Politics

Radioactive Grassroots

By Bob Burton

In an opinion column, former Greenpeace activist turned PR consultant Patrick Moore waxes lyrical about a proposal by Luminant to build two new reactors at its Comanche Peak nuclear power station in Texas. Luminant's new reactors, he wrote, would produce "electricity from virtually carbon-free nuclear power." Moore's brief biographical note states only that he is "co-chair of the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition, a national grass-roots coalition that promotes nuclear power." What neither Moore nor the Dallas Morning News discloses to readers of the column is that he is a consultant for the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), which funds the "coalition." Luminant is a member (pdf) of the NEI. A New York Times blog post referring to Moore also fails to refer the coalition's NEI link, describing it only as a "pro-nuclear group."

Full post as published by PR Watch on September 29, 2008 (boomark / email).