Experts downplay results of nuclear power poll

Thursday, April 26, 2001 | 10:38 a.m.

Polling experts say Americans are showing lukewarm interest in nuclear power, at best, despite a recent poll that shows support is improving.

As national concerns increase over rising fuel costs and possible power shortages, the results of the Associated Press poll indicating Americans had grown slightly more comfortable with nuclear power over the past two years aren't surprising, experts said.

"These things fluctuate from time to time," Oregon pollster James Flynn of Decisions Research Inc. said. More than two-thirds of Americans supported nuclear energy in the 1960s, until Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979 nearly melted down, he said.

After that accident and the Chernobyl disaster in the former Soviet Union in April 1986, support for nuclear power plummeted, Flynn said.

The AP poll done by ICR of Media, Pa., indicated 50 percent of 1,002 Americans had grown slightly more comfortable with nuclear power over the past two years.

"That's a pretty substantial increase in support from the past," Flynn said.

But when it came to storing nuclear waste safely, confidence dropped to 38 percent.

Dan Soulas of ICR said the question did not distinguish between a permanent nuclear waste repository proposed for Yucca Mountain or temporary storage at the 103 reactor sites across the nation.

"I'm from Pennsylvania, and I imagine results in either Pennsylvania or Nevada would be more negative, because people are more aware of a Three Mile Island or a Yucca Mountain," he said.

Although the poll did not account for those surveyed state by state, Soulas said roughly 10 Nevada residents were interviewed for the survey. Alaska and Hawaii, states without any nuclear reactor or repository site, were not surveyed.

Mary Riddle, UNLV associate professor of economics and assistant director of UNLV's Center for Business and Economic Research, said she is conducting a poll of Nevadans and is finding the respondents are overwhelmingly against shipping high-level nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. They perceive radiation exposures from accidents as a real threat, she said.

"Why didn't they come to Nevada and do a poll?" she said.

Riddle has been collecting public opinion on the nuclear waste issue in the state since last fall. She has not published her results yet.

Flynn said people support a potentially dangerous project such as Yucca Mountain as long as it is far enough away from them. But when a hazardous site becomes a local issue, then opposition rises.

How pollsters ask the questions can shift opinion, Democrat Rep. Shelley Berkley's spokesman Michael O'Donovan said. "It doesn't surprise me," he said of the poll results. "If you ask about nuclear waste storage first, you might see that number decline."