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Survey Reveals Gap in Public’s Awareness of Nuclear Energy’s Role in Reducing Greenhouse Gases

By Eric McErlain
New from NEI:
Even though nuclear energy is by far the largest clean-air energy source used to generate electricity, fewer than half of Americans strongly associate nuclear energy with clean air, according to a new national survey of 1,000 adults.

The survey shows that only 42 percent of Americans associate nuclear energy “a lot” with clean air. This is the case even though nuclear power plants provide 71 percent of all U.S. electricity that comes from sources that do not emit greenhouse gases or any of the pollutants covered by the Clean Air Act, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The other clean-air energy sources for electricity are hydroelectric power plants (25 percent), wind power projects (2.3 percent), geothermal projects (1.3 percent) and solar power (one-tenth of one percent).

More than 100 nuclear power plants operating in 31 states provide electricity to one of every five U.S. homes and businesses.

The new telephone survey was conducted March 30-April 1 by Bisconti Research Inc. with GfK and has a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points. In similar surveys of adults conducted by the same research firms for the Nuclear Energy Institute in May 2005 and March 2006, 55 percent of Americans in both instances strongly associated nuclear energy with clean air.

The new survey also shows that while 57 percent of Americans “have heard or read about” the need for nuclear energy within the past year, only 46 percent have heard or read about the clean-air benefits of nuclear energy. Thirty-nine percent have heard or read about the use of nuclear energy “as a way to fight global warming and climate change.”
Sounds like we have some more work to do...
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Comments

Anonymous said…
An article at newscientist.com claims that hydroelectric plants can release significant amounts of greenhouse gases.

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7046
April 24, 2007 at 12:00 PM
Anonymous said…
Thanks for forwarding this source. New Scientist is not always reliable, but here they are citing an IPCC consultant.

As I understand it, dams nearer the equator are considerably more damaging for a variety for reasons, one of which is greater greenhouse gas emissions. We can see what the third working group of IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report says on this subject.
April 24, 2007 at 12:21 PM
Anonymous said…
Tell me about it.

As I calculate it, nuclear energy since 1980 has kept CO2 from rising about 3 ppm more than it has.

-NNadir
April 24, 2007 at 3:09 PM
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