You need JavaScript to view this

Non-advertising program in promoting nuclear power in Finland

Abstract

In Finland, there are two nuclear power plants with four reactors totalling about 2 200 MWe. The oldest reactor has been operating just over ten years. In the Finnish power supply the share of nuclear power makes up one third. The optimum would be about 40%. Based on energy and nuclear attitude surveys showed that these issues are not independent in the society. Quite the opposite, the nuclear attitudes especially are tightly connected to general views like the pessimism toward the future, the credibility of large institutions, or politics, the acceptability of continuous economic growth, etc. The role of technical or economic facts, we engineers love, is found to be small, too. To change people's nuclear attitude one should be able to influence all the complex issues related to nuclear power. In theory, this is possible by ads. In that case the campaigning ought to be huge, it should last for years, and still would have basic question marks. The first question is how credible people see ads, in general, and, especially, in case of highly disputed and societal issues. Although there have been some educational ad campaigns in Finland, nuclear campaign would be a step to the unknown. Knowing  More>>
Authors:
Ruuskanen, Antti [1] 
  1. Department of Information, Imatran Voima Oy (IVO) (Finland)
Publication Date:
Jul 01, 1989
Product Type:
Conference
Report Number:
INIS-XA-C-011
Resource Relation:
Conference: PIME '89: International workshop on public information problems of nuclear energy, Montreux (Switzerland), 22-25 Jan 1989; Other Information: PBD: [1989]; Related Information: In: PIME '89 (Public Information Materials Exchange): International workshop on public information problems of nuclear energy, 236 pages.
Subject:
29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY AND ECONOMY; ATTITUDES; DECISION MAKING; ENERGY CONSUMPTION; ENERGY POLICY; FINLAND; NUCLEAR INDUSTRY; PUBLIC INFORMATION; PUBLIC OPINION; PUBLIC RELATIONS; SAFETY CULTURE; SOCIO-ECONOMIC FACTORS
OSTI ID:
20556002
Research Organizations:
European Nuclear Society, Brussels (Belgium); FORATOM, Brussels (Belgium)
Country of Origin:
IAEA
Language:
English
Other Identifying Numbers:
TRN: XA04C0433011033
Availability:
Available from INIS in electronic form
Submitting Site:
INIS
Size:
7 pages
Announcement Date:
Feb 20, 2005

Citation Formats

Ruuskanen, Antti. Non-advertising program in promoting nuclear power in Finland. IAEA: N. p., 1989. Web.
Ruuskanen, Antti. Non-advertising program in promoting nuclear power in Finland. IAEA.
Ruuskanen, Antti. 1989. "Non-advertising program in promoting nuclear power in Finland." IAEA.
@misc{etde_20556002,
title = {Non-advertising program in promoting nuclear power in Finland}
author = {Ruuskanen, Antti}
abstractNote = {In Finland, there are two nuclear power plants with four reactors totalling about 2 200 MWe. The oldest reactor has been operating just over ten years. In the Finnish power supply the share of nuclear power makes up one third. The optimum would be about 40%. Based on energy and nuclear attitude surveys showed that these issues are not independent in the society. Quite the opposite, the nuclear attitudes especially are tightly connected to general views like the pessimism toward the future, the credibility of large institutions, or politics, the acceptability of continuous economic growth, etc. The role of technical or economic facts, we engineers love, is found to be small, too. To change people's nuclear attitude one should be able to influence all the complex issues related to nuclear power. In theory, this is possible by ads. In that case the campaigning ought to be huge, it should last for years, and still would have basic question marks. The first question is how credible people see ads, in general, and, especially, in case of highly disputed and societal issues. Although there have been some educational ad campaigns in Finland, nuclear campaign would be a step to the unknown. Knowing that the nuclear attitudes are tightly connected to very many and quite stable societal views, and seeing the basic difficulties with ads, it is clear to me that there is no other way of promoting nuclear energy than a long and continuous public debate involving. Referring to the nuclear attitude survey results in Finland, advertising is not the solution to win the public confidence. Nuclear industry must be active in other ways than promoting nuclear power by advertising. This was the Finnish opinion. The nuclear issue is national in the sense that no country can copy models from other countries without carefully considering the local circumstances. So, in other countries there may be situations where other kinds of actions are called for.}
place = {IAEA}
year = {1989}
month = {Jul}
}