Recent comments

Diane - first of all, thank you for a well researched and informative piece about the public relations efforts associated with one side of the nuclear fission technology debate. Perhaps sometime you will take an equally hard look at the economic arrangements on the other side of the discussion - the groups that actively oppose the use of nuclear fission power to produce electricity in competition with coal, oil and natural gas. Though I have some acquaintances at NEI and have engaged in several discussions with them over the years, no one has ever offered to hire my services - perhaps because they realize that my opinions and public information efforts are not for sale. Perhaps it is just because my "story" is not a man bites dog story of a former anti-nuclear activist turned cautious supporter. I have been a fission fan since I was a young child and my father showed me the difference between an atomic power plant the oil burning power plants that his company was gradually shutting down as the new nuclear plants at Turkey Point and St. Lucie were coming on line. (Dad was an electrical engineer for FP&L; we used to regularly attend the annual company picnic at the Cuttler plant, one of the oil burners that got shut down.) In my professional life, I learned the details of the technology as a US naval submarine officer and eventually served as the Engineer Officer of the USS Von Steuben for a 40 month tour. Since that time, I have been writing and talking about fission to anyone who would listen - when you have lived and worked within 200 feet of an operating plant for months at a time, you learn that most of what the public knows about the technology is often misleading. As a businessman with a habit of reading about economics and trade over time, I have also learned that there are enormous rewards for fighting nuclear power that are accruing in the bank accounts of the established fossil fuel interests. By restricting the availability of a formidable competitor, the individuals, companies and government bodies that are involved in the finding, exploiting, processing, transporting, and marketing of coal, oil, natural gas, wind turbines, solar panels, emissions control equipment, and emissions certificates are able to maintain their market dominance and increase the market price for their products and services. Those products and services would be significantly less valuable in a world where fission could compete on a less restricted playing field. There are plenty of us on the web and in the blogosphere who are not lobbyists, not paid by the nuclear industry and are truly volunteers in the battle to get rid of the FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) that has been spread wide and deep for the past 50 years in opposition to the commercial use of atomic fission. (A good place to start if you are interested in building a list of active blogs that cover the topic is in the right column of the Atomic Insights Blog.) We are a diverse bunch and often argue with each other about the details of one technical solution over another, but in general we agree that fission beats combustion hands down in terms of safety, reliability, security, growth potential, and overall cost to society. Rod Adams Publisher, Atomic Insights Host and producer, The Atomic Show Podcast