Skip to main content

Polling Nuclear in California and Japan

san-onofre-power-plant Looking at recent stories from the AP and Al-Jazeera, as we’ve done over the last week, may make one think that the media has the knives out for the nuclear energy industry. To be honest, journalists never, and never should, put the knives back in the case. Trying to find malfeasance is a goal of journalism. Finding it is the tough part.

While I think the nuclear energy industry provides a poor target for malfeasance hunting, the accident at Fukushima Daiichi has put the industry front and center, so any reporter looking to fill an annoying empty space on the wall with a Pulitzer Prize has zeroed in on nuclear energy. So be it – let’s wish them well.

But let’s not pretend the stories are even remotely fair, largely because fairness would ruin the arguments. Instead, one can just point out the flaws, link to documents that demonstrate the flaws, and note logical inconsistencies.

And, of course, wait. The media is like a school of sharks in that it has to keep moving to keep up with events. Oil spills yesterday, nuclear energy today, what next? – windmills and birds? solar arrays and land use? a coal ash spill? Something. Just wait it out.

Because once the movable feast moves on, the more mundane stories will attain more prominence or at least not be embedded in negative stories:

56 percent of Californians said they believe that the state's existing power plants are safe, compared with 32 percent who do not. When asked whether existing nuclear plants in the state should be phased out over a 10-year period, 46 percent were opposed, while 39 percent were in favor.

The actual lede is that more Californians than in a previous poll do not want new facilities built. Fukushima is still pretty fresh in the mind, so this is to be expected. But determining that California’s current facilities are safe and should not be phased out – and remember, California is quite seismically active, like Japan – is rather more surprising. This might explain why, partially:

The poll also found that 53 percent of registered voters said they oppose allowing oil companies to drill more oil and gas wells in state tidelands along the California coast, while 43 percent believed they should be allowed to drill.

We can’t assume too much based on such skimpy information, but environmental concerns seem to play a part in Californians’ thinking, which may tilt opinions away from oil and toward nuclear.

---

Speaking of polls, what are the Japanese thinking these days?

But surprisingly in Japan, 45 percent of people still view nuclear power as a viable energy option and 71 percent support its modernization.

"The Japanese people still show some realism," said Henri Wallard, deputy chief executive officer at [polling firm] Ipsos "They believe they will continue to use nuclear energy in the energy mix for some time."

Support for nuclear power was strongest in India, Poland and the United States where the majority of people supported it.

Now, to be honest, Ipsos is showing that in most countries, nuclear energy has lost some support. And that’s really the result you’d expect in Japan, too, not that the Japanese would want to continue with it.

In general, polls taken around the time of an accident – this was true of the BP spill as well – tend to focus all answers through the accident. But it’s interesting that some more upbeat numbers are peeking though polls about nuclear energy – a trendline, as they say in poll-speak, there’s no reason not to expect continue. (That also happened in polling on the BP spill.)

Surfing and San Onofre – just says California, doesn’t it?

Comments

Bill Rodgers said…
Good news, Mark about the opinion polls

And good point about waiting it out. The machine needs headlines to keep it going. Eventually the headlines just won't be there especially when the flood waters receed fom Ft. Calhoun and Cooper. This to shall pass.

Great photo by the way.
The commercial nuclear power industry is still making a big mistake, IMO, by limiting itself solely to the production of base load electricity. Using nuclear electricity to produce methanol through the synthesis of hydrogen and CO2 (from air or from biowaste) would allow the nuclear industry to expand into peak load electricity production.

Being able to produce a carbon neutral synfuel for the production of clean electricity that could be transported by pipeline or by tanker practically anywhere on Earth, would allow the nuclear industry to produce electricity and waste heat for practically any community on Earth-- even if such communities are hostile to nuclear power plants in their local area.

Popular posts from this blog

Fluor Invests in NuScale

You know, it’s kind of sad that no one is willing to invest in nuclear energy anymore. Wait, what? NuScale Power celebrated the news of its company-saving $30 million investment from Fluor Corp. Thursday morning with a press conference in Washington, D.C. Fluor is a design, engineering and construction company involved with some 20 plants in the 70s and 80s, but it has not held interest in a nuclear energy company until now. Fluor, which has deep roots in the nuclear industry, is betting big on small-scale nuclear energy with its NuScale investment. "It's become a serious contender in the last decade or so," John Hopkins, [Fluor’s group president in charge of new ventures], said. And that brings us to NuScale, which had run into some dark days – maybe not as dark as, say, Solyndra, but dire enough : Earlier this year, the Securities Exchange Commission filed an action against NuScale's lead investor, The Michael Kenwood Group. The firm "misap

An Ohio School Board Is Working to Save Nuclear Plants

Ohio faces a decision soon about its two nuclear reactors, Davis-Besse and Perry, and on Wednesday, neighbors of one of those plants issued a cry for help. The reactors’ problem is that the price of electricity they sell on the high-voltage grid is depressed, mostly because of a surplus of natural gas. And the reactors do not get any revenue for the other benefits they provide. Some of those benefits are regional – emissions-free electricity, reliability with months of fuel on-site, and diversity in case of problems or price spikes with gas or coal, state and federal payroll taxes, and national economic stimulus as the plants buy fuel, supplies and services. Some of the benefits are highly localized, including employment and property taxes. One locality is already feeling the pinch: Oak Harbor on Lake Erie, home to Davis-Besse. The town has a middle school in a building that is 106 years old, and an elementary school from the 1950s, and on May 2 was scheduled to have a referendu

Wednesday Update

From NEI’s Japan micro-site: NRC, Industry Concur on Many Post-Fukushima Actions Industry/Regulatory/Political Issues • There is a “great deal of alignment” between the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the industry on initial steps to take at America’s nuclear energy facilities in response to the nuclear accident in Japan, Charles Pardee, the chief operating officer of Exelon Generation Co., said at an agency briefing today. The briefing gave stakeholders an opportunity to discuss staff recommendations for near-term actions the agency may take at U.S. facilities. PowerPoint slides from the meeting are on the NRC website. • The International Atomic Energy Agency board has approved a plan that calls for inspectors to evaluate reactor safety at nuclear energy facilities every three years. Governments may opt out of having their country’s facilities inspected. Also approved were plans to maintain a rapid response team of experts ready to assist facility operators recoverin