of carbon-neutral energy sources, and has been vocal and supportive about the role that nuclear energy has played in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.  In August of this year, Dr Chu and other directors of the DOE National Laboratories penned a white paper regarding the future of nuclear energy in the US.  The report, entitled "A Sustainable Energy Future: The Essential Role of Nuclear Energy," concluded that nuclear power "must play a significant and growing role in our nation’s – and the world’s – energy portfolio." Dr Chu is a world-renowned physicist who shared a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997. To view the entire August 2008 Sustainable Energy report, click here.