Skip to main content

Lisowski to Head GNEP

By Eric McErlain
Just off the wire from DOE:
U.S. Department of Energy Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Dennis Spurgeon announced the appointment of Dr. Paul Lisowski as Deputy Director of Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems. As Deputy Director, Dr. Lisowski will lead the day-to-day operations of the Department's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, a key element of the President’s Advanced Energy Initiative.

“I am excited that Paul will be joining our team,” Assistant Secretary Spurgeon said. “He brings a wealth of technical knowledge and expertise, which will be vital as we move forward with building new nuclear power plants under the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership.”

As Deputy Director of Nuclear Energy, Dr. Lisowski will take the lead on planning and integration of advanced nuclear reactors, fuel processing, and research and development in support of the Global Energy Nuclear Partnership. Dr. Lisowski will also use his expertise and leadership to expand the use of nuclear power, minimize nuclear waste, demonstrate more proliferation-resistant recycling, develop advanced burner reactors, and establish reliable fuel services.

Most recently, Dr. Lisowski worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory where he served for five years as the Director of Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE). While there, he was responsible for science and technology development, safety, maintenance and operation of the three national user facilities and an isotope production facility. In this position, he was responsible for the management of over 300 scientists, engineers and operations staff and for the management of an annual operating budget of up to $125 million.

Prior to that, Dr. Lisowski served as the National Director for the Accelerator Production of Tritium Project. The National Laboratory and industry team that he led were awarded the 2000 DOE Award for Excellence in Program and Project Management.

“I am pleased to be part of this exciting GNEP initiative,” Dr. Lisowski said. “I am confident that my past experience with large multi-laboratory and industry teams will greatly contribute to the success of GNEP.”
Technorati tags: , , , , , , ,

Comments

Kirk Sorensen said…
Rather than pursue sodium-cooled fast reactors as the central thrust of GNEP, I would suggest that Dr. Lisowski examine the work of Dr. Eric Ottewitte of INEL. Dr. Ottewitte proposed a reactor based around the molten chlorides as a way to destroy transuranic waste that has many safety and performance advantages over the sodium-cooled, solid-core breeder.
August 28, 2006 at 11:48 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How Nanomaterials Can Make Nuclear Reactors Safer and More Efficient

By
The following is a guest post from Matt Wald, senior communications advisor at NEI. Follow Matt on Twitter at @MattLWald.

From the batteries in our cell phones to the clothes on our backs, "nanomaterials" that are designed molecule by molecule are working their way into our economy and our lives. Now there’s some promising work on new materials for nuclear reactors.

Reactors are a tough environment. The sub atomic particles that sustain the chain reaction, neutrons, are great for splitting additional uranium atoms, but not all of them hit a uranium atom; some of them end up in various metal components of the reactor. The metal is usually a crystalline structure, meaning it is as orderly as a ladder or a sheet of graph paper, but the neutrons rearrange the atoms, leaving some infinitesimal voids in the structure and some areas of extra density. The components literally grow, getting longer and thicker. The phenomenon is well understood and designers compensate for it with a …
1 comment
Read more

Why America Needs the MOX Facility

By
If Isaiah had been a nuclear engineer, he’d have loved this project. And the Trump Administration should too, despite the proposal to eliminate it in the FY 2018 budget.

The project is a massive factory near Aiken, S.C., that will take plutonium from the government’s arsenal and turn it into fuel for civilian power reactors. The plutonium, made by the United States during the Cold War in a competition with the Soviet Union, is now surplus, and the United States and the Russian Federation jointly agreed to reduce their stocks, to reduce the chance of its use in weapons. Over two thousand construction workers, technicians and engineers are at work to enable the transformation.

Carrying Isaiah’s “swords into plowshares” vision into the nuclear field did not originate with plutonium. In 1993, the United States and Russia began a 20-year program to take weapons-grade uranium out of the Russian inventory, dilute it to levels appropriate for civilian power plants, and then use it to produce…
Post a Comment
Read more

Nuclear Is a Long-Term Investment for Ohio that Will Pay Big

By
With 50 different state legislative calendars, more than half of them adjourn by June, and those still in session throughout the year usually take a recess in the summer. So springtime is prime time for state legislative activity. In the next few weeks, legislatures are hosting hearings and calling for votes on bills that have been battered back and forth in the capital halls.

On Tuesday, The Ohio Public Utilities Committee hosted its third round of hearings on the Zero Emissions Nuclear Resources Program, House Bill 178, and NEI’s Maria Korsnick testified before a jam-packed room of legislators.


Washingtonians parachuting into state debates can be a tricky platform, but in this case, Maria’s remarks provided national perspective that put the Ohio conundrum into context. At the heart of this debate is the impact nuclear plants have on local jobs and the local economy, and that nuclear assets should be viewed as “long-term investments” for the state. Of course, clean air and electrons …
Post a Comment
Read more