A physicist and longtime member of the nation’s premier research laboratory, Peter B. Lyons was nominated to be the Department of Energy’s assistant secretary for nuclear energy in December 2010. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee is scheduled to vote on his nomination on April 12. The mission of the Office of Nuclear Energy is to promote nuclear power as an energy source. It does this with an annual budget of more than $850 million.

 

Raised in Nevada, Lyons attended college in neighboring Arizona, receiving his bachelor’s degree in physics and mathematics from the University of Arizona in 1964. Five years later, he earned his PhD in nuclear astrophysics from the California Institute of Technology.

 

After receiving his PhD, Lyons began his career at Los Alamos National Laboratory, and wound up spending 27 years at the renowned lab. He spent his first 15 years working on nuclear testing and other defense-related projects, and his next 10 years as a manager. Among the positions he led were group leader for transient plasma diagnostics, program director for nuclear defense research, deputy associate director for defense research and applications and deputy associate director for energy and environment.

 

 In late 1993 he was put in charge of the Industrial Partnership Office, which coordinated research between Los Alamos and private corporations.

 

In January 1997, Lyons was assigned by Los Alamos to take a leave of absence and serve as science advisor on the staff of U.S. Senator Pete Domenici (R-New Mexico) and the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, where, for six years, he focused on military and civilian uses of nuclear technology, national science policy and nuclear non-proliferation. He continued in this capacity after leaving the laboratory and officially joining the Senate staff in 2003.

 

President George W. Bush gave Lyons a recess appointment to serve as a commissioner of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). In May 2006, the Senate confirmed him for a full term, and he eventually served from January 25, 2005, until June 30, 2009. During this time he focused on the safety of operating reactors as new reactor licensing and possible construction emerged.

After his NRC term ended, Lyons worked briefly as a consultant to nuclear energy assistant secretary Warren “Pete” Miller. On September 14, 2009, Lyons was appointed to the position of principal deputy assistant secretary of the Office of Nuclear Energy and served as acting assistant secretary upon Miller’s retirement in November 2010. Miller and Lyons worked so closely together that Secretary of Energy Steven Chu referred to them as “Pete and Re-Pete.”

 

Lyons has published more than 100 technical papers, holds three patents related to fiber optics and plasma diagnostics, and served as chairman of the NATO Nuclear Effects Task Group for five years. While at Los Alamos, Lyons served for 16 years on the Los Alamos School Board.

 

He is a Fellow of the American Nuclear Society and a Fellow of the American Physical Society.

-David Wallechinsky, Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Peter B. Lyons, Ph.D. (Department of Energy)

Speeches and Testimony 2005-2009 (Nuclear Regulatory Commission)