Radu G. Magdin, PhD CEO – EU Affairs and Global Operations at Smartlink Communications
Energy has an extraordinary peculiarity: it is an industry that almost no one fully understands, but about which almost everyone has an opinion. It is, simultaneously, critical infrastructure, industry, investment, geopolitics, monthly bill and electoral issue. A nuclear reactor is an investment for decades. An electricity bill, however, is a thirty-day experience. Between these two time horizons, much of the energy communication battle takes place. Romania talks a lot about megawatts and far too little about the words with which they explain them. And words matter. The method of using them well has four authors.
Frank Luntz gives us the translation table: every bureaucratic word has an equivalent that says the same thing, but in the language of the people. George Lakoff warns us that if you accept the opponent’s framework and just deny it, you actually strengthen it. Jonathan Haidt shows us what moral registers the public resonates with–care, loyalty, fairness, freedom. And Drew Westen reminds us that people make decisions with their limbic brains, through stories, not Excel spreadsheets. Above all, a three-step test before uttering any sensitive word, which I call the RED framework: tell the Reality, acknowledge the Emotion, show the Direction.
A warning from the very beginning: reframing is not lying. We don’t change the facts; we change the frame through which they are viewed. Anyone who confuses the two loses the very resource they are trying to protect–trust.
POPULAR FOR SOME, POPULIST FOR OTHERS
Energy has become popular again. It is popular with investors: data centers, artificial intelligence, electrification, energy security, nuclear, renewables, storage, gas, interconnections. It has moved from the technical department to the boardroom again. For a global CEO, access to secure, sufficient, and competitive energy can decide where to locate their next factory or data center–and, by extension, where the thousands of jobs around them will be created.
For the citizen, however, energy often begins with a different word: the bill. Here’s where the paradox arises. Popular with capital, energy becomes populist in politics. The investor sees yield and predictability. The politician sees tomorrow morning’s price. The consumer sees the amount to pay. And each speaks a different language. An industry that communicates exclusively about “installed capacities,” “PPAs,” “CfDs,” “CAPEX,” and “MWh” enters disarmed into a conversation where the adversary says only this: “You’re paying too much.” Who do you think will be understood first?
The problem isn’t that the public doesn’t understand energy. The problem is that industry often speaks for industry.
THE DANUBE SHOWED US THE PROBLEM OF WORDS
The summer of 2026 did not off er us a theoretical case study, but one that unfolded before our eyes. At the entrance to the country, in the Baziaș section, the Danube fl ow rate dropped to 1,300–1,400 cubic meters per second, compared to the multi-annual average of August of approximately 3,900 and even below the historical benchmark of 1985. The Iron Gates ended up operating at half production. And at Cernavodă, a premiere occurred: both units were shut down in a controlled manner – Unit 1 on July 28, Unit 2 around August 13 – so that the plant that usually provides about 20% of Romania’s electricity, almost 1,400 MW, temporarily, entirely, left the system. It was not an isolated episode: in May, the two reactors had already been simultaneously unavailable for three weeks, and the spot price had almost doubled in a few days. Technically, the story was about hydrology, redundancy and nuclear safety. Publicly, the same reality could instantly become: “Are we going to be without electricity?” Two completely diff erent stories about the exact same fact. And the crisis showed how quickly narratives bifurcate: while across the border they were announcing that the river was recovering, in Bucharest they were still talking about a state of crisis. The same river, two offi cial stories. When communication does not keep up with reality, someone else writes the headline for you. In such a situation, communication is no longer an annex to crisis management. Communication is part of the critical infrastructure. If there is a technical command, there must also be a command of explanation.
DON’T REPEAT YOUR OPPONENT’S FRAME: A SMALL DICTIONARY
Here Lakoff ’s lesson becomes operational. If the opponent says “energy is expensive”, the answer should not start with “energy is not expensive” – you have already repeated the frame. If the accusation is “you make profi t on people’s backs”, the communication should not start with “we don’t make profi t on people’s backs” – the elephant has already entered the room.
The industry must build its own vocabulary. Here is a guide, in Luntz’s logic – what we don’t say, what we say, how to reframe.
In the price chapter: expensive is not denied, but compared with what you actually buy – security and continuity; the bill is not the entire industry, but the visible peak of a world of power plants, networks and interconnections; liberalization, which has become synonymous with price increases after July 1, 2025, translates into choice and competition, the right to change supplier; profit is not defended defensively, but prospectively – it is the capital for tomorrow’s power plant; and the generalized capping is replaced by the protection of the vulnerable consumer, targeted support on the register of care, not artificial cheapening for all.
In terms of investment: cost is something you lose, investment is something you build – the same amount, different valence; CAPEX means, in human words, the money invested today for energy for over ten years; the investor does not take from the system, but bets capital on Romania before everyone else.
In terms of security: energy independence is a fiction in an interconnected Europe and is replaced by energy security and negotiating power; resilience translates immediately – current even when there is too little rain, and when there is too little wind, and when a regional crisis occurs; interconnection is not dependence on foreigners, but the safety net that kept the lights on when Cernavodă left the system; import, at peak hours, is not failure, but flexibility.
In the transition chapter: transition, an empty word for millions of people, breaks down into three concrete benefits – safer, cleaner, more homely energy; green matters less than continuity, so clean energy is presented first as safe energy; nuclear is taken out of the ideological debate and returned to the human one – the basic, stable energy that keeps the system going day and night.
And, in the crisis chapter: the crisis is communicated through RED, not through “there is no problem”; blackout is the panic-word, which we do not repeat, but replace with the complete truth – a system under pressure, but with a plan; transparency, in short, is not weakness, but the rudder in sight.
FROM “BILL” TO “VALUE”
The same discipline applies everywhere: words must transform infrastructure into human benefits. A GW doesn’t vote. A MW doesn’t fear. A reactor doesn’t read Facebook. People do. And the central message can become extremely simple: good energy means three things – having it, aff ording it, and knowing that you’ll still have it tomorrow. So we have three words more powerful than many PowerPoint presentations: security, accessibility, future. This is the diff erence between reporting and explaining. Institutional communication says “we put X MW into operation”. True public communication says “this investment means secure energy for hundreds of thousands of households and companies”.
THE INDUSTRY MUST TURN ON THE LIGHT BEFORE POLITICIANS
Energy will remain one of the most politicized areas of the decade, precisely because it is becoming increasingly important economically. Artificial intelligence, reindustrialization, electrifi cation, defense, data centers – all consume energy. We will demand more of the system precisely when we demand it to transform. That is why the industry can no longer aff ord to communicate only when the crisis occurs. It must explain the investment before it is called “expensive”, the profi t before it is transformed into “greed”, the vulnerabilities before they become panic. The RED framework applies in full here. In the Danube crisis, the good message was not “there is no problem” – there clearly was one. The good message begins with reality, told in the language of the people, including the hard part; continues by acknowledging the emotion, not contradicting it; and closes with direction: these are the reserves, these are the interconnections that compensate, these are the scenarios. Reality, emotion, direction – in that order. Because trust is not built by telling people that there is no storm, but by showing them that there is someone at the helm. Romania needs tens of billions of euros in energy investments in the coming years. For them, it will have to gain capital, approvals, communities and public opinion. So, along with the production, network and investment strategy, the Romanian energy industry needs one more: the strategy of words. Because in energy, before you turn on the light bulb, you sometimes have to turn on the light in people’s minds. And maybe this is the right question for the entire industry, from the CEO to the spokesperson: do we turn on the light? Or do we let populism spread the darkness of the mind.
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The article also appeared in the print edition of Energynomics Magazine, Q3 2026 issue.
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