I watched the president give a speech at Georgetown U. about “winning the future” by subsidizing unprofitable — that is, losing — “green energy” technologies in the present.
The big headline: Obama promised to reduce oil imports by one-third in the next decade through a combination of increased domestic production and reduced oil dependency.
But in the middle of the speech there was, I thought, a good line about Energy Secretary Stephen Chu. POTUS was relating the story of how he sent Chu to BP headquarters to consult on ways to cap the Macondo well, then spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico. It turns out that Chu actually drew up the plans for the device that ended up sealing the wellhead (I hadn’t heard that before).
Anyway, at the end of the anecdote, POTUS said of Chu: “He actually deserved his Nobel Prize.” Nicely done.
UPDATE: To the commenters. I’m just saying that the president told a crowd at Georgetown that Stephen Chu drew up the plans. It’s possible he’s misremembering or overemphasizing Chu’s role. It might even be worth following-up on. But it wasn’t the point here.