By MARK MONTIE
Kevan Weaver never expected a physics degree from BYU would lead him into international politics.
In February, Weaver and his team of researchers placed a load of experimental materials in a reactor core in the Idaho desert to bake.
Meanwhile, he’s been telling everyone in the world who will listen how they’re holding up — not only because he’s excited about his job, but also to find someone willing to pay for the next phase of research. The French and Japanese are interested in swapping data, but Weaver has found science can be slow when culture is involved.
As head of a U.S. team of researchers and co-chair of an international research committee, Weaver is trying to develop a nuclear reactor that may lead to eliminating stockpiles of high-level radioactive waste. He said it was at BYU that nuclear physics started to become a passion for him.
Weaver lives in Idaho Falls, Idaho with his family where he oversees development of the Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory.
The GFR will be different from any commercial reactor now in use because it will run on spent fuel from other reactors and convert that fuel from radioactive waste that would take 100,000 years to decay into something that will take only 300 years.
While being much more economical to operate, this will dramatically ease burdens of storing the waste.
“Three hundred years, we do know how to take care of,” Weaver said. “We can build buildings that last 300 years.”
Depending on funding, Weaver said the GFR could be ready for commercial construction in 2025.
He said he sees nuclear energy as a superior alternative to fossil fuels because it is cleaner, safer and uses a much more abundant fuel supply. He said he’s convinced nuclear energy is a necessity, and would like to see it producing 50 percent of the United States’ electricity, whereas today it produces only 20 percent.
“It is a mission for me,” Weaver said. “Before I even came up here to work, it had already started to become a philosophy for me that this is something that we need to take a closer look at. … When you compare other sources of energy and what they take to be able to produce that energy, nuclear starts to make a lot of sense, even environmentally.”
His wife, Shari, said he enjoys talking about nuclear energy whenever he gets a chance.
“He’s very, I’d say, passionate about it,” she said. “He’s always willing to tell people what he thinks about it and why nuclear energy is such an important resource.”
Weaver said he always knew he wanted to attend BYU, but he took time to settle on a major. Before deciding on physics, Weaver applied to medical school, but was not accepted. He also dabbled in music and dance and would have tried out for the gymnastic team if he hadn’t had knee problems. Weaver met Shari in a BYU ballroom dance class, but she was the third girl in the class he dated.
“My wife, I did think she was cute and everything,” Weaver said. “I always tell her, ‘Well, I was going to ask you out,’ but she ended up asking me out first, actually.”
Weaver said he didn’t decide to pursue nuclear engineering as a career until after graduating from BYU in 1993. When he started looking at graduate schools he found the University of Utah had a reactor in the basement of its engineering building and decided that’s where he was destined to go. In 1998, Weaver received a PhD from the U of U.
He said he got his current leadership roles with the GFR mainly because he was doing research that led into those positions. He also attributes his success to hard work and learning to be a team player.
Weaver and other researchers at the INEEL involve student interns in much of their research.
Although BYU doesn’t have a nuclear engineering program, some students have gained useful experience interning at the INEEL.
Lisa Boardman, a sophomore from Idaho Falls, Idaho in civil and environmental engineering, is returning to the INEEL this summer for her fourth internship. She spent last summer writing technical safety documents for facilities at the lab.
“It’s really good experience for me in technical writing because that’s something a lot of engineers kind of don’t have as their strong point,” Boardman said. “So I’m able to develop that even before I get out to the work force.”
Although there is no deadline for applying, Una Tyng, who is in charge of internships at the INEEL, said the sooner students apply for the internship the better.
Tyng said the INEEL uses the internship program as a recruiting tool for its future workforce. In a typical year anywhere from six to 20 former interns may be hired for full-time work.
Students can apply for internships on the INEEL’s Web site at www.inel.gov.
Weaver said he has been satisfied with what he has accomplished in his career.
“The difference you make is whatever you make it to be,” he said.
Weaver travels around the world to collaborate on designs and to present research results. This month he will meet with the GFR committee in Juelich, Germany. He has been able to improve his Spanish, which he learned on his mission to Peru for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, speaking at annual meetings of the Mexican Nuclear Society. This year, he said he plans to bring his wife and five kids with him to the convention in Cancun.
Even with his busy traveling schedule, Weaver finds time to spend away from nuclear energy. He plays percussion with the Teton Chamber Orchestra, and teaches a primary class to six-year-olds in his ward.
