U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu Calls on Scientists to Help Review Energy Applications

"I ask you and your colleagues that if you get a call to say, `We want you to help review [new energy projects],' that it's very important that you step up to the plate," U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu told attendees of the 34th Annual AAAS Forum on Science and Technology Policy. Wisely investing billions of dollars in new money for innovative energy projects designed to help create jobs—new funding approved under President Barack Obama's economic-stimulus package—will require "several hundred reviewers in various programs; three or four hundred reviewers in the next six months, and so I want the best-quality reviewers."

Chu likened the president's plan for increased investment in science and technology to the surge in U.S. innovation that followed the launch of the Soviet satellite, Sputnik.

Read more, or watch a video clip of Chu's remarks.