Dr Robert L. Hirsch

Dr. Hirsch is a consultant in energy, technology, and management. His professional experience includes decades in research, development, and commercial applications of energy technologies across a wide range of organizations. He has performed and managed research and technology programs in oil and natural gas exploration and production, petroleum refining, synthetic fuels, fusion, fission, electric power, renewables, geothermal energy, physics, defense technologies, national defense, chemical analysis, and thermoelectric and thermionic conversion.

His background includes a range of positions including:

 Senior Energy Advisor, MISI (Energy analysis)

 Senior Energy Program Advisor, SAIC (World oil production)

 Senior Energy Analyst, RAND (Various energy technologies)

 Vice President, Electric Power Research Institute

 Vice President & Manager of Research and Technical Services ARCO. (Oil and gas exploration and production)

 Founder and CEO of APTI (Defense technologies).

 Manager of Exxon’s synthetic fuels research laboratory

 Manager of Petroleum Exploratory Research at Exxon. (Refining R & D)

 Assistant Administrator, U.S. Energy Research and Development Admin. (ERDA) (Solar, fusion, geothermal & research)

 Director of fusion research at the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and ERDA

 Project Leader on Inertial Electrostatic Fusion Research at ITT Farnsworth

 Research staff member, SNAP Reactor Program, Atomics International

Dr. Hirsch holds 16 patents and has authored over 50 publications. He is past Chairman of the Board on Energy and Environmental Systems of the National Research Council, the operating arm of the National Academies of Sciences and has served on a number of National Research Council study committees.

His recognitions include National Associate of the National Academies, first recipient of the University of Illinois NPRE Distinguished Alumni Award, University of Michigan Alumni Society Merit Award, Eminent Engineer of Tau Beta Pi engineering honorary, University of Illinois Alumni Honor Award for Distinguished Service in Engineering, American Nuclear Society Outstanding Achievement Award, Distinguished Fellow of the Center for Theoretical Studies, University of Miami, Fusion Power Associates Leadership Award, ERDA Special Achievement Award, AEC Distinguished Service Award, William A. Jump Memorial Foundation Meritorious Award, & AEC Special Fellowship in Nuclear Science and Engineering.

Hirsch fervently believes that the public needs and deserves understandable reading on energy technologies, because energy and related by-products are fundamental to our vary existence and are often taken for granted.

His sincere hope is that this book will help the reader better appreciate the blessings and limits of energy technologies, because the energy picture is often muddied, manipulated, and politized, besides being challenging to understand.