One of the most famous battles against nuclear energy in the US, a struggle whose effects remain important to this day, was fought on Long Island. The saga involved nearly two decades of highly publicized effort marred by many failures in management and a well-organized opposition effort that successfully turned out thousands of people willing…
Conventional wisdom tells us that “Environmentalists” worried about one or more of the below complaints have influenced world opinion and encouraged the current negative investment perception that surrounds new nuclear power plants: Nuclear plants are not completely safe Nuclear energy technology leads to dispersal of nuclear weapons capability Nuclear energy plants are massive and lead…
A couple of weeks ago, I posted an article about a Tim Wirth pep talk to the natural gas industry that I called the best smoking gun ever. When I went on Clean Skies TV for an interview, Susan McGinnis challenged me on that assertion stating that Wirth never said anything bad about nuclear energy,…
As a reminder, the words “smoking gun” in a blog title here at Atomic Insights means that the post will be about a direct attack on the use of nuclear fission by someone who represents one of its many energy supply competitors – oil, coal, natural gas or one of the weaker alternative energy sources….
Several times in the past week, I have pointed out just how much money is involved in pushing people to act in certain ways in response to the threat of global climate change. It seems so obvious to me that the most useful tool in shifting our economy to sustainability without emitting carbon dioxide into…
As regular readers know, I harbor cynical thoughts about the motivations of some anti-nuclear commentators. I honestly believe that many of them are supportive of continued market domination by coal, oil and/or gas. I even have a series of blogs with the keyword of “smoking gun” (go ahead, do a search in that little block…
The old “smoking” industries are not the only ones who have a direct financial incentive in shutting out the nuclear competition. Here is a quote from a March 6, 2009 article on Energy Daily titled Analysis: Nuclear vs. renewable in Germany: In 2020 renewables are to satisfy 47 percent of Germany’s power mix — more…
I have always tried to be clear when I talk about how fossil fuel interests have been responsible for much of the success of the organized anti-nuclear movement. Many people in various discussion forums have misinterpreted my words “fossil fuel interests” as meaning just major oil companies, but I am trying to encompass a larger…
I have recently become an active participant on TheEnergyCollective.com. It is an interesting site that is aggregating commentary and blog feeds from diverse source that include Dan Yurman’s Idaho Samizdat and Joe Romm’s Climate Progress. This morning I ran across a fascinating “inside baseball” post from Henry Gentenaar a managing partner at Reluminati, LLC. Henry…
If you have followed any of my recent Twitter posts, (atomicrod) you will note that I have been involved for a day or so in an ongoing discussion with an anti-nuclear California lawyer from Marina Del Rey named Roger Sowell on Joe Romm’s Climate Progress blog. It has been an enlightening experience. Here is one…
Eric Berger, writing for the Houston Chronicle, published an article on Friday titled Nuclear power’s core of support gains strength. He provided some opposing view commentary from Peter Hartley, a man he describes as “an energy expert at Rice University”. Here are some of the quotes from the article: “I just don’t think there will…
Many observers of the nuclear industry will point to the disestablishment of the Atomic Energy Commission as one of the major turning points in the development of nuclear power as growing alternative energy source. For nearly 30 years from 1946-1974, the AEC was a focused agency responsible for all aspects of nuclear power research, development…