A Comparative Study of the Public’s Risk Perception of Nuclear Energy in Different Regions

Abstract

In recent years, many proposed or under construction nuclear facilities projects have been canceled due to strong opposition from the local public, such as the 2013 Jiangmen anti-nuclear incident, 2016 Lianyungang anti-nuclear incident and 2018 Changsha nuclear industry relocation reconstruction incident. It can be seen that public acceptance has emerged as a bottleneck problem in the development of nuclear energy. It is very important for the sustainable development of nuclear energy to understand public risk perception and attitude of nuclear energy in different regions, especially around the nuclear power plant. Based on 184 samples of Haiyan County and 811 samples of other regions of the country, this study used descriptive statistics and other analysis to conduct a comparative empirical study on the public perception and attitude of nuclear energy between Haiyan County and other regions of the country. The study found that compared with the whole country, the people lived in Haiyan County had a slightly lower perceived risk, a higher perceived benefit and knowledge. And they placed greater trust in regulator, experts and nuclear industry. Our results could provide some implications for risk communication mechanism in the field of nuclear energy.