J. Scott Peterson

Scott Peterson directs the Nuclear Energy Institute’s communications and public affairs activities.

At NEI, Mr. Peterson also has served as vice president and senior director for communications. He had led major branding programs to promote the benefits of nuclear energy and directed NEI’s emergency response team and the U.S. industry’s communications strategy in the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011. He also has directed public affairs programs that support enactment of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and the 2002 approval by Congress of the nation’s nuclear fuel repository site.
Mr. Peterson has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today and has appeared on CNN, ABC News, CNBC, CSPAN, PBS NewsHour, National Public Radio and World Business Review. He has presented speeches at policy, environmental, business and communications forums.

Before joining NEI, Mr. Peterson was director of communications for the American Nuclear Energy Council, a government relations organization for the nuclear energy industry and one of three groups merged in 1994 to form NEI. He also worked at Illinois Power and was a reporter and columnist at newspapers in Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina.

Mr. Peterson received a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has completed the Reactor Technology Program for Utility Executives at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is a member of the board of directors for the Public Affairs Council and NucNet, an international nuclear energy news organization, and serves on the advisory committee for the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition. He also is a member of the National Press Club.