RSS Feed MenuA new study shows that those who live closest to nuclear power plants are amongst the most supportive of nuclear power, and more supportive than the general public in adding reactors at nuclear power plant sites across America.
Last month, the Nuclear Energy Institute commissioned a survey of residents within a 10-mile radius of the United States’ 64 nuclear power plant sites, excluding respondents who worked for utilities companies. Among the results: 90% have a favorable impression of the nearby nuclear power plants, 84% favor the use of nuclear energy, and 88% rated the safety of their nearby plant as high (five to seven on a seven-point scale).
Interestingly, respondents were also quite satisfied with the firms running the nuclear power plants: 91% were confident in their relevant company’s ability to operate a nuclear power plant safely, 86% believed that the company is doing a good job of protecting the environment, and 83% believe that the company is involved in the community.
Perhaps most insightful was the finding that 76% of respondents felt it was acceptable to add a new reactor to their local nuclear power plant site. This figure is significantly higher than the general public’s figure for the same question, which stood at 70%.
One might thus think that these results are counter-intuitive. However, the peculiarity of these figures is grounded in a false conception of the risks surrounding nuclear power. Historically, those who have sought to promote nuclear energy have found themselves frustrated by the “stigma that has existed since the Three Mile Island incident,” says Steven Everley, a policy advisor to American Solutions, of which Newt Gingrich is the chairman.
The anti-nuclear sentiment that arose after that incident (and the unfortunate timing behind the release of The China Syndrome) persists in some quarters to this day, despite the relatively low risk that actually lies in the generation of nuclear power. After all, the Three Mile Island accident, a so-called ‘nuclear disaster,’ had negligible effects on the health of those who lived in the area. Indeed, the Presidential Commission ordered to investigate the effects of the event concluded that “there will either be no case of cancer or the number of cases will be so small that it will never be possible to detect them. The same conclusion applies to the other possible health effects.”
As David Frum points out in How We Got Here: The 70s, the anti-nuclear sentiment of today is rooted in “the conviction that nature is benign and science is dangerous.” That this conviction is not held by those who are most invested in the risks of nuclear energy is insightful. This new survey data shows that those who live closest to nuclear power plants are also those who best understand that the results of nuclear power are overwhelmingly positive: American energy independence, jobs and clean air.
Nuculer Power « Upset Patterns // Aug 4, 2009 at 11:31 am
[...] | Tags: alternative energy, nuclear power | Leave a Comment My summer roomate wrote and interesting piece on residents’ views near nuclear power plants on nuclear power. I don’t know much about [...]
Cforchange // Aug 4, 2009 at 11:40 am
I think smiley faces on the steam towers would go far to make nuclear more palatable
balconesfault // Aug 4, 2009 at 12:05 pm
Not a surprise – nuclear power facilities have been in America long enough that there’s pretty much a self-selected population around them. Plenty of time for anyone who really hates the idea of living near a facility to have moved long ago … and for people who aren’t bothered by them to move in.
And yes, familiarity breeds comfort. Much of the opposition to nuclear has always been drummed up through fear of the unknown. Three headed fish growing legs and terrorizing neighborhood pets. The more people are around a plant, the more they start to understand the massive culture of safety and redundancy that’s built into our plants.
I’ve always said that I’d prefer to live downwind of a nuclear facility than a coal burning plant. That said, unfortunately, we still got some seriously big issues to deal with in order to expand our nuclear infrastructure, from the homeland security related to the water use requirements to the need for long term disposal options.
sinz54 // Aug 4, 2009 at 12:22 pm
In the 30 years since the Three Mile Island incident, scientists and engineers have developed new reactor designs that are far safer than any existing reactors in the U.S. today. With these new designs, a Three Mile Island type meltdown would be nearly impossible.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reactor_technology
It’s important to explain to the public that we’ve learned a lot of lessons from Three Mile Island and other incidents, and the reactors we would build today would be designed to take all those lessons into account and avoid all those types of incidents.
barker13 // Aug 4, 2009 at 2:58 pm
What’s the point of this thread post?
Is there anyone AGAINST building new nuclear energy plants?
BILL
sricher // Aug 4, 2009 at 3:05 pm
Good article Tim. I’m glad somebody can mention nuclear power without making a reference to France.
Barker, aren’t a lot of the left-environmentalists opposed? Isn’t this where McCain tried to press Obama in the presidential debates–because Obama was squeamish about endorsing N power?
balconesfault // Aug 4, 2009 at 3:33 pm
Barker – there are those in the Ron Paul camp who support the use of existing nuclear plants, but don’t believe that any new plants can be built without government subsidy … and therefore oppose them on that basis.
sinz54 // Aug 4, 2009 at 8:46 pm
barker13 asks: “Is there anyone AGAINST building new nuclear energy plants?”
Are you kidding?
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/campaigns/nuclear
(notice the deliberately dishonest allusion to Chernobyl, which lacked a concrete containment. After 1945, the United States NEVER built a commercial power reactor without a containment facility. So the United States was never in danger of an uncontained meltdown with any of its reactors.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-nuclear_movement_in_the_United_States
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=life_after_the_death_of_environmentalism
There’s plenty more where those came from.
SFTor1 // Aug 4, 2009 at 9:37 pm
I think that gently burning sage and other aromatic herbs, combined with a hot stone massage may give us all the energy we need. How do you heat the stones? You rub them with your feet, while chanting. It’s very energetic.
barker13 // Aug 4, 2009 at 9:53 pm
Re: Sricher // Aug 4, 2009 at 3:05 pm –
“Barker, aren’t a lot of the left-environmentalists opposed?”
Yes. But I was literally asking about *us* here at NM – we posters. (In other words, I wasn’t being sarcastic, I was asking a literal question of my fellow posters here.)
Re: Balconesfault // Aug 4, 2009 at 3:33 pm –
“Barker – there are those in the Ron Paul camp…”
Balc. Again. It was a LITERAL question for my fellow posters. (Including you.)
BILL
dacookson // Aug 5, 2009 at 6:48 am
I’m against building new nuclear and, as balconesfault points out, fiscal conservatives should be too. He also makes a good point about demographics. Nuclear is expensive, not the best way to combat climate change and unnecessarily risky. I don’t have time to write a long comment about it but just a few links here, here, here, here, and here. The government is trying to push more nuclear power in the UK but, given that Gordon Brown’s brother (with whom he shares a tax-payer funded house cleaner) works for EDF, perhaps that’s not surprising. It’s a gravy train.
dacookson // Aug 5, 2009 at 6:50 am
I’m against building new nuclear and, as balconesfault points out, fiscal conservatives should be too. He also makes a good point about demographics. Nuclear is expensive, not the best way to combat climate change and unnecessarily risky. I don’t have time to write a long comment about it but just a few links here, here, here, here, and here. The government is trying to push more nuclear power in the UK but, given that Gordon Brown’s brother (with whom he shares a tax-payer funded house cleaner) works for EDF, perhaps that’s not surprising. It’s a gravy train.
dacookson // Aug 5, 2009 at 7:00 am
My comment didn’t appear…
barker13 // Aug 5, 2009 at 8:27 am
Dacookson // Aug 5, 2009 at 7:00 am –
“My comment didn’t appear…”
Yes it did. Twice, actually. (*WINK*)
Anyway… thanks for being the first and so far only anti-nuclear expansion voice.
Dacook. Clear something up for me. Aren’t you a Brit…??? What’s your deal… are you an expat living here but planning on returning home or are you (or do you plan to become) an American citizen?
I mean, while it’s always nice to chat with foreigners, if you’re neither an American nor planning on becoming American… who the heck cares what you want in relation to our country’s domestic energy policies?
(Again.. to reiterate… ALWAYS interesting to get your views – I’m NOT insinuating that I don’t want you to post them here because I DO want you to be part of the debate. I’m just trying to clarify what your deal is…)
Cheers!
BILL
dacookson // Aug 5, 2009 at 9:19 am
I am British, I’ve no intention of becoming an American or moving to America. I comment on things that are of interest to me. A lot of issues cross borders, and UK politics and economics is influenced by the US. If anyone decides they don’t the heck care about my opinions, that’s for them. I suppose it makes it easier for some people to ignore a good argument
sinz54 // Aug 5, 2009 at 10:08 am
dacookson: Your argument is a perfect example of irrational risk perception. From the articles you cited, I couldn’t find a single fatality or even a significant injury from nuclear.
Would you like to compare those statistics to the number of Brits killed in auto accidents? Airplane crashes? Steam boiler explosions? Building collapses?
If your standard is zero tolerance for accidental fatalities, then we would all have to go back to living in caves.
So far, in the West, nuclear power has proven to be one of the safest power systems around. In America, not a single person has been killed by a nuclear power accident. As compared with the many who have died in oil refinery fires, coal mine accidents, etc.
In America, we are accustomed to 30,000 accidental deaths, and ten times that number of injuries, in automobile accidents every year. We don’t stop driving cars.
dacookson // Aug 5, 2009 at 1:29 pm
You’re not comparing like for like though sinz. Compare wind farms and solar panels to nuclear not cars and fossil fuels. Radioactivity in the environment may not cause immediate deaths but would cause longer term health problems. It’s just one factor though. If you include the cost and the fact they take a decade to build and all the other drawbacks to the small risk of a calamitous disaster I don’t find the whole idea appealing.
midcon // Aug 5, 2009 at 3:03 pm
Although I am on a few days vacation, I just had provide my two cents before I head back out to the ocean.
Fossil fuel is finite. Someday the earth will run out.
Solar and wind sources cannot and will never meet the earths energy needs (but needs to be part of the mix)
Coal while still in vast supply remains finite (and is still dirty)
Hydroelectric has nearly reached its limits
Nuclear is the only current source of power that is essentially unlimited and which can be made more efficient with a smaller footprint.
Yes we need a balance of all sources, but to eliminate nuclear will ultimately limit our growth and contribute to our decline. The irrational fear of nuclear sources to power even spacecraft is just plain silly.
Now, back to the ocean.
barker13 // Aug 5, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Re: Midcon // Aug 5, 2009 at 3:03 pm –
Lighten things up for us, Dave… share some vacation details – some highlights!
And, hey… have a drink on me – put it on Dacook’s tab though… the dollar is down again.
(*WINK*)
BILL
midcon // Aug 5, 2009 at 5:24 pm
Deleware, beach, seafood, beer. What else is there?
And for conservatives, low property and income taxes, no sales tax. How does Deleware do it?
barker13 // Aug 5, 2009 at 7:31 pm
Re: midcon // Aug 5, 2009 at 5:24 pm –
Hmm… sounds great!
I’ve never been to the Delaware/Maryland beaches. I’ve heard good things though!
Enjoy yourself!
BILL
Tim Mak » Yes, In My Backyard! // Aug 6, 2009 at 2:19 am
[...] Read more at: http://www.newmajority.com/yes-in-my-backyard [...]
Engineer-Poet // Aug 6, 2009 at 11:12 pm
Hi. Old blogger, new commenter here. (As long as I’m proclaiming myself a newbie, I’ve gotta note the lack of either a link to a list of approved HTML or a preview function. C’mon, this isn’t 1998 any more; what gives?)
Resistance to nuclear power in the USA is, paradoxically, due more to fiction than fact. The fiction is the film “The China Syndrome”, which was in theaters when TMI Unit 2 had its expensive little mishap. This gave the film far more mindshare than it otherwise would have had, and the anti-nuclear forces (including coal interests) have been making hay out of this ever since. Lovelock’s recent conversion has steered some political ecologists back toward nuclear as the least-bad option, but the status quo shows that the movement is a day late and a dollar short.
I think us Yanks should cut dacookson a bit of slack. The USA has never had a graphite-moderated, water-cooled reactor in commercial service, while Britain found out about Wigner energy the hard way with the Windscale fire. This was Britain’s own Chernobyl-like event. While alternatives existed, people could be forgiven for paying no attention to nuclear power. Those alternatives are fast evaporating, so we have to first educate ourselves and then make informed choices.
Last, I am not a NIMBY. I am a GUMBY: I want the nuclear people to Go Under My Back Yard. There are nuclear technologies which lend themselves to small, modular plants, and burying them deep underground would completely eliminate threats from things like crashing airplanes and truck bombs. Nuclear plants generate heat as a byproduct, so as long as they’re safely buried why not put them where the heat can do something useful, like heat my house in the winter? This way we get a two-fer. Or rather, those of us not afraid to call ourselves GUMBIES would.