Finally – A simple, direct, pro-nuclear advertisement
I’ve been complaining about the lack of nuclear energy advertising for a long time. If you visit here regularly, you’ve seen the commercials from Bruce Power. You might even remember the Funkytown themed commercial from Areva.
I think this commercial from Westinghouse is in the same league. Please let me know if you see it running in your town or on your favorite television shows.
Here is the text of the commercial:
Did you know that nuclear energy is the largest source of clean air energy in the world? No carbon emissions. And no Air Pollution. Just safe, clean and reliable electricity. Westinghouse Electric Company is the leader in commercial nuclear energy technology. And the plants that we design and build don’t just generate electricity. The provide cleaner air, create jobs and help sustain communities where they operate. Westinghouse. We are nuclear energy
I think CEO Danny Roderick’s face and voice belongs in this commercial instead of a quidam’s.
He impressed me on BNN in Canada.
I think I recognize one of the yellow bridges in Pittsburgh. Fitting, since Westinghouse did (stll does, maybe) a lot of work on nuclear energy there.
When I was a kid, I remember seeing the Westinghouse Nuclear sign along the Turnpike. Back then, Westinghouse buildings had blue cube shaped signs on a post in the front lawn. Always made me think of Pittsburgh as a futuristic place. I mean, 4 lane highways, shopping malls 3 stories high and nuclear power?!?
Yeaaaa!
Long time no see. What a great gas attack. I could watch it over and over.
Thank you for bringing it to our attention.
Our headquarters are in Cranberry Township, which is about 25 minutes north of Pittsburgh. We have somewhere between 3500 and 4000 people here. We also have numerous other locations in this area including our R&D building out on the parkway (STC), Blairsville Zirc tubing shop, and Waltz Mill, which is our field services organization (and an awesome place to tour).
We just have to teach him how to say nuclear instead of nukuler and we’ll be 100% set!! But you’re 100% right. Danny isn’t scared to bring up our advantages and he won’t apologize for what all of us do in the nuclear industry, whether that be Westinghouse or our competitors. He realizes we all succeed or fail as one, whether we are separate companies or not.
Being openly pro nuclear can get you fired !
Delphine Batho, former ecology minister of France and current energy minister, was fired by Prime Minister Hollande.
She is openly pro nuclear. The PM wants nuclear to go from 75% to 50% in the medium to long term.
Delphine resisted. Now she is out.
Delphine is of course a green. A pro nuclear green who opposed PM Hollande’s closing of France’s oldest nuclear reactor, because, well it is the oldest ….
The green in France are not all anti nuclear. Only the Greenpeace freaks are.
Daniel, your claims are very strange. It’s really difficult to clearly qualify Batho as either pro or anti-nuclear. She came to the position with obviously not a lot of knowledge of the domain, and therefore not a very strongly stated position on it.
– On one side, she seems to have a rather close relationship with Bruno Rebelle, a former member of Greenpeace who is a prominent figure of the French anti-nuclear movement, and whom she selected to represent the anti-side in the current French energy debate,
– But on the other hand, she wasn’t really making strong anti statement herself, beyond saying that the stated strategy of Hollande of reducing it wouldn’t be dropped, and in effect by doing little she has rather helped the pro-side take control of the debate, and push it’s view a lot better that it expected to be able to initially (in my opinion).
On the whole, seeing her one day clearly in the anti camp seems much more likely than the opposite.
A clear explanation is missing about why she was fired, just a complaint about her 7% less ecology budget hardly explain her quick and abrupt dismissal. Authueil a well-known political observer on the web has made some comment that interpret it almost exclusively as the result of internal power relationship inside the socialist party and unconvincing performance at her ministry, having lost her political sponsorship from former presidential candidate, as well as former Hollande companion, Ségolène Royal, and also poor relation and management of collaborators, and failure to conclusively advance her current caseload.
Green (which she’s not a member of, being socialist) are rather disappointed to see her go but mostly because of the reason, that low ecology budget, and the implication, the government will put it’s priority on reducing deficits rather than doing anything they wish. Actors in the current energy debate regretted her departure, including Bruno Rebelle,
But at the end it’s not all that important. She wasn’t a socialist heavyweight, and she’s history at the moment.
What counts is what the new minister will do.
That’s not yet very clear. Whilst not a known figure for most people in France, it appears he’s actually been rather strongly involved in shaping the energy & environment policies of socialists since a long time. He also has a lot more political clout and experience than Batho, which means he’ll be much more effective in orienting policies.
There’s no word of him holding a specific line about nuclear, instead we hear about a rather surprising mix of pro-hunting, pro-foie gras (therefore some ranting against America about it’s banning rules, he’s a deputy of main foie gras producing area), anti-GMO and anti-shale gas.
The last two are worrying for me, because they paint the picture of someone who will take perceived danger about a technology as more important than the benefits it can brings. But not everybody in France will see things that way, refusing shale also means you have to accept the energy will have to come from somewhere else.
That still leaves me a bit worried about a guy who could end up having the will and being a lot more efficient at passing legislation that hurts nuclear than Batho.
On the other hand, a very positive development of the current energy debate, is to see that both the employers association *and* the workers unions got convinced anything done against the French nuclear would have very bad economic consequences.