Duggan Flanakin

Duggan Flanakin is Senior Policy Analyst at the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow. A former Senior Fellow with the Texas Public Policy Foundation, Mr. Flanakin authored definitive works on the creation of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and on environmental education in Texas. A brief history of his multifaceted career appears in his book, "Infinite Galaxies: Poems from the Dugout."

The Ark-La-Tex May Be Leading America’s Lithium Race

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The discovery of vast lithium resources in the Smackover Formation, most notably in southern Arkansas and into far northern Louisiana and across northeast Texas, has sparked widespread interest among corporations and community leaders in all three states. Last year, the Venture Center, Standard Lithium, and the University of Arkansas launched the Arkansas Lithium Technology Accelerator

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Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campuses Flesh Out Ike’s Dream

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A MAGA loyalist might say that President Trump has raised the dead—the U.S. nuclear energy industry. Led by Energy Secretary Chris Wright, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, the Trump administration has jump-started development of micro and small modular reactors, authorized 10 new nuclear power plants, extended the lifecycles of older plants, reenergized uranium mining and processing, and

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VIVIFY’s Hydrogen Generators Can Power Anything

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The distributed energy hydrogen revolution is here — bringing worksite-ready hydrogen-powered electricity without any connection to the electric grid. VIVIFY Technology founder and CEO Jason Herring says that “Talk is the cheapest thing the energy industry produces. So I did not brag about our systems until they were production ready.” That’s why his staff began

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Mining the Oceans for Fresh Water – and Uranium

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About 450,000 residents in the Corpus Christi (Texas) metropolitan area are primarily served by fresh water from two severely threatened reservoirs, but the city has become increasingly reliant on water sent via the Mary Rhodes Pipeline from Lake Texana and the Colorado River. The city remains under stage 3 water restrictions despite recent heavy rains.

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Fueling the Coming Nuclear Renaissance

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Saskatoon-based Cameco is a 21st-century global nuclear energy leader as North America’s largest supplier of nuclear fuel for fission reactors. In its latest supply-and-demand market update, Cameco’s president Grant Isaac said that uranium markets remain structurally undersupplied and that major utilities negotiating long-term contracts are modeling uranium oxide prices near $120 per pound.   Traditionally, centrifuges have

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Wright and Burgum – Trump’s Energy Tiger Team

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Back in January 2025, during the confirmation process for President Trump’s Cabinet nominees, Wyoming Senator John Barrasso condemned the Biden Administration’s “regulatory rampage” that resulted in “painfully high prices for food and fuel.” Barrasso called energy “the master resource” and linked control of energy production the key to controlling the nation’s future. And then he said, “Governor

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CFS CEO Pooh-Poohs Claim Fusion Is Not Worth the Money

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Just as Commonwealth Fusion Systems, a company spun off from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2018, was announcing that its mission to build a compact fusion power plant (the SPARC) based on the ARC tokamak design was nearing completion, a team of engineers from ETH Zurich (the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) were throwing

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Wastewater Maintenance Fails the Smell Test

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Imagine holding fragile assets worth a trillion dollars and letting them deteriorate to a point where their actual value is vastly diminished. America’s sewers — including nearly 17,500 wastewater treatment plants — are overall not being properly maintained. Over the past decade alone, the renewal and replacement rate for large capital wastewater projects decreased from

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