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Comment by lavezza | Hacker News Reader

"Overall, do you strongly favor, somewhat favor, somewhat oppose, or strongly oppose the use of nuclear energy as one of the ways to provide electricity in the United States?"

https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Record-level-of-US-s...

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That could just mean continuing to use existing nuclear power plants, not building new ones.

Also, 76% seems inconsistent with the 2022 Gallup Poll on the same issue (which gets 51% for the same question):

https://news.gallup.com/poll/392831/americans-divided-nuclea...

There may be a convergence of liberals thinking he climate crisis needs a strong response and conservatives not knowing that and thinking they can still own the libs.

If you asked conservatives if they wanted to trade their gas stove for one powered by nuclear electricity you might get a different opinion ;-)

Why does this have to be political? I fail to see why nuclear would be a liberal versus conservative issue.

The Gallup link above does show differences based on political orientation.

Carter outlawed the Plutonium economy, Reagan permitted it. Democrats campaigned to shut down the FFTF. Ralph Nader led opposition to new plants like Seabrook and Diablo Canyon. Business interests, then represented by Republicans, complained that nuclear power was regulated too much.

There have always been exceptions. Atomic Rod operated nuclear reactors in the land of submarines and was so impressed by the experience that he's become an evangelist for small modular reactors. He's a Democrat, even if he sees everything as nuke vs anti-nuke.

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