Reframing nuclear power in the UK energy debate: Nuclear power, climate change mitigation and radioactive waste

Bickerstaff, K., Lorenzoni, I., Pidgeon, N. F., Poortinga, W. and Simmons, P. (2008) Reframing nuclear power in the UK energy debate: Nuclear power, climate change mitigation and radioactive waste. Public Understanding of Science, 17 (2). pp. 145-168.

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Abstract

In the past decade, human influence on the climate through increased use of fossil fuels has become widely acknowledged as one of the most pressing issues for the global community. For the United Kingdom, we suggest that these concerns have increasingly become manifest in a new strand of political debate around energy policy, which reframes nuclear power as part of the solution to the need for low-carbon energy options. A mixed-methods analysis of citizen views of climate change and radioactive waste is presented, integrating focus group data and a nationally representative survey. The data allow us to explore how UK citizens might now and in the future interpret and make sense of this new framing of nuclear power-which ultimately centers on a risk-risk trade-off scenario. We use the term "reluctant acceptance" to describe how, in complex ways, many focus group participants discursively re-negotiated their position on nuclear energy when it was positioned alongside climate change. In the concluding section of the paper, we reflect on the societal implications of the emerging discourse of new nuclear build as a means of delivering climate change mitigation and set an agenda for future research regarding the (re)framing of the nuclear energy debate in the UK and beyond.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: sdg 7 - affordable and clean energy,sdg 13 - climate action ,/dk/atira/pure/sustainabledevelopmentgoals/affordable_and_clean_energy
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences
University of East Anglia Research Groups/Centres > Theme - ClimateUEA
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Marine Knowledge Exchange Network
Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Collaborative Centre for Sustainable Use of the Seas
Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Science, Society and Sustainability
Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Environmental Social Sciences
University of East Anglia Schools > Faculty of Science > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
Depositing User: Rosie Cullington
Date Deposited: 25 Feb 2011 10:14
Last Modified: 20 Mar 2024 10:30
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/24831
DOI: 10.1177/0963662506066719

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