Amarillo, Texas might be the site of the first US nuclear plant in several decades

George Chapman, an entrepreneur, developer, cattle rancher and former nuclear power plant welder is building a formidable team to help him build one of the first new nuclear plants in the United States in more than a decade. The most recent of several stories about the project was written by Karen Welch Smith and published by the Amarillo Globe News on Saturday, 12 August. You can find it at AEDC adds nuke plant to agenda. Of course, the locals would all know that AEDC stands for Amarillo Economic Development Corp.

The Amarillo Globe News, a local paper with a well organized web site, is telling this story for the world to see. Though many of us in the podcasting a blogging world recognize the power of the internet and call it a new media, we do not have a monopoly on bits and electrons. There are many people in traditional media that also get the fact that there is a new way to share information with the world.

I think it is very interesting that a small paper – reported max circulation of less than 63,000 in a moderately sized town like Amarillo, Texas – which had a population of about 174,000 people as of the last census in 2000 – is taking advantage of its local access to report on a major story that is being overlooked in many larger newspapers. Soon, there will be major papers and journalists that get interested in the story, but they will find themselves scooped by the Globe News which has already been able to begin telling the story to the whole world.

We definitely live in a new era.