Formerly its director of energy, Lovering is now the Breakthrough Institute’s ‘energy for growth’ fellow. The California, USA-based environmental think tank “looks for ecological solutions to environmental problems”, she said, and for opportunities to engage with “traditionally environmental” – and typically anti-nuclear – groups.
Aggregated polling results show that support for nuclear power in the USA has, for many years, “bounced around 50%”, she said, which can be “demoralising” for the industry.
“That feels pretty bad but it’s actually quite high compared to other countries. In 2005, a study looked at nuclear support across 18 OECD countries and the US was the second highest in support for nuclear, after South Korea,” she said. Such results show that “there’s a lot we’ve been doing that hasn’t been working”, she added.