CISAC Consulting Professor Thomas Isaacs, an expert in nuclear energy, waste disposal and nuclear security, has been named lead advisor to the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future.

DOE Secretary Steven Chu established the commission in January, at the direction of President Obama, to conduct a comprehensive review of nuclear energy policies with an emphasis on managing the "back end" of the nuclear fuel cycle-the storage, processing and disposal of nuclear waste.

According to Isaacs, the catalyst for establishing the commission was the Obama administration's 2009 decision to eliminate all funding for the national nuclear waste storage site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Isaacs, while working at DOE, led the department's nuclear waste repository siting program, and has extensive policy and work experience in a range of nuclear issues in this country and abroad.

The 15-member commission is chaired by Brent Scowcroft, former national security advisor to presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush, and former U.S. Rep. Lee Hamilton, a member of Obama's Intelligence Advisory Board and Homeland Security Advisory Council.

"Finding an acceptable long-term solution to our used nuclear fuel and nuclear waste storage needs is vital to the economic, environmental and security interests of the United States," Hamilton said. The commission's work will involve "a thorough, comprehensive review [of policies] based on the best available science," he said.

Other members of the commission include Albert Carnesale, chancellor emeritus of the University of California at Los Angeles; Susan Eisenhower, president of the Eisenhower Group, Inc.; Richard Meserve, president of the Carnegie Institution for Science and former chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission; and Phil Sharp, president of Resources for the Future.

During the commission's first public meeting on March 25-26 in Washington, D.C., Scowcroft described nuclear waste "as one of the most important problems facing the United States [and] a critically difficult problem to solve." He added, "If our country is to continue to progress in terms of adequate energy...nuclear energy has to be a vital part of that. We have to figure out what we do with the residue from nuclear activities in a safe and responsible way. That problem has vexed us for decades now."

The commission is expected to make recommendations in a draft report in mid-2011 and produce a final document by the end of 2011.

Isaacs, director for the Office of Planning and Special Studies at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, has been in residence at CISAC since 2008.