WASHINGTON - PRESIDENT-ELECT Barack Obama has chosen Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Chu, a strong advocate of alternative and renewable energy research, to be his energy secretary, US media reported yesterday.

Professor Chu, one of three scientists who shared the Nobel Prize for physics in 1997 for work in cooling and trapping atoms with laser light, would be the first Asian-American to lead the department.

The son of Chinese immigrants, Prof Chu said in his autobiography that he was once considered the 'academic black sheep' of the family because he only performed adequately at high school while almost all his aunts and uncles had PhDs in science or engineering.

He was rejected by the Ivy League colleges because his grades were relatively poor but was accepted at Rochester University in New York. By comparison, his older brother went to Princeton, and his two cousins got into Harvard.

It was at Rochester that he first fell in love with physics, which later earned him a professorship and then a job at Stanford University as the co-director of the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in 1987.

In an interview last year with The Washington Post, Prof Chu said he began to turn his attention to energy and climate change several years ago. 'I was following it just as a citizen and getting increasingly alarmed,' he said. 'Many of our best basic scientists (now) realise that this is getting down to a crisis situation.'

He sought and won the top job at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in 2004, leaving Stanford to focus on energy issues and research into biofuels and solar energy.

Mr Obama has also decided to name three experienced policymakers and regulators to key environmental jobs, suggesting that the next US president plans a bold shift on climate and energy issues.

Ms Carol Browner, who was the administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under former president Bill Clinton, will fill a position overseeing energy, environment and climate policies, newspapers reported, citing unnamed Democratic party officials.

She once served as legislative director for former vice-president and environmental advocate Al Gore when he was a member of the US Senate.

Ms Lisa Jackson, former head of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, will be named as head of the EPA. She would be the first African-American to lead the agency.

Ms Nancy Sutley, a deputy mayor of Los Angeles for Energy and Environment, will lead the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the reports said.

Mr Obama plans to announce the appointments later this week.

Collectively, the four candidates will have the task of carrying out Mr Obama's stated intent to curb global warming emissions drastically while fashioning a more efficient national energy system.

And they will have strong allies in Congress who are keen on climate change legislation, despite the fierce economic headwinds that will amplify objections from manufacturers and energy producers.

The President-elect is expected to tackle cap-and-trade legislation that would put a lid on and then lower greenhouse gas emissions before a crucial climate change summit a year from now.

Mr Obama has promised to spend liberally to finance infrastructure projects and support so-called green technologies that create jobs while benefiting the environment. These four officials will work with Mr Obama's economic advisers to try to find - and finance - projects that accomplish these goals.

Mr Scott Segal, director of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, an industry group, said he was pleased that Prof Chu had the technical expertise to realistically assess future energy technologies.

'His experience seems to dovetail perfectly with the President-elect's commitment to bringing new energy technology to market in a timely fashion,' Mr Segal said. 'An understanding of the art of the possible in energy technology will be critical to the development of a cost-effective climate change policy.'

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, ASSOCIATED PRESS, NEW YORK TIMES, WASHINGTON POST