[30th 한국원자력연차대회]Malcolm Grimston, Senior Research Fellow, Center for Environmental Policy, Imperial College, UK

Despite being the safest energy technology yet developed, nuclear power is regarded by a significant number of people in many countries as too dangerous to use despite its obvious advantages in terms of reduced greenhouse gas emissions and dependence on imported fossil fuels.

The traditional response of the ‘nuclear family’ to this apparent paradox has been to apply ever higher safety standards(at ever increasing cost) and to stress the steps taken to ‘improve safety’, while at the same bemoaning the public’s ‘irrational’ fear of radiation. The solution is often thought to be to ‘educate’ the public to degree level understanding of nuclear science and technology in the belief that this will allay fears.

There is very little evidence to support this approach indeed, it may be that it has had precisely the opposite effect. If non specialist member of the public see the nuclear industry and its supporters behaving and speaking as though radiation and nuclear power were highly dangerous, for example by saying that ‘safety is the top priority’ or that a major accident must never be allowed to happen again, the rational assumption would be that this is the most dangerous technology yet devised-since on other technology says such things.

This presentation will look at some examples of where it can be argued that the nuclear industry, rather than the public, has been irrational; explores the absurdity of believing that mass education in nuclear physics, engineering, health physics, economics, ethics, environmental science and the many other relevant fields will ‘solve’ the perception problem; and note developments in the UK since this approach was largely abandoned and replaced by a determination to ‘normalise’ nuclear power in the public mind.

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