Energy Secretary Steve Chu Speaks On Funding Science Research

Energy Secretary and Nobel Laureate Steve Chu speaks with Google CEO Eric Schmidt about science research. Steve talks about the government funding branch called ARPA-E that in September announced funding awards for 37 "high risk and high payoff" research and development ideas.  There were over 3700 applications with less than a 1% acceptance rate.  This investement in high risk research is a breath of fresh air and a step in the right direction to restore the US's strength in science and engineering. This is something that is often said should be done but private funding of research tends to resort to more safe investments in research which doesn't necessarily push new ideas to their realization.

Steve also discusses his support for bringing Nuclear energy back into contention as a viable energy source.  He talks about some of the new ideas and issues that need to be addressed to enable Nuclear to become a possible technology to help the difficult energy situaiton that the US faces.

I think it is fantastic that Google's CEO actually understands and supports the need for science and research and development.  Google also provides a huge amount of great material online in the form of webcasts of those speaking at Google.