Antinuclear

Do young people support nuclear power?

Jim Green 31 May 24

Earlier this year the Murdoch-Coalition echo-chamber was excited about younger poll respondents in a February Newspoll survey ‒ 65 percent support and 32 percent opposition among 18 to 34-year-olds to this survey question: ‘There is a proposal to build several small modular nuclear reactors around Australia to produce zero-emissions energy on the sites of existing coal-fired power stations once they are retired. Do you approve or disapprove of this proposal?’

However the Newspoll survey was a crude example of push-polling as discussed by polling experts Kevin Bonham and Murray Goot and by economist Professor John Quiggin. The question was loaded, the response options were mischievous (excluding a “neither approve nor disapprove” option, without which majority support (across all age groups) almost certainly would not have been achieved), and the Murdoch/Sky reporting on the poll was biased and dishonest.

Moreover, as Murray Goot notes, other polls reach different conclusions:

“But eighteen- to thirty-four-year-olds as the age group most favourably disposed to nuclear power is not what Essential shows, not what Savanta shows, and not what RedBridge shows.

“In October’s Essential poll, no more than 46 per cent of respondents aged eighteen to thirty-four supported “nuclear power plants” — the same proportion as those aged thirty-six to fifty-four but a smaller proportion than those aged fifty-five-plus (56 per cent); the proportion of “strong” supporters was actually lower among those aged eighteen to thirty-four than in either of the other age-groups.

“In the Savanta survey, those aged eighteen to thirty-four were the least likely to favour nuclear energy; only about 36 per cent were in favour, strongly or otherwise, not much more than half the number that Newspoll reported.

“And according to a report of the polling conducted in February by RedBridge, sourced to Tony Barry, a partner and former deputy state director of the Victorian Liberal Party, “[w]here there is support” for nuclear power “it is among only those who already vote Liberal or who are older than 65”.”

June 1, 2024 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics | climate change, energy, news, nuclear-energy, politics