Americans Favor Living Near Nuclear Power Plants Over Data Centers by a Substantial Margin

(SeaPRwire) –   Gone are the days of the Cold War, of nuclear anxiety, of those old animated “Duck and Cover” PSAs we were shown in school: Americans are now more opposed to an AI data center in their neighborhood than a nuclear power plant.

A Gallup survey conducted in March found that 71% of U.S. adults oppose the construction of an AI data center in their local area, with nearly half (48%) strongly opposed, while only 27% are in favor. Perhaps the most striking finding is that opposition to a nuclear energy plant nearby stands at just 53%—nearly 20 percentage points lower than opposition to data centers.

Since Gallup first began asking about nuclear power in 2001, opposition has never exceeded 63%. This year marked the first time the organization included a question about data centers—and on their debut, they surpassed that historical ceiling by a wide margin.

“Isn’t that insane?” asked Wannie Park, an energy industry veteran and CEO of PADO AI, an LG NOVA-backed platform specializing in energy management for data centers. “I think it’s just uninformed stakeholders who don’t really understand what the opportunities are.”

Park attributed the resistance largely to a lack of understanding about data centers—an issue he believes the industry must address more effectively. “It was simply a lack of education,” he said. “There’s insufficient marketing and communication about what these facilities will actually do. And honestly, we haven’t done a good job of that.”

Which is… better?

Park stressed that education is the first step toward building community support—or at least reducing the number of vocal opponents—at the local level.

Ironically, nuclear energy itself may best illustrate this point. Nuclear power carries risks that data centers do not: the potential for meltdowns, long-lived radioactive waste, and the lingering cultural fear of nuclear catastrophe immortalized in countless films. Yet, perhaps because memories of the Cold War have faded, Americans now express greater concern about data centers than nuclear plants.

This likely reflects the difference in how their impacts are perceived. Data centers bring immediate, visible effects to nearby residents—increased noise, traffic, utility bills, and water usage. In contrast, nuclear’s worst-case scenarios feel distant and abstract to most people, and nuclear power has had decades to become normalized. Data centers, meanwhile, have surged from obscurity to ubiquity in just a few years.

On emissions, nuclear power ranks among the cleanest energy sources, releasing about 12 grams of CO₂-equivalent per kilowatt-hour—comparable to wind. However, a Cornell study published in Nature Sustainability projected that by 2030, AI growth alone could generate 24 to 44 million metric tons of CO₂ annually, equivalent to adding 5 to 10 million cars to U.S. roads.

Both technologies are water-intensive, though in different ways. Nuclear plants discharge heated cooling water, which can harm aquatic ecosystems—their most significant ongoing environmental impact. Data centers, by contrast, consumed an estimated 17 billion gallons of water in 2023, triple the amount used in 2014. By 2030, AI-driven water demand could match the annual household water use of 6 to 10 million Americans.

U.S. data centers now account for roughly 4.4% of national electricity consumption, up from 1.9% in 2018, and that share could climb to 12% by 2028. A Bloom Energy report forecasts that total U.S. data center demand will nearly double between 2025 and 2028—from 80 to 150 gigawatts—equivalent to adding a country with Spain’s energy needs in just three years.

When Gallup posed an open-ended follow-up question in April, half of the opponents cited strain on local resources, including water and energy systems, as well as the loss of farmland. About 22% raised quality-of-life concerns such as increased traffic, while one in five pointed to rising utility bills. Sixteen percent mentioned pollution, particularly noise. A smaller share expressed unease about AI itself.

Park views the backlash as a failure of communication. “All you hear is the doom and gloom—‘we’re going to run out of water,’ ‘rates will skyrocket,’” he said. “But there hasn’t been a clear, compelling message explaining what this actually means.” He drew a parallel to the rollout of smart grids during the Obama administration, when residents protested at city council meetings, claiming smart meters would spy on them or cause cancer. “Looking back, none of those fears materialized. It was just a lack of education.”

Moratoriums won’t stop the build

Sixty-nine U.S. jurisdictions have imposed moratoriums on data center construction, but Park warned that such bans only shift development elsewhere. “The developers don’t really care,” he said. “If you shut us down here, we’ll just go somewhere else.” The economics, he added, strongly favor expansion: the value generated by compute from electricity can be 20 to 100 times the cost of the power itself.

Often, the demand for computing capacity has already been locked in.

“Even if you track specific cases—say, XYZ developer with a site slated to go live in three years—that compute is already pre-booked three years in advance. That’s how strong the demand is.”

Protests have emerged across the country, with community members gathering outside data center construction sites to oppose the potential environmental and financial downsides. Some states, rather than enacting full moratoriums, have begun adopting “80/20” rules or similar measures, requiring hyperscalers to pay more for water, electricity, and other scarce resources than they actually consume.