Majority of U.S. women are opposed to nuclear energy, and advocates are asking why

Nuclear advocate Jenifer Avallaneda Diaz — known as Nuclear Hazelnut on X — laid out some facts about nuclear waste in a pinned post on her X feed. Nuclear power plants, she explains, produce a very small amount of waste, most of which can be recycled, for the amount of power they produce. The waste is stored safely and no one has ever been harmed by it, and the harmful radiation diminishes in about 300 years. 

“The 'waste problem' doesn't even require a solution; it's not a problem at all,” Diaz states. 

The post is accompanied by a photo of herself wearing safety glasses, a hard hat, and high-visibility safety vest, as she stands next to some cooling towers. When she’s not advocating for nuclear energy, Diaz is a nuclear engineer at Westinghouse. This makes her a bit unique as 83% of nuclear engineers are male. 

Support for nuclear energy is at an all-time high. A Pew Research Center poll released in August showed 56% of people favor more nuclear power plants. At the same time, there’s a gap in support between men and women: 70% of men support nuclear energy, according to the poll, but only 44% of women do. 

Misinformation and representation

The nuclear industry is expecting to see ongoing support under a second Trump administration, and President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for Energy Secretary, Chris Wright, currently sits on the board of small modular reactor startup Oklo. With the industry likely to advance in the coming years, Diaz and other advocates are exploring ways to address the concerns women have about nuclear energy. 

“I think it has to do with misinformation, and also lack of representation,” Diaz told Just the News. “Those two, from my perspective, are the main issues that cause, or used to cause, this. Also, it’s one of the reasons for what I do on social media.” 

She said the media play a large role in misperceptions about nuclear energy being unsafe. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, she said, her mother was reading reports on CNN about how the nuclear power plants in Ukraine could be compromised as a result of the conflict. This, the report speculated, could lead to another Chernobyl, the site of the infamous 1986 nuclear disaster. 

“My mom was very concerned, but fortunately for her, she had me next to her,” Diaz said. 

She said she addressed her mother’s concerns the same way she does anyone who has concerns about the industry. Her approach is to lay out objective facts for those who have concerns about nuclear energy, and let those facts speak for themselves. She said on X and her Instagram account, she often uses negative, poorly informed articles as examples of bad information from which she can provide her own fact-based perspective.

“I’m always happy to answer these questions, but I try to keep to a neutral language. I’m also sometimes scared if I sound too excited. People may think I’m getting paid,” Diaz said. Because she works in the industry, she’s often accused of doing PR for it, but she said she does all her advocacy on her own time with her own resources. 

“I would love to do PR, but I’m working as an engineer,” she said. 

Addressing concerns

Gabriella Hoffman, director of the Center for Energy and Conservation at the Independent Women’s Forum (IWF), also advocates for nuclear energy, which she argues can greatly expand domestic energy resources, while also protecting the environment. 

In a recent op-ed concerning women’s perceptions of nuclear energy in Real Clear Energy, Hoffman lays out facts that she says will address their concerns. This includes information about nuclear energy’s safety record, its small footprint, and the rigorous oversight in which it operates.

She told Just the News that the disparity in support for nuclear energy between men and women likely stems from what happened at Chernobyl and the Three Mile Island incident in 1979, when the plant experienced a partial meltdown. 

The Three Mile Island accident resulted in no deaths or adverse health impacts, but media coverage of the event was instrumental in turning the tide of public opinion in the U.S. away from nuclear energy. In 1977, public support for nuclear power was at an all-time high, with 69% of Americans supporting the industry. After the incident at Three Mile Island, public support for nuclear energy fell to 46%. Public sentiment may have been altered by the release of “The China Syndrome.” a 1979 hit movie in which reporters  discover safety discrepancies in a fictitious California nuclear electric generation plant. A greedy and corrupt utility ignores and covers up safety issues. The movie preceded the Three Mile Island accident by only a few weeks and was still in theaters when the accident occured.

More recently, in Japan, the Fukushima Daiichi incident in 2011, which was caused when a tsunami disabled the power supply and cooling of three reactors, raised fears of the industry. No one died in the incident, but radiation was released and all three cores melted. The event produced many headlines across the world.

“A lot of the media kind of hyperventilating about nuclear has been overhyped,” Hoffman said. 

Warming to nuclear

Hoffman said that the lack of support from women doesn’t stem from a visceral dislike of nuclear energy, but it more stems from media the information they’re fed about the industry.

“They tend to be inclined to certain environmental causes, more so than men, and some of the information they’re being fed by legacy environmental groups has distorted their views,” she said. 

Unlike wind and solar, which are intermittent and take up lots of land, Hoffman said, the Trump administration could appeal to women’s concerns about the environment by pointing to the zero-emission, small-footprint electricity that nuclear power is capable of providing. 

“When they have that information readily available to them, I think they'll start to warm up to the technology more. That's our hope at the Center for Energy and Conservation,” Hoffman said. 

Diaz said that things are starting to change. She recently started her first semester toward a master’s degree in nuclear engineering. In her career, she primarily works with men, so she was expecting her cohort to be mostly, if not entirely, men. She said, much to her surprise, that’s not the case. She’s seeing a lot more representation in the field. 

“So, I’m happy to tell you that that is changing,” Diaz said.