Obama Moves Quickly To Heal NRC

The Obama Administration moved quickly today to replace the controversial head of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Chairman Jaczko, by nominating Dr. Allison Macfarlane to lead that agency.  Macfarlane, who received her PhD in geology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technologyin 1992, is currently a professor of Environmental Science and Policy atGeorge Mason University in Fairfax, VA.  She has long been affiliated with programs such as the Program in Science, Technology and Society at MIT and the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University. The immediate uproar in the nuclear community to her not being a nuclear engineer or physicist was expected. Instead, her specialties include nuclear nonproliferation and other policy issues, but in this new position it will be her experience with nuclear waste and the back-end of the nuclear fuel cycle involving deep geologic disposal of high level waste and interim storage of spent fuel, that will be her biggest contribution to the group, and is particularly timely with the focus on spent fuel in the wake of Fukushima. As a geologist myself working in the nuclear field, I know how geology provides a uniquely global and multidisciplinary view to the field and to science in general, and Dr. Macfarlane will bring this valuable addition to the NRC’s toolbox. More