I have blogged about all the problems with nuclear power that make it a bad choice for generating electricity. There are many different problems including corruption, incompetence, bad design, lack of adequate regulations, cost overruns, environmental degradation, public health threats, flooding, sea level rise, warming oceans, terrorist and war threats, etc. Recently I listed forty reasons to reject nuclear power. Since then, I have found another five reasons. Sadly enough, even with all these serious concerns, nuclear power is still on the table and some countries, especially China, are making massive investments in reactor construction. One of the reasons for this resistance to the facts about nuclear power is that there is so much money in the construction of nuclear reactors that there is plenty for anyone involved. Greed seems to trump everything else. However, change is on the horizon, in the U.S. at least.
The Gallup polling organization has been tracking public attitudes toward nuclear power in the U.S. since 1994. Before this year, the number of people supporting use of nuclear power was always higher than the number of people opposing it. The high point in polling on public acceptance of nuclear power in the U.S. was in 2010 when sixty two percent of the people polled supported nuclear power. Just before the major nuclear disaster at Fukushima, the support was at fifty seven percent. By 2015, the support had declined to fifty one percent. Now, the most recent poll shows that only forty four percent of U.S. citizens support nuclear power. So at this point, a majority of people in the U.S. do not support nuclear power. The margin of error for the latest poll is four percent. One more major nuclear accident anywhere in the world and the support will sink even further. This is one of the considerations that politicians and investors will take into account when considering new nuclear project proposals.
Gallup believes that low energy prices for oil, gasoline and natural gas have been a major contributing factor to the decline in support for nuclear power. In addition, the decline in price for alternative sustainable energy sources has also contributed. The massive upfront investment in nuclear power cannot be justified when there are other cheaper energy sources available. With cheaper low-carbon alternative energy sources, environmental concerns are also contributing to rejection of nuclear power. Republicans are more supportive of nuclear power than Democrats but even the Republican support in the latest polls was only forty six percent.
Although several new power reactors are being built in the U.S., this drop in public support bodes ill for the future of nuclear power in the U.S. Continuing problems with leakage of radioactive materials from power plants and debates over what to do with all the spent nuclear fuel that is piling up at the nuclear power stations also contribute to a decline of support for nuclear power. In the end I think that it will be a combination of public rejection and investor skepticism that will sink nuclear power once and for all, not only in the U.S. but all over the world.
