Change in Public Perception of Nuclear Energy Between 1950 and 2025

Author

• Kelly Plewe, Utah State University

Date of Award

5-2026

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Departmental Honors

Department

Political Science

Abstract

This thesis analyzes how public opinion toward nuclear energy in the United States has shifted from the early postwar period through 2025, using a mixed-methods design that combines longitudinal survey data with historical and policy scholarship. Drawing on more than seventy years of national polling from NORC, the Roper Center, Gallup, Pew Research Center, Bisconti Research, ecoAmerica, and academic surveys, the author traces changes in support, opposition, and perceived risk across key political eras.¹ The study asks three main questions: (1) What social, political, and technological factors have driven major shifts in attitudes toward nuclear power since the 1950s? (2) How did critical events, especially the Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima accidents, reshape the national debate? and (3) How have partisan identities, demographic patterns, and local experience near nuclear plants conditioned these opinion shifts over time?

The quantitative component consists of descriptive trend analysis of repeated survey questions about favorability toward nuclear power, willingness to build new plants, and perceptions of safety, disaggregated where possible by party, age, and proximity to nuclear facilities.² These trends are interpreted alongside qualitative research on nuclear accidents and risk perception, climate and energy politics, media framing, and the reverse “not in my back yard” effect among nuclear plant neighbors.³ This report finds that major accidents act as critical junctures that sharply depress support but do not permanently eliminate backing for nuclear energy, and that rising concern about climate change and energy security has helped drive support back to near-record highs in recent years.⁴

Recommended Citation

Plewe, Kelly, "Change in Public Perception of Nuclear Energy Between 1950 and 2025" (2026). Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects. 1094.
https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/honors/1094