Post by anonposter on May 29, 2012 7:25:07 GMT 9.5
The last item from News and Research Links 28 May the guest post by Michael Bills on decarbonise SA shows an interesting correlation between how much a person knows about three basic facts about nuclear energy and their opinions on nuclear energy through a rather interesting method of including some questions which do indeed have right answers among the opinion questions.
Whilst I think the polling done there has some flaws, namely not being a representative sample of the population (I would expect the peers of a student doing year 12 physics to be less anti-nuclear than the general population) and also the possibility of bias in wording (not deliberate, but it's easy to accidentally bias polls) but it still provides some useful information and the conclusion that those who know more tend to fear less does appear to hold up.
The only other similar analysis is described in Chapter 4 of Bernard Cohen's excellent The Nuclear Energy Option about some polling comparing the attitudes of scientists and the general public to nuclear energy done in 1980 (which was pretty much the peak of anti-nuclear public opinion in the US). I'll reproduce the table on how the US should proceed:
which does appear to indicate that we've got the scientific community on our side (or at least we had the 1980 US scientific community on our side, but I'd be very surprised if things are much different these days down here).
Chapter 5 of Cohen's book also discusses some polling he did of radiation health scientists indicating that the general opinion there is that the public worries too much about radiation.
On how to extend the Bills methodology I would suggest adding more response options to many of them (as well as the don't know option, or just having a scale, don't know but leaning against is different to don't know but leaning for) along with some questions on global warming and how much of a threat they think it is (or even whether they think it a problem) and maybe a question on whether clean coal is a realistic possibility or PR bulls*** (6 people did say Australia shouldn't use nuclear power and can't get by with renewables, what did they think we should do?).
I'd also like to see more detail on the question where the majority was opposed, namely taking others' nuclear 'waste' and specifically whether it'd be OK to do it if they paid us the cost of doing it properly and a decent profit (whereas the question could have been interpreted as Australia taking the 'waste' (if it hasn't been through a breeder it's not really waste) without getting any benefit from the disposal).
Whilst I think the polling done there has some flaws, namely not being a representative sample of the population (I would expect the peers of a student doing year 12 physics to be less anti-nuclear than the general population) and also the possibility of bias in wording (not deliberate, but it's easy to accidentally bias polls) but it still provides some useful information and the conclusion that those who know more tend to fear less does appear to hold up.
The only other similar analysis is described in Chapter 4 of Bernard Cohen's excellent The Nuclear Energy Option about some polling comparing the attitudes of scientists and the general public to nuclear energy done in 1980 (which was pretty much the peak of anti-nuclear public opinion in the US). I'll reproduce the table on how the US should proceed:
| All Scientists | Energy Experts | Nuclear Experts | |
| Proceed rapidly | 53 | 70 | 92 |
| Proceed slowly | 36 | 25 | 8 |
| Halt Development | 7 | 4 | 0 |
| Dismantle plants | 3 | 1 | 0 |
Chapter 5 of Cohen's book also discusses some polling he did of radiation health scientists indicating that the general opinion there is that the public worries too much about radiation.
On how to extend the Bills methodology I would suggest adding more response options to many of them (as well as the don't know option, or just having a scale, don't know but leaning against is different to don't know but leaning for) along with some questions on global warming and how much of a threat they think it is (or even whether they think it a problem) and maybe a question on whether clean coal is a realistic possibility or PR bulls*** (6 people did say Australia shouldn't use nuclear power and can't get by with renewables, what did they think we should do?).
I'd also like to see more detail on the question where the majority was opposed, namely taking others' nuclear 'waste' and specifically whether it'd be OK to do it if they paid us the cost of doing it properly and a decent profit (whereas the question could have been interpreted as Australia taking the 'waste' (if it hasn't been through a breeder it's not really waste) without getting any benefit from the disposal).
