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question in the nuclear industry has been how to describe the new nuclear power plants to the public. In
particular, the nuclear industry needs to describe the plants so that the public understands that one
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characteristic of these new designs is a reduction in the probability of a severe accident. Announcing that
the plants have a core melt frequency of 10-6 is probably not going to go a long way toward convincing the
public. Therefore, the industry has been searching for more descriptive language. In a survey, people were
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asked to pick out the terms that «mean something good to you». Many of the phrases that the nuclear
industry suggested did not captivate the public. For example, only 9 percent of the public thought
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transparently safe meant something good; 10 percent thought passively safe was good; 26 percent thought
inherently safe and walkaway safe were good. Walkaway safe means that hours, even days, would pass
before damage leading to the release of radiation could occur after a serious accident, which allows
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operators time to think through their options carefully before taking action. Much of the public, however,
thougt that walkaway safe meant that one could walk away from the accident instead of running away.
Safer received almost one-half of the votes. Although there is little expectation that many new plants will
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be described as being safer than the current plants, the results of the survey do provide some confidence in
the public’s judgment because they indicate that the public is focused on substance — improving safety —
not on style — what terminology is used.
6
Nevertheless, inconsistencies continue in the development of public understanding of risks, and the
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issue must be faced by anyone working on risk analysis and public policy. It is not enough merely to do the
technical analysis of an accident or hazard sequence, which a technical person might believe is most
important. Public policy and risk analysis demand more. However, it is very difficult to determine exactly
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what is driving public opinion. For example, recent polls in North Carolina asked whether the public is too
concerned with the environment. Two-thirds of the people either mostly or completely disagreed. When
100 asked which they would choose for their state — more jobs or stricter environmental laws — how-100
ever, 75 percent of the people either mostly or completely agreed with choosing jobs over stricter
environmental laws. At the same time, North Carolina is the compact state that was chosen to develop a
low-level radioactive waste site to replace the one in Barnwell, South Carolina. Not surprisingly, North
105 Carolina has been unable to find a site. A survey asked the public whether they supported the following
statement: «Whatever the cost, North Carolina needs to get out of the agreement with the neighboring
110 states regarding placing the radioactive waste site in our state.» More than half the people agreed that
North Carolina ought to get out of the agreement. They want the jobs, but they also want out of the
agreement.
7
This type of inconsistency is not restricted to radioactive waste disposal sites. In an effort to locate a
115 hazardous waste incinerator in North Carolina, an incinerator company convinced Woodland’s town
officials to accept the incinerator. Shortly thereafter, a town election was held:
Aroused opponents of a proposed hazardous waste incinerator voted in a new slate of town officials
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Tuesday, replacing the Mayor and four Council memebers who invited ThermalKEM to their town.
The defeated mayor had been in office for 27 years. Voter turnout was 89 percent. The interest was so
high that, rather than going home after voting, many voters stayed at the votecounting center. The crowd
125 greeted the results by chanting, «Not here, not there, not anywhere!»
8
Although addressing the U.S. public is difficult, this nation’s public may not be the most difficult. In
fall 1991, at a workshop sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Yves Kaluzney, head of the
130 nuclear division of the General Directorate for Energy and Raw Materials in the government of France,
discussed the problems France has had in trying to establish a site for high-level radioactive waste. The
process had to be halted and a parliamentary commission established because of local objections. After a
135 U.S. participant in the DOE conference suggested that the two sides ought to enter into dialogue, Kaluzney
said, «When you have people putting fire to your documents, throwing stones through your windows,
breaking your computers, that is opposition—that is not dialogue».
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9 Risk analysis and public policy often are in conflict on nuclear power issues. Physicist Richard Wilson,
who has been involved in risk analysis across a broad spectrum of fields, once described how he got into
the nuclear field:
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It didn’t take long for me to realize that the problems, and even the issues of nuclear energy [have] very
little to do with nuclear physics. The problems are of engineering and perception. While I agree with
much that they say, I reject the idea that the public perception of risk is more important than the actual
magnitude