Abstract


Recently, the Japanese government has set a target of reducing its current CO2 emissions by 25% and 80% from 1990 levels in 2020 and 2050 respectively. This plan will have a direct implication on the power production mix since today 66% of electricity is produced from fossil combustion. To attain the plan, the substitution of fossil fuelled electric plants should come from either renewable or nuclear power. According to previous estimates Japan\¡Çs future nuclear power growth will create an inevitable need for new nuclear power plants, particularly because of the disadvantage in terms of generation patterns and required land for a larger deployment of renewables. Perception about nuclear power among the population, however, has always been an issue. A global rebirth of nuclear power suggests this acceptance could have changed but in any case it is a defining factor for the success of nuclear expansion. The purpose of this research is to survey the public acceptance of NPPs and its influencing factors and explore if the plan of expansion would smoothly fit the perception on the population or not. This survey is conducted in three locations related to different phases of nuclear power generation: A planning-construction site, a site with a generation facility nearby and a consumption centre. It is found that the regional difference of community acceptance is statistically significant, that is, where nuclear plants were already constructed there is a higher probability that new plants are accepted than in the other places. However, the overall community acceptance to expand nuclear power is still less than 20%. Based on the findings we suggest that the most important issues for sustainable promotion of nuclear power are transmission of information and increase of its credibility.

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(C) 2020 Hirotake Ishii