For Australia, the nuclear lobby brings out the big massage!

https://theaimn.net/for-australia-the-nuclear-lobby-brings-out-the-big-massage/ 24 Jan 25

In December 2022, 16 year-old Will Shackel started a “charity” – Nuclear For Australia, funded by entrepreneur Dick Smith. It’s a “fact-filled” “grassroots” movement, devoted to champion the cause of “clean reliable” nuclear energy for Australia. It’s not a lobby group for the nuclear industry – Oh no! – even if its leaders are Dr ADi Paterson, with his career in the industry, and Tony Irwin, Technical Director of SMR Nuclear Technology Pty Ltd. It’s not political, oh no! even if its goal happens to identical with the policy campaign goal of the Liberal Coalition Party for the coming Federal Election.

But, just by coincidence, in this election year, Nuclear for Australia is touting not just young Will Shackel, but also 24 year old American Grace Stanke. And these are the nuclear propaganda big guns for 2025.

Why do I call them the “big guns?

After all, Australia has some very experienced nuclear experts, happy to tell us how great nuclear power is. There are not only Dr Paterson, and Mr Irwin. There are Ziggy Switkowski, Michael Angwin, the expert staff of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, and the Australian Uranium Association. Well, the thing is they are the old-style big guns, who will spout their expert facts at length, and in detail..

In the new Trumpian era, it’s not enough to know the facts, and perhaps, not even necessary.

What is now important is the person who is touting nuclear power. Is he, and preferably she, young, attractive, warm, enthusiastic, and easy to understand?

Actually, the Australian nuclear lobby has recognised this for a while. They previously promoted the rather wacky young nuclear spruikers Zion Lights and Isodope (Yes – those really are their names)

Zion and Isodope did their best. But what Australia needs, seems to be young people who are bright and attractive, and with appeal not just to the young, but across the generations – knowledgeable, likeable, but not rebellious.

Polls always show that in Australia, women are less supportive of nuclear power, than men are. With compulsory voting, it’s always important for the parties campaigning to pay attention to the opinions of women. So it’s especially important for the nuclear lobby to appeal to women.

Young Will Shackel was a good propagandist over 2023-34, articulate, enthusiastic, and good-looking. But in this election year, what is needed is a female propagandist, an appealing model for young women, and also attractive to men, and acceptable to older generations.

Enter Grace Stanke.

Grace Stanke is an attractive, articulate, accomplshed young woman – a classical violinist, a water-skier, Miss America 2023 – and a nuclear engineer. She graduated in 2023, and went to work full time as Nuclear Engineer and Nuclear Energy advocate at Constellation Energy

I can’t help admiring Grace Stanke for her achievements, and for her apparently very sincere motivation. She is grateful to nuclear medicine, for helping her father who had cancer, and she believes that climate change must be addressed, by replacing fossil fuels. And she’s obviously very bright, and knows her stuff about nuclear technology.

Still, for thoughtful people there’s a problem with Grace as a nuclear proponent. This is the fact that it doesn’t seem to matter that she knows her nuclear stuff. I have watched several video interviews with her, some remarkably long, and she was not called upon to answer the hard questions. The interviewers seem focussed on her career in beauty pageants, and her year as Miss America. The interviews have a happy positive tone, rejoicing in her success as a young woman and a mentor for girls. No need to get down and dirty about toxic wastes, the effects of the industry on the health of uranium miners and other workers and communities.

And this what we’re up against in the new age of Trumpic spin – short, bright messages – purveyed by attractive young people. Marshall McCluhan predicted it decades ago – The Medium is the Massage. It’s usually written as “Message”, but I think that his original wording was more accurate.

Grace Stanke has been travelling around the world, promoting the nuclear industry, including to the Climate Summit Cop 29, and even before graduating, was named the “New Face of Nuclear Energy” by the Wall Street Journal.

I feel that it is incorrect to call people like Grace Stanke and Will Shackel the “big guns”. That suggests a sort of aggressive, forceful propaganda. And that’s not their style. They’re so sincere, and squeaky clean and nice. It will be interesting, but unlikely, if Grace Stanke has to worry about any tough questioning . After all, that wouldn’t be courteous to a visiting Miss America.