KPBS Midday Edition

'Nuclear Dread' Lingers In the Minds Of Americans

By Megan Burke / News Editor, Mark Sauer / Host, The Roundtable

Published May 2, 2019 at 8:18 AM PDT

This story was published more than 5 years ago.

The San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station is pictured, April 16, 2019.

A five-part dramatization of the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl 30 years ago starts Monday on HBO. The series may enhance the American public's fear of what can go wrong with nuclear power reactors. Yet carbon-free nuclear power has been part of the U.S. energy grid since the 1970s.

A horrific explosion occurred at a Soviet Union nuclear reactor in Chernobyl in April, 1986. The blast spread radioactive material across Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, and as far away as Scandinavia and western Europe.

A five-part dramatization of the tragedy starts Monday on HBO. The series will no doubt enhance the considerable fear many Americans have of nuclear power reactors and what can go wrong. Yet carbon-free nuclear power has been part of the U.S. energy grid since the 1970s. Even now, 1 in every 5 kilowatt hours of electricity in this country comes from nuclear power plants.

Ahmed Abdulla, a fellow with UC San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy, has studied public perception of nuclear power. As part of the KPBS Climate Change Desk, he joins Midday Edition Thursday to talk about how Americans' opinions about nuclear power constrain the deployment of nuclear energy technologies.

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Megan Burke

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Megan Burke is an Emmy-award winning news editor overseeing the environment, health, and racial justice and social equity reporting beats. Prior to her current role as editor, Megan spent more than a decade as a producer for KPBS Midday Edition, a daily radio news magazine and podcast. Other news production credits include KPBS Evening Edition, KPBS Roundtable, and San Diego’s DNA, a two-part documentary highlighting the region’s oldest traditions and culture using personal artifacts and oral histories of San Diegans.

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Mark Sauer

A newspaperman for more than 30 years, Mark Sauer joined KPBS in October 2010 and previously served as the host of the KPBS Roundtable. He spent 27 years as a reporter and editor at The San Diego Union-Tribune after stints at The Houston Post and at two papers in his native Michigan. A features/human-interest writer in the UT's Currents section for many years, Mark also spent about a third of his UT career as an editor and reporter on the Metro Desk. He has covered a wide range of events: Wild fires in Southern California and Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast; Super Bowls and the World Series; foster care and child-abuse issues; the Roman Catholic Diocese's sexual-abuse scandal and bankruptcy; royal visits of Queen Elizabeth, Prince Charles and Princess Diana; Republican and Democratic national conventions; high-profile criminal trials; and many other stories, from the silly to the sublime. Along the way, he interviewed everyone from presidents to pan-handlers. His work exposing the false accusations and prosecutions of several San Diegans for murder, rape and child abuse garnered Pulitzer Prize nominations and many regional and local journalism awards, including Best in the West, the Sol Price Award for Responsible Journalism and several San Diego and California bar-association awards. Mark has a degree in journalism from Michigan State University.

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