Public’s Dread of Nuclear Power Limits Its Deployment

This fear, may cause people to want less of this zero-carbon energy source in the nation’s electricity generation mix than they otherwise would, suggest Parth Vaishnav, an assistant research professor in Carnegie Mellon University’s Department of Engineering and Public Policy and Ahmed Abdulla, a postdoctoral fellow of the University of California San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy,

Just how much is this sense of dread negatively affecting decision-making about nuclear about? Respondents were split into two groups: half of the sample was shown the power sources they could choose from by label (solar, natural gas, nuclear, etc.), while the other half was shown how much environmental and accidental risk the technology posed. “Despite decades of analysis focused on public attitudes about nuclear power, there remains a gulf in understanding the difference between the technology’s statistical risks and the dread it evokes,” the team wrote.

Source: www.cmu.edu