Advancing US public acceptance of spent fuel storage and transport: proposed outreach services for ionising radiation education support

Abstract

Expansion of commercial nuclear energy could be one of the future US sources for clean, safe, reliable and economic electricity. However, no federal policy has effectively achieved wide acceptance of nuclear energy, with such policies having fallen victim to the politics of public radiation fears from nuclear energy usage and from spent fuel storage and transport. Many experts have described the foundation of public fear as not so much nuclear technology, but the ionising radiation to which people fear they might be exposed, and this issue has been talked and written about, yet gone substantially unaddressed with respect to public education for more than three decades. In the USA, the Blue Ribbon Commission Final Report is just the latest of clear statements where such an educational need is firmly asserted. The lamentable fact is that no one has made that substantive and concerted effort to do anything about it. Indeed, the only effort seems to have been talk about ‘better communication’, with a focus on risk based communication. Any rejuvenation of public acceptance of commercial nuclear energy in the USA, including spent fuel storage and transport, can only be sustained using a different strategy from that of earlier decades. This paper highlights professional opinion on the radiation fear issue and why current industry efforts in risk based information for and communication with the public have not achieved the desired success. Education to expand the public’s understanding of comparative radiation sources and exposures while ameliorating concern about radiation from nuclear energy is the proposed alternative. In addition, here, the clear linkage between education supporting nuclear energy and facilitating necessary spent fuel storage and transport is unmistakable. The paper summarises a concept for outreach services for ionising radiation education support for application in the US, as well as key elements of such a process: its basis for success, its education content and potential implementation approaches. Comparative radiation education of the public can prove effective using current research, which has been effective in other industries. Additionally, while this discussion addresses the US situation, much of the content is likely applicable to many of the world’s nuclear energy producing countries.