I'm way, way, waaay behind on this one, but I nonetheless want to draw your attention to two pieces on the massive, ongoing PR push from the nuclear industry.
The first is an editorial in the Columbia Journalism Review on the maddening phenomenon of mainstream news reporters accepting the claims of paid shills (i.e., Patrick Moore and Christie Todd Whitman) at face value, without making clear their relationship to the nuclear industry.
The second is a more extensive and well-documented piece called "Moore Spin: Or, How Reporters Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Nuclear Front Groups," by Diane Farsetta. It surveys the entire panoply of PR efforts underway by the nuke industry -- and quite a panoply it is. You'd almost have to admire it, if it didn't make you want to puke. And by "you" I mean "me."
Here's the kick-ass conclusion to this kick-ass piece:
Entergy [owner/operator of 10 nuke plants] and NEI [nuke industry group] spend millions of dollars doing media outreach, under their own names. Both spend millions more to lobby federal officials. From 1998 to 2004, Entergy spent $13.5 million and NEI spent $9.7 million on federal lobbying, according to the Center for Public Integrity's LobbyWatch database.
But both, while using solely their own names, failed to garner significant public support. So both formed "coalitions" and "alliances," designed to deliver essentially the same pro-nuclear message. Unlike the funders behind classic front groups, NEI and Entergy admit their role in CASEnergy or NY AREA, Mass AREA and Vermont Energy Partnership, respectively. But that disclosure is done in a whisper, with a nod and wink, and sloppy reporting takes care of the rest.
The end result is the same -- instead of a fully informed and vigorous public debate on complex energy issues, the United States is having a lopsided discussion. And the nuclear power industry isn't just dominating it; it has several seats at the table.
Read-the-whole-thing'o'meter: pegged. Especially if you're a mainstream reporter. Yeah, I'm looking at you.
New nukes? A fair shot, not a free ride
David Frum says ‘Conservatives Heart Nuke Power.’
Comments
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disdaniel Posted 7:58 am
03 Apr 2007
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Wise Merlin Posted 2:50 am
14 May 2007
Progress Energy wants to build a nuke plant in Levy county but even before the ground is purchased the Public Service Commission has ruled Progress Energy can begin charging it's customers for the cost of land purchase, planning, engineering, design and construction of the nuke plant, so Progress Energy can circumvent gathering investors, raising capital, sharing the risk with stockholders, and issuing bonds. You know, the normal path of a capitalist "publicly traded" corporation. The customers of Progress Energy will NOT be issued stock, will NOT be classified as investors, will NOT see any dividends from the profits of this nuke plant, AND will NOT be reimbursed if they never see one watt of power from this nuke plant.
TECO Energy (also a publicly traded corporation) is planning a so-called new generation "clean coal" power plant in Polk County. Within a month of the Public Service commission announcement (with no fanfare) TECO made it known that they too were looking at charging existing customers to pay the investment costs of its power plant construction. No investors, no capital, no bonds. TECO's customers would be forced to foot the bill for this plant and get no return on their investment, all the risk and none of the reward.
Isn't it nice that the state of Florida feels it's citizens do not have rights to decline investing in publicly traded corporations and forced to subsidize publicly traded corporations and that those publicly traded corporations now have an unlimited piggy bank of capital outlay at hand with NO COST to the corporation.
This is capitalism? This is government? This is another ENRON style energy theft.
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advancednano Posted 2:04 pm
05 Jun 2007
http://www.capitaleye.org/inside.asp?ID=252
Agribusiness
$159,711,080 Contributions, 2001-2006
28% Democrats 71% Republican
$448,002,616 Lobbying 2001-2005
Oil&Gas
$73,036,301 contributions 2001-2006
19% Democrats 81% Republicans
$282,566,199 Lobbying 2001-2005
Mining
$14,991,593
17% Dems 83% Republicans
$56,032,688 Lobbying
Electric Utilities
$58,240,891
32% Democrats 68% Republicans
$458,981,375 Lobbying 2001-2005
Environmental Policy
$5,530,261
87% Dems 13% Republicans
$43,105,323 Lobbying
Auto Manufacturers
$7,633,671 Contributions
33% 67%
$177,081,511 Lobbying 2001-2005
Contribution totals include money to candidates, party committees and leadership PACs.
2005-2006 totals based on data downloaded electronically from the Federal Election Commission on February 20, 2007.
The figures below are from open secrets for one year only.
Coal industry
http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.asp?Ind=E1210 ...
American Wind Energy Assn $330,000 (2006 only)
http://www.opensecrets.org/lobbyists/indusclient.asp?code ...
Clean Energy Group (2006 only) $990,000
I think money is spent and some people are paid to say things. So what. We can still filter down to what the truth is.
I support nuclear energy and no one pays me to do it. I also support conservation, efficiency, solar, wind, geothermal and anything not coal. Once we get rid of coal then we can focus on the less dangerous power sources, next on the list would be oil. I independently researched the energy issues and arrived at my own conclusions.
I think using nuclear will help and that its downsides are overblown.
Nuclear "waste" == Mostly Unburned fuel. 8% is reprocessed by France, UK, Japan (Over 5000 tons/year out of the total 66000 tons/year)
We can make higher burn reactors.
Nuclear proliferation has not killed anyone. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were by the US who were not proliferated to. Meanwhile conventional war killed 200 million in the 20th century.
The danger of nuclear power plant accidents is trivial compared to the millions that die every year from air pollution.
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