Alan Waltar

Alan E. Waltar (born July 10, 1939) is a nuclear engineer and professor of nuclear engineering, known for his work on fast nuclear reactors and reactor safety. He played a role in the development of the Fast Flux Test Facility at the Hanford Site, served as a professor and head of the nuclear engineering department at Texas A&M University and was a president of the American Nuclear Society.

Upon graduation, he received a United States Atomic Energy Commission fellowship to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he received a masters degree in nuclear engineering in 1962. His thesis at MIT was supervised by Norman Rasmussen. He was then sponsored by the Atomic Energy Commission and the National Science Foundation to attend the University of California, Berkeley, where he studied nuclear engineering, automatic control systems, and mathematics under Prof. Lawrence Ruby, receiving a PhD in 1966. In 1998, he became a senior advisor and head of nuclear energy at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Waltar co-founded the World Nuclear University Summer Institute in 2005. He also worked as a consultant for the IAEA, US Department of Energy, US Air Force Scientific Advisory Council,

American Nuclear Society Waltar served on the American Nuclear Society as chair of the Eastern Washington section, the Nuclear Reactor Safety section, the Bylaws and Rules committee, the Finance committee, and finally as president from 1994-95. Waltar was made a fellow of the ANS in 1984.

Research Waltar is known for his work on fast breeder reactors, much of which was based on his experience at FFTF. The book that he co-authored on fast breeder reactors is used as a reference text in the field, with translations in Russian and Japanese. Topics covered include nuclear design methods, cross sections, kinetics and reactivity control, fuel management, thermal hydraulics transmutation physics, and safety considerations. In his later life, he authored a number of papers arguing that public fears of low-level radiation are exaggerated and detrimental to the public interest.

Awards and honors 1984 Fellow of the American Nuclear Society 2008 Presidential Citation of the American Nuclear Society 2011 Fellow of the Washington State Academy of Sciences

Selected publications

MELT-I: A Simplified Meltdown Code for Fast Reactor Safety Analysis, technical report, 1968 Fast Breeder Reactors, with Albert B. Reynolds, Pergamon Press, 1981 America the Powerless: Facing Our Nuclear Energy Dilemma, Cogito Books, 1995 Radiation and Modern Life: Fulfilling Marie Curie's Dream, Prometheus, 2004

Views Waltar has argued that advanced economies should use nuclear energy as a means of lowering prices of fossil fuels to facilitate economic development in the global south.

He has also advocated for the American Nuclear Society to adopt standards for nuclear waste clean up, saying:"The nuclear discipline created these wastes, and the nuclear discipline is needed to clean it up."

Personal life Waltar married his childhood friend and neighbor Anna Geiszler in 1961. They had 4 children; Steve, Doug, Karen, and Bruce. Waltar has been active as a singer in the Richland Light Opera Company.