Ontarians favour nuclear power by a margin of more than two to one, a new public opinion survey suggests.

The Forum Research poll found that 54 per cent are comfortable with atomic energy compared to 23 per cent who oppose it, while 23 per cent had no opinion.

Respondents were split on Premier Kathleen Wynne’s recent decision to shelve two new $15 billion reactors in favour of refurbishing existing nuclear facilities at Darlington and Bruce.

Four in 10 — 40 per cent — approved of Wynne’s move earlier this month while 38 per cent disapproved and 22 per cent were unsure.

“I hate to use this analogy, but it’s not as radioactive an issue as it used to be,” Forum president Lorne Bozinoff said Tuesday.

“This is a new generation of people and they weren’t around at the height of the anti-nuclear stuff,” said Bozinoff, adding he was “surprised” at the level of acceptance of nuclear energy in Ontario.

“We’ve never had a Three Mile Island,” he said, referring to the headline-grabbing 1979 partial meltdown at a nuclear station in Pennsylvania that spewed radioactive material into the environment.

Using interactive voice response phone calls, Forum polled 1,049 people last Wednesday through Friday and results are considered accurate to within three percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

The pollster found there is significant backing for Ontario Power Generation’s planned refurbishment of the Darlington reactors.

Almost half — 48 per cent — approve of that update with 32 per cent disapproving and 21 per cent uncertain.

Nuclear power accounts for 56 per cent of Ontario’s electricity generation, but Bozinoff said it appears unlikely that poll respondents would be aware of that.

“These issues are pretty complicated. I think society has just moved on and people have gotten used to it. And the controversy over the storage (of radioactive waste) doesn’t seem to have affected this. People haven’t made the link.”