How well do we communicate the risk of nuclear power plants?

Despite the benefit that nuclear power plants (NPPs) provide in Spain for the stability of the electrical grid, we are willing to shoot ourselves in the foot and close the operating NPPs sooner rather than later. The fact is, whether we like it or not, technological artifacts carry political weight, especially when it comes to NPPs. This causes society to divide and polarize around them, just as it does with any social or economic issue that political parties use to attack each other. Do they do it following a reasoned and sensible criterion? The answer is no. Everything points to the criterion of belonging to a political tribe; either you are with me or against me.

So far, experts have communicated, perhaps too coldly, the good numbers of nuclear energy, both in terms of safety and production, convinced that, with this, society would readily accept this technology. Nothing could be further from the truth. Despite being a sector strictly regulated by the State—via the Nuclear Safety Council—and the strategic benefits of our energy mix, Spanish society does not fully support the inclusion of the nuclear option in this mix. Moreover, according to the Eurobarometers, our country is at the bottom in terms of support for this type of energy. On the other hand, Spaniards are the European citizens who show the greatest support for energies like solar to reduce the country’s nuclear energy dependence. The second trend is sociologically easy to explain, not so much the first.

We need to ask ourselves why this situation exists and consider that perhaps the shortcomings of the nuclear sector’s communication model in Spain are the cause of this poor social perception, especially when no significant problems have been presented in our country or in any of our close surroundings.