Admiral Skip Bowman places two priorities squarely at the top in his life: spending time with his family and promoting nuclear power as a solution to both global warming and the nation’s energy needs.
Bowman stepped into his current role as president and CEO of the nuclear industry’s policy organization, the Nuclear Energy Institute, in 2005 after a successful 38-year career in the U.S. Navy. During that career, he served as director of the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program for nearly a decade. At the same time, he was the deputy administrator of naval reactors in the National Nuclear Security Administration at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). In these dual positions, Bowman headed operations of 103 reactors aboard aircraft carriers and submarines, as well as four training sites and two DOE laboratories. When he was a ship commander, Bowman’s crews won many awards, including five “E” Ribbon awards for battle efficiency.
Bowman acknowledges widespread concerns about civilian nuclear power plants, such as the potential for nuclear proliferation and the problem of storing used fuel rods. But he believes that recycling methods now being tested could solve those problems. He says the new techniques would harvest up to 90 percent of the rods’ energy while binding the plutonium waste product to elements that render the plutonium unusable in nuclear weapons.
Don’t settle for half the story.
Get paywall-free access to technology news for the here and now.