Arjun Makhijani

Arjun Makhijani is an electrical and nuclear engineer with 37 years experience in energy and nuclear issues. He is President of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research. IEER has been doing nuclear-related studies for twenty years and is an independent non-profit organization located in Takoma Park, Maryland. Dr. Makhijani has a Ph.D. (Engineering), granted by the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences of the University of California, Berkeley, where he specialized in the application of plasma physics to controlled nuclear fusion. [ [http://www.ieer.org/ieerstaf.html IEER Program Staff Profiles] ]

Dr. Makhijani has written a number of books and other publications analyzing the safety, economics, and efficiency of various energy sources, including nuclear power and renewable energy sources such as wind and solar energy. He was the principal author of the first evaluation of energy end-uses and energy efficiency potential in the U.S. economy (published by the Electronics Research Laboratory, University of California at Berkeley in 1971). He was also the principal author of the first overview study on "Energy and Agriculture in the Third World" [ [http://www.fordfound.org/archives/item/0338 "Energy and Agriculture in the Third World"] ] (Ballinger 1975). This study included consideration of both traditional and modern energy sources. He was one of the principal technical staff persons of the Ford Foundation Energy Policy Project, and a co-author of its final report, "A Time to Choose", [ [http://www.fordfound.org/archives/item/0159 "A Time to Choose"] ] which helped shape U.S. energy policy during the mid-to-late 1970s. He is a co-author of "Investment Planning in the Electricity Sector", published by the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in 1976. This study developed an economic model that anticipated the financial crisis of the late 1970s and early 1980s caused by the overbuilding of capital intensive power plants. He is also the principal author of "Nuclear Power Deception" [ [http://www.ieer.org/pubs/index.html#npd "Nuclear Power Deception"] ] (Apex Books 1999), an analysis of the costs of nuclear power in the United States and a co-author and principal editor of the first global assessment of the health and environmental effects of nuclear weapons production ("Nuclear Wastelands", [ [http://www.ieer.org/pubs/index.html#nuclearwastelands "Nuclear Wastelands"] ] 1995 and 2000), which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize by MIT Press.

Most recently, Dr, Makhijani has authored "Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free" [ [http://www.ieer.org/carbonfree/index.html “Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free”] ] (RDR Books and IEER Press 2007), the first analysis of a transition to a U.S. economy based completely on renewable energy, without any use of fossil fuels or nuclear power.

In 1989, he received The John Bartlow Martin Award for Public Interest Magazine Journalism [ [http://www.medill.northwestern.edu/about/sponsoredawards.aspx?id=58389 John Bartlow Martin Award] ] of the Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University, with Robert Alvarez; was awarded the Josephine Butler Nuclear Free Future Award in 2001; the 2007/2008 Jane Bagley Lehman Award for Excellence in Public Advocacy [ [http://www.tides.org/resources-news/news-room/single-news-item/article/anti-nuclear-advocates-receive-jbl-awards-from-tides-foundation/index.html 2007/2008 JBL Award] ] by the Tides Foundation; and was named a Ploughshares Hero, by the Ploughshares Fund (2006). In 2007, he was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society, an honor that is accorded to at most 1 in 200 members of APS.

Dr. Makhijani has testified before Congress, and has appeared on ABC World News Tonight, the CBS Evening News, CBS 60 Minutes, NPR, CNN, and BBC, among others. He has many published articles in journals such as "The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists" and "The Progressive", as well as in newspapers, including the "Washington Post". He has served as a consultant on energy issues to utilities and other organizations, including the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Lower Colorado River Authority, the Edison Electric Institute, the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, and several agencies of the United Nations.

He has extensive professional experience and is qualified as an expert in radioactive waste disposal, standards for protection of human health from radiation, and the relative costs and benefits of nuclear energy and other energy sources. He has served as an expert witness in Nuclear Regulatory Commission proceedings on nuclear facilities and in numerous lawsuits and has testified on a variety of issues including releases of radioactivity from nuclear facilities. He has testified before Congress on several occasions regarding issues related to nuclear waste, reprocessing, environmental releases of radioactivity, and regulation of nuclear weapons plants.

He has studied the French reprocessing and nuclear energy system and was the director of a team that analyzed ANDRA’s plans for a geological repository for high level radioactive waste in France on behalf of a French government-sponsored stakeholder committee (2004). He has also served as a member of the Radiation Advisory Committee of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Science Advisory Board from 1992 to 1994 and on the EPA’s Advisory Subcommittee on Radiation Standards, which is part of the National Advisory Committee on Environmental Policy and Technology.

ee also

*Anti-nuclear movement in the United States

References

External links

* [http://www.nature.com/climate/2008/0810/pdf/climate.2008.103.pdf Nuclear isn’t necessary]