Recent comments

Frank Jablonski here. Neither of the presentations that I have made to advocate nuclear energy - - a grand total of two, one in 2008 and the recent one in 2009 - - were underwritten by NEI. My recent presentation before Wisconsin legislative committees was an unpaid volunteer effort. I prepared the presentation, drove my car up to Two Rivers, paid for my own mileage and cup of tea, and took an unpaid day away from the office to do it. Under Wisconsin’s lobbying laws, this unpaid work may nonetheless have to be “allocated” to NEI - - it seems that once you register to lobby for someone on something, everything you do on that subject that involves the legislature is presumed be on behalf of that someone. The presentation was, however, my effort, made on my dime and my time, about something I believe in. Much of my nuclear work is that way. NEI did not even see the presentation until I gave it before the committee. NEI has, fairly recently, started to under-write some of my pro-nuclear work. I bill them for what I classify as “core” lobbying work, specifically conversations with legislators, or their staff in legislative offices, and related research, preparation and coordination. Talking to people like you and writing clarification pieces like this, for example, are not part of it. For the work that I do for NEI, I bill at a reduced rate, because I see nuclear energy advocacy as public interest work. In this aspect, my work with NEI is indistinguishable from arrangements that have facilitated other public interest work I have been privileged to do for environmental and renewable energy advocacy organizations. Your article implies NEI is exploiting my environmental credentials to change public attitudes on nuclear energy. If this is the case, NEI would simply be reproducing an approach used by anti-nuclear organizations, such UCS, which touts David Lochbaum’s past association with the nuclear industry to lend credibility to its criticisms. Is such a tactic legitimate on one side of the debate but not the other? But, about those public attitudes . . . independent polling shows the public already supports nuclear energy. (http://www.gallup.com/poll/117025/Support-Nuclear-Energy-Inches-New-High.aspx) In addition, there is a trend of environmentalists changing their perspective on nuclear energy, and feeling compelled to speak out about it. Several prominent environmentalists in the United Kingdom, for example, recently “switched.” (http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/features/article2265768.ece) One of them is another former leader in Greenpeace. I would guess these individuals probably also have strong feelings about the need for public interest regulation of the industry, further technological development of even better nuclear reactor designs and other factors that were discussed in your interview of me, but that did not make it into your article. I initiated my reconsideration of nuclear energy because I wanted to think it through as an option in light of the climate crisis. Once I got deep into the reconsideration, hundreds of hours, I realized that a number of my held beliefs were wrong. If people want to challenge themselves to think carefully, with numbers, about the bracing energy and environmental issues we face, and how various strategies might work or fall short in the real world where change has to happen, I recommend this free e-book (http://www.withouthotair.com/). The book is not pro-nuclear, but it is pro-numbers. If they want to see a considered pro-nuclear perspective, I recommend Rod Adams’ blog (http://atomicinsights.blogspot.com/) as one good starting point. Think. Change. Act.