---
title: "Anti-nuclear movement"
chunk: 2/15
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-nuclear_movement"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:22:20.182369+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

==== Fossil fuels industry ====
The fossil fuel industry starting from the 1950s was engaging in campaigns against the nuclear industry which it perceived as a threat to their commercial interests. Organizations such as the American Petroleum Institute, the Pennsylvania Independent Oil and Gas Association and Marcellus Shale Coalition were engaged in anti-nuclear lobbying in the late 2010s and from 2019, large fossil fuel suppliers started advertising campaigns portraying fossil gas as a "perfect partner for renewables" (wording from Shell and Statoil advertisements). Groups like the Sierra Club, Environmental Defense Fund and Natural Resources Defense Council are receiving grants from other fossil fuel companies. As of 2011, a strategy paper released by Greenpeace titled "Battle of Grids" proposed gradual replacement of nuclear power by fossil gas plants which would provide "flexible backup for wind and solar power". However, Greenpeace has since distanced itself from advocating for fossil gas, instead proposing grid energy storage as a solution to issues caused by intermittent renewable energy. In Germany, the Energiewende, which was advertised as a shift to renewable energy but included a gradual phaseout of nuclear power from 2000 to the end of 2022, caused, among other things, a rise in fossil gas power production from 49.2 TWh in 2000 to 94.7 TWh in 2020. In the same interval total electricity generation barely changed (576.6 TWh in 2000 vs 574.2 TWh in 2020) while it did rise and fall in the meantime, reaching a peak of 652.9 TWh in 2017. As much of that fossil gas was, and remains, imported from Russia, controversial pipeline projects like Nord Stream 1 were built to meet rising German gas demand. After the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine it came to light that significant amounts of Russian lobbying was involved in both the continued anti-nuclear movement in Germany and the anti-fracking movement.

=== Anti-nuclear perspectives ===

==== Concerns about nuclear weapons ====

From an anti-nuclear point of view, there is a threat to modern civilization from global nuclear war by accidental or deliberate nuclear strike. Some climate scientists estimate that a war between two countries that resulted in 100 Hiroshima-size atomic explosions would cause significant loss of life, in the tens of millions, from climatic effects alone, as well as disable future generations. Soot thrown up into the atmosphere could blanket the earth, causing food chain disruption in what is termed a nuclear winter.
Many anti-nuclear weapons groups cite the 1996 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice, Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons, in which it found that 'the threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict'.
Ridding the world of nuclear weapons has been a cause for pacifists for decades. But more recently, mainstream politicians and retired military leaders have advocated nuclear disarmament. In January 2007 an article in The Wall Street Journal, authored by Henry Kissinger, Bill Perry, George Shultz and Sam Nunn. These men were veterans of the Cold War who believed in using nuclear weapons for deterrence. But they now reversed their previous position and asserted that instead of making the world safer, nuclear weapons had become a source of extreme concern.
Since the 1970s, some countries have built their own second-strike capability of massive deterrence in the event of a military attack with weapons of mass destruction.
Two examples of this second-strike capability are Israel's Samson Option strategy and Russia's Dead Hand system.
During the era of nuclear weapons testing, many local communities were affected, and some are still affected by uranium mining and radioactive waste disposal.
It should, however, be noted that countries can possess nuclear weapons without possessing nuclear power plants (as is almost certainly the case with Israel) or indeed the reverse, as is the case with most users of nuclear power, past and present.

==== Concerns about nuclear power ====
 

There are large variations in people's beliefs regarding nuclear power, including the technology itself, its deployment, climate change, and energy security. There is a wide spectrum of views and concerns over nuclear power and it remains a controversial area of public policy. When compared to other energy sources, nuclear power has one of the lowest death rates per unit of energy produced – 0.07 per TWh, as compared to over 32 per TWh in the case of brown coal. This figure is driven by a 2005 WHO projection of up to 4000 stochastic cancer deaths that could result from the Chernobyl disaster. The UNSCEAR reports in its 2008 summary on Chernobyl that no increases in cancer incidence (other than thyroid cancer) have been observed to date that can be attributed to radiation from the accident.
Many studies have shown that the public "perceives nuclear power as a very risky technology" and, around the world, nuclear energy declined in popularity in the aftermath of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, but it has recently rebounded in response to the climate crisis. Anti-nuclear critics see nuclear power as a dangerous, expensive way to boil water to generate electricity. Opponents of nuclear power have raised many related concerns: