Alvin M. Weinberg

Alvin M. Weinberg was an American physicist and longtime director of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory who was one of the principal developers of the pressurized water reactor design, the technology that became the dominant type of nuclear power reactor used for electricity generation worldwide. Weinberg and his colleagues at Oak Ridge also pursued the molten salt reactor concept, an alternative design using thorium fuel dissolved in molten salt that he championed for its inherent safety advantages, though it was not commercialized at the time. He was an outspoken advocate for the peaceful, civilian use of nuclear power throughout his career, coining the term Faustian bargain to describe the trade-off between nuclear energys abundance and the vigilance its safety demands. His early technical leadership shaped the reactor technology that most of the worlds nuclear power plants still use today.