From nuclear to renewable: Energy system transformation and public attitudes

Abstract

Avoiding catastrophic climate change will require rapid decarbonization of the world’s energy supply systems, and achieving such a significant transformation will involve a range of social and psychological challenges. The authors write that public consent and acceptability will need to be fostered if plans for large-scale renewable energy systems are to be realized. Despite highly favorable views in national polls, some renewable projects have already encountered severe public contestation. The authors write that valuable lessons can be learned from existing research on the siting controversies that have surrounded nuclear power and radioactive waste facilities. A range of contextual factors drive local opposition: lack of tangible local benefits, threats to valued landscapes or community identity, and distrust of outside agencies. Poorly executed dialogue and communication processes also serve to rapidly escalate concerns. The ‘facility siting credo’ provides an important set of evidence-based principles for those seeking to engage communities about new renewable energy infrastructure projects.

• climate change
• facility siting credo
• nuclear power
• public attitudes
• radioactive waste
• renewable energy
• wind power

Funding

The authors would like to acknowledge the support of the Leverhulme Trust (F/00 407/AG), the Economic and Social Research Council (RES-066-27-0013), and the UK Energy Research Centre (NE/G007748/1).

Notes

Notes

1 Nuclear power’s very large up-front capital costs and back-end waste-disposal arrangements have been a financial Achilles’ heel, and, combined with public protest, was the main reason why the construction of nuclear stations ground to a halt in the more liberalized global-market conditions of the 1990s onward (Welsh, 2000).

2 An account of the place nuclear power played in national identity and politics in France after World War II is found in Hecht (1998).

3 Social scientist James Flynn (2003) documents how close links between the US military and civilian programs led to the initial high levels of secrecy in both. When examples of poor practice came to light in the early days of the military program (e.g., intentional exposure of military personnel to weapons tests), this contributed to stigmatization and growing distrust of the management on nuclear matters as a whole—a development not helped by the growing realization that many of the early claims for the promise of nuclear power could not be upheld.

4 Public distrust in the authorities’ ability to consider the risks of both nuclear power and radioactive waste—and to manage them safely—was also identified as a powerful predictor of opposition in national surveys (Pidgeon et al., 1992; Slovic et al., 1991).

5 Media reporting often serves to amplify a range of factors, such as dread and distrust, which prompt concern about a technology (Kasperson et al., 2003).

6 A number of countries have reframed the image of nuclear power as a clean alternative to fossil fuels (Bickerstaff et al., 2008; Nisbet, 2009) and as a potentially valuable part of the energy fuel mix.

7 Although the evidence for significant health effects is highly uncertain, electromagnetic fields from overhead power lines hold negative associations with invisible radiation exposure (Morgan et al., 2002: 141–151). On the ground, overhead power lines and associated infrastructure, such as transmission stations, offer little direct benefit to people living close to them, are seen as posing these uncertain electromagnetic health risks, and for many are detrimental to local landscapes.

8 While it is easy to see why local attitudes are overwhelmingly negative in advance of a proposed new development, given the unique “dreaded” signature of nuclear power and waste, the position in existing nuclear communities is far more complex. With the latter, the community is likely to be more polarized on the issue (with both strong pro- and anti- views represented), while local factors and context always come into play to attenuate some residents’ risk perceptions. These include the familiarity gained over time with economic and employment benefits if a plant has been operating without great incident, as well as increased trust in local management and its operations (Venables et al., 2009). Equally, as our own interview research has shown, some events (local incidents, a media report of a nuclear accident elsewhere) do hold the capacity at such locations to rapidly escalate concerns (Parkhill et al., 2010).

9 This phenomenon is now discussed in terms of the so-called “deficit model” of science communication. This model assumed that the public had a simple deficit of technical knowledge and that greater acceptability would follow from provision of greater knowledge (about the technology, its risks, benefits, etc.). However, early attempts to persuade the public to accept nuclear power in this way proved a spectacular failure. And the simple deficit hypothesis has now been discredited by both theoretical advances and empirical data. From a theoretical perspective, assuming a deficit of knowledge can be patronizing to a community and often deflects debate from the real concerns that people wish to have aired; it is therefore not conducive to establishing a genuinely participatory interaction between site developers, regulators, and communities (Pidgeon et al., 1992). From an empirical perspective, the core assumption of the deficit model also appears to be false, as studies have consistently shown that people’s perception and acceptance of technology and science are not straightforwardly attributable to their level of knowledge about them (Sturgis and Allum, 2004; Wynne and Irwin, 1996).

10 With onshore wind energy, for example, people tend to be mostly concerned about the potential impact upon valued or particularly sensitive landscapes, suggesting that there are both more, and less, suitable places to site such developments. With biomass, people tend to worry that emissions are not properly managed and controlled. This association with burning and emissions makes biomass distinct from other renewable-generating sources; in fact, biomass may not be perceived as “renewable” at all (Whitmarsh et al., 2011).

11 Contemporary academic thinking is that NIMBYism is a highly misleading label that oversimplifies what prompts local concerns. Modern academia also argues that NIMBYism risks alienating local communities that must host such developments (Devine-Wright, 2011; Ramana, 2011).

12 Compensation in the absence of co-ownership is also a complex issue to perfect, as it is not always clear which party has the responsibility to pay; furthermore, to local communities, such offers can resemble bribery schemes if trust has already been lost (Aitken, 2010).

13 Local residents on Gigha displayed very positive attitudes toward wind energy, even more positive than prior to the development. They also exhibited a strong sense of pride in, and connection with “their” wind farm project, evidenced by the fact that they named the turbines the “Three Dancing Ladies” (Warren and McFayden, 2010).

Additional information

Author biographies

Nick Pidgeon is professor of environmental psychology at Cardiff University, where he directs the interdisciplinary Understanding Risk Research Group (see www.understanding-risk.org). His research looks at public perception and acceptability, risk communication, and the governance of environmental and technological risks, including nuclear power, renewable energy, climate change, and the emerging issues of nanotechnology and climate geoengineering. He is particularly interested in how trust in risk regulation can be built and in mechanisms for public involvement in responsible innovation processes for controversial emerging technology and risk issues. He was a member of the Royal Society/Royal Academy of Engineering nanotechnology study group in 2004 and is currently a science adviser to both the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. He authored the chapter “Risk Perception” in the 1992 UK Royal Society report Risk Analysis, Perception and Management, and is co-editor with Roger Kasperson and Paul Slovic of The Social Amplification of Risk (Cambridge University Press, 2003) and with the late Barry Turner of the 2nd edition of Man Made Disasters (Butterworth Heinemann, 1997).

Christina C. Demski is a research associate in the Understanding Risk Research Group in the psychology department at Cardiff University in Wales, United Kingdom. She has expertise in public acceptability and attitudes toward environmental and energy issues, such as climate change, energy security, and renewable energy. She recently completed her PhD, which focused on public perceptions of renewable energy technologies and examined the conditional nature of support using both qualitative and quantitative methods. She has particular expertise in survey methods and is currently working on a project investigating public values, attitudes, and acceptance of UK energy-system transformations, including perceptions of framings and trade-offs around energy futures.