In the above clip from a recent interview on CNN’s Piers Morgan, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. describes how Pandora’s Promise advocates that canceling the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) project in 1994 was a mistake. RFK Jr., a man from an iconic family that has been a part of the US moneyed Establishment for the better…
In a brief editorial published on October 14, 2013, the New York Times editorial board admitted what many of us had suspected for many years – it is strongly opposed to the use of nuclear energy and believes that its use should be halted. The editorial was titled Fukushima Politics; it is quite possible that…
From the moment he first started thinking about producing a documentary that showed nuclear energy in a favorable light, Robert Stone, the director of Pandora’s Promise, recognized that he was going to be under intense scrutiny from people that adamantly oppose nuclear technology. As part of his plan to ensure that the important message of…
On October 9, 2013, David Letterman interviewed Mark Z. Jacobson, a leading proponent of a 100% renewable energy future. He described Jacobson as a man with a plan that should make us all more optimistic; that plan describes a world that has a completely changed energy supply system that does not threaten us with catastrophic…
IEEE Spectrum recently published an article titled Former NRC Chairman Says US Nuclear Industry is Going Away that included a few choice quotes about Greg Jaczko that put me into a feisty mood. As regular Atomic Insights readers know; I have no love and virtually no respect for the man. He has spent at least…
Dr. Edwin Lyman, Senior Scientist, Global Security Program, Union of Concerned Scientists, has published a paper titled Small Isn’t Always Beautiful: Safety, Security, and Cost Concerns about Small Modular Reactors that poses many questions about the development of SMRs. I’ve seen Dr. Lyman taking notes and asking questions at a number of SMR related conferences;…
Recently, John Dudley Miller published a book review in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists titled A false fix for climate change. The review is sharply critical of a terrific little e-book written by Mark Lynas titled Nuclear 2.0: Why A Green Future Needs Nuclear Power. Mr. Miller makes a number of erroneous statements in his…
There has been a whole spate of scary stories published in the past couple of weeks about various aspects of nuclear energy. While the reason for the flood is not entirely clear, some atomic advocates — including me — believe that people who have invested their careers in working to halt nuclear energy are worried…
There was a flurry of attention in the press last week when a political science professor held a press conference to tell the world that one of his students had written a paper concluding that all of the nuclear power plants in the United States were vulnerable to a terrorist attack. For unpublished reasons, a…
A couple of days ago, I wrote about my discovery that Robert O. Anderson, a long time leader in the global petroleum business, had provided the seed money that David Brower used to fund Friends of the Earth, an organization that has been fighting against nuclear energy for more than 40 years. I pointed out…
In 1969, Robert O. Anderson, an oil man whose long career included a stint as the Chief Executive Officer of Atlantic Richfield (ARCO) (now part of BP, the company formerly known as British Petroleum), gave David Brower $200,000 to start Friends of the Earth (FOE). Here is a quote from that organization’s page about nuclear…
Mark Cooper’s academic and professional background shows little evidence of formal training or experience in economics or cost analysis. Though his recent report indicating that nuclear power plants in the United States are suffering from competitive cost pressures contains some accurate information, it does a poor job of identifying the cost drivers and makes no…