By Daniel Roth | Wired May 2010 | April 19, 2010 | 12:00 pm
Energy secretary Steven Chu has been in office for only a little over a year, but he's nonetheless managed to help lay the groundwork for a fundamental shift in how the US tackles climate change. (Photo: Peter Yang)
It’s late November 2009, and US energy secretary Steven Chu is leaning against a fake sink in a fake kitchen. Chu is 62 years old and athletically trim with graying black hair.
He’s wearing a rumpled pin-striped suit, argyle socks, and gold-framed glasses. Chu is a renowned physicist, a cabinet appointee, and the winner of a Nobel Prize. But that’s not why he’s now being treated like a rock star. This morning a small crowd of scientists, politicians, and local businesspeople are flocking to him because he’s got cash, specifically $75 million in stimulus funds for the Ohio subsidiary of the American Electric Power utility.