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Dieter Helm has generously shared an April 2013 article written for Prospect Magazine titled Stumbling towards crisis. In that article Helm points to US energy decision making as a good example that serves as a contrast to UK energy policy making. He sees chosen path in the UK as almost guaranteeing...

At The Energy Collective, there is an active comment thread on a post titled Is Bill McKibben Really Serious About Climate Change? that has been sustained since March 8, 2013. Recently there was a comment that provided an opportunity to address a frequently expressed meme that is often used by people...

Utility companies that operate both coal and nuclear power plants rarely use the important communications techniques of comparison and contrast to help people understand the benefits of nuclear energy. There is some business logic behind that policy. I have a different set of interests and am not constrained...

Warning – these ads from Bruce Power might offend those who make their living by selling coal, financing coal, transporting coal, burning coal, mining coal, or selling systems that attempt to make coal cleaner. The general theme of the series is: We’re proud to be nukes! Supplying clean,...

Now this is the kind of messaging I keep trying to tell my colleagues that the nuclear industry should be unashamedly sharing. I could not care less if it happens to offend some dirt burners. As the ad shows, when nuclear energy production increases, energy production from competitive fuel sources decreases...

Occasionally I run into people who are opposed to nuclear who tell me that they fight it because we do not need the power. They seem to forget that about 35-50% of the electricity in the United States comes from burning as much as 1.1 billion tons of coal per year. It is important to [...] The post Coal...

A recurring theme on Atomic Insights is that nuclear energy is a disruptive technology that has the potential to reshuffle the wealth and power underpinning what my generation called “The Establishment”, which is essentially the same as what some now call the 1%. Though it may be a bit of...

A good friend sent me a link to an article by Brian Dockstader titled The Coal Industry Wants You In The Dark that does a reasonably good job of deconstructing the messages in the following 30 second television ad, which was paid for by a coal industry lobby group called “American Coalition for...

I just spent a fascinating couple of hours watching an ABC (Australian Broadcasting Company) documentary titled I Can Change Your Mind About..Climate. Aside: Before that turns you off by making you think that the documentary lasts for hours, please understand that it can take me a long time to watch...

As a South Central Virginia resident, I have something in common with the people in the Pacific Northwest who are concerned about the impact of coal exports from the US. Numerous coal laden trains pass through Lynchburg every day, many of them headed to the large coal terminal in Newport News. I can...

I hope this helps you get pumped up to work to improve the American economy and restore American power. I admit it, I am feeling a little sarcastic this morning. Perhaps a better word would be jealous – why doesn’t my industry run ads like these? ...read more

If you are a political junkie who happens to have a primary addiction to energy issues, you need to read a terrific article in the August 5, 2009 New York Times titled 'Fragile Compromise' of Power Plant CEOs in Doubt as Senate Climate Debate Nears . Darren Samuelsohn and Katherine Ling apparently...

A friend sent me a link to an NY Times Green Inc. blog post titled The Coen Brothers Do Clean Coal with a new commercial from Reality.org. Since the clip is from YouTube, I figured there is no reason for them to have all of the fun. Let me know what you think: ...read more

It continues to frustrate me that mainstream environmental groups cannot bring themselves to change their political alignment to include acceptance that nuclear fission power is a real alternative to fossil fuel combustion. I feel like I have so much in common with most members of the Sierra Club - I...

Melanie Warner wrote a 2000 word article for the business section of the New York Times titled Is America Ready to Quit Coal , that was published online on February 14, 2009. (There is also a note on the article that indicates that a version of it appeared in the print edition on February 15, 2009 on...

The Guardian UK Observer has an article in the February 15, 2008 edition titled Coal at centre of fierce new climate battle . According to this article, some energy "experts" believe that countries like China and India are destined to burn coal in ever increasing quantities simply because it...

In the Sunday, February 15, 2009 edition of TimesOnline (London) , James Lovelock leads off a column supportive of nuclear power with a hypothetical story line. His hypothesis, nearly as interesting and potentially as conception altering as his famous Gaia theory, is that creative writers missed an opportunity...

One of the clubs used to batter atomic power advocates is the old story of indigenous people exploitation during the uranium mining boom of the 1950s and 1960s. The way the story is told, the uranium extracted from Navajo tribal land came at great cost to the health and welfare of the miners and their...

I have spent the last few hours reading some interesting, sometimes detailed articles about nuclear power in India, Texas, Vermont and South Carolina. I also re-read a thought provoking article about how the neo-cons "killed" nuclear power. Though the author of that article used the word "killed"...

While browsing through this morning's Wall Street Journal (20 January 2009) I could not help noticing the below full page ad from Peabody Coal which claims to be the world's largest private sector coal company. It was in a prominent location for the the political junkie class - a special Inauguration...

A friend of mine just sent me a link to a desmogblog.com post describing a proud friends and family newsletter from a Virginia based public relations firm called Hawthorn Group. The newsletter provided numerous details about how Hawthorn Group used a focused set of traditional public relations tactics...

I have been getting into conversations with people about nuclear energy for several decades now, and nearly every one of them eventually gets around to "the waste issue". It happened to me again on Monday night during an interesting conversation with a politically active federal government...

An interview conducted in January 2008 and posted on line ever since is causing a bit of a stir in the blogosphere, on talk radio, and in the mainstream press. Part of the reason for the attention is the fact that some of the states where polls indicate a close balance between the two major party candidates...

American Municipal Power-Ohio , a nonprofit wholesale power supplier and services provider, is planning to build American Municipal Power Generating Station (AMPGS), a 1000 MWe coal fired power plant in Meigs County, Ohio . The organization's members are interested in building a plant that gives...