Skip to main content

Following Greenpeace, Follow the Money

Plenty of our friends in the anti-nuclear movement often go to great pains to detail many of the PR activities that groups like NEI engage in -- Sourcewatch, being just one example.

But all too often, many of those same groups won't reveal the sources of their funding. Which is why this exchange between Rod Adams and one of his readers -- who isn't a native speaker of English -- caught my eye:
I have a friend whose girlfriend was a speaker of Greenpeace for antinuclear matters in the Czech republic, now she does the same ... for Calla (a similar organization), that is a long story, but anyways my friend, boyfriend of this lady, told me once with a surprised face: "all this environmentalists movements in Czechia are financed from Austria, you didn't know that? I thought everybody knows that."
Sounds like something somebody ought to look into.

Comments

Anonymous said…
And all of BNFL's activities are funded from the UK, and Areva's from France, etc. So what's your point? One can only support activism within one's own nation?
Well, if you wanted to look into it, there's circumstantial evidence of correspondence or perhaps a meeting in December 1963 in which coal industry representatives asked the Atomic Industrial Forum to not talk about the health hazards of coal in exchange for the coal industry not discussing the hazards of radiation.

If there's any written evidence of such an offer, it would be in your files, and would be extremely useful if you could find it.
giona79 said…
I can't understand what is the problem. It's true, Greenpeace Austria is financing Greenpeace Czech. Actually Greenpeace Austria, Czech, Poland and Slovakia (probably I missing some one else) are part of the same office: Greenpeace CEE (central East Europe).

And it's not secret, it's written in their website (German): http://www.greenpeace.at/

As you can immagine, mostly of their supporters in the that area are from Austria, so the Vienna's office helps the others smaller offices.

Where is the scandal!?
Anonymous said…
If Greenpeace supports it, I am usually against it. They may not be bad people, but so often, they tend to be wrong, offering criticisms without solutions.

I would consider it a privilege if you would add my mainly political blog "The Tygrrrr Express" www.blacktygrrrr.wordpress.com to your list of linked sites if you feel the quality is high.

Happy June.

eric
GRLCowan said…
The Financial Times had something about this, according to this August 2001 comment of mine.

--- G. R. L. Cowan, former H2 fan
Oxygen expands around B fire, car goes
Anonymous said…
I dont know about Greenpeace, but I know for sure that other "environmental" organizations which have been also protesting against NPP Temelin such as "Jihoceske matky" have been financed from Austria - not from GP Austria, but from the givernment of Upper Austria, which holds stakes in an energy company Alpen Adria Energie AG - a company which profits are largely decreased once a new large power source is brought on-line.

It is of course difficult to discover the financing trails, as they usually go via secret channels such as private individuals or independent foundations, however in this case they were stupid enough to write it in their yearly review and publish it on-line including detailed figures. This was I believe in year 2000, they ceased this soon after they were asked about it ...
GRLCowan said…
The Financial Times link seems to have expired. But here's Radio Prague:

"... An Austrian member of parliament said on Saturday that the lower house had approved the release of 40 million Austrian schillings for what he described as 'the battle against Temelin.'"

Where the scandal is, is in the fossil fuel revenues taken by the governments that apparently fund antinuclear activities. Dividing that revenue by the annual count of people killed by pipeline explosions, carbon monoxide poisonings, and other fossil fuel mishaps yields a take of several tens of millions of dollars per death. Funding the antinuclear lobby suggests they're more concerned about the millions than about the deaths.

--- G. R. L. Cowan, former H2 fan
How do cars gain nuclear cachet

Popular posts from this blog

Activists' Claims Distort Facts about Advanced Reactor Design

Below is from our rapid response team . Yesterday, regional anti-nuclear organizations asked federal nuclear energy regulators to launch an investigation into what it claims are “newly identified flaws” in Westinghouse’s advanced reactor design, the AP1000. During a teleconference releasing a report on the subject, participants urged the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to suspend license reviews of proposed AP1000 reactors. In its news release, even the groups making these allegations provide conflicting information on its findings. In one instance, the groups cite “dozens of corrosion holes” at reactor vessels and in another says that eight holes have been documented. In all cases, there is another containment mechanism that would provide a barrier to radiation release. Below, we examine why these claims are unwarranted and why the AP1000 design certification process should continue as designated by the NRC. Myth: In the AP1000 reactor design, the gap between the shield bu...

What Happens During a Refueling Outage?

You may have noticed over the past few weeks that a number of nuclear plants are shut down for refueling outages or are resuming operations after just returning from one. This type of routine outage usually occurs in the spring or fall when electricity demand is low so that nuclear reactors can replace about one-third of the spent fuel rods with new fuel and conduct other routine maintenance and repairs at the plant. To get a better sense of how refueling works at a nuclear energy facility, I spoke with Marcus Nichol, NEI’s senior project manager for used fuel storage and transportation, and asked him to explain the basics. Why does a nuclear plant need to replace one-third of its fuel? Nichol: The main purpose of a refueling outage is to replace older fuel that is depleted—meaning it can no longer efficiently produce energy from nuclear fission reactions—with new fuel. This “used fuel” has typically been used in the reactor for four-and-a-half to six years before it is pe...

How Much Land Does Nuclear, Wind and Solar Really Need?

Not too long ago, we reviewed a report that looked at nuclear energy (and other energy sources) as biodiversity agents. This had to do, in part, with the amount of land a facility needs to function. Nuclear energy and fossil fuel plants use relatively little, wind farms and solar arrays quite a lot of land . Based on an objective and transparent analysis of our sustainable energy choices, we have come to the evidence-based conclusion that nuclear energy is a good option for biodiversity conservation (and society in general) and that other alternatives to fossil fuels should be subjected to the same cost–benefit analyses (in terms of biodiversity and climate outcomes, as well as sociopolitical imperatives) before accepting or dismissing them. Writer Barry Brook, who collected 75 scientists to endorse his paper, is interested in land use as it impacts flora and fauna. Biodiversity concerns do not get as much play as they might – and, when they do, it annoys many when land is withdraw...