Sellin' Nukes, Dissin' Wind  

Energy Bulletin has a good set of links on nuclear power today - including one on the nuclear industry's PR campaign (or propaganda campaign, for the more cynical), and a briefing paper on Advanced Nuclear Power Reactors from the Uranium Information Centre in Australia.

Twenty years after Chernobyl, the pro-nuclear lobby has decided that it's time to glue a happy face on nuclear power again. Simultaneous pro-nuclear public relations campaigns have plastered their briefs in the US and British media markets in the last couple of months. Time will tell whether they stick.

Jonathan Leake and Dan Box reported in New Statesman (The Nuclear Charm Offensive, 5/23/05) that a sudden flux of news articles about nuclear power right around the UK election last month was preceded by months of planning and the retainer of expensive PR consultants.

"Nothing had occurred politically," they said. "There had been no reports, scandals, technical breakthroughs or new policies. What had happened was that a group of journalists had taken the bait offered them by a few canny public relations experts."

...

But the real choice is not between a high-powered but dangerous nuclear future and a solar-powered, modest granola lifestyle. We will never build enough nukes to replace the immense legacy of stored sunlight that is fossil fuels. We are inevitably headed toward a different, decentralized, low energy future. If there is a human impulse toward imperialism, there is an equally strong human impulse for democracy, and I am optimistic that the future will offer fewer opportunities for despots and more for democrats.