Energy secretary resigning from Obama Cabinet

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Energy Secretary Steven Chu will resign from President Barack Obama's Cabinet, a Democratic official confirmed to CNN on Friday.

Chu, who turns 65 this month, was a leading advocate in the Obama administration for alternative energy development, making him a target of the fossil fuel industry and its conservative supporters in Congress.

He was a co-recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1997 and headed the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Lab before becoming energy secretary in 2009.

Chu also taught at the University of California.

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CNN Chief White House Correspondent Jessica Yellin