The objective of this study is to estimate willingness to pay (WTP) for the reduction of mortality risks caused by fossil fuel (natural gas, coal and oil) versus nuclear electric power generation systems and to examine the influence of risk characteristics involved with electric power generation on WTP. A choice experiment was conducted to achieve these objectives. The attributes for nuclear risks in the experiment included the probability of disasters and the expected losses if a disaster occurs. We find evidence of (i) a baseline effect (where WTP is sensitive to hypothetical versus actual baseline expected mortality); (ii) a ‘labeling effect,’ where, surprisingly, the term ‘nuclear’ has no effect on WTP, but the term ‘fossil-fueled power generation’ results in lower WTP; and (iii) disaster aversion, meaning that people focus on the conditional loss from a nuclear disaster, not the probability. We also find that the WTP for reducing deaths from a nuclear disaster is about 60 times the WTP for routine reducing fossil-fuel generation-related deaths. Copyright Springer 2006choice experiment, coal-fired generation, mortality, nuclear power, risk characteristics, willingness to pay,
This analysis examines one of the risk communication activities that was implemented in the village of Tokai, Japan. It demonstrates how residents evaluate the safety measures and the safety culture of nuclear facilities through the "Citizen's Inspection" program; an inspection program devised and managed by volunteer residents interested in these activities. The results were determined after three inspections were conducted and suggest that even with a limited knowledge of nuclear safety, a motivated resident's point of view in evaluating the safety measures and the safety culture of nuclear facilities can contribute toward nuclear risk management.
In a world-shocking nuclear disaster occurred at Fukushima in 2011, multi-faceted consequences have manifested in not only direct and indirect but also tangible and intangible way in social, political, and economic domains. At present six year later, original risk issues, such as health, environmental, and financial risks, were complexly connected to each other, and have transformed to the wicked or complicated problems. This paper addresses the following four problems that we are faced with: prolonged evacuation and return to hometown, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings issues, nuclear regulatory issues, and nuclear energy policy and business. The authors discuss the reasons why above-noted situations arise from nuclear disaster in terms of endogenous factors embedded in socio-technical nuclear system in Japan and some common causes across the wicked problems. The wicked problems are also closely connected with each other, and become super-wicked problem. Among others, Japan's energy transition policy aiming at low carbon society tends to deviate politically and now at crossroad.Finally, the authors describe some perspectives and challenges required to govern interconnected events, as lessons learned from the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.