Steven Koonin, a former chief scientist at BP, was confirmed by the Senate in May 2009 as undersecretary for science at the Department of Energy. He resigned from DOE on 18 November to accept what he says is a temporary position at the Institute for Defense Analyses, a think tank in Alexandria, Virginia. PHYSICS TODAY spoke to Koonin on 22 November. Following are excerpts from the interview. The full Q&A is available in the Politics and Policy section of http://www.physicstoday.org.
PT: Did you find your experience at BP useful in your role as undersecretary?
KOONIN: Absolutely. Energy needs to happen through the private sector. It owns, builds, operates essentially all the energy infrastructure in the country, and I don’t think we have any intention of changing that. So if you’re going to be effective in technology development and regulation, you really have to understand the private sector and how...
