Global unpopularity of nuclear industry, but nuclear leaders do not ‘get it’
People do not like this [nuclear] industry, not because they misunderstand it but because they understand it perfectly
well. That is going to be very difficult to fix with little video clips on websites and new fact sheets….
… the magnitude of the disconnect, the dissonance, that exists in the minds of the strongest advocates of the [nuclear] industry. All they need to do is somehow just fix up the image of the industry and everything is going to be fine. I think we will be hearing a lot more of that on the part of the nuclear industry and its supporters in government.
Adjournment speech – Fukushima 6 months on – Australia’s Nuclear Free Alliance Spokesperson Scott Ludlam 14th September 2011 “……..It will be very interesting to see how the democratic aspirations of the people of Japan now play out in the light of the permanent radioactive nightmare that has been unleashed in the Tohoku region of Japan.
If we take a very quick trip around the world, a Washington Post/ABC poll in April 2011 found that 64 per cent of Americans oppose the construction of new reactors, so there are no surprises why the industry is at an absolute standstill there. Support for nuclear power was similar or much lower in countries as varied as Chile at 12 per cent, Thailand at 16½ per cent, Australia at 34 per cent, and the United Kingdom at 35 per cent support.
That, I think, is a problem that has dogged the nuclear industry right from the beginning but to read some of the things they say you would think perhaps they have an image problem. To the Australian Uranium Association, to the World Nuclear Association and to people active in the uranium industry who think that you will simply be able to sail on through this disaster and that the fundamentals of the industry are strong-as we often hear –
-my message is that you do not have an image problem, you do not have a messaging problem: you have a reality problem. You have a leukaemia problem and a lung cancer problem. It is not something that is going to be fixed with another glossy fact sheet. People do not like this industry, not because they misunderstand it but because they understand it perfectly well. That is going to be very difficult to fix with little video clips on websites and new fact sheets.
To quote some of the main spokespeople for the industry in the aftermath of the disaster on Fukushima-…
‘-Mr John Borshoff from Paladin Energy .. said that it was a ‘kick in the teeth’ for the industry but that the impact on the industry ‘will be minimal’ and it will ‘make the technology even safer than its enviable record’. Even our Prime Minister Julia Gillard said: What is happening in Japan doesn’t have any impact on my thinking about uranium exports. We export uranium and we will continue to export uranium.
How bad does it need to get to shake this extraordinary faith?
Mr Ian Hore-Lacy, formerly of the Uranium Institute in Australia-he now works for the World Nuclear Association, WNA-says of the epic accident in a piece that he put up on 13 April: The epic accident is certainly a scar on the public perception of nuclear power, especially in the short term.
‘A scar on the public perception’, as though we are just seeing it wrong and the industry has some kind of image problem-that all it needs to do is fix up people’s perception of it and everything will be okay. It shows the magnitude of the disconnect, the dissonance, that exists in the minds of the strongest advocates of the industry. All they need to do is somehow just fix up the image of the industry and everything is going to be fine. I think we will be hearing a lot more of that on the part of the nuclear industry and its supporters in government. The Australian Uranium Association says more facts and better public education will help address nuclear fears that Fukushima has helped fan, as though that accident has somehow caused unnecessary alarm and some kind of radiation phobia….
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