US support for nuclear higher in 2024 than year earlier, survey finds
More than half of the respondents to a US survey believe nuclear energy is an essential part of the solution to climate disruption and energy security. The ecoAmerica Climate Perspectives Survey, from the Anthropocene Institute, has seen US citizens' concerns about nuclear energy decrease over its seven-year series.
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The poll found 55% of Americans to be either “strongly” or “somewhat" supportive of nuclear power - a 3-point rise from 2023 and a 6-point rise from 2018, but down from 2022's peak of 61%.
The most important reasons cited for supporting nuclear energy included economic benefits, pollution reduction, reliability and energy independence. The majority of respondents also believed that US nuclear power plants should be kept running until "lower-cost renewable energy" becomes available (70%) or as long as they are cost-effective in the long term (68%). And although the majority of respondents express some concerns about nuclear energy - for example, about health and safety, waste disposal and weaponisation - the number of respondents expressing such concerns has fallen since the first survey in 2018. The exception to this is concern over costs of nuclear power plants: the percentage of respondents citing cost as a concern has risen slightly, from 65% in 2018 to 68% in 2024.
Support for nuclear was not divided along party political lines, with those identifying themselves as Republicans and Democrats less divided on support for nuclear R&D than for other energy sources: 56% of Democrats and 62% of Republicans said that the USA should spend more on next-generation nuclear R&D, a 6-point difference, whereas the poll found much wider point differences between the parties on R&D spending on oil, coal and gas, ranging from a 12-point difference for gas to a 21-point difference for oil.
"Nuclear energy is increasingly being adopted worldwide to solve climate disruption, with 25 countries signing the Declaration to Triple Nuclear Energy Capacity by 2050 and 14 major banks and financial institutions committing to finance the expansion," said Guido Nuñez-Mujica, director of data science for Anthropocene Institute. "It is no wonder, since nuclear energy protects air quality, consumes only a small land footprint, and produces minimal waste that can be reused. In addition, the existing spent fuel could power the United States for a whole century. Nuclear energy offers a path of hope, especially for nations trying to increase their quality of life without worsening our climate crisis."
The survey was designed by ecoAmerica and conducted online from 24 July-9 August. A total of 1011 complete adult responses were received, and the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey was used to weigh the national general population and reflect the demographic composition of the USA. The margin of error for the sample is +/-3%.
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