March 23, 2016

Do the Majority of Americans Oppose Nuclear Energy?--Maybe Not

Two stories about nuclear energy

Stefan Kühn/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

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This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American

Since 1994, Gallup has been tracking U.S. attitudes on nuclear energy. Last week, they released new survey results suggesting the majority of Americans oppose nuclear energy. But do they?

On the surface, it's clear something has shifted, but polling is subject to many influences and The UT Energy Poll results from January tell a bit of a different story.

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Why the disparity? Anyone paying attention to polls through this primary season knows that surveys aren't perfect. Results are subject to a lot of sources of error and the way the poll is condected impacts the results.

The Gallup poll was based on telephone interviews among a random sample of 1,019 U.S. adults, aged 18 and older. The margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points.

The UT Energy Poll was conducted online among 2,043 U.S. adults, aged 18 and older, weighted to reflect U.S. Census demographic data. The overall margin of sampling error is ±3.1 percentage points.

So what's the take home message on nuclear energy? At this point, it's not clear.

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