President-elect Joe Biden’s decision to appoint Jennifer Granholm – former Michigan governor, lawyer, politician and television host – to be the next energy secretary is a curious one.
The idea that circulates is that his main task, in Biden’s mind, will be to accelerate the development of electric vehicles in Detroit.
This is hardly the task that Granholm will encounter when facing it when he goes to the 7th floor of the Forrestal Building, a simple concrete structure in front of the romantic Smithsonian Castle on Independence Avenue in Washington.
The energy secretariat is one of the government’s most demanding tasks. The Department of Energy is a vast archipelago of scientific, defense, diplomatic and cybersecurity responsibilities. Granholm’s biggest concern, in fact, will not be energy, but defense.
DOE, nicknamed the Small Pentagon, is responsible for maintaining, updating and ensuring the functioning of the country’s nuclear weapons. A critical launch phone will accompany you everywhere. This is where much of the department’s approximately $ 30 billion budget goes.
The energy secretary is responsible for the largest scientific organization on the planet: the 17 national laboratories operated by the department. They are not only responsible for the nuclear weapons program, but also for a huge and diverse portfolio of scientific research, from better materials to fill holes to the capture, storage and use of carbon; and from small modular reactors for electricity to nuclear energy for space exploration.
National laboratories are vital to cybersecurity, primarily to ensure the integrity of the power grid and the safety of things like Chinese transformers and other heavy equipment.
DOE has the responsibility to detect nuclear explosions abroad, measure carbon in the atmosphere, make wind turbines more efficient and develop nuclear plants that move aircraft carriers and submarines. The department manufactures weapons materials, such as tritium, and oversees uranium enrichment.
DOE scientists are investigating the very nature of physical matter. They worked on mapping the human genome and helped in the development of nanoengineering.
Wise energy secretaries have realized that not only are national laboratories a tremendous national asset, but they can also be the secretary’s shock troops, ready to do what is asked of them – not always in the same way as career bureaucrats. Its directors are integrated into Congressional delegations, including California with Lawrence Livermore; Illinois with Argonne; New Mexico with Los Alamos and Sandia; Tennessee with Oak Ridge; South Carolina with the Savannah River.
Verifying the START nuclear weapons treaty with Russia is up to the DOE, as well as possibly renegotiating it. Another job would be to be part of any future negotiations with Iran over its nuclear materials. Likewise, the energy secretary would be involved if serious negotiations were started with North Korea.
A constant headache for Granholm will be the long-term management of nuclear waste from the civilian program, as public opposition to the Yucca mountain site in Nevada is inflexible. In addition, it will be responsible for large amounts of plutonium for weapons in several locations, but notably at the Pantex site in Texas and the Savannah River site in South Carolina before being mixed with an inert substance for burial in Carlsbad, New Mexico .
Then there are little things like the strategic oil reserve, the future of hydraulic fracturing, the reduction of methane emissions across the natural gas system and the use of hydrogen as a utility and transport fuel.
DOE was tasked with facilitating exports of natural gas and oil. These are now subject to objections from environmentalists.
Smart secretaries have built good relationships from the start with several Senate and House committees that oversee DOE.
James Schlesinger, the first energy secretary, led the new department with knowledge of energy from his time as chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, knowledge of diplomatic nuclear strategy from his time as director of the CIA and knowledge of defending against his time as secretary of defense.
The only other star that shone so brightly from the Forrestal Building was President Barack Obama’s energy secretary, Ernie Moniz, an MIT nuclear scientist who essentially took over nuclear talks with Iran: he and Iranian negotiator Ali Akbar Salehi, a colleague A graduate of MIT, he drafted the agreement, which was a work of art, a pas de deux, by two truly informed nuclear aficionados.
Compared to DOE’s incredible reach in other vital areas, electric cars seem of little importance, especially since Elon Musk with Tesla has already climbed that mountain, and all the automakers are climbing behind him.