Jim Conca has published a couple of recent posts on Forbes.com about the premature closure of nuclear power plants in the United States. One titled Are California’s Carbon Goals Kaput? focuses on some of the environmental aspects of the San Onofre debacle; the other, titled Closing Vermont Nuclear Bad Business for Everyone focuses on the economic and environmental costs of the not-yet-implemented plan to close Vermont Yankee for the New England region.

Both posts have attracted the attention of several antinuclear activists, including at least one professional named Paul Gunter. One of the memes that Gunter and his cohorts in crime seem to have agreed to propagate is that the decision to close the plants was purely economic and rests solely on the shoulders of the plant owners. The antinuclear movement is too modest by failing to claim proper credit for their successful, multi-year, multi-front campaigns.

Atomic Insights is not the only one that has noticed the close ties between antinuclear activism, powerful politicians, and big money with deep ties to people that will benefit from the energy supply constraints that are the inevitable result of closing operating nuclear power plants.

On September 30, 2014, the minority on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee published a scathing blog post titled Environmental Lobbying to Shut Down One Nuclear Power Plant at a Time that exposes the coordinated and well-funded actions taken to destroy the productive capacity of several nuclear power plants.

Unfortunately, Senator Vitter (R-LA) refers to the groups by the misleading term of “environmental groups” and states that the funding is driven by the political left. I believe a more accurate appellation is to call the groups “antinuclear” and to recognize that the funding is coming from organizations and groups that have a financial interest in driving up energy prices by reducing available supply and creating a situation where there is an artificial scarcity.

Despite our different interpretations of the same facts, I think that Senator Vitter and his investigators have performed an important task and have added to the momentum that is building to understand how much money is involved in antinuclear activism and decisions about our energy supplies. Here is a pertinent extract from the blog post:

At the forefront of this effort are Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), and their allies, including Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth (FOE) and the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). Each has advocated for the immediate shut down and decommissioning of nuclear facilities.[10] “We aim to stop proposed new nuclear plants and license extensions of old plants.”[11] – Sierra Club, Nuclear Free Campaign In recent years, Sierra Club/Sierra Club Foundation received millions of dollars, in total, from Billionaire’s Club Foundations that include Energy Foundation, Rockefeller Family Fund, SeaChange Foundation, Wallace Global Fund, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Schmidt Family Foundation, and Tides foundation.[12] In recent years FOE has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Tides Foundation, Energy Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Park Foundation, David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and the Marisla Foundation.[13] Likewise, UCS has received generous funding from David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Energy Foundation, Park Foundation, Wallace Global Fund, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Rockefeller Family Fund, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, ClimateWorks Foundation, Marisla Foundation, and Tides Foundation.[14] By attacking the industry at every turn, this coordinated campaign succeeded in obtaining the closure of the San Onofre Nuclear General Station (SONGS). Senator Boxer and her allies aggressively sought to shut down the facility by targeting a technical issue with one of the SONGS new steam generators – in spite of the fact that the concern had not caused any injuries.[15] [10] [A] http://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Majority.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=c0a594e4-802a-23ad-4c55-7578565a257a&Region_id=&Issue_id [B] https://www.boxer.senate.gov/en/press/updates/060713.cfm [11] https://content.sierraclub.org/grassrootsnetwork/teams/nuclear-free-campaign [12] Tides Foundation IRS 990, 2010, 2011, 2012; Energy Foundation IRS Form 990, 2010, 2011, 2012; Rockefeller Brothers Fund IRS Form 990 2010, 2011, 2012; Park Foundation IRS Form 990, 2011, 2012; Rockefeller Family Fund IRS Form 990, 2011, Marisla Foundation IRS Form 990, 2010, 2012; Schmidt Family Foundation IRS Form 990, 2010, 2011; SeaChange Foundation IRS Form 990, 2011; Wallace Global Fund IRS Form 990, 2012. [13] Tides Foundation IRS 990, 2010, 2011, 2012; Tides Foundation Grants Database 2013, available at http://www.tides.org/fileadmin/user/pdf/Tides_List_of_2013_Grantees.pdf ; Energy Foundation IRS Form 990, 2012; Energy Foundation Grants Database 2013, available at http://www.ef.org/grants-database/#!/keywords=friends%20of%20the%20earth; Rockefeller Brothers Fund IRS Form 990 2010, 2011, 2012; Park Foundation IRS Form 990, 2011, 2012; David and Lucile Packard Foundation IRS Form 990, 2010, 2011, 2012; Marisla Foundation IRS Form 990, 2010, 2012. [14] ClimateWorks Foundation IRS Form 990, 2010, 2011, 2012; David and Lucile Packard Foundation IRS Form 990, 2010, 2012, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation IRS Form 990, 2010, 2011, 2012; Wallace Global Fund IRS Form 990, 2010, 2011, 2012; Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation IRS Form 990, 2011; Tides Foundation IRS Form 990, 2011, 2012; Energy Foundation IRS Form 990, 2010, 2011; Marisla Foundation IRS Form 990,2011, 2012; Rockefeller Family Fund IRS Form 990, 2011 [15] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/06/barbara-boxer-san-onofre_n_2633202.html

I’ve been actively engaging with Gunter and the other antinuclear commenters on Conca’s posts on Forbes. It has been quite amusing to me to be able to counter the arguments with better information and to see the consternation that my comments have caused. Here is an example that I recently posted in response to a Gunter comment that accused Dr. Conca of engaging in revisionist history.