 This afternoon we've got a special occasion here at the Australian National University with Steve Chu and Steve has agreed to have a conversation with us about his career in science in government and how one makes the transition between those two. So maybe Steve if we could start off with the science, you've clearly been a successful scientist in a number of fields and obviously multi-disciplinary research is very important. Can you tell us exactly how you made this transition between disciplines and why this is a key aspect of modern science? Well I made the transition because I failed a lot of times and I tried a lot of things but you want to move on and go on and do things. In terms of going into new fields, when I was a PhD student it took me three or four, looking at three or four different things before I landed on the parody non-conservation experiment with my advisor and there was a beta decay experiment, there was a heavy ion experiment, there was a theoretical work. My first project was actually a theoretical piece because my advisor thought that I would be good in theory, whether I would have been good at theory or not, I loved doing experiments. So if you consider even from a graduate career standpoint I was getting incompletes until I landed on something I carried about, I thought was important. And then going to Bell Laboratories, a number of different experiments in very different areas, anywhere from very fundamental physics that had direct ramification in high energy physics to condensed matter physics, then positronium, laser cooling and trapping, things of that nature. So it was something started in graduate school that just continued in my career. Now, as I hopped from field to field to field, what I was discovering was it was more fun. I did spend a large amount of time in laser cooling and trapping and atom infotometry, things of that nature, but because that was something that was new and for the first decade or two or three or four, it was a very exciting thing as it is still today. But what I also discovered, beginning at Bell Laboratories, but making a conscious note of it when I arrived at Stanford, the same technology you can use to hold on to atoms, you can hold on to biomolecules, you can do these things in a way that could really revolutionize biology. So I said, hey, I need to get into this. I need to learn a little biochemistry, a little biology. So sort of entering the back door in the late 80s, early 90s to get into this. And it led to more and more, I had an interest in biology, but had a technical introduction to contribute. But over the years, that became a larger and larger fraction of my work. By the late 90s, it was the majority of my work. And whereas the laser cooling and trapping was continuing, the biology became a bigger deal. The graduates from my group were becoming very distinguished in laser cooling and trapping and atom infotometry. And so I was also running away from them. And by that, I mean they were excellent people and lots of really smart people were moving into this. Well, let's go into something else where it's fresh, where there are very few people, there is nothing there. And so I had to move, I jokingly say, I really mean this truth. I have to move on because the competition is getting too tough. But I should say in all honesty that in this interdisciplinary stuff that borders between many fields, some of the very best stuff, some of the most innovative stuff lies there. It's like when x-ray diffraction meets biology and crystallography and structural biology and the flourishing of an entirely new field. When laser cooling met atomic physics, met many body theory, you see all these things happening. And so now I'm going into biology and now medicine. But then since becoming Secretary of Energy, I had an interest in batteries and now I'm starting to work with batteries for energy source for electric vehicles because it's too important not to be involved in that. Exactly. And I know this too, when I was very young, I went to one of these Lindow meetings where Nobel Prize winners mingle with students and they discuss physics or whatever subject it is for that year. And one of the characteristics of the Nobel Prize winners that I met at that time was that they had moved on from their original field in which they won the Nobel Prize into different fields. And I noticed that you've done the same thing. You've moved from laser cooling and trapping, as you say, for which you won the Nobel Prize into biological applications of similar techniques. Is it the fact that you have the freedom once you won the Nobel Prize that allows you to do this? Or is this just a natural continuation of your interests? How does that play out? Because it's characteristic of these Nobel Prize winners that are at Lindow. No, many of the Nobel Prize winners, including myself, moved on well before they got a Nobel Prize. And indeed, if you look at the Nobel Prizes that have something to do with biology and medicine, a reasonable fraction of them were awarded to people who started a career in physics. So they had actually moved on. Already. Already. And I started moving in biology in the late 80s, early 90s. I got a Nobel Prize in 97. Actually, some colleagues at Stanford told me in the middle 90s, Steve, you're spending too much time in biology. You shouldn't do that. And I said, why not? And I said, they said, this one person said, because you have to leave your scent. You have a good chance in a Nobel Prize. But if you go into another field, you're going to get it written out of history. And I said, I'm sorry. I'm very excited about this. And so that's what I'm going to do. And so if you look at these Nobel laureates, they moved on after, but many of them moved on before. And they constantly moved. Moving actually stimulates the imagination. You go into a new field, everything is new and fresh and exciting again. And you need some courage to do that, especially when you go from physics to biology or polymer science that I went into. You start from scratch. You go to means no one knows about you. But boy, is it fun to learn new things. And then all the tricks that you had from your old field, whatever you can, you can import to the new field. And that's also very important, because you look like a genius when you're not, because you're using something that the old field knew about long ago. And you're just bringing it to a new area. Yeah. So we've got a common background in the area of laser-cold atoms, and we've known each other for a very long time. But maybe you could say something about the relationship that you've had with the Australian National University over the years. Well, I think I came here first in 1991. I gave a series of lectures here. In fact, you invited me. I came back again in 2005 to Australian National University when they were celebrating, as was the rest of the world, the year of physics. I've been back to Australia a number of times for laser spectroscopy conferences, other things. And so it's a long history. Good, good. And we've noticed during this time that you've made the transition from being a scientist to somebody that engages strongly with politics and government. And maybe this doesn't suit every scientist's interests or capabilities. But tell me how you made the transition and what it meant to you to actually engage in an area well outside your original sphere of expertise? Well, actually, I didn't consciously set out to get into politics. I never campaigned for anyone in my life. I never landed visible political support to anyone in my life. I was very happy being a professor when people at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory said they were interested in having me throw my hand in the ring to be director of this large national laboratory. This is 4,000 people, a budget of half a billion dollars, 2.6 billion dollars. And at first I said I'm not interested. I'm very happy where I was at Stanford. They asked me again and said I'm really not interested. So, you know, but thank you very much. And finally, my old boss at Bell Laboratories, who was then director of Lawrence Berkeley said, look, Steve, there's a 5% chance that you would consider just come on over, visit, talk to us, get interviewed. That's all we're asking. If it's not a 5% chance, don't bother wasting our time. Don't bother wasting your time. So I began to think, all right, 5% chance, maybe there's a 5% chance. But it was a little bit more. I had been already concerned about climate change and knew that Lawrence Berkeley Lab and any major research organization, a laboratory director is different than a president of a university. You're actually the boss in a laboratory. And so I said if I could get these first-rate scientists to shift their attention a little bit, not by ordering them, because you're the boss, but by engaging them and saying this is an exciting challenge, that there will be essentially Nobel Prizes in the science that comes out of how you transition to a sustainable world. And if I can excite them, that's much better than just giving talks about it. So I said, okay, I'll show up. And then they offered me the job. Now, someone I showed up, people were doing a little bit of it, but they said, well, we don't know anything about energy. I said, well, I don't know that much about energy. It's okay, we'll teach ourselves. It's like me going in polymer science and me going into biology. I said, it's okay. We'll learn. We'll meet privately and do things. We'll have little workshops and we're just going to teach ourselves. And so that actually worked and was gathering enthusiasm. There was no guaranteed funding for this. But people could recognize that this could be really exciting, really interesting science, multidisciplinary. And so I thought, okay, after about five years, I'll sit down and go back to my lab and done my duty. And then in mid-November of 2008, I get this phone call that says, the president-elect would like to talk to you about a very important job. And my reaction was, well, thank you, but I'm not really interested. But how important? And as so, I flew to Chicago and a floor rented in some office building, I've said, was waiting in the president-elect, then president-elect Obama comes into the room alone. It's in a hot room. He's from Hawaii, so he likes heat. And so he just walks up and says, a lot of people say that you should be my secretary of energy, to which I said, who are these future former friends of mine? He just didn't react to that. And so we just started talking, what do you think about this? He was asking me what I think about this, what I think about that. Of course, I knew what he thought about energy, clean energy, climate change, all these other things. And in a couple weeks later, he said, we'd like to vet you, we have to do all these other things, but we'd like you to be the next secretary of energy. And so at that point, hey, if the president-elect says, I wasn't going to say no. And so that's how I got dragged into politics. I'm not a politician. Those who know me well, you know me well. But there's not really a political bone in my body. I'm trying to make the right choices for the United States, for the world, based on science, based on data, based on many, many things. And also based on what would be good for the economy as well. These things are not across swords with each other. And so that's how I got drawn into politics. Quite by accident, if you will. And so from that experience that you've had over the last four and a half years or so, what are the things that you've learnt the most during that time? And would you recommend it for somebody else who's a scientist and maybe has had their career move in a direction that enables them to make this transition? Do you think it's a good thing for scientists to do and to contemplate doing? Well, let me answer the last question first. If you think you can make a difference, it requires commitment. It requires a thick skin. It requires an inner compass that I would recommend it. You also, as a scientist, one would have to be able to explain things at any level and not sound like you're being condescending. That doesn't work. But having done that, some of the best sciences I know can explain the science truthfully and accurately at any level. From the deepest experts to people who are not really scientists or may not even have an interest in science. But to show them that, you know, why do we think what it is? How can that be useful to society? So I would say absolutely that governments need more really good scientists. Not as a career. It doesn't have to be a career. It could be two years. It could be four years. And then go back to being a scientist. But you can serve your country. You can serve the world in this capacity. So absolutely. But it takes a special kind of person that's willing to put their career on hold. But it turned out the people I brought in with me, it was career enhancing in a different way, an unsuspected way that I never appreciated. It's not career enhancing normally in politics means you get hired in a law firm or investment place because now you know a lot of context. Scientists don't want to do that. They just want to go back to doing science. But working in the department of energy and getting a much more complete picture of what it takes from scientific discovery to innovation to actually helping policy actually nudge private investments in the right direction. And what it takes for it to become a self-sustained successful deployment is something I would never have learned as an academic scientist or even director of a national laboratory. That actually helps me reframe what I think about in research. And so in that respect and the colleagues I brought in who have now gone back to being professors also realize oh my gosh I have a different perspective. It's a better perspective. So that was good. So there are many many things I think that I could say would be good but you have to have a thick skin. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And now I think particularly in the energy sphere we've seen a lot of important developments recently and President Obama has been at the centre of a number of these. We've seen the standards that are being set now for emissions in the US and we've recently seen the announcement with the president of China that the US and China will enter into an agreement to reduce emissions. And this is an enormous boost to momentum for an agreement in Paris in a year's time. So where do you think the political landscape is heading particularly in relation to doing something about climate change through energy and what role do you think the the United States has to play in this? Well first I agree with you completely that was really a historical moment because you have a developing country albeit a very developed developing country but with huge growth in energy because people were coming out of poverty huge concerns about how do you have this keep the momentum of growing prosperity but do it in a much cleaner way being for the first time willing to say we're going to cap our emissions 2030 maybe sooner if we can do this we're going to be investing by 2030 20 percent of our energy will come from renewables uh and etc etc the United States saying no we're going to double down our pledge our peak carbon emissions was 2005 and by 2030 we're going to go down by a significant amount much further than was said in Copenhagen. So it's a big deal for a couple of reasons these are the two largest carbon emitters and they are the two largest economies in the world and for one to say we're going to jointly pledge this we don't need 192 nations to be part of an agreement if you're going to wait for 100 tiny 192 nations it's like waiting for 50 states to decide something in the United States and so what happened in the United States the state started moving and 78 percent of the economy of the United States now have mandatory renewable portfolio standards a certain fraction of the energy has to come from wind solar or other renewables California 32 percent by 2030 okay Texas huge renewable if you look at the economy of the United States and the majority of states in the United States they're moving the federal government will be the last to come into place I think I'm hopeful for an international agreement but if you think about what is happening I think you know a large part of Europe is moving and so you have Europe you have the United States now you have China say we're going to move this is too important and oh by the way this is not going to wreck the economy if you do it right it's going to be a plus in the long run because I truly believe not within 50 years but within 10 or 20 years renewables is the low-cost solution in Australia quite candidly I think solar is already the low-cost solution okay and in many parts of the United States we are now discovering solar and wind are cheaper than anything except natural gas in the United States natural gas in the United States is one quarter of the price around the world okay and so if you get wind being competitive with natural gas in the United States virtually any other part of the world it's it's a slam dunk if you have good wind resources Australia has good wind it has good solar it has a lot of land and so you have an incredible opportunity to go to a low-cost solution uh the United States has this incredible opportunity this is not about taking a financial hit this is about doing things intelligently and and saying hey you know whether the climate change the climate change issue is really there but this is the smart thing to do no matter what yeah yeah some people say though that Australia because it's a small country probably only contributes a couple of percent to the global emissions really can't make that much of a difference even if you know we adopt renewables and other policies but we are one of the world's largest energy exporters so do you think that there's some sort of a moral responsibility on Australia to to do the right thing in terms of the climate and the environment as a as a key player in the energy sphere or do you think that we are just a small country and that our opinion doesn't really rate for very much in the world scene well in terms of population you are a small country but your opinion does count you can be Denmark and say hey we're a small country you know why do we care yeah you know why are we 30 percent renewables you can say for each country in Europe you can say exactly the same but they don't okay and when the first year when I was Secretary of Energy people who didn't want to move in that direction said why should the United States move in this direction why should we invest renewables China's not doing it's no China's investing in that you know they're investing in solar factories they're investing in they're investing in it for deployment in their own country right in my last year people in Congress are asking me what's happening we're falling behind in China in in developing the technologies this is known we're not okay China was the largest installer of renewable 2013 yeah in their own country compared to the rest of the world they'll be the largest installer in 2014 they also see this as an economic opportunity internationally but they also see it as an climate imperative and a pollution imperative and so but the people just went on to the next excuse well why should we put a price in carbon when China's not going to do this well I think China's going to put a price in carbon before the United States federally and then they would say well why should we limit our carbon emissions when China's not doing this and so they're going to just go from one reason to another and now with regard to your other question subliminally is the following if you are a country rich in fossil resources where a major part of your income is mining extracting those fossil resource and exporting them one has a conflict it's just a fact of life so you look at those countries where a large part of your internal generated wealth is coming from extraction industries like oil and gas and coal or minerals there's going to be an inherent conflict between people making money doing this including your country and saying okay we need other things and so you look down the list of countries which are having problems you know Australia is one Canada is conflicted Russia is conflicted United States is conflicted this is not a big surprise in the end I think you're going to have to realize that as I said number one in terms of generating electricity renewables will be the low-cost solution whether it's 10 years or 15 years whatever it's it's going to be a low-cost solution okay transportation fuel a little bit harder but in the end that too it will be electrified it will be electrified because battery progress is stunning in the last 10 years and in the next 10 years I think it'll be even more stunning and so all these things point to this is the way we do it in the future I used to when I was Secretary of Energy I used to try to explain to people using an analogy with Wayne Greski the great hockey player yes really arguably one of the best hockey players there ever was and he was pretty skinny person right but fast and you say how you know what made you different than all the others and he said I skate to where the puck's going to be not where it's been and I tried to explain and I think it got some partial traction look what's happening with the technology looks what's happening yeah you want to position yourself to see this is where the world is going this is what science and technology is going to give us not I wish it were like it was 50 years ago and 100 years ago and and so there is a recognizable conflict and all these countries Australia and states all the ones I named have to deal with this but in the end it is the future and there is the climate change issue and so for a number of reasons this is where you have to go you have to diversify you have to clean it up and put the real cost of fossil fuel you know put the real cost onto fossil fuel you can invest in R&D in the end the private sector is going to decide what to do but just think of it this way you're a chemical factory and you're dumping sludge into the river into the lake into the ocean all right hey the cost of doing business is it's much cheaper not to treat the polluted pollutants just dump it in except if you're downstream the people downstream find it very costly okay this is partly a government function you can't let the upstream polluters affect the downstream people for the good of the entire community yeah and it's a lot easier to deal with the pollution before it gets into the river or into the air and this is one of the things because in the end society will pay for the cost of what you're doing it's much cheaper to do it at the source and it's part of the government to say this is the real cost to our society you know there's indication strong indications that the climate weather patterns let me call it not called climate the weather over the last 30 40 years as I've discussed is changing there are more extreme weathers more serious droughts as a multi-year drought in Australia more funny typhoons that didn't or have been there before are coming to pass statistically uh it's happening the climate modelers can't predict in any detail whether there's a drought or a hurricane or a tornado they did say that the weather will become more unpredictable and more unstable but we can't actually tell okay but whether they can or not you just watch what's happening you look at the rising temperature and look at what's happening over not the last couple years but over the last three or four decades it's rising out of the noise there's might not be an accident I don't think it's an accident most of the science say this is not an accident this is what we think is had was going to happen exactly what happens the climate science said we can't really tell so there's a huge risk factor and we're beginning to see the manifestations of this risk becoming reality and so there's another thing that we've got to digest indeed and with that future-looking note I think that's a good point to finish and it's been interesting over the years to uh to have you come back to the Australian National University and indeed see somewhat of a parallel in the development of our careers and wonderful to see the the very important role that energy has played and you've played it in the development of energy policy over the years and the Australian National University Energy Changes too thanks you very much for visiting us and giving us the benefit of that experience well thank you it's great to be back and thanks for inviting me and uh you know I wish you all the best of success both in atomic physics and in energy good thank you very much great to see you good