- Brand: Megaphone (client: project-omega/stafford-sheehan)
- Full transcript: Granola
Summary
Content interview for Staff’s personal posts. Staff recapped recent travel: Climate Week, the New England Nuclear Policy Forum (invited by a New England governor’s office), then Austin to visit two nuclear companies under NDA (one may be announced publicly, a “big maybe”). The forum was the first nuclear event he has attended that drew protesters. He was the only attendee who actually talked to them. Their core grievance is spent nuclear waste stored at decommissioned New England plants, which he agrees is a real problem and is the central premise of Project Omega (the federal government defaulted on its waste obligations). He argues solving waste “knocks the wind out of” the anti-nuclear case, and that the industry is wrong to ignore protesters because older demographics vote at far higher rates.
Second thread: Staff’s “second hobby” is fighting Chinese investment in US defense tech. He left his last business as a whistleblower on a Chinese-backed VC sending defense secrets to Beijing; earlier posts on this were held back by litigation. He sees a timely angle in the Ballard Atomics / Day One Ventures drama (10 VCs have reached out to him, he knows the people involved).
Closing feedback: Staff wants shorter posts, roughly 2/3 current length, “soundbites,” “shorter, punchier.” Blake agreed.
Decisions
- Megaphone posts for Staff go shorter and punchier going forward (about 2/3 current length). Routine content preference, no decision page.
Action items
- Staff: text Blake articles on his Chinese defense-tech whistleblower case.
- Blake Stewart: draft post “not all curies are created equal” (alpha vs beta vs gamma explainer; Project Omega uses no gamma emitters).
- Blake Stewart: scope a post on Chinese investment in US defense tech tied to the Ballard Atomics / Day One Ventures story [confirm litigation no longer blocks it].
- Blake Stewart: shorten Staff’s posts to about 2/3 current length.
- Staff: get the Mantis team to review Project Omega’s website update.
- Blake and Staff to reconnect by phone later the same day.
Notable excerpts
“If we solve the waste problem, then we really knock the wind out of anybody’s sails that’s anti-nuclear.”
“Not all curies are created equally… Alpha particles are the kinds that are sitting in your smoke detector. An alpha particle can’t go through your skin.”
“Alphas are friendly, betas are also friendly. Gammas are not friendly… we don’t use any gamma emitters at Project Omega.”
“A lot of nuclear people just ignore them. And I think that’s really stupid because they all vote.”
“Don’t call it nuclear energy, call it like Hot Rocks, that’s all it is.” / “They’re not even that hot, they’re like lukewarm rocks.”
“The whole genesis of Project Omega came from a lot of conversations with anti-nuclear [groups]… we extended the olive branch from very early.”
“I like soundbites. Shorter, punchier.”
Off-record per Staff: the observation that the protesters were all over 70 is “not to go on a social media post.”