With Tuesday's State of the Union address, liberals are wondering how President Barack Obama will set the tone for major progressive priorities in his second term. By giving climate change a prominent mention in his second inaugural address last month, Obama has raised expectations of delivering on a green agenda over the next four years. Nevertheless, many environmentalists remain deeply disappointed over the failure of cap-and-trade legislation and the president’s hedging on the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. They are as skeptical that he has the conviction to lead a fight against climate as they are of his willingness to battle intransigent Republicans in Congress.

Michael Shellenberger, president and cofounder of the Breakthrough Institute, made the case for a new environmentalism on the Colbert Report last week.

The new environmentalism is defined by its embrace of technology as essential to human progress and overcoming environmental challenges such as climate change.

“That’s why we wrote this book — it’s called Love Your Monsters. It comes from this idea that we should treat our technologies like our children, like our creations,” Shellenberger explained. “When they fail us — when they disappoint us — you don’t abandon them, you improve them. You make them better.”

A growing movement of “modernist greens,” made up of cutting edge scientists and thinkers, innovative activists and policy experts, has reimagined environmentalism over the past decade and is today actively creating a powerful new ecological politics for the twenty-first century.

These efforts, profiled expertly by former Audubon editor Keith Kloor last week in Slate, are fashioning a “radical departure from the nature-centric framework that has long dominated environmental politics and policy.”

Not long after a tsunami washed over Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plants in March 2011, causing a partial meltdown, it appeared to many that humankind's half-century experiment with nuclear power might be in permanent jeopardy. Although nuclear energy provides 15 percent of the world's electricity, all without spewing greenhouse gas emissions, many countries seemed ready to forgo nuclear for deadlier but less viscerally frightening power sources. And sadly, while U.S. political leaders, including those at the just-concluded Democratic National Convention, are quick to trumpet their embrace of natural-gas drilling, the word "nuclear" is scarcely ever mentioned.

The Breakthrough Institute team works to publish up-to-date analysis on nuclear energy, centering around international developments in innovation and deployment and the resulting effects for climate change and the global economy. Here is our collection of analysis on nuclear energy:

Published Articles and Media Appearances:

• Jessica Lovering, Ted Nordhaus, and Michael Shellenberger, "Out of the Nuclear Closet", Foreign Policy, 9/7/2012
• Jesse Jenkins, "Nuclear Woes Push Japan Into a New Energy Future", NPR, 3/11/2012
• Michael Shellenberger, "One Year On: Fukushima Dai-ichi", KQED Forum, 3/5/2012
• Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, "The Fukushima Question", Slate Magazine, 3/1/2012
• Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, "Fukushima Boosts Green Case for Nuclear," Financial Times, 5/10/2011
• Jesse Jenkins and Sara Mansur, "No Nukes" Revival is Misguided,"   San Francisco Chronicle, 8/4/2011
• Jesse Jenkins and Sara Mansur, "What Happens Next as the World Turns Away From Nuclear Power,"  Freakonomics , 6/21/2011
• Michael Shellenberger, "The Environmentalist Debate Over Nuclear Power," KQED Forum, 4/1/2012
• Jesse Jenkins, "Nuclear's Future After Fukushima,"  NPR, 3/27/2011
• Jesse Jenkins, Ted Nordhaus, and Michael Shellenberger, "Nuclear as Usual: Why Fukushima Will Change Less Than You Think," The Atlantic, 3/23/2011

Analysis and Opinion:

• Roger Pielke Jr., "Magical Thinking in Germany," 8/16/2012
• Breakthrough Staff, "Worldwide Nuclear Energy Expansion Continues," 7/27/2012
• Jesse Jenkins, "Germany Returns to Coal," 5/11/2012
• Alex Trembath and Jesse Jenkins, "Gas Boom Poses Challenges for Renewables and Nuclear," 4/30/2012
• Breakthrough Staff, "UK Greens Divided on Nuclear Power," 3/15/2012
• Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, "The Making of Radiation Panic," 3/15/2012
• Breakthrough Staff, "Did the Media Hype Fukushima Health Impacts?," 3/2/2012
• Mark Caine and Jesse Jenkins, "New Data: Nuclear Down, Carbon Intensity Up in Japan," 2/1/2012
• Jesse Jenkins, "2012 Budget Increases Nuclear Energy Research Funding," 1/5/2012

• Breakthrough Staff, "Fossil Fuel Imports, Use Soar as Japan's Nuclear Fleet Sits Idle," 12/13/2011
• Ted Norhaus and Michael Shellenberger, "The Secret of Where Good Technology Comes From," 11/14/2011
• Alex Trembath, "Germany Trades Domestic Nuclear for Imported Nuclear," 9/16/2011
• Jesse Jenkins, "Nuclear and Fossil: Can Germany Shut Down Both?," 5/24/2011
• Breakthrough Staff, "United Kingdom's Nuclear Plans on Track," 5/18/2011
• Jesse Jenkins, "Analysis: The Costs of Canceling Japan's Plans for Nuclear Power," 5/11/2011
• Breakthrough Staff, "Avoiding Carbon Emissions with Nuclear Power," 4/28/2011
• Sara Mansur, "Analysis: Nuclear Moratorium in Germany Could Cause Spike in CO2 Emissions," 3/16/2011
• Sara Mansur and Devon Sweezey, Doing the Math: Comparing Germany's Solar Industry to Japan's Fukushima Reactors, 3/23/2011
• Breakthrough Staff, "Analysis: Decline in US Nuclear Power Would Increase Carbon Emissions," 3/18/2011
• Jerome Roos, "Canada Remains Committed to Nuclear Power," 3/16/2011
• Jerome Roos, "Fukushima's Political Fallout Now Reaches China," 3/16/2011
• Jesse Jenkins, "Situation Report: Fukushima," 3/16/2011