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I was dismayed to see Walt Handelsman's editorial cartoon (July 14) that implied that citizen activists now embrace nuclear power. The truth is that Americans want better energy options. Poll after poll shows that citizens are concerned about global warming pollution and the health impacts of smog and soot from coal-fired power plants.

The Nuclear Industry Embraces Junk Science [Henry Payne] Global warming makes strange bedfellows. Thirty years ago, the U.S. nuclear industry was a victim of junk science. Media and green fear-mongering in the wake of Three Mile Island led Americans to believe nuclear energy was unsafe, could cause a "China syndrome," and even a nuclear holocaust (a cartoon by Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Herblock of the Washington Post in 1979 showed a mushroom cloud emerging from a TMI cooling tower). As a result, nuclear energy was shunned and not a single power plant has been built in the U.S. since. But now, as the same media and green fear-mongers attempt to destroy the coal industry for causing global warming, killer hurricanes, and coastal flooding, the nuclear industry has jumped aboard the junk-science bandwagon.

"Energy Secretary Steven Chu is bright (for goshsakes, the man is a Nobel Laureate), articulate and -- what's pertinent here -- not boring. The same couldn't be said for some of his predecessors, such as Spencer Abraham, whose most interesting moment may have been his introduction of a cartoon-like character, the Energy Hog, to try to get Americans schoolkids to conserve energy. Anyway, Chu's speeches have a little life to them. Sometimes a lot. Maybe that means he's got a good speech writer. Or maybe he's just got a sense of humor and doesn't mind showing it. At his commencement address at Harvard last year, where he followed JK Rowling and Bill Gates in that role, Chu got worldwide play with this catchy quote: "I am not a billionaire, but at least I am a nerd." There's always some meat on the bones, too, as you would expect of a scientist with a leadership flair."

TULLYTOWN, Pa. - Borough leaders want "Trash Mountain" to grow green, not glow green. Thats why they're fighting a plan to bring radioactive sludge to the Tullytown Landfill.

"Pressure on the government to organise an independent inquiry into a new generation of nuclear power stations will intensify today with a call for action from a group of 90 high-ranking academics, politicians and technical experts. The huge lobby says the "climategate" email scandal and other events have shaken public trust in the scientific governance of environmental risk, making a wider assessment of nuclear power more important than ever. Paul Dorfman, an energy policy research fellow at Warwick University who has been coordinating support for an inquiry, said more debate was needed for a decision on nuclear to have full democratic backing. "The kind of consultation we have had so far has been flawed and inadequate. The government has put the cart before the horse by wanting endorsement before either the design of the reactor and the way waste will be treated has been decided. There is a democratic deficit here that needs correcting," he said."