U.S. Support for Nuclear Power Soars

upstart writes:

As the country looks to decarbonize, nuclear's popularity climbs to the highest level in a decade:

A Gallup survey released in late April found that 55 percent of U.S. adults support the use of nuclear power. That's up four percentage points from last year and reflects the highest level of public support for nuclear energy use in electricity since 2012.

[...] Nuclear energy has historically been a source of immense controversy. A series of high-profile nuclear accidents and disasters, from Three Mile Island in 1979 to Chernobyl in 1986 to Fukushima in 2011, have raised safety concerns - even though the death toll from fossil fuel power generation far outstrips that of nuclear power generation. Several government nuclear programs have also left behind toxic waste that place disproportionate burdens on Indigenous communities.

But nuclear power doesn't produce carbon emissions, and it's more consistent and reliable than wind and solar energy, which vary depending on the weather. For these reasons, the Biden administration has identified nuclear energy as a key climate solution to achieve grid stability in a net-zero future. The administration is pushing for the deployment of a new generation of reactors called "advanced nuclear": a catch-all term for new nuclear reactor models that improve on the safety and efficiency of traditional reactor designs.

In a recent report, the Department of Energy found that regardless of how many renewables are deployed, the U.S. will need an additional 200 gigawatts of advanced nuclear power - enough to power about 160 million homes - to reach President Joe Biden's goal of hitting net-zero emissions by 2050.

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