Atomic Show #315 – Doug Sandridge, Oil and Gas Executives for Nuclear Energy

Doug Sandridge is a lifelong oil and gas guy whose father was a geological engineer. While he was growing up, Doug lived a significant portion of his life overseas as his father’s job took the family to several different locations. When it was time to go to college, Doug returned to the United State to attend the University of Oklahoma. He took a brief detour into architecture, but by his second year he shifted his focus to engineering and petroleum-related topics. During the past 40 years, he has pursued a career as a land man, which requires a blend of technical skills, specific legal acumen, negotiating expertise and real estate development. His career was inspired by his father, but he has also been dedicated to the task of finding and producing the affordable fuels that power our modern way of life. In recent years he has begun advocating for nuclear energy after realizing that the industry was in trouble and closing plants that he had passively assumed would operate through their natural end of life. Although he had briefly declared his major to be nuclear engineering when transitioning away from architecture, he had spent his career not really thinking much about nuclear one way or another. He linked up with the Save Diablo Canyon movement as a way to continue his education and do something positive. When he learned that other nuclear advocates were a bit wary of an oil and gas executive and heard some stating that the oil and gas industry had been working against nuclear for many years, he started an effort to mobilize other oil and gas leaders to declare their support of nuclear power. The first result of his effort was the publication of a letter titled Declaration of Oil and Gas Executives for Nuclear Power. That letter was initially published on March 28, 2023. That date is probably not accidental; it was the 44th anniversary of the Three Mile Island event. As you might notice, Atomic Insights is a little late to the response party for this important step forward. Mr. Sandridge has already appeared on several podcasts to discuss his letter, including Robert Bryce’s Power Hungry and Emmet Penny’s Nuclear Barbarians. Perhaps the first podcast to notice Doug’s intriguing background for a pro-nuclear advocate was Irina Slav on Energy. That interview was published more than two years ago. Unlike those terrific podcasts, Atomic Insights has a long established reputation as a reference for instances in which fossil fuel interests – a term that is far broader than the term “oil and gas companies” – have worked openly or behind the scenes to slow or stop nuclear energy development. We acknowledge that the vast majority of the people that work in oil and gas are not antinuclear, the term “fossil fuel interests” largely refers to people at the very top of organizations, the ones that create strategies and take market-focused actions. It also refers to people like Vladimir Putin and other global leaders that are almost completely dependent on the wealth and power provided by controlling fossil fuels and who consistently seek to adjust the energy supply-demand balance to provide outsized financial returns and other geopolitical goals. Doug and I had a terrific conversation. I think you will enjoy the opportunity to learn more about the petroleum industry and the ways that i...