U.S. energy officials know the words they choose in pitching the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) could help determine whether the program blossoms or withers on the vine. The Department of Energy even hired outside help to provide guidance on how to “communicate about a visionary plan to reduce the world’s reliance on fossil fuels.”
In August 2006 focus group sessions conducted by the Beltway wordsmith shop Bisconti Research, “the clearest and most supported GNEP features” included “recycling waste for energy.” Among focus group participants, “there was virtual consensus support for recycling” [download PDF].
As the Federation of American Scientists explain in an informative and regularly-updated briefing, this may shed light on why DOE references to its proposed “Advanced Burner Reactor” have magically been transformed into the “Advanced Recycling Reactor,” and why the word “recycling” appears 8 times in a single page of DOE’s newly-revised GNEP strategic plan [download PDF].
During a recent trip to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, I asked William Hartung of the New America Foundation what he thought about this terminology [the background noise is water rushing through Bear Creek].
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