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Dr.
Denis Beller |
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Coordinator,
UNLV
M.S. in Materials and Nuclear Engineering Program
Research Professor,
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Nevada, Las
Vegas
e-mail:
bellerd@unlv.nevada.edu
Phone:
702-895-1452
Fax:
702-895-3936 |
Research Interests:
- U.S. Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI):
- Accelerator-driven transmutation of waste from recycling
used nuclear fuel (report attached: NIM-A.doc)
- University Programs (report attached: LA-UR-02-7443 Univ
Programs FY02 Report.pdf)
- Reactor-Accelerator Coupling Experiments (RACE) Project
(report attached: RACE Two-pager.doc)
- Environmental impacts of energy exploitation and generation
- Nuclear and energy futures and systems analyses (report
attached: LA-UR-01-4358 LWR-MOX-ATW Comparison.pdf)
- Reactor physics and radiation transport modeling and
experiments
Biographical:
Denis E. Beller (Ph.D., Purdue Univ., 1986; M.S.N.E, Air Force Inst.
of Tech., 1981; B.S.Ch.E., Univ. of Colorado, 1976) has a background
in engineering design and analysis and in management of defense
systems. Dr. Beller's research activities have included design and
analysis of conceptual systems for nuclear effects testing with
inertial confinement fusion, conceptual design of nuclear-pumped
lasers, systems studies of long-term national and global deployment
of nuclear energy, and formulation and testing of solid rocket
propellants (including rockets that were used in Operation Desert
Storm). He also managed a rocket test facility, a nuclear detection
laboratory that monitored radioactive emissions to support Safeguard
D of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and an intelligence division that
collected and disseminated foreign science and technology
information. After graduation from Purdue in 1986, Dr. Beller was a
professor at the Air Force Institute of Technology, where he taught
graduate nuclear engineering (weapons effects) to military officers
for almost eight years. As a result of teaching, research, and
professional activities, the faculty selected him as the first
tenured military professor in AFIT's 70-year history.
Dr. Beller has recently completed a "sabbatical" from Los
Alamos National Laboratory to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas,
where he coordinated university participation for UNLV’s
Transmutation Research Program for reducing, reusing, and recycling
used nuclear fuel (“waste”). He is now a Research Professor in
the Department of Mechanical Engineering at UNLV and a Visiting
Research Professor at Idaho State University (Reactor-Accelerator
Coupling Experiments (RACE) Project). Research in these
appointments is connected to the Advanced
Fuel Cycle Initiative, the national program to develop
economical, safe, and clean technology to recycle used nuclear fuel,
to eliminate reactor-grade plutonium, to reduce the volume and
radio-toxicity of waste bound for deep-geologic disposal, and to
eliminate the need for a second Yucca Mountain Project.
However, Dr. Beller is best known amongst the nuclear science and
technology community as the co-author, with Pulitzer Prize-winning
historian Richard Rhodes, of an essay that, according to the U.S.
Congressional Record (July 27, 2000), “… sparked renewed
debate on nuclear energy’s role” as a non-emitting domestic
energy source. “The
Need for Nuclear Power” appeared in the Jan/Feb 2000 issue of
Foreign Affairs, and it was
republished in modified form in The
Bulletin of the International Atomic Energy Agency (6/2000) and
in Earth Times Conference News Daily (7/16/2001). It has been cited
in columns and op-eds in newspapers (e.g. the Washington Post) and
on web sites worldwide for more than two years. It has also been
entered into the Congressional Record twice (once during Senate
testimony for the budget for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
once during a House hearing on environmental benefits of nuclear
power). Dr. Beller has spoken in many fora, including a presentation
to Congressional staffers in the U.S. Capitol in May 2000, a public
lecture during the month-long Marie Curie Celebration in Michigan in
October 2000, at many universities, and to local sections of the
American Nuclear Society and Trout Unlimited. Some
of these presentations have resulted in lengthy, pro-nuclear
articles in local newspapers. Dr. Beller has also appeared in
debates about nuclear power and waste disposal on National Public
Radio and Public Broadcasting System TV. In May of 2002 he organized
the pro-nuclear side of and participated in a debate that was
arranged for the media in the living room of Paul Newman’s and
Joanne Woodward’s apartment on Fifth Avenue in New York City.
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