| WASHINGTON
- March 22 - Twenty years after the March 28, 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island
nuclear plant near Harrisburg, Pa., most Americans believe a similar accident could happen again in the United States.
Furthermore, six out of ten registered voters oppose the building
of any
new nuclear plants in the United States and, if given a choice of generator
from which they could buy their electricity, only 6 percent would choose
nuclear power.
These are among the key findings of a new public opinion survey
released
today by the Sustainable Energy Coalition. The survey of 1,022 registered
voters was conducted March 5-14 by International Communications Research of
Media, Pennsylvania; it has a margin of error of plus-or-minus 3.0 percent.
Two-thirds (67 percent) of respondents stated that they believe
that it
was highly (21 percent) or somewhat (46 percent) likely that a nuclear
accident like that which occurred at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant
could happen in the United States again. This view is held by male and
female voters across all political party lines and age groups. It is
therefore not surprising that three-fifths (60 percent) of all registered
voters oppose the building of more nuclear power plants in the United States
with women (69 percent) and younger voters (65 percent) particularly
opposed.
The respondents overall were evenly split on the question of
whether
existing reactors should be phased out by the year 2020. However, a nuclear
phase-out is embraced by a majority of Democratic voters (51 percent vs. 35
percent). Furthermore, the responses reveal a clear gender gap with women
favoring a phase-out by a margin of 48 percent to 35 percent. Perhaps more
troubling for the nuclear industry is that younger voters support a
phase-out of nuclear reactors by an even larger margin of 50 percent to 40
percent.
"Most Americans think an accident like that which occurred at
Three
Mile Island could happen again and want no new plants built," said
Scott Denman, Executive Director of the Safe Energy Communication Council.
"This provides convincing proof that voters believe nuclear power
remains an unsafe, unreliable, and uneconomic source of electricity."
Finally, the survey suggests that as the nation's utility
marketplace is
gradually opened to competition, the nuclear industry is faced with a bleak
future inasmuch as only 6 percent of voters would opt to buy their
electricity from nuclear generators. In comparison, an overwhelming number
of consumers (62 percent) would prefer to buy their electricity from
renewable energy sources (i.e., solar, wind, geothermal, biomass and
hydroelectric) while another 18 percent would choose natural gas and 4
percent would select coal.
"Twenty years after the Three Mile Island accident, the nuclear
industry has clearly never recovered," said Ken Bossong, executive director of the SUN DAY Campaign. "It is a dying industry dependent
on an outmoded technology for which there is little public support and
which most consumers are prepared to reject in the marketplace."
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The Sustainable Energy Coalition is a coalition of 36 national business,
environmental, consumer, and energy policy organizations founded in 1992 to
promote increased use of energy efficient and renewable energy technologies
and to move away from unsafe or polluting energy sources. The complete
15-page survey "America Speaks Out on Energy: Nuclear Power"
(including charts and demographic data) is available for $10 prepaid from
the Sustainable Energy Coalition (315 Circle Ave., No. 2, Takoma Park, Md.
20912-4836).
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