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Poll Shows Nuke Power Ambivalence & How the poll was taken
Saturday March 20 1:18 AM ET
Poll Shows Nuke Power Ambivalence
By WILL LESTER Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Fewer than half of Americans say they
support using nuclear power to produce electricity and an
increasing number of people admit they don't know what they think
about it, according to an Associated Press poll.
The poll, taken 20 years after a serious accident at the Three Mile
Island nuclear plant near Harrisburg, Pa., found 45 percent of
adults saying they support the use of nuclear energy. That is down
10 percentage points from a 1989 AP poll.
Sixty percent in the latest poll say they believe nuclear plants are
safer now, but half the respondents believe a serious nuclear
accident is likely at a U.S. power plant. Those numbers are about
the same as in the 1989 poll.
The nuclear power industry supplies about 20 percent of the
nation's energy. No new plants are being built in this country and
many existing facilities are seeking relicensing.
About one in three people surveyed said they oppose the use of
nuclear power, while one in four said they didn't know. The
percentage in opposition was the same a decade ago, but the
number who said they didn't know where they stood on the issue
was twice as high as it was in 1989.
Men were more likely than women to support nuclear power,
according to the poll, conducted by ICR of Media, Pa.
``I still think it will work,'' said 73-year-old Jim Bissey, a cashier
from Springfield, Ohio. ``We have nuclear submarines and other
nuclear devices that seem to work OK. I'm hoping that technology
has moved forward so that whatever happened at Three Mile Island
they can control or eliminate.''
On March 28, 1979, a series of failures cut off the flow of cooling
water to the reactor, which caused the top half of the reactor's
radioactive core to collapse and melt. Contaminated coolant water
escaped into a nearby building, releasing radioactive gases.
The telephone survey of 1,015 people was taken Friday through
Tuesday. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Even a majority of those who support the use of nuclear power said
they wouldn't want to live within 10 miles of a plant.
``I have not seen enough evidence to be anti-nuclear power,'' said
Kirsten Hoffman, 33, of Corpus Christi, Texas. ``But it's the old
NIMBY syndrome - not in my back yard.''
Industry officials say the 1990s are good times for nuclear power,
even though no orders for new plants have been placed in more
than two decades.
Scott Peterson, a spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, said
the industry has ``more than 100 nuclear power plants operating at
record levels of efficiency and safety.'' He sees the environmental
debate over pollution from coal and oil plants as a significant boost
for nuclear power and said that in another decade there may be an
appetite for more large-scale plants.
The storage of radioactive waste continues to be an environmental
concern, with almost half in the poll saying they believe it cannot
be safely stored for many years. One-third said they thought it
could be safely stored.
Some existing nuclear plants may be able to compete
economically with other types of plants in energy production costs,
said Tom Cochran, senior scientist at the Natural Resources
Defense Council. But Cochran said the prohibitive cost of building
new plants could reduce the amount of nuclear power in another
couple of decades.
That would be fine with Dianne Carr, a 42-year-old Sharpsburg,
Md., resident who vividly remembers news reports about the Three
Mile Island accident in neighboring Pennsylvania.
``Nuclear power is pretty scary,'' she said. ``I remember reading
about evacuation plans for cities after Three Mile Island, and it was
mind-boggling.''
Saturday March 20 1:20 AM ET
How Nuclear Poll Was Taken
The Associated Press poll on nuclear power is based on telephone
interviews with 1,015 randomly selected adults from all states
except Alaska and Hawaii. The interviewing was conducted March
12-16 by ICR, of Media, Pa.
The results were weighted to represent the population by key
demographic factors such as age, sex, region and education.
No more than one time in 20 should chance variations in the
sample cause the results to vary by more than 3 percentage points
from the answers that would be obtained if all Americans were
polled.
This margin of sampling error is larger for responses of subgroups,
such as income categories. There are other sources of potential
error in polls, including the wording and order of questions.
The AP poll questions (because of rounding, sums may not total
100 percent):
1. Do you support or oppose using nuclear power to generate
electricity? Support, 45 percent; oppose, 31 percent; don't know,
23 percent; refused to answer, 1 percent.
2. (Asked only of the 493 respondents who support nuclear power)
Would you support or oppose the construction of a nuclear power
plant within 10 miles of your home? Support, 47 percent; oppose,
51 percent; Don't know, 3 percent.
3. Do you think nuclear power plants in the United States are safer
now than they were 10 years ago, or not? Safer, 61 percent; not
safer, 21 percent; don't know, 18 percent.
4. Do you think radioactive waste from nuclear power plants can be
safely stored for many years, or not? Yes, 31 percent; no, 47
percent; don't know, 21 percent.
5. How would you rate the likelihood of a serious accident at a
nuclear power plant in the United States - highly likely, likely,
unlikely or highly unlikely? Highly likely, 13 percent; likely 37
percent; unlikely, 27 percent; highly unlikely, 18 percent; don't
know, 6 percent.
------------------------
Sandy Perle
E-Mail: sandyfl@earthlink.net
Personal Website: http://www.geocities.com/capecanaveral/1205
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