Impressive credentials, but sadly miscast for the rough and tumble, oft unforgiving world of oil and energy markets and its cast of malign actors 
 
 The tableau of his Chairmanship was set early on in February 2009 when from the aerie of his Nobel perch and with oil in the low $30's/barrel and the American economy reeling, he would pontificate: 
 
 OPEC is going to do what they're going to do based on their own interests," Chu said at a press conference, adding, "I quite frankly don't focus on what OPEC should do, I focus on what we should do. "On some levels, it's exactly what you'd like to believe to be the best team, the environmentalist said.
– The ugly tanking of government-funded solar-energy company Solyndra has many people questioning whether Energy Secretary Steven Chu can handle the job, reports Politico. "Just because you are a Nobel Prize-winning physicist doesn't mean you'd be a good orthopedic surgeon," criticized a Bush-era Energy Department official. "They're different skill sets." The White House publicly supported Chu on Friday, but criticism is growing that Chu's team overemphasizes science over policy and politics. "Impressive credentials, but sadly miscast for the rough and tumble, oft unforgiving world of oil and energy markets and its cast of malign actors," writes author Raymond Learsy on the Huffington Post. "The great irony, the big critique (of Solyndra) is the suggestion of too much politics and political influence, when in fact the realities on this might be exactly the opposite, that there was too much science and too little intuition," an anonymous environmentalist tells Politico.