Talking about Nuclear Power Plant Safety
Ann S. Bisconti, PhD
September 1, 2021
Favorable public perceptions of nuclear power plant safety have increased dramatically in the past three decades. In 1984, 35 percent of the U.S. public gave high safety ratings to nuclear power plants and 46 percent gave low ratings. In 2021, 57 percent rated nuclear power plant safety high, and 19 percent rated safety low. That’s truly a sea change. Nevertheless, safety remains a public concern and an industry priority.
Nuclear Power Plant Safety
Thinking about the nuclear power plants that are operating now, how safe do you regard these plants? Please think of a scale from "1" to "7," where "1" means "very unsafe" and "7" means "very safe." The safer you think they are, the higher the number you would give.
Do Accidents Change Perceptions?
Observers point to Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima as turning points for nuclear energy, and they were—but not in the way observers have assumed. Looking closely at the data, one finds some surprises:
Three Mile Island (TMI) accident, April 30, 1979. After the Three Mile Island accident, it took three years for support for building more nuclear power plants to drop. In 1979, there was an energy crisis and Iran revolution. By 1982, energy was off the public agenda; there was no perceived need for new plants.
Percent Favor Building More Nuclear Power Plants Before and After the Three Mile Island Accident (March 1979)
Sources: *Cambridge Reports, ABC/Harris/EEI
Chernobyl accident, April 26, 1986. After Chernobyl, confidence in nuclear power plant safety increased (teachable moment). Favorability dropped slightly but was higher by fall. After that, with no perceived need, energy and nuclear energy dropped out of sight and out of mind until about 2001.
Attitudes Toward Nuclear Energy Before and After Chernobyl (April 1986) (%)
Source: National Surveys by Cambridge Reports for NEI, 1,500 U.S. adults in each survey
Fukushima accident, March 11, 2011. The Fukushima accident coincided with a period of peak favorability to nuclear energy referred to as a “nuclear renaissance.” Opinion leaders increasingly recognized nuclear energy’s vital role in mitigating climate change and utilities began to take steps toward building new nuclear power plants.
Perceptions of nuclear power plant safety remained high until 2014—three years after the Fukushima event. A steady decline began in 2014 and continued until 2021, when perceptions of safety became more favorable. The decline was not directly safety related; however, the Fukushima accident created malaise within the industry, put a stop to most of the building plans, and allowed solar and wind to dominate the climate change discourse—until 2021, when nuclear energy returned to the public discourse and innovative designs gained support.
Nuclear Power Plant Safety
So, it must be concluded that accidents have not changed attitudes as expected. The attitudes were affected primarily by perceptions of need for nuclear energy or lack thereof. However, the accidents did affect nuclear energy in three important ways:
The two accidents with lessons relevant to U.S. plants, TMI and Fukushima, led to large changes in safety practices. In particular, the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO) was established after TMI to hold the industry to highest standards of excellence, and INPO became a source of continual improvements.
For the industry, the accidents were disheartening and slowed development.
For the public, the accidents attached names to the specter of nuclear accidents that has existed in fictional form since before the splitting of the atom.¹
Communicating With the Public: Lessons from Chernobyl
Experts on both communications and nuclear technology have weighed in over the years on what the public should know about nuclear power plant safety. To communications experts, the association of nuclear energy with the bomb seemed to be the biggest problem: delink nuclear energy and the bomb, they advised. “Just tell them that it is physically impossible for a nuclear power plant to explode like a bomb,” said David Ogilvy, the highly regarded founder of the Ogilvy & Mather advertising agency.
In 1986, through the U.S. Council for Energy Awareness (predecessor of the Nuclear Energy Institute) I invited a group of industry technical leaders to brainstorm about what the public should know about nuclear power plant safety. One expert lamented that he would like to tell the public about “containment,” but he felt that containment was too difficult a topic for general public communication. In simple terms, U.S. plants have multiple barriers such as super thick walls of reinforced steel and concrete that can contain the effects of an accident. The Three Mile Island plant experienced a meltdown, but the effects were controlled and contained so that no harmful quantities of radioactive material were released into the environment.
Test messages were readied for research—just as Chernobyl occurred in May 1986. As we received developing news about an accident at the Chernobyl plant in Ukraine, industry experts immediately identified major weaknesses of the Chernobyl plant design that would have prohibited the plant from being licensed to operate in the U.S. Among these weaknesses, the Chernobyl plant did not have containment.
Based on the best information available to the West, the safety messages were revised in consideration of the Chernobyl accident. One of the messages was about containment. Another, in deference to David Ogilvy, was about the fact that it is physically impossible for a nuclear power plant to explode like a bomb.
We tested the messages overnight with 50 individual in-depth interviews by Intermarket Research. The messages were shown on nine cards, each of which contained a main theme followed by support points. Respondents were asked to discuss the pros and cons of each card. The sample was small, but results were clear.
The top two message themes were about learning from experience and containment:
The American nuclear energy industry used the Three Mile Island accident to increase safety—Appealing points: how the industry learned from experience, improved safety, established INPO.
An accident at a U.S. built nuclear power plant would be safely contained—Appealing points: multiple barriers/containment not designed into the Chernobyl plant, why what happened at Chernobyl did not happen at TMI and could not happen here.
Three message sets also were effective:
America’s nuclear power plant operators are highly skilled—Appealing points: plant operators are highly trained at INPO’s National Academy for Nuclear Training and must pass requalification exams every two years.
Scientists rate the risks of nuclear power lower than those of most energy technologies—Appealing points: scientific endorsement.
American nuclear power plants are built for safety first—Appealing points: multiple backup safety systems for all critical components (similar to containment points, but not as explicit).
Four message sets were not effective:
America’s nuclear power plants use fuel that cannot explode—majority did not believe this message.
Nuclear energy is no mystery in the U.S.; we have experience with over 100 plants—invented here does not ensure safety.
President Reagan’s 1985 National Energy Policy Plan commends the safety record of America’s nuclear energy—viewed as political, doesn’t explain safety.
In a Democratic system like ours, nuclear power plants are open to public scrutiny—could conceal flaws, general public not qualified to judge.
The effective messages were quickly communicated through advertising, media relations, and a cadre of nuclear physicians. Within one week of the accident, a powerful ad showing a schematic of containment appeared in The Washington Post and other influential media. The ad’s headline: “Why what happened at Chernobyl didn’t happen at Three Mile Island.” The text explained that the Chernobyl plant did not have containment to keep the accident inside. In contrast to the Chernobyl-type Russian plants, all American nuclear power plants do have containment, the ad said.
The Society of Nuclear Medicine selected volunteer physicians in each state to inform local media and to answer questions people might have, especially about the effects of radiation. This network of credible physicians in the nuclear field was helpful nationally, regionally, and locally.
The role of opinion leaders and the media was, as usual, massive—but surprising. Opinion leaders, including leading news anchors, began to explain why what happened at Chernobyl did not happen at Three Mile Island. Even some nuclear skeptics, who were called upon to comment in the media, accurately compared the physical differences between Chernobyl and Three Mile Island.
In May 1986, our national tracking poll with Cambridge Reports found that 66 percent of the US public recalled hearing or reading about “differences between nuclear power plants in the Soviet Union and those in the United States.” Memory fades, and five years later, in May 1991, only 43 percent recalled hearing or reading this fact.
Why did leaders and the news media coalesce on this narrative about the differences between the U.S. and Chernobyl plants? Some credit must be given to the quick and effective work of the Nuclear Energy Institute predecessor. But the narrative was welcomed because it fit the times. The U.S. was still in a technology race with the Soviet Union, and we had suffered a huge loss recently with the failure of our Challenger spacecraft. I always wondered what role national pride played in the almost eager adoption of a narrative that focused this disaster on the Soviets’ inferior technology.
As for the research lessons that guided communications, we have found that they still apply when talking about nuclear power plant safety. This we know from many tests of safety-related materials over the years. Advertising research guru, Herbert Krugman², once told me that the key to changing attitudes is to introduce a new idea. In the case of nuclear energy, new information about the industry-wide safety improvements made through INPO and about the multiple layers of protection, like containment, surprises and reassures audiences today.
¹ For a fascinating account of the origins of persistent imagery, see Spencer Weart’s Nuclear Fear, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1988.
² Edward P. Krugman, Consumer Behavior and Advertising Involvement, Selected Works of Herbert E. Krugman. New York, Routledge, 2018.
© Ann Stouffer Bisconti, 2021.