Robert Ferguson (physicist)

Robert Louis (Bob) Ferguson (October 26, 1932 – August 12, 2022) was a nuclear-trained physicist and a 60-year veteran in the field of nuclear energy.

Ferguson was born in Dover, Idaho, and educated by the Jesuits at Gonzaga High School (1950) and Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington, where he graduated in 1954 with a Bachelors’ of Science in physics.

The U.S. had entered into multi-lateral and bi-lateral agreements with other nations for the exchange of fission energy technology following President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace Initiative in 1953.

He married Catherine Anne "Katie" Crosby, the niece of Bing Crosby, in June 1956.

Ferguson was commissioned as an officer after training with the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC).

He attended Ordnance Guided Missile School at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, and was then transferred to White Sands Proving Ground in 1956.

He served as 1st Lieutenant in the U.S. Army Ordnance Corps at White Sands, New Mexico, until 1957.

His career in the Army included temporary duty at the Pentagon and in Australia during the testing of guided missiles.

General Electric at Hanford: Ferguson began his career in the nuclear field when he joined General Electric at the Hanford Site, known as the Hanford Works in 1957.

He trained and worked as a reactor physicist and reactor operations supervisor at the historic B Reactor, the first full-scale nuclear reactor in the world.

The B Reactor produced the plutonium used in the first nuclear detonation test at Alamogordo, New Mexico, and for “The Fat Man” atomic bomb, which was dropped on Nagasaki to end World War II.

Chicago Operations Office at Argonne: In 1961, Ferguson joined the AEC's Chicago Operations Office at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) with the intention of turning his career toward peaceful uses of nuclear technology.

He was sent to attend the historic Oak Ridge School of Reactor Technology (ORSORT), which was initiated by Alvin M. Weinberg, director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, father of the nuclear navy, for an accelerated course in all aspects of nuclear reactor safety.

On returning to Argonne, Ferguson participated in the design, construction, and operational safety review of the AEC's Second Round Commercial Reactor Demonstration Program, the Space Nuclear Program, and research reactors at ANL in Illinois, the National Reactor Testing Station (NRTS), now known as Idaho National Laboratory, and Atomics International's Santa Susana Field Laboratory in California.

Ferguson assumed project management responsibilities for reactor and high energy physics projects including the management structure for the construction of the National Accelerator Laboratory, renamed the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab).

The Fast Flux Test Facility at Hanford: In 1972, Ferguson joined the Richland Operations Office at Hanford in Washington State where he served as Director of Contracts and Assistant Manager for Projects.

The Three Mile Island accident had a profound effect on the nuclear industry, resulting in the cancellation of 100 nuclear plants planned or ordered between 1972 and 1983.

In 1973, he formed the Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF) Project Office and assumed total responsibility for the Hanford Engineering Development Laboratory's breeder reactor program and construction of the FFTF experimental fast neutron reactor.

He was best known for being appointed the first Deputy Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Programs for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) by the first Energy Secretary, James Schlesinger, serving from 1978 to 1980 during President Jimmy Carter's administration.

Deputy Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Programs: In 1978, Ferguson was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy by the first Secretary of Energy, James R. Schlesinger.

During this eventful two-year period, Ferguson traveled extensively to manage and implement President Jimmy Carter's Nonproliferation Alternative Systems Assessment Program (NASAP) and the International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Study (INFCE), which was jointly operated with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), as well as bilateral technical exchanges with England, France, Italy, West Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union regarding nuclear energy.

Ferguson spent much of his early time at DOE in technology exchange meetings with foreign countries explaining President Carter's non-proliferation policy, which stopped indefinitely the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel out of concerns that it presented a serious threat of nuclear weapons proliferation.

By 1978, the U.S. led the world in numbers and efficiency of nuclear power plants.

The chemistry of wartime reprocessing had been adapted to the commercial fuel cycle.

Experimental breeder reactors, which could burn plutonium fuel more efficiently and also make more new plutonium fuel than it could consume, had furnished experience for the design and construction of commercial-sized demonstration plants.

The European nations, Russia and Japan particularly, were building nuclear power plants and looking ahead to breeder reactors for the future.

Therefore, President Carter's dramatic changes in U.S. nuclear energy policy to discontinue reprocessing spent nuclear fuel and terminate the U.S. Breeder Reactor Program, a program Ferguson himself had worked on and believed in, were abrupt and difficult for most countries to understand.

Carter hoped that in setting this example, the U.S. would encourage other nations to follow its lead.

Most nations went ahead with reprocessing and breeder development until high costs and loss of political support delayed plans in nuclear projects around the world.

Other major events that marked Ferguson's service at DOE were the gasoline shortages during the 1979 energy crisis caused by oil embargoes leveled at the United States during political upheaval in Iran, and the Three Mile Island accident at the nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania on March 28, 1979.

On April 5, 1979, several days into the accident, Ferguson and his staff from DOE traveled to the Three-Mile Island site for a first-hand understanding of the cause, the damage done, and the recovery needs.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and utility owner Metropolitan Edison had not thought to involve the DOE, so Ferguson established a liaison between the NRC and the Office of Nuclear Programs because whatever lessons could be learned from the accident could be applied to other nuclear programs within DOE.

Ferguson was also known for taking leadership of the Washington Public Power Supply System (WPPSS) in 1980 as the "no nonsense manager" during troubled times for the nuclear power industry.

Ferguson was one of three private citizens who successfully sued President Barack Obama and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for illegally shutting down the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository project.

Ferguson was the author of two books based on government mismanagement of nuclear waste and spent nuclear fuel.

Washington Public Power Supply System: In 1980, Ferguson was selected by a national recruitment firm as a candidate for Chief Executive Officer of the troubled Washington Public Power Supply System (WPPSS), now called Energy Northwest, a municipal utility.

His friend and mentor Senator Henry M. Jackson (“Scoop” Jackson) from Washington State encouraged him to take this job to get the construction projects for five nuclear power plants back on track for WPPSS, which were far behind schedule and over budget.

The Cost of Deceit & Delay: Obama and Reid's Scheme to Kill Yucca Mountain Wastes $Billions was published in 2012.

No new plants were licensed in the United States by the NRC from that time until 2012, and more than 80 anti-nuclear groups were formed in the United States out of fear of nuclear reactors after the Three Mile Island accident.

Nuclear Waste in Your Backyard: Who's to Blame and How to Fix It was published in 2014.