ABOUT BOB

Robert (Bob) Alvarez is one of the bedrock founders of the national movement to unmask the human and environmental carnage that resulted directly from the US production of a massive nuclear arsenal.

Bob helped found the Environmental Policy Institute in the mid-1970’s. He is an intrepid researcher, author, investigator, professor, and an unflagging resource to dozens of organizations around the nation. Bob always was and remains today an ally (and sometimes an accomplice) of grassroots efforts to hold the nuclear power and weapons establishment accountable.

Bob was one of the first to document the impacts of nuclear weapons and power production on front-line workers in his 1982 book, Killing Our Own. He helped organize the Atomic Veterans hearings when Congress turned its back on the thousands of soldiers deliberately marched into the fallout from live nuclear weapons tests. He and his wife Kitty Tucker worked tirelessly to reveal the story behind the killing of Karen Silkwood, and to seek justice for Karen and her family.

Bob served for five years as a Senior Investigator for the U. S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, chaired by Senator John Glenn, and as one of the Senate’s primary staff experts on the U.S. nuclear programs. While serving for Senator Glenn, Bob worked to help establish the environmental cleanup program in the Department of Energy, strengthened the Clean Air Act, uncovered several serious nuclear safety and health problems, improved medical radiation regulations, and created a transition program for communities and workers affected by the closure of nuclear weapons facilities.

Between 1993 and 1999, Bob served as a Senior Policy Advisor to the Secretary and Deputy Assistant Secretary for National Security and the Environment. While at DOE, he coordinated the effort to enact nuclear worker compensation legislation. He also compelled the release of critical information, long withheld from the public, about the impacts of nuclear testing. In 1994 and 1995, Bob led teams in North Korea to establish control of nuclear weapons materials. He coordinated nuclear material strategic planning for the department and established the department’s first asset management program. Bob was awarded two Secretarial Gold Medals, the highest awards given by the department.

Bob authored numerous groundbreaking reports on the potentially devastating impacts of nuclear power and waste including irradiated fuel pool risks and the dangers of consolidated “interim” storage and continues to serve as an expert witness for intervenors.

Since his retirement from the Energy Department, Bob has continued to address nuclear safety issues. He continues to work at the Institute for Policy Studies and the Union of Concerned Scientists. He has taught a nuclear history course at Johns Hopkins, continues to write reports and articles in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and elsewhere.

Read BOB’s Full CV.

BOB’S VIGNETTES

Read Bob’s personal accounts of his life and life’s work in a series of vignettes that he has recently written.

• Vignettes of a Life in a Time of Short Attention – October 2021
• Hanford – January 2022
• Savanah River – March 2022

ARTICLES & STUDIES BY BOB

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists articles by Robert Alvarez from 2000 – 2021

Risky Business at Perma-Fix Northwest: The Inside Story on Hanford’s Off-Site Radioactive Treatment Facility – Robert Alvarez and Hanford Challenge, December 2020

Spent Nuclear Fuel Pools in the U.S.: Reducing the Deadly Risks of Storage – Robert Alvarez, Institute for Policy Studies May 2011

Reducing the Hazards from Stored Spent Power-Reactor Fuel in the United States – Robert Alvarez, Jan Beyea, Klaus Janberg, Jungmin Kang,Ed Lyman, Allison Macfarlane, Gordon Thompson, Frank N. von Hippel, Science and Global Security, ° copyright 2003 Taylor and Francis

MORE TO COME…

ARTICLES AND POSTS FEATURING BOB

Beyond Nuclear articles & posts featuring Bob

Nuclear Hot Seat podcasts featuring Bob

MORE TO COME…

PHOTOS OF BOB AND FAMILY