A Social Research Foundation survey conducted in 2024 on energy policy finds broad support for building more nuclear power plants: roughly 64% of South Africans are in favour and only about a quarter opposed.

Support for nuclear energy is consistent across almost all income, education, and race groups.

The message of the survey is not that South Africans love nuclear energy; it is that almost everyone, whoever they are, simply wants reliable power.

The survey also revealed a natural distrust among South Africans of the “green agenda”. Asked to choose between letting "green and climate considerations" determine the country's energy choices and pursuing "any energy source as long as it ends load-shedding and is cost-effective", about 62% of South Africans pick the second.

Ordinary South Africans appear to have a better grasp of South Africa’s energy needs than those in power. The government should focus on providing cheap, abundant, and reliable energy and take into account the views of the public that want the lights kept on.