Study on public acceptance of nuclear power plants: Evidence from China

Abstract

This empirical study evaluated the public acceptance of nuclear-power plants in China. A conceptual framework was proposed to explain the factors affecting nuclear-power acceptance based on antecedent variables, including social-media-use frequency, social-media information trust, nuclear-power knowledge, nuclear-accident knowledge, and risk-and-benefit perception. An empirical study was operated based on the Haiyang nuclear-power plant by conducting a face-to-face survey among residents who use social-media platforms near the plant. The frequency of social-media-use and the trust on social-media information promote individuals’ knowledge about nuclear power and nuclear accidents, leading to risk and benefit perception. Finally, benefit perception results in nuclear-power acceptance among the individuals. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Keywords:

• nuclear power
• social media
• benefit perception
• nuclear acceptance

Additional information

Funding

The authors acknowledge the financial support from the National Social Science Foundation of China (17CGL046), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (JZ2017HGBZ0953), Humanities and Social Sciences of Ministry of Education of China (18YJC630003).