Nuclear power has been a controversial social issue, and societal acceptance is critical to its development and future. In addition, risk informed rules and regulations rely on the public’s understanding. However, there seems a communication gap about nuclear safety between the government and the public in China, and three questionnaire surveys were conducted to better understand Chinese people’s perceptions of a severe nuclear accident. The sample sizes were 117, 280 and 1071. Most of the respondents were students or white-collar workers born after 1990. In these three surveys, we found that more than 85% of respondents hold a more restricted definition of a severe nuclear accident than nuclear experts do, and most respondents considered an incident to constitute a severe nuclear accident. The results demonstrate that nuclear experts and Chinese people may have different definitions of a severe nuclear accident. Therefore, we suggest that the quality of communication may be improved when both groups reach an agreement on the definition of a severe nuclear accident. This is believed to benefit the development of risk informed rule and regulation. In addition, our three different surveys yielded a similar result, and we anticipate that a questionnaire survey with a larger sample size would do the same.

Chinese People May Have a Different Perception of Severe Nuclear Accidents

Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/ICONE/ICONE28/volume/85246

2021 28th International Conference on Nuclear Engineering (ICONE28)

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