The Nuclear Hot Seat - More on the Jaczko Controversy
Dr. Gregory Jaczko is catching quite a bit of heat.
The political season is to blame for fanning the flames to red hot.
It seems he has set off some brush fires at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and his Republican and Democratic colleagues are now upset with Jaczko’s leadership.
Some of the criticism of Jaczko, a Democrat, is lingering bad feelings about his role in deep-sixing plans to store commercial power plant nuclear waste in Nevada. His former boss, Rep. Ed Markey, says the wolves are circling Jaczko because he wants the NRC to be more than a lapdog to the nuclear industry.
The Republicans are more than pleased to hold hearings in Washington to amplify the dust up.
I have interviewed Jaczko, who has appeared at the EnergyBiz Leadership Forum.
Want to judge for yourself whether he is a flame-thrower or reasonable regulator?
Read highlights of his comments at our forum.
As is frequently the case – this news eruption this week is not black, nor white, but complex.
More Jaczko-related blogging - click here.
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Comments
The industry story over the last year or so is truly of concern.
Does anyone have a timeline of the last year or so of bad press for nuclear?
Has there really been a performance decline or is it made up?
What can be done to "protect the brand?"
In addition to everything else, the American public is gullible enough to believe everything that is printed or spoken by the news media. As a result, people are tried and convicted by the media before being brought to trial, and the nuclear industry has been effectively gutted by the lack of knowledge foisted on us by the liberal media. It's past time for the electric generating community to begin educating their consumers in the benefits of nuclear power. I don't recall ever having seen the media report publicly that the "meltdown" at Three Mile Island in 1979 was the result of operator error - operators overrode safety systems that created the problem. Even Chernobyl resulted from a poor design, and even though the resultant fire spread across parts of western Europe and effectively killed the city and required the relocation of the populace, it is still possible for tours to enter the area. Following the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that ended World War II, the areas have been rebuilt and repopulated. It's time to get real and know that the future of renewable energy in America truly lies with nuclear energy.