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Editor's Note: Here at NEI, we're keeping a close eye on Pandora's Promise , a documentary film about how many prominent environmentalists have changed their minds about nuclear energy because of concerns about climate change. To see the least, I'm looking forward to seeing the film,...

This suggests an academic freak-out: Geo-engineering techniques such as whitening clouds by adding fine sprays of water vapor, or adding aerosols to the upper atmosphere have been ridiculed in some quarters but welcomed elsewhere. Wadhams proposes the use of thorium-fuelled reactors, being tested in...

California’s Environmental Protection Agency is required to prepare what are called “periodic science reports on the potential impacts of climate change on the California economy.” This is carried out by the Climate Change Center within the California Energy Commission . The overarching findings contained...

Each year I wait with anticipation to find out whether the groundhog will see his shadow and winter will continue, or if he won’t see his shadow and spring will come early. Although I know it is just folklore, it is still interesting to see what weather patterns Punxsutawney Phil will predict. Much like...

A certain cognitive dissonance : Building new nuclear power stations will make it harder for the UK to switch to renewable energy, said one of the top German officials leading the country's nuclear energy phase-out. And why might that be? Jochen Flasbarth, president of the Environmental Protection...

Earlier this year, the Fort Calhoun nuclear facility in Nebraska was surrounded by the Missouri River, which jumped its banks due to a strong winter runoff and heavy spring rains. That flood was characterized as a 100-year event.  Is a 100-year event like the cicadas that swarm the Washington area...

The two big posts everyone was raving about over the weekend come from Depleted Cranium’s Steve Packard and Brave New Climate’s Barry Brook. Steve clearly spent a great deal of man-hours providing a number of reasons Why You Can’t Build a Bomb From Spent Fuel . As well, Barry Brook always gets a heavy...

Paul Genoa, NEI’s Director of Policy Development, has posted to The National Journal’s Copenhagen Insider blog. This is the entire post, but do pay a visit over to The National Journal for all the latest at COP15. Here is Mr. Genoa’s post: Reducing poverty and human suffering in the least developed countries...

A bipartisan trio of Senators presented a framework on climate change. The framework is focused on energy security and job creation and is admirably broad based in its energy approach. Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) aim to create legislation that can find...

Well, almost a decade. The Kyoto Protocol did not have much use for nuclear energy and excluded it from favored energy sources. However, the leaked Danish accord – which seems unlikely to become the final document – see our post below for more on that – does not try to pick winners and losers: The international...

Obama administration officials claim that the EPA announcement and the opening of the Copenhagen Climate Conference are "coincidental." Except that the administration knew when the conference was starting so could have chosen to hold the announcement. Not choosing to wait is a pretty good definition...

Now, Copenhagen is hosting the COP15 conference but Denmark is not the guiding force behind it – the U.N. just likes to put its big meetings in different member countries (COP14 was in Poland, for example.) Still, we were curious to know where the Danes are with nuclear energy and happily, well, unhappily...

Have you heard ? A much-anticipated global meeting of nearly 200 nations — all seeking what has so far been elusive common ground on the issue of climate change — began [in Copenhagen] on Monday with an impassioned airing of what leaders here called the political and moral imperatives at hand. This is...

If you’re not too busy during this second week of my favorite holiday month, there are a number of readings on nuclear energy I recommend (in no particular order). First is from Brian Wang who’s the main writer at Next Big Future . Brian, in a rebuttal to Michael Dittmar’s series at The Oil Drum claiming...

If you’ve been following the health care or climate change debates, you know that your local newspaper will run a story each day whether or not anything significant happened that day because of the intense interest in the subjects. Some stories can roll on for a good long time before anything resembling...

Generally speaking, folks who dislike nuclear energy have lost their footing a bit because the pressing energy issue of the day – climate change – seeks solutions that nuclear energy readily provides. A fair number of former anti-nuclear   advocates have put the issues on the scale and found the...

Never say never, but the cap-and-trade provisions in the Kerry-Boxer climate change bill have made a number of Senators nervous about supporting it. A number of Republicans have termed it cap-and-tax and some Democrats are not inclined toward it either. For example, take this bit from the Times West...

Louise Gray at the Telegraph (U.K.) clears it all up for us : Professor Ian Plimer, a geologist from Adelaide University, argues that a recent rise in temperature around the world is caused by solar cycles and other "extra terrestrial" forces. Extra terrestrial? That sounds like fun. But it...

The third part of our series that debunks Amory Lovins’ study which criticizes Stewart Brand’s nuclear chapter discusses the need for all emission-free technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The “portfolio myth” On page 82, Brand states that : climate change is so serious a matter, we have...

Shall we see what’s doing in the world of nuclear energy? Aris Candris, the CEO of Westinghouse makes the case in the Wall Street Journal: Nuclear energy … must play a larger role in our effort to become and remain energy independent, and to reduce carbon emissions. The growth of nuclear power will also...

We can’t really call yesterday’s passage of the Kerry-Boxer climate change bill through the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee tainted, because the bill itself is almost pristine. No amendments were added to it, nothing was removed. But the process lacked a – certain – something: The Senate...

We have to give our friends in the coal industry credit – it has had a pretty good showing in the climate change bill, even if the goal of the bill builds on the hope that carbon capture and sequestration proves itself, and it survived the widespread attention given to the clean coal carolers , a well...

And day last. We’re going to focus today on John Rowe, Exelon CEO. As we said over the last two days, the focus of the hearings has been general in nature, alighting on nuclear energy and other energy generators only occasionally. But Rowe dove straight into provisions that should be considered if the...

As you might expect, the second of three days of the hearings on the climate change bill saw some themes emerge. First, the tenor more-or-less avoids talking about specific energy generators even when representatives of relevant companies are present. Natural gas probably picked up the most traction...

The industry’s release of the nuclear title has multiple goals. One, of course, is to provide information to Congress as it considers the Kerry-Boxer climate change legislation, to indicate how the industry can help government achieve its goals. But that information is fully public, so it has a role...