The Department of Energy(DOE) wants to friend you

The Department of Energy wants to friend you on Facebook, send you tweets, and share photos and videos on Flickr and YouTube. Secretary Steven Chu has seen the light and is spreading DOE’s message on, you guessed it, a new Energy blog.

“While the act of starting a blog is hardly novel, it is a first for us and part of our commitment to achieving the level of transparency, engagement, and accessibility that you should expect from your government,” he wrote in the first post. “Our goal is to use the Energy Blog and our other social media outlets to show you who we are, what we do, and why it matters to you.”

The department’s video on weatherization isn’t getting quite as many views as the BP oil spill “in high def” but it’s a start. And if your student is assigned a science project once school begins, take a look at “Energy 101: Concentrating Solar Power.”

It’s good to see government getting in the social media game. At the Consumer Product Safety Commission, spokesman Scott Wolfson often uses Twitter to announce recalls hours before they hit the agency’s website. And the Food and Drug Administration uses Twitter to announce recalls of everything from pet food to tainted lettuce.

At DOE, Chu is taking it a step further and sharing his personal Facebook page as well. And what are his interests? “I have always had an obsession with energy efficiency. My old home in California was so well-insulated that we barely had to run the air conditioning—even in the summer.”