NEI Nuclear Notes

Nuclear energy is now and has long been well supported by the American people. A recent poll conducted by Bisconti Research and Quest Global Research showed that a full 82 percent of respondents agreed that “We should take advantage of all low-carbon energy sources, including nuclear, hydro and renewable energy, to produce the electricity we need while limiting greenhouse gas emissions.” But an interesting finding may have something to do with muting that support and it’s something that you – and you and you – can do something about. Here’s the relevant bit : The survey also highlights various perception gaps where the public holds an opinion contrary to the facts, consistently finding, for example, that people greatly underestimate support for nuclear energy among their neighbors. While 65 percent personally favor nuclear energy, only 31 percent of the public believes that the majority of people in their community hold the same view. Forty percent believe that a majority...

The Wall Street Journal has up a single item poll. The single item? Should the world increase its reliance on nuclear energy? Go on over to the site and cast your vote. As of Wednesday morning, the totals were 80 percent yes and 19 percent no. That’s 20 points to make up! (Not that we’re suggesting how you should vote – but then again, this isn’t Beyond Nuclear dot com either. Just saying.)

Earlier this week, Michael Mariotte of NIRS posted a critique of public opinion polling on nuclear energy over at The Daily Kos .While I found some of his conclusions to be interesting, I thought it might be a good idea to share his piece with Ann Bisconti of Bisconti Research. After passing Mariotte's piece to Ann, she shared the following response with me: A recent discussion about public opinion on nuclear energy by Michael Mariotte, a representative of the antinuclear advocacy group, NIRS, makes some valid points but reaches the wrong conclusion.  I would like to offer a different perspective from Bisconti Research.  Our studies of public opinion on nuclear energy include nearly 100 national surveys conducted over a 29-year period.  Each survey asks 20 to 30 questions about various aspects of public opinion on nuclear energy. Some of these questions are open-ended to let us hear from the public in their own words. The result is a unique resource for examining lo...

We’ve looked at a few polls over the last couple of weeks and will reiterate about the new poll from Harris Interactive that I made about the earlier ones: taking a survey when a story about the subject is hot in the news is not going to yield a very believable result. After the situation has stabilized and the media inflammation of the public has receded – well, that’s the time for a poll. In this case, the numbers are pretty good : Three weeks after a massive earthquake and tsunami crippled four nuclear reactors in Japan, Americans are displaying only a slight shift in their opinions on nuclear power, a new Harris Interactive/HealthDay poll shows. The U.S. public is almost equally divided on whether or not more nuclear power plants should be built on American soil, with 41 percent supporting the idea and 39 percent opposed. This represents only a slight change from three years ago, when 49 percent supported nuclear plants and 32 percent opposed them, according to a new H...

It’s too soon to understand what impact the events in Japan will have on the American nuclear energy industry or even on public opinion about nuclear energy. But the approach to these open questions taken by newspapers has been interesting - editorials for the most part remain supportive of nuclear energy and some even offer constructive advice. Polls, meanwhile, provide a snapshot that show the industry remaining in good shape. First, some editorials: Here is the Denver Post: Just this past week, more than 300 people turned out in Pueblo to voice their opposition to a proposed nuclear energy park there. But now is not the time to be making long-term decisions about the future of nuclear power in the U.S. First, we still don't have all of the details about what's happening in Japan, how it might be avoided elsewhere, and exactly what the impacts will be to people, the environment and the industry. … Then, when the emergency has subsided, cooler heads can debate the fu...

The Hill takes note : A new poll commissioned by the nuclear industry shows that 71 percent of people in the United States support including nuclear power in the country’s energy portfolio. And why shouldn't it? This is a survey conducted by Bisconti and Associates for NEI. We know: an industry poll. But Bisconti's methods are fully transparent and it's equally transparent that the findings are in line with other similar polls, though those polls tend to be more interested in a wide range of electricity suppliers rather than nuclear in particular. So consider this a look at nuclear in, er, its particulars. And the poll doesn't ignore nuclear's cousins. A little more from the H ill's account: At the same time, the poll shows broad public support for a proposal floated by Obama to get large amounts of the country’s electricity from low-carbon sources. The poll finds that 89 percent of Americans think, “We should take advantage of all low-carbon ene...

Rasmussen Reports has released a new poll on nuclear energy in the wake of President Obama’s loan guarantee announcement. Bottom line: 49% of Americans favor the building of new nuclear power plants. Twenty-seven percent (27%) are opposed to the idea, and 24% are not sure. We’ve seen better, but given the mood of the country in general – or at least Rasmussen’s read of it – we’re not terribly surprised. (Last year, Gallup had support for nuclear energy at 59%.) Does this mean support has shrunk – no, at least not necessarily, because Gallup and Rasmussen use different surveys, stress items differently, etc. We’d need more polls and even then, not use them to draw conclusions. The goal for advocates is to see what the trends are so one one can correct public misperceptions or weaknesses in the message. But this isn’t advertising: lies not allowed. Here’s a few other tidbits: Sixty-one percent (61%) of adults now believe that finding new sources of energy is more import...

Well, we always have something to say, but there’s a fair number of interesting articles that come out each day which don’t really require much comment to be fully comprehensible on their own. For example: Investing in new nuclear power plants is good for the economy, good for the environment and good for energy security. But to ensure that America's nuclear renaissance isn't derailed, members should reject the House restriction on loan guarantees for nuclear energy when the bill reaches the Senate floor. This op-ed comes from the San Antonio Express-News and we thought might be responsive to the story we’ve been following on South Texas Project. But no: it’s instead a good editorial on the efficacy of nuclear energy written by Bernard Weinstein, the associate director of the Maguire Energy Institute at Southern Methodist University. He knows whereof he speaks, so consider it another link to send your nuclear-deprived friends. --- George Mason University has put ...

Rasmussen and Zogby both have polls out that aim to figure out how Americans feel about the climate change legislation travelling through Congress. If Rasmussen happened to call you, you were in a bad mood : In late June, Rasmussen Reports surveyed 1000 adults. The poll showed that only 12% of respondents were strongly in favor, while 25% were strongly opposed. And 42% said that the measure would hurt the economy, while only 19% said it would help. And you were much happier when Zogby caught up with you: Now comes a competing poll from Zogby, which presents a far different picture. In this poll, a stunning 45% of the 1005 respondents were strongly in favor of the climate bill. Only 19% strongly opposed it. What does this mean? Well, Business Week’s John Carey thinks that Zogby put the most positive spin possible on their questions while Rasmussen aimed at “objectivity” – good luck on that one! Carey concludes that “the public really doesn’t yet know what to think....

Triplepundit asks the following question: At some point you just have to ask yourself, what is it that these politicians are getting to push nuclear energy so hard? Answer: knowledge. It’s a powerful thing. You can read the rest of the post yourself, but we didn’t find it all that noteworthy. The opening question was just too easy. --- While Congress is contemplating a new energy policy, American women are paying the electric bills at home and making the critical decisions on energy use in their homes and businesses, according to the national Women's Survey on Energy & the Environment, the first in-depth women's survey on attitudes and awareness about energy. We look forward to finding out what women think about energy. Oh wait, we already know that – from polls – that also include – men. We genuinely don’t get this one. --- We trust that Mark Miller at the Vermont Law School’s Institute for Energy and the Environment means only the best when he wri...

And by an impressively wide margin, too. A new poll from Bisconti Research for NEI interviewed 1000 voters to determine the support for nuclear energy depending on which candidate they were leaning towards - we've always liked the idea, much used by pollsters, of the "leaning" voter. You get an image of a grove of folks, swaying as the political winds move them. Before going through the results, we would have anticipated that John McCain voters would prefer nuclear energy much more than Barack Obama voters; Obama's support has been positive if a bit on the tepid side and we expected his candidacy would attract more environmental no-nuke diehards. But see for yourselves. “Overall, do you strongly favor, somewhat favor, somewhat oppose, or strongly oppose the use of nuclear energy as one of the ways to provide electricity in the United States?” Favor (which combines strongly and somewhat favors): Obama: 72% McCain: 86% That's about what we expect from...

  We sometimes say here that the viability of nuclear energy from a public opinion perspective is ever improving. The reason we say that is that we look at polls that tell us so. Now, NEI-sponsored polls, although they're as honestly conducted as can be - NEI really can't learn anything about its effectiveness by playing tricks - can still be viewed by some with a fishy eye. Any poll taken by an interested party on any subject can be seen as suspect - we've all seen polls that do not seem to correlate to any known reality. (Which doesn't mean we won't encourage you to take a look at NEI's public opinion efforts -er, click here , in other words.) But here are numbers from rather more disinterested parties that show the how our fellow citizens view the state of building new nuclear energy plants: 53 percent said that we should build more nuclear power plants; 31 percent said we should not (NBC News/Wall Street Journal August 2008). 51 percent favored...

That's according to the San Francisco Chronicle : In a sign that record-high gas prices are changing the way Californians think and live, a new poll shows that state residents are losing their long-held hostility to nuclear power and may even reconsider their opposition to oil drilling off their scenic coast. For the first time since the 1970s, half of Californians support building more nuclear plants in the state, according to the latest Field Poll, to be released today... Excellent! The article is generating a lot of positive comments too .

MIT asked that question: Americans' icy attitudes toward nuclear power are beginning to thaw, according to a new survey from MIT. The report also found a U.S. public increasingly unhappy with oil and more willing to develop alternative energy sources like wind and solar. [...] The report, "Public Attitudes Toward America's Energy Options: Insights for Nuclear Energy," was recently published by MIT's Center for Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems. Ansolabehere conducted a similar survey in 2002 as part of the MIT study, "The Future of Nuclear Power." In the five years since the last survey, public preferences have remained fairly stable, but the percentage of people who want to increase nuclear power use has grown from 28 percent to 35 percent. That increase in popularity is likely due to concern over global warming caused by carbon emissions from fossil fuels, Ansolabehere said. For more information about the public's view of nuclear energy, click here ...

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...