Climate change is warming public opinion to nuclear power

Jeffrey S Merrifield is a former Commissioner of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (1998-2007), leads the nuclear practice at Pillsbury Law Firm, and chairs the US Nuclear Industry Council

When I started working as a legislative aide in the US Senate in 1987, nuclear power was very unpopular in Congress, mirroring public sentiment at the time. Recent nuclear accidents in the US and the Soviet Union had called into question the wisdom of building more nuclear plants, and a highly active nuclear-free movement, fuelled by fears of a catastrophic war between the two superpowers, spurred widespread protests on college campuses.

On the first day in my job, I answered mail from New Hampshire constituents on opposing sides of whether to continue construction of two proposed reactors at Seabrook Nuclear Station, then owned by Public Service of New Hampshire (PSNH). Ultimately, one of the two reactors — which was the subject of one of the largest US nuclear protests a few years earlier — came online. Those protests, government-mandated changes, and the resulting cost overruns led to the bankruptcy of PSNH in 1998.

The national protest movement — championed by individuals who emerged from 1960s environmentalism, and including a coalition of anti-nuclear and nuclear free zone activists — reached its peak during the Reagan presidency. But it continued to fund a variety of anti-nuclear organisations in Washington, DC, for decades. By fuelling concerns about safety and cost, the movement — reinforced by the poor operations of US nuclear stations in the early 1990s — continued to raise doubts about nuclear power. This contributed to the decision of US utilities not to order new nuclear units for several decades.

However, by the time I became a Commissioner of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), in 1998, the situation was beginning to change. Now, several years on, not only has the US fleet of nuclear stations evolved to have outstanding operational and safety performance — producing power more than 94 per cent of the time — but also the public has gained more confidence in nuclear energy. After much time and effort, Vogtle Unit 3, owned by Southern Company affiliate Georgia Power, recently came online — the first to be ordered and completed in the US since 1986 — and Unit 4 is due soon.

In fact, the mood has changed in Washington and around the US.

In July last year, the US Senate passed the Nuclear Fuel Security Act on a vote of 96-3, directing the Department of Energy (DOE) to prioritise increasing domestic production of low-enriched uranium for existing reactors, and accelerating efforts to ensure the availability of high-assay, low-enriched uranium (Haleu) for advanced reactors. Such an overwhelming vote would have been inconceivable in 1987.

Spurred by the need to counter climate change, a growing number of pro-nuclear organisations has also emerged over the past 10 years — including ThirdWay, ClearPath, Nuclear Innovation Alliance, and Good Energy Collective, among others. They have all advocated for the increased use of nuclear energy to address this issue.

This trend is reinforced by the annual survey of the World Economic Forum which, since 2017, has identified climate change and extreme weather as the greatest concerns of millennials and Generation Z. For these individuals, who grew up surrounded by sophisticated technology, and whose iPhones have more computing power than Nasa’s Apollo missions, a sophisticated way of generating energy is not fearsome.

In parallel with this, a new generation of advanced reactors is emerging, with designs that enable greater safety, more affordable sizes, and increased fabrication in factory-like settings. These could be widely deployed in many applications — for example, providing a few megawatts for remote operations, right up to 300MW to displace current coal- and gas-fired stations. Such designs have prompted increased interest among investors in the technologies, and in their deployment.

Polls demonstrate that about 60% of the US public supports new nuclear construction

Given all these factors, a variety of polls now find that about 60 per cent of the US public supports new nuclear construction, with less than 15 per cent opposing nuclear energy.

So, what about the anti-nuclear community? In November 2023, the Natural Resources Defense Council shut down its nuclear mission and laid off its top lawyer, Geoffrey Fettus, along with its anti-nuclear litigation team, which had pursued decades of legal action against nuclear plants. This change mirrored similar actions by other anti-nuclear NGOs in recent months. This may not indicate a change of heart, but it may be that their donors, while not pro-nuclear, are no longer writing cheques to support anti-nuclear efforts.

So, today, some leaders of the anti-nuclear community are headed to the exits, while a new generation of pro-nuclear climate activists enters to take their place — although, admittedly, the shift is not universal. It is a change mirrored in Congress and among the public. In the face of the existential risk of climate change, there has been a significant reconsideration of nuclear energy and, I believe, it will lead to the widespread deployment of a new generation of advanced nuclear units. What a difference.

Jeffrey S Merrifield and his team at Pillsbury topped the energy transition category in the FT’s 2023 North America Innovative Lawyers Awards

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