Brattle Principal Peter Fox-Penner Authors Huffington Post Piece on Nuclear Power

Dr. Peter Fox-Penner, a principal in Brattle’s Washington, DC office, authored a piece for the Huffington Post on May 18, 2011.

The piece discusses the impact of the Fukushima nuclear plant accident in Japan on the “nuclear renaissance”. In his post, “Nuclear Trust,” Dr. Fox-Penner discusses how no other energy form is so reliant on the trust of such a narrow cadre of engineers, scientists, regulators, and government officials for its public acceptance. Further, no other energy source is capable of causing such dangerous conditions over comparably large geographic areas. He argues that the fate of nuclear power is tied to citizens’ confidence in their government’s ability to control powerful corporate interests and protect them from harm. He concludes that the Fukushima accident “will have a deeper and more lasting impact” on the “hoped-for nuclear revival” than once anticipated, but that governments can gain the trust they need to revive the sector by providing transparency and accountability in nuclear plant regulation and the handling of nuclear accidents.

To read Dr. Fox-Penner’s entire post, please visit the Huffington Post website.