Abstract
This article presents the results of a systematic literature review following the PRISMA protocol and answering the research question of how climate change or energy security considerations affect public attitudes towards nuclear energy. 82 articles published in English since 2011 and indexed in scientific databases were selected for the review. After providing quantitative bibliometric information, we conduct thematic analysis to describe qualitatively the main research themes traceable in the literature, using individual articles to illustrate research trends and tendencies. By synthesizing existing social scientific knowledge, we conclude that public support for nuclear energy is generally negatively associated with climate change concerns and positively associated with concerns for energy security. Moreover, the higher the perceived benefits of nuclear energy for energy security and, to a lesser extent, for the mitigation of climate change, the more open or (sometimes reluctantly) favorable attitudes towards nuclear energy are. However, differences between countries have also been observed. We critically discuss existing gaps regarding the objects of study, methods, and role of theory to outline needful research avenues in future. The review contributes to a broader – inter- and transdisciplinary – debate on nuclear energy technologies as a possible means of coping with global climate change and energy security challenges.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 105286 |
| Number of pages | 15 |
| Journal | Progress in Nuclear Energy |
| Volume | 174 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Sep 2024 |
Funding
To gain deeper insights into public support for nuclear energy in the context of increased concerns about climate change, several studies focused on potential explanatory variables, such as social norms or trust in institutions and nuclear actors. Hobman and Ashworth (2013), for instance, found that among Australian adults\u2019 support for \u201Clow-emission nuclear energy\u201D was more likely among those who believed they had social approval for this support. Truelove and Greenberg (2013), Vainio et al. (2017) and Visschers, Keller and Siegrist (Visschers et al., 2011) investigated the relationship with trust. These found positive correlations between the acceptability or support for nuclear to mitigate climate change and trust in communicators on global climate change (e.g., the scientific community, public officials, media) in the US (Truelove and Greenberg, 2013), or trust in public institutions and nuclear industry in Finland (Vainio et al., 2017). Vainio and colleagues also found that endorsement of nuclear as an \u201Cacceptable way to mitigate climate change\u201D was negatively correlated with trust in environmental non-governmental organisations (Vainio et al., 2017), while Visschers, Keller and Siegriest (Visschers et al., 2011) found no relationship in Switzerland between trust in nuclear risk governance and the perceived climate benefit of nuclear energy.Opposite to this, in the study by Gupta et al. (2021), public support for new nuclear reactors was positively associated with concerns about the consequences of climate change in India, and negatively associated in the US. However, controlling for the socio-demographic variables and the perceived benefits of nuclear (including climate, environment and energy independence), renders the impact of climate concerns on support for nuclear statistically insignificant in India. In comparison, the negative association remained among US respondents of the same study, even when controlling for socio-demographics and perceived benefits. Interestingly, Contu and Mourato (2020) found that, in UK, those worried about climate change were less favorable to current nuclear energy technology, but more supportive of the emerging technology of Generation IV reactors.In the same line, studies in the Czech Republic, Nigeria, Switzerland and China (Frant\u00E1l and Mal\u00FD, 2017; Ewim et al., 2022; Kwok et al., 2017; Visschers et al., 2011) highlighted low to moderate positive association between the perceived climate benefit of nuclear and favorable nuclear attitudes. In contrast, people with a stronger belief that nuclear energy causes climate change favored a decrease in the share of nuclear in the US and expressed less willingness to accept the building of a new facility close to one's home (Truelove, 2012). Interestingly, some studies refer to what was previously described by Bickerstaff and colleagues (Bickerstaff et al., 2008) as a \u2018reluctant acceptance\u2019 discourse towards nuclear energy. In the face of greater risks, or more pressing questions, such as mitigating climate change or ensuring energy security, people who are rather concerned about the risks of nuclear energy may nevertheless express support for it. Such ambivalent positions were found in relation to the support for limited development of nuclear energy in the UK (Pidgeon, 2021) or for restarting nuclear power plants in Japan (Ngar-yin Mah et al., 2021). Corner et al. (2011) also noted how 57% of their sample of 1822 UK respondents (strongly) agreed with the statement \u201CI don't really like the idea of nuclear power, but I reluctantly accept that we will need it to help combat climate change and energy security in the UK\u201D (Corner et al., 2011, p. 4830). This reluctant acceptance was more frequent among respondents with higher climate concerns (Corner et al., 2011). As a last example, Ho et al. note that while most participants to their focus groups study in Singapore deemed nuclear energy as an \u201Cenvironmentally sustainable energy source\u201D, many reflected that \u201Cthe danger posed by the production of radioactive waste may outweigh the detriments of greenhouse effects\u201D (Ho et al., 2018, p. 443).A few studies looked more closely at the associations between climate change beliefs (natural vs. anthropogenic cause) and support for nuclear energy. Their results are quite divergent. In the US, for instance, studies reported negative association (Ter-Mkrtchyan et al., 2022) or no association (Hawes and Nowlin, 2022) with support for nuclear, as well as positive association (Truelove and Greenberg, 2013) with becoming potentially open to nuclear. For instance, Truelove and Greenberg (2013) observed that a stronger belief in the risk and human cause of climate change is a good predictor of changing attitudes from opposition towards being open to nuclear energy. Contrariwise, a negative association was found in Australia and the UK where stronger beliefs in the anthropogenic nature of climate change were associated with lower support for nuclear and higher support for renewable energy sources (Clulow et al., 2021).Another focal point in the reviewed literature is the relationship between support for nuclear energy and its framing in communication materials. Nationwide surveys in UK and Australia, for example, found that framing nuclear as a means of mitigating climate change (Corner et al., 2011), or providing emissions information (Hobman and Ashworth, 2013) increases support for nuclear energy.Furthermore, studies in Thailand, Vietnam and China, highlighted support for the development of nuclear energy in order to meet the increasing energy demands (Ho et al., 2019; Yuan et al., 2017).Gupta et al. (2021) revealed that energy security concern had positive relationship with support for nuclear energy in India, even when the effect of perceived risks, benefits and sociodemographic variables was controlled for; in contrast, energy security concerns were not important in a similar study in the US. The authors explained this finding suggesting that the public in countries with a reliable energy situation could be less favorable to nuclear compared to those with a less reliable energy situation. Another study in the US (Gupta et al., 2019) used aggregate polling data to measure public support for nuclear energy and identify factors influencing the evolution of opinion over time. Results showed that energy security risk was a consistent driver for nuclear energy support in the US; this support was higher when the cost or scarcity of oil, gas, and coal increased.Only one article (Frant\u00E1l and Mal\u00FD, 2017), in the Czech Republic, found that national energy security and economic inefficiency were not associated with attitudes to nuclear energy among people living in the vicinity of a nuclear power plant. In addition, one article showed a negative relationship between energy security concern and nuclear support. Corner et al. (2011), by means of a regression analysis, found that concern about energy security was negatively related to unconditional support for nuclear power in the UK (with a statistically significant standardized beta coefficient of \u22120.116). Unconditional support for nuclear power was a reliable scale that included three measures of general attitudes towards nuclear energy. Moreover, correlational analyses showed that concern about energy security was also negatively related to conditional support for nuclear power (Pearson's r = \u22120.13, P < 0.001). Thus, the findings of this study revealed that despite support for nuclear power increasing if it is framed as a response to energy security, people who expressed concern about energy security were not more likely to conditionally support nuclear power.Secondly, significant international differences were found in the level of support for nuclear energy from the perspective of energy security considerations. The study by Poortinga et al. (2013) revealed, for instance, higher \u201Cconditional support\u201D for nuclear energy in the UK compared to Japan: while more than 50% of the British respondents expressed a willingness to accept the construction of new nuclear reactors, if it improved energy security, this was only 20% among the Japanese. Gupta et al. (2021) found that in contrast with the US, India's energy concerns maintain their positive relationship with support for nuclear energy, but climate concerns become insignificant, possibly due to India's growing energy demands, limited energy supply, and dependence on energy imports. Ho et al. (2019) pointed out differences between the Vietnamese and Thai public, although participants in both countries considered the large volume of electricity generated by nuclear power plants to be the primary benefit of nuclear energy and deemed nuclear power plants to be a solution for the rising energy demands. This work was supported by the Euratom Research and Training Programme, a complementary funding programme to Horizon Europe, under grant agreement No 101060920.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Horizon Europe | 101060920 |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Nuclear Energy and Engineering
- Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality
- Energy Engineering and Power Technology
- Waste Management and Disposal