Understanding the Societal Challenges Facing Nuclear Power Proceedings of a Workshop (2022) / Chapter Skim
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4 Lessons from Other Industries
4 Lessons from Other Industries
Pages 38-44
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From page 38... ...
The speakers were David Victor, University of California, San Diego; John Downer, University of Bristol; and Sarah Mills, University of Michigan. LESSONS FROM NUCLEAR DECOMMISSIONING David Victor, University of California, San Diego Victor shared lessons from his experience as chair of the volunteer community engagement panel that Southern California Edison set up for the decommissioning process for its San Onofre nuclear power plant.
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From page 39... ...
When a contractor irresponsibly handled a canister of spent fuel, the mistake set important community relationships back several steps, and repairing it required a total overhaul of communication strategies and an increased emphasis on operational excellence. A final lesson is the importance of strong engagement between plant operators, engagement panels, and Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)
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From page 40... ...
As a result, when new insights or weaknesses are uncovered, they offer lessons that are cumulative and generalizable across the industry. The upshot of this is that aviation regulators have not mastered the art of assessing failure probabilities from tests and models alone -- as the certification process purports -- but have slowly honed the performance of the common jetliner design paradigm over a period of decades.
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From page 41... ...
Procedural justice also has long-term implications, because how the public feels about the project's fairness shapes their overall opinion not only during the initial installation process but in the long term. Widely accepted projects are more open to upgrades and can become referral spots for potential future renewables sites.
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From page 42... ...
Mills noted that in the case of wind and solar projects, it is often difficult to disentangle the effectiveness of actual community engagement from the reality that in many cases the landowners involved are being paid for their land and have a direct relationship with the developer. Developers can further increase public acceptance at a community level by going beyond the bare minimum required for regulatory requirements, although this can also raise the risk of attracting negative attention.
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From page 43... ...
Second, it unfairly assumes the public is irrational. People are more accepting of aviation than nuclear energy not because airlines have better messaging, but because aviation meets an implicit social contract, wherein jetliners fail no more frequently than regulators promise, and they do not fail twice for the same designrelated reason.
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From page 44... ...
Todd Allen, University of Michigan, also noted that nuclear power plants feel unwelcoming to the public because they operate behind high fences and the technology has military associations, two facts that do little to create trust.
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