Management Strategy to Utilize Meta-Analysis Technique for Nuclear Energy and Waste Disposal and Create Social Sustainability

This research proposal explores the link between public perceptions of nuclear power, how those perceptions are formed, and what influence those opinions have on energy policy. These issues are important in light of two realities. First, nuclear energy is declining in its share of global energy. Second, nuclear energy offers what might well be the best solution to climate change. Given the threat posed by climate change, it makes sense that nuclear power would be increasing in share, not decreasing. This Research proposal seeks to look at some of the issues facing nuclear power, and how it can overcome these issues to increase share going forward.

Table of Contents

Abstract ii

Dedication iii

Acknowledgements iv

Table of Contents v

List of Tables viii

List of Figures vii

Chapter One: Introduction 1

Topic Overview 7

Problem Statement 8

Purpose Statement 10

Social Dimension in Nuclear Energy 3

Political Dimension in Nuclear Energy 4

Economic Dimension in Nuclear Energy 6

Research Objectives 7

Hypothesis 9

Hypothesis #1 9

Hypothesis #2 10

Hypothesis#3 11

Hypothesis #4 11

Theoretical Perspectives 12

Assumptions and Biases 14

Significance of the Study 16

Delimitation 17

Limitations 18

Definition of Key Terms 19

General Overview of the Research Design 20

Summary of Chapter One 21

Organization of the Study 22

Chapter Two: Literature Review 23

Hypothesis #1: Public perceptions of nuclear energy are largely driven by disasters. 24

Hypothesis #2: Public perceptions can influence political decision making 28

Hypothesis #3: Unresolved technical issues contribute to policy 30

Hypothesis #4 Nuclear energy is not viewed as a viable solution to climate change 34

Chapter Three: Research Design 41

Research Traditions 41

Research Questions and Hypotheses 44

Research Design 47

Validity 48

Reliability 48

Ethical Issues in the Research 49

Summary of Chapter Three 49

Chapter Four: Findings 52

Findings — Hypotheses #1 52

Findings — Hypothesis #2 56

Findings — Hypothesis #3 59

Findings — Hypothesis #4 62

Findings — Tying everything together 65

Chapter five: Conclusions 68

Limitations of the Study 68

Implications for Practice 70

Implications of Study 72

Recommendations for Future Research 73

Reflections 75

References 130

APPENDIX 131

Appendix A: Nuclear Energy Market Share Worldwide (source: IAEA, 2015) 84

Appendix B: Nuclear Reactors Operating Worldwide (source: IAEA, 2015) 85

Appendix C: Number of Nuclear Reactors Under Construction Worldwide (source: IAEA, 2015). 139

List of Figures

[Add List of Figures here ix

Chapter One: Introduction

Overview

Nuclear energy was first harnessed for power in 1954, at the Obninsk scientific city some 110km outside of Moscow (Josephenson, 2000, p.2). At the time, nuclear power was viewed as the energy of the future. Unharnessing the power of the atom, it was thought, was to provide a stable, reliable source of energy for the future. Even at the time, it was known that fossil fuels were not going to sustainable as an energy source. The use of atomic weapons at the end of the Second World War highlighted the value of harnessing the atom — nuclear energy was essential in war, and to meet civilian energy needs. The most technologically advanced societies of that age, the U.S. and USSR, were the leaders in the development of nuclear technology, but they were soon joined by a number of other nations.

Nuclear energy can be described as the energy in the core or nucleus of an atom, which is a small unit that contributes to all matter in the universe. Nuclear energy is derived from nuclear reactions, which are used to produce heat that is most commonly used in steam turbines to generate electricity, especially in a nuclear power station. According to Remo (2015), nuclear energy, which is utilized in weapons and for generating electricity, has the probability to destroy life and also save lives on Earth (p.38). As a result, the likelihood of effective use of nuclear energy to save lives as well as for producing a catastrophic thermonuclear war on Earth has contributed to a huge debate and controversy relating to nuclear energy.

Today, nuclear energy provides for roughly 10% of the world’s energy needs. There are reactors in 31 countries, for a total of 427 reactors as of 2013 (Schneider et al., 2013). That is seventeen fewer reactors than there were in 2002, and the installed capacity of the industry is at 364 GWe, down from 375 GWe in 2002. Thus, the nuclear power industry is in decline. While some of this can be attributed to the Fukushima disaster that took some of Japan’s capacity offline, the fact that nuclear energy is not growing is somewhat perplexing. Since 2002, the world’s collective knowledge of climate change has increased substantially. Many nations around the world made commitments to reduce their carbon emissions in the Kyoto Protocol (UN FCC, 2014).

Yet, despite this, there has been very little new investment in nuclear power. Total capacity has declined as noted above, and given that overall energy production capacity has likely increased in this period, the market share for nuclear power has declined significantly in this period. Three quarters of the decline came from Japan, but the top five other nuclear power generators also decreased their output as well (Schneider et al., 2013). In 1993, nuclear power peaked at 17% of total global energy production, but now sits at 10% (Ibid, p.7). With no major new build programs, the average age of the world’s nuclear reactors is at 28 years, with over 190 units having run for over 30 years, and 44 units having run for over 40 years (Ibid, p.7). There is some new construction, in fourteen countries, with one (the UAE) being a new member of the nuclear power club. There have been many delays that have stalled progress in prospective new members to the nuclear power club, comprised mainly of developing world nations (Ibid, p.7).

Problem Statement

There are a number of different issues that need to be examined to determine the future of nuclear power. First, there are the social and political dimensions. So many would-be nuclear powers have had trouble getting their reactors built, Bangladesh, Belarus, Jordan, Lithuania, Poland, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam among them (Schneider, et al., p.7). In established nuclear power countries, there is a lack of investment in adding new capacity. Where there is new construction, it is to replace aging facilities.

Social Dimension in Nuclear Energy

The social dimension of nuclear energy is also evident in the fact that growth in the nuclear power industry across the globe has been lagging for over two decades. The installed nuclear power capacity has grown every year by a meager 1.3% since the 1987 Chernobyl incident. This slight growth over the past two decades has occurred despite the annual growth and increase in the demand of electricity by nearly 3% every year. While the total primary energy consumption has increased by more than 26% in the past two decades, the aggregate growth in installed nuclear power has been a scanty 15% (Sovacool, n.d.).

While 22 countries have nuclear power plants, more than half of the world’s nuclear power plants are housed in three countries i.e. France, Japan, and the United States. Notably, the average age of development of new nuclear power reactors has increased to 24 years given the declining investment in further development of nuclear power reactors. The decline in investments in further development of nuclear power plants and reactors is also attributed to the unresolved challenge of identifying permanent geologic repositories for utilized nuclear fuel. Moreover, the nuclear power industry is characterized by the increased cost of decommissioning aged nuclear power plant and facilities, which has hindered the appeal of nuclear power in countries that house nuclear power plants. From a social point-of-view, the decline of nuclear power is suddenly uncertain and characterized by various challenges at a time when the total energy consumption is increasing throughout the globe.

The other social aspect that has hindered the growth of nuclear power industry is the emergence and growth of social movement organizations that campaign for the abolition of nuclear power, especially the development and growth of new nuclear power plant and facilities. These social movement organizations have emerged in the aftermath of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident that had devastating impacts on people’s lives and demonstrated the inherent dangers of nuclear power (Satoh et al., 2014, p.178). While these social movements have not contributed to closure of nuclear power plants, they have been successful in changing people’s or the public’s opinion regarding nuclear power or energy.

Political Dimension in Nuclear Energy

Nuclear power policy is in the political domain, and in many countries public sentiment affects the political domain. So there are issues raised with respect to the perceptions that publics and governments have, and whether or not those perceptions are responsible for the decline of nuclear power. Two issues in particular are whether disasters such as Fukushima impact public policy, and whether climate change and the need to transition away from fossil fuels is helping to change public perceptions about nuclear power, and its role in the power mix of a given nation.

Another issue that has arisen in the course of researching the subject is the handling of nuclear waste. Public perception is not all that relevant to this issue — while there are no studies on the subject, it seems reasonable to conclude that few members of the general public understand the science behind the generation and handling of nuclear waste. But public policy is often informed by the science, and the disposal of nuclear waste remains an emerging field, where scientists are still learning. There are many challenges associated with handling nuclear waste, and these may be playing a role in the diminishing importance of nuclear power around the world.

The troubles and frustrations in the nuclear power industry are regarded as more political than economical. Actually, politics has been regarded as the main source of exceptional troubles and frustrations in nuclear power than economic factors. For instance, the potential of nuclear power in the United States has been hindered by a hostile regulatory environment and unconventionally risk-averse public whose opinion regarding nuclear energy has been influenced by politics (Nivola, 2004). Political and legal institutions in the United States and other parts of the world have been largely uncooperative with regards to further development of nuclear power plants and growth of nuclear energy. Political factors play a major role in nuclear power development because politics influence the regulatory framework of this industry.

Economic Dimension in Nuclear Energy

In the past few decades, the circumstances of nuclear energy have been extremely unfavorable as compared to conditions that prevailed prior to the 1970s energy crisis. In the United States, these unfavorable conditions have not only been brought by political obstacles but also due to inappropriate basic economic considerations. The nuclear power industry has lacked adequate economic support and considerations to propel the development of nuclear energy. Actually, the existing economic considerations related to this industry have contributed to several obstacles in construction of new nuclear power plants.

Moreover, the economic realities of the current energy sector demonstrate that this industry is largely cost competitive. In essence, gas and coal-generated power have been cost competitive and increasingly preferred than nuclear energy. The cost competitive nature of the energy sector, which has favored alternative energy sources, has contributed to several difficulties in the development and growth of nuclear energy.

It is also evident that nuclear power plants take an exceptional long time to construct and eventually costs more than it should to develop safely according to many financial analysts (Nivola, 2004). There have been several challenges in efforts to lessen the overall completion time and lower the costs of construction. Financial analysts have argued that lessening the completion time of constructing a nuclear power plant and reducing development costs by a quarter would still not enhance the competitiveness of nuclear energy relative to coal and other sources of energy.

The opportunity presented by the current situation is to determine what the factors are that are constraining the growth of the nuclear power industry. Once these factors are understood, policy makers can have a better sense of how to work around these challenges. There remain a lot of compelling arguments in favor of nuclear power, for its efficiency, for its ability to mitigate the impacts of climate change and even for its safety. In order to restore growth to the industry, and the promise of atomic energy in general, the issues that have befallen nuclear power in recent years will need to be better understood.

Research Objectives

This research seeks to identify whether or not there are any commonalities in the reasons why nuclear power is in decline at a time when it probably should be increasing in importance in the global energy mix. It is not known if it will be possible to determine these reasons. Each country has its own reasons for its policies with respect to nuclear power, and these are not always disclosed. Even within democracies, it is not always possible to obtain this information. While this reality may constrain the study, it does not mean that the study should not be attempted. It is critically important to understand what the different underlying factors of public policy are with respect to nuclear power. So that is the main objective for the research.

The research will seek to identify if there are certain themes that can be identified with respect to nuclear power policy, and if those themes are intractable or not. By determining the different factors that drive nuclear energy policy, the people who are responsible for making such policy around the world will be better equipped to counter the objections that they might face. The people in the nuclear power industry will also have a better sense of the problems that they need to be solved.

In this process, the researcher will examine public perceptions and attitudes regarding nuclear power or energy. The evaluation of these public perceptions and attitudes will be based on the need by many governments to re-evaluate their existing energy policies. When examining these public attitudes regarding nuclear energy, the researcher will also re-examine the need to transform energy policies with regards to several challenges of climate change, price volatility of fossil fuel, and enhancing security of energy supply. Throughout the study, the researcher combines the varying insightful public opinion and surveys about nuclear energy. This will be geared towards assembling opinions and views to the large audience of policy makers, opinion leaders, and decision makers (“Public Attitudes to Nuclear Power,” 2010). It is important to examine public perception or policy regarding nuclear energy because public attitudes are important in developing nuclear policies that in turn influence the development and growth of this industry or sector.

The other important element relating to public perceptions on nuclear power, which will be highlighted in the research, is to ensure the public is well-informed and considers that nuclear power benefits outweigh risks. The researcher will also show how public attitudes and perceptions towards nuclear power are correlated with the extent of knowledge and experience regarding nuclear power.

The issues to be addressed by the researcher regarding nuclear power or energy are not expected to solely be about public perception or policy. There are clearly some technical issues that are holding back the development of nuclear power, particularly with regard to waste disposal and management, as well as the risks posed by environmental catastrophe. Fukushima has changed the way a lot of people around the world think about nuclear power. The technical issues will be examined based on social, political, and economic dimensions relating to nuclear power.

Hypothesis

There are a number of hypotheses that will be tested in this study. The hypotheses will focus on what the literature has showed with respect to nuclear energy.

Hypothesis #1: Public perceptions of nuclear energy are largely driven by disasters.

The underlying logic here is that the public lacks the technical knowledge with respect to nuclear energy. The general public — in any country — can only form opinions based on what they know, and they know little beyond headline events. Furthermore, people tend to be risk averse, and nuclear power represents an unknown. Combining nuclear fears, lack of understanding and a few high profile disasters, it is believed that the research will show that the general public’s opinions about nuclear power are largely formed by disasters.

When testing this hypothesis, the researcher will demonstrate how public opinion regarding nuclear energy has been largely affected by the Fukushima accident. Actually, the Fukushima accident in 2011 had largely varying effect on public attitudes and energy policies across the globe similar to other major disasters that have taken place in the nuclear power industry (Duffy, 2012). According to a poll or survey conducted by the Huffington Post in the aftermath of the Fukushima accident, 25% of people who oppose nuclear power or energy did so because of Fukushima and other accidents in the nuclear power industry (Duffy, 2012). Generally, Fukushima and other accidents in nuclear power industry have largely reinforced current views or opinions and pushed those who are skeptical into negative perspectives about nuclear energy.

Hypothesis #2: Public perceptions can influence political decision making.

This hypothesis should in theory hold in a democratic society. Where people vote for their politicians, and politicians set energy policy, those politicians have incentive to set policy in line with the perceptions and desires of the public. This hypothesis is not expected to hold in non-democratic societies, should there be any information available from such countries. But in democratic nations — both those with and without nuclear power, it is believed that the public’s views about nuclear power play an influencing role on public policy regarding nuclear power.

Political decision making is a policy area that is largely influenced by public opinion or perceptions and sometimes protest-led. Public opinion shapes political decision making relating to nuclear power or energy because politicians use these opinions in attempts to balance competing concerns among various interest groups. Similar to other sectors, political decision making in the energy sector is largely influenced by public opinion since the public consumes energy resources and is better placed to provide feedback regarding the various issues relating to nuclear energy.

Hypothesis #3: Unresolved technical issues contribute to policy.

The literature on nuclear power shows that the treatment and disposal of waste continues to be a challenge. There is no clear consensus on the best way to handle waste. Studies seem to indicate that there are multiple ceramic types that are used, and that these can vary in effectiveness depending on the conditions of the surrounding rock, moisture levels in said rock, and other environmental factors. There appears to be quite a bit that scientists do not know about nuclear waste disposal, even after sixty years of nuclear power. These issues are more technical in nature, but those involved in setting energy policy should be able to process that knowledge. Thus, technical issues and the awareness thereof should be factors in setting policy with respect to nuclear energy.

Hypothesis #4: Nuclear energy is not viewed as a viable solution to climate change.

Nuclear energy is not a significant contributor to climate change. Thus, in some circles it has been marketed as a potential solution to climate change, allowing us to meet our energy needs while at the same time reducing our carbon emissions. This hypothesis is that as of yet, policymakers are either not searching for carbon alternatives to mitigate climate change, or they do not see nuclear power as a viable alternative. The degree to which this hypothesis holds is going to be important going forward, if this is to become a selling point for renewed investment in the nuclear sector going forward.

The development and growth of nuclear energy relative to climate change has attracted controversies and different opinions between proponents and opponents. The nuclear industry has been characterized by perennial issues associated with problems of safety, environmental, and security. These perennial issues have been the reasons some countries have decided against the development and growth of nuclear energy (“Climate Change Briefing,” n.d.). These perennial issues are largely attributed to the fact that radioactive contamination from nuclear power has significant impacts beyond borders, which poses significant threats to the health and well-being of environments and nations across the globe.

The link that ties these four together is that they will specifically address whether public perception is a means by which nuclear power can increase its market share. Public perception can be a limiting threat to the growth of nuclear power, but it can also be an opportunity for nuclear power to increase its market share.

Theoretical Perspectives

This paper looks at nuclear energy through a pragmatic lens, but also aims to provide valuable information to the industry and to decision makers with respect to nuclear energy policy going forward. The first basic premise that underlies this paper, therefore, is that nuclear energy is generally a viable form of energy. It has been demonstrated to be such for the past sixty years. While there have definitely been a handful of major disasters, there have also been major disasters in other energy fields as well. The occurrence of some major disasters in the nuclear power industry does not necessarily imply that nuclear power is not a viable form of energy. Something like Deepwater Horizon has not necessarily had any impact on public perception of fossil fuel consumption, but Fukushima appears to have affected public perception of nuclear power. This is part of the lens through which this issue will be examined — as trying to provide useful information for the industry.

That said, it should be noted that the author has no stake in nuclear power, or any other form of energy. There is no commercial interest in this paper, just one from the perspective of someone who is curious about the issue. Nuclear power is fascinating. It entered the public consciousness in the most shocking way possible, at Hiroshima, and fears about nuclear power have had a significant influence on popular culture. Yet, nuclear power is actually fairly benign, in terms of how many people it has actually harmed in its usage as a civilian energy source. The apparent linking of the concept of nuclear energy and the concept of nuclear holocaust has an interesting effect on energy policy where nuclear power is concerned, and that is one of the underlying motivators behind this paper.

Public policy choices are assumed to be driven by the needs of the public. This is not necessarily true, the general public is often considered to have a fairly minimal influence on policy decisions, especially in areas where corporate lobbying is intensive, but the basic view of democratic political systems is that the outcomes of those systems roughly reflect the wishes of the people who live and vote within those systems. There will be points in the paper where democratic nations and undemocratic nations need to be separated in discussing nuclear policy, based on this inherent belief that democratic nations set policy in line with public preference.

A final theoretical perspective is that there is an extent to which marketing is a part of the issue for nuclear power. Issues of public perception, especially in a knowledge vacuum, should have a marketing bent. The same concepts of branding, and influence public opinion in order to increase market share, or to receive a more favorable political environment, can be found in marketing. The author has a business and management background, so one of the underlying theoretical perspectives is that the desire to increase the share of the energy market for nuclear power can be examined as a management problem.

Assumptions and Biases

The author has a general assumption that nuclear energy is generally safe and effective. This report is intended to be neutral in nature, and non-judgmental, but where nuclear power is concerned there is seldom a lack of opinion. Most people seem to have formed an opinion about the safety and desirability of nuclear power, and in this case the author is generally in favor of nuclear power. This bias is relatively minor, and is not believed to have influenced the outcome of the research, but it is worth mentioning nevertheless. It is logical fallacy to assume that because someone has admitted a preconception that everything they write on the subject is thus invalidated. That is far from the case.

The assumption about the nature of democratic societies was stated above. This assumption is rooted in a basic belief about democracy that, in its purest form, it should reflect the wishes of the people. Elected officials and therefore viewed as legitimate proxies for public preference. The reality is that this is never really the case. Voters choose their candidates on a wide range of criteria and in most instances the candidate’s stance on nuclear power is not going to be one of the major deciding factors in a vote. This is why the hypothesis of public perception being relevant to policy-making (Hypothesis #2) needs to be tested.

The basic assumption is rooted in the fundamental nature of democracy, and what it should be in its ideal. Democracy around the world live up to this idea is to varying degrees, a fact that is understood by the author. That said, the idea that democracies reflect the collective will of the people is nevertheless a cornerstone of why society has democracy, and if nothing else makes for a good starting point. It is important that the reader understands that this bias exists, and that the author is aware that this assumption never holds completely in real life.

There is a further assumption that underlies this study. The author assumes — based on the admittedly imperfect science that is available that there are no major long-term issues with nuclear power. Some of the waste created by nuclear power has a half-life of 1000 years, while some other waste has a half-life of a million years. These issues will be described in more detail later on, during the literature review. The implication, however, is clear. Nuclear power is risky, and some of the risks are entirely unknown at present. Should some of these risks bring about catastrophe that would shift the balance of the decision with respect to nuclear power? This is of particular importance when discussing the merits of nuclear power as a means of mitigating the effects of climate change. So it should be kept in mind that there is an underlying bias towards the idea that there are no major unknown risks associated with nuclear power or that if there are they are less catastrophic than the known risks associated with climate change.

The final assumption that should be noted from the outset is that the author is coming at this paper from a managerial perspective. There are other perspectives that could frame this paper just as well, a political science perspective, a scientific one, or even an international relations perspective. The author is completing a B.Sc. in Management, so management is the focal point. That means there is a focus on the strategic elements of the issue identifying the problem with an eye towards developing solutions to the problem. This perspective will inform some of the approaches in particular, and the methodology will be limited to approaches that do not overstretch the author’s capabilities with respect to the science of nuclear power or energy and nuclear waste.

Significance of the Study

Most of the current literature on the subject of nuclear waste tends towards one of two types. One type is technical, building the knowledge about materials and natural mineral composition and how those variables affect the storage of nuclear waste material. The other type is related more to the political side of nuclear power, in particular responses to the Fukushima disaster.

This study aims to bridge these two issues, and fill in additional gaps that exist with the general public’s perceptions of nuclear energy. The technical studies inform the political decision-making, but so too do the public perceptions, which is why that area needs to be incorporated into this study as well. Ultimately, there has not been a comprehensive study to identify the myriad issues that are contributing to the decline of nuclear power. While this decline has been known for some time, and is the result of many individual policy decisions, the nuclear power industry as a whole has yet to be examined.

One of the underlying themes to this approach is to stop looking at narrow issues within the field, as most of the journal articles do, and start looking at nuclear power in a big picture way. This is the same big picture way that nuclear power was envisioned in the 1950s, as a universal technology that could be used to solve universal problems. By stepping back in perspective, this study will allow for a better understanding of issues relating to the adoption of nuclear power, both on an individual basis and on an aggregate basis. This will allow for better public policy decision making, and will be better able to put nuclear power in its rightful global perspective, in particular as a solution to climate change, itself a global problem. It is no longer reasonable to simply look at nuclear power from the narrow lens of an individual nation — it is imperative that nuclear power be viewed on a human level, as its benefits and its problems could both affect the entire human race. Is reframing the entire debate about nuclear power so that it is appropriate for not only the 21st century but beyond significant? Without question.

Delimitation

The study is bound by the four hypotheses as listed. The author has engaged in an open-ended research query, in terms of the literature sought out. But the study will narrow down what is ultimately a highly-complex topic and focus specifically on the four issues that the author intends to research. The limits will reflect the need to keep the report focused. There are so many directions available, most of which have received rather limited study in the academic journals that an entire book could easily be written without covering too much old ground. But the reality of this study is that there are four critical questions that will help inform future decision-making, and the study will focus primarily on those four questions, and the research that is needed in order to address those questions effectively.

The other main limitation that the author must impose is with respect to the scientific information. Nuclear technology is incredibly complex, and is a highly-specialized field. It takes many years of study to gain expert knowledge of nuclear technology, including nuclear waste handling. The author is not a nuclear scientist. It is entirely possible that a delimiting factor in this paper will be the scientific capabilities of the author, which may at times be insufficient to truly grasp the concepts being discussed, especially in the scientific journals. It is worth noting, however, that the people who set out energy policy in most countries are also not nuclear scientists, and must rely on the same non-scientific interpretation of scientific data in order to make their decisions. But while the author is more or less in the same situation as policy-makers, this is still a delimiting factor that could affect the study.

Limitations

In addition to the limits on the study that the researcher controls, there are also external limits that will affect the study. The biggest limitation on the study will doubtless be with respect to the availability of data. Indeed, one of the reasons why democratic societies were the focal point of decision-making is because they tend to be more transparent. There are undemocratic nations with nuclear power — the first one, Russia, among them — but the lack of transparency will hamper the availability of reliable data. This places specific limits on the study, as the author has to work with the information that is available in the public sphere. There is definitely a limit to what license can be taken with this information.

Another limit will be that the study will have to focus on research published in English. While most academic journals publish in English, this study will also make use of government publications, white papers, and other industry-specific technical materials. These may not be published in English, but the author can only work with what the author can understand. Data that is published exclusively in Russian, Chinese or Arabic will for this reason have to be omitted from the study.

Definition of Key Terms

Actinide: a class of elements on the periodic table, many are by-products of nuclear fission, and are reprocessed back into fuel.

Fukushima: a Japanese nuclear power complex. When a strong earthquake struck off the coast of Japan on March 11, 2011, it damaged three reactors at the Fukushima I facility, leading to meltdown. As of time of writing, Fukushima has yet to be restarted and the Japanese government has long-run plans to phase out the facility.

GWe– Gigawatt electrical, a measure of power generation

Half-life — This is the time it takes a radioactive substance to lose half of its radioactivity. The half-life is a means of measuring how powerfully radioactive something is. Nuclear waste material half-lives range from 1000 years to 1 million years, which make their safe storage especially challenging.

Nuclear Energy – The energy in the core or nucleus of an atom, which is a small unit that contributes to all matter in the universe.

(Nuclear) Meltdown – There is no fixed definition of meltdown. However, it typically refers to core damage from overheating. At least one nuclear element in a reactor will exceed its melting point during a meltdown, and the result is a threat to the stability of the entire system. Radiation poisoning of nearby areas is a known risk of meltdowns, which is why they are so feared by the public.

Pyrochlore — a chemical used to treat plutonium prior to disposal

Radioactive ash — one of the hazardous by-products of nuclear energy production

Reprocessing — a method of handling nuclear waste, reprocessing takes spent nuclear fuel and uses it for other applications. This is sometimes weapons, but not always so.

To vitrify — a technique that involves turning a liquid into a glass.

General Overview of the Research Design

The research design is that the literature will provide insight into the questions and hypotheses. The style of the report is a research synthesis, which is an overview report of the existing literature on the subject. The analysis in this instance will focus on synthesis of many different subject areas. Where most papers take a narrow focus, this paper will seek to step back and provide an overview. The result of this is that the research design consists of examining the existing literature, as well as publicly-available data from either government or international agencies, in order to test the hypotheses. The research, therefore, will be primarily qualitative in nature.

Summary of Chapter One

Nuclear energy is the energy in the core or nucleus of an atom, which is a small unit that contributes to all matter in the universe. Throughout history, nuclear energy has not only been essential in war but has also been utilized in meeting the energy needs of civilians. Currently, nuclear energy accounts for approximately 10% of energy needs across the globe. In addition, only 31 countries worldwide have nuclear reactors i.e. 421 reactors across the globe by the end of 2013. However, the nuclear power industry has experienced considerable decline over the past two decades because of the very little investment in nuclear power throughout the world. While the production capacity has slightly increased during this period, the market share for nuclear power has decreased significantly.

This study seeks to examine the issues that have befallen nuclear energy in recent years in order to provide necessary insights that could contribute to the restoration of the growth of this industry and realization of the promise or potential of atomic energy in general. It is quite evident that the development and growth of nuclear power has been largely affected by social, political, and economic factors, which shape public perception. Public perceptions, attitudes, and opinions regarding nuclear power in turn affect political decision making.

The main objective for this study is to examine underlying factors of public policy in relation to nuclear power. As a result, the researcher will identify certain themes that are evident with regards to nuclear power policy and whether the themes are intractable or not. In order to achieve this research objective, the author will test four hypotheses depending on what literature has demonstrated with regards to nuclear energy. These hypotheses include public perceptions of nuclear energy are largely driven by disasters, public perceptions can influence political decision making, unresolved technical issues result in policy, and nuclear energy is not regarded as a viable solution to climate change. This research is also based on several theoretical perspectives including nuclear energy is generally a viable form of energy, public policy choices are driven by needs of the public, and marketing is a major issue in nuclear energy.

The author has several assumptions and biases when conducting the study including nuclear energy is generally safe and effective, the nature of democratic societies; there are no major long-term issues with nuclear power, and the managerial perspective of the researcher. The significance of the study is that the author bridges the two issues in current literature on the issue of nuclear waste and fills in extra gaps in general public perceptions of nuclear energy. The limitations of this study include limited availability of data, especially the nature of democratic societies relative to nuclear power and exclusive focus on studies published in English.

Organization of Dissertation (or Proposal)

This study is organized in different chapters that seek to examine the issue to be discussed and achieving research objectives. The first chapter provides an overview of the dissertation, which includes the topic overview, problem statement, purpose of the study, research objectives, hypotheses, theoretical perspectives, assumptions and biases, and significance of the study. The other issues covered in this chapter include delimitation, limitations of the study, definition of key terms, general overview of the research design, summary of the chapter, and organization of the dissertation or study.

The second chapter is a literature review, which examines existing literature regarding the topic. In this case, the researcher examines each of the hypotheses relating to the topic issue and in light of the research objective. For each of the four hypotheses tested in this chapter, the researcher provides an alternative or null hypothesis.

The third chapter provides the research design i.e. meta-analytic comparison of studies on nuclear waste disposal. This chapter also includes research traditions, research questions and hypotheses, research design, validity and reliability of the design, ethical issues in the research, and a summary of issues discussed in the chapter.

The fourth chapter of this dissertation provides findings of the tests conducted in each of the hypotheses. The findings of the hypotheses are discussed based on their relevance to the research objectives or topic and meta-analytic comparison of studies on nuclear power and nuclear waste.

The final chapter provides conclusions based on study findings and results of the tests of the hypotheses. This chapter includes limitations of the study, implications for practice, implications of study, recommendations for future research, and reflections. The other parts of the dissertation are references and appendices.

Chapter Two: Literature Review

Nuclear power is the splitting of atoms (fission) in order to create power. The fissile material is typically an enriched form of uranium. Nuclear energy was first harnessed for power in 1954, at the Obninsk scientific city some 110km outside of Moscow (Josephenson, 2000, p.2). At the time, nuclear power was viewed as the energy of the future. Unharnessing the power of the atom, it was thought, was provided a stable, reliable source of energy for the future. Even at the time, it was known that fossil fuels were not going to sustainable as an energy source. The use of atomic weapons at the end of the Second World War highlighted the value of harnessing the atom nuclear energy was essential in war, and to meet civilian energy needs. The most technologically advanced societies of that age, the U.S. and USSR, were the leaders in the development of nuclear technology, but they were soon joined by a number of other nations.

Today, nuclear energy provides for roughly 10% of the world’s energy needs. There are reactors in 31 countries, for a total of 427 reactors as of 2013 (Schneider et al., 2013). That is seventeen fewer reactors than there were in 2002, and the installed capacity of the industry is at 364 GWe, down from 375 GWe in 2002. Thus, the nuclear power industry is in decline. While some of this can be attributed to the Fukushima disaster that took some of Japan’s capacity offline, the fact that nuclear energy is not growing is somewhat perplexing. Since 2002, the world’s collective knowledge of climate change has increased substantially. Many nations around the world made commitments to reduce their carbon emissions in the Kyoto Protocol (UN FCC, 2014).

Yet, despite this, there has been very little new investment in nuclear power. Total capacity has declined as noted above, and given that overall energy production capacity has likely increased in this period, the market share for nuclear power has declined significantly in this period. Three quarters of the decline came from Japan, but the top five other nuclear power generators also decreased their output as well (Schneider et al., 2013). In 1993, nuclear power peaked at 17% of total global energy production, but now sits at 10% (Ibid, p.7). With no major new build programs, the average age of the world’s nuclear reactors is at 28 years, with over 190 units having run for over 30 years, and 44 units having run for over 40 years (Ibid, p.7). There is some new construction, in fourteen countries, with one (the UAE) being a new member of the nuclear power club. There have been many delays that have stalled progress in prospective new members to the nuclear power club, comprised mainly of developing world nations (Ibid, p.7).

The countries with the greatest usage of nuclear power are the U.S., France, and Russia. The top ten are rounded out by South Korea, Germany, China, Canada, Ukraine, the UK and Sweden (Schneider et al., 2013), with the top five accounting for two-thirds of global nuclear power generation. Three nations have phased out nuclear power altogether and in many other nations capacity peaked several years ago. Nuclear power only makes up 50% or more of power generation capacity in three countries — France, Slovakia and Belgium (Schneider, et al., p. 13). The evidence is that the use of nuclear power is in decline, which defines a problem for the industry. In several countries, such as South Korea, Belgium and Mexico, a combination of repair work and quality control scandals reduced capacity (Schneider et al., p.13).

The decline in the development and growth of nuclear power or energy is attributed to social, political, and economic factors that influence public perceptions, attitudes, opinions, and public policy regarding this issue. Nivola (2004), states that political and economic factors have been crucial factors in the stuttered development and growth of the nuclear power industry. Political and economic factors have been the major causes of troubles and frustrations relating to the growth of nuclear energy across the globe. These factors have not only influenced public perceptions and attitudes but also affected policy development relating to the development and growth of nuclear power. Social dimensions relating to the growth of nuclear power have largely been centered on public opinions about nuclear power that have been shaped by accidents that have taken place in the nuclear power industry such as the Chernobyl incident and Fukushima accident (Sovacool, n.d.). These perceptions have affected the construction of nuclear power plants and the overall growth of nuclear energy.

There are many different dimensions to the problem of nuclear power’s reduced role, and these are identified as the four hypotheses of this paper. The remainder of the literature review will be structured around the four hypotheses, which are:

Hypothesis #1: Public perceptions of nuclear energy are largely driven by disasters.

Hypothesis #2: Public perceptions can influence political decision making

Hypothesis #3: Unresolved technical issues contribute to policy

Hypothesis #4: Nuclear energy is not viewed as a viable solution to climate change

Hypothesis #1: Public perceptions of nuclear energy are largely driven by disasters.

The starting point in recent literature for understanding the effects of disasters on public perceptions with respect to nuclear power is, naturally, Fukushima. The Fukushima disaster occurred in March, 2011, in Japan, when an earthquake triggered a tsunami that in turn damaged several reactors at the Fukushima site. The threat posed to Japan in particular by these reactors, and the high level of publicity that the tsunami and the Fukushima reactor issues received led to a number of academic studies and white papers that specifically evaluated the effects of Fukushima on public policy. Moreover, public opinions regarding nuclear power changed in the aftermath of the Chernobyl incident in 1987.

In general, people are spurred to action by a number of factors. One is that there are structural barriers that make it difficult for people to undertake climate-positive actions. But more than that, people are typically oriented towards the status quo change is only something people are motivated to undertake when a crisis emerges. In terms of climate change, that crisis point apparently has not hit, though the hurricane of misinformation coming from the fossil fuel industry and conservative politicians doubtless contributes to the problem, because crises that do occur are obfuscated. Whatever the excuse, psychological barriers may be, colloquially known as “dragons of inaction” limit the ability of the public to change perceptions with respect to climate change. Either the public lacks the scientific literacy to understand the issue, they cling to ideological worldviews that prevent them from accepting reality or they fear change because that’s what people do (Gifford, 2011).

In a study conducted by The Huffington Post in the aftermath of the Fukushima incident, 25% of people who opposed nuclear power in 24 countries where the survey was conducted opposed nuclear power because of the devastating impacts of the incident (Duffy, 2012). The same survey demonstrated that the incident galvanized already negative perceptions and opinions regarding nuclear power in Germany and Italy. These negative views were evident in the major public votes or policy decisions carried out in the aftermath of the accident. Actually, an Italian referendum in the aftermath of the Fukushima incident resulted in emphatic rejection of nuclear power as a source of energy. In Germany, the Fukushima accident forced the government to close several nuclear power plants and established plans to shut down the remaining power plants in the country by 2022. Duffy (2012) concludes his analysis of the effect of this incident by stating that the Fukushima accident’s main impact on energy policy was to largely reinforce the existing negative perceptions and provoke negative decisive action in countries that were already skeptical about nuclear power.

Feldhoff (2014) concurs with Duffy (2012) by arguing that the Fukushima accident in March 2011 forced Japan to shatter its nuclear-dependent energy policy (p.87). In the immediate aftermath of this accident, Japan closed all its nuclear power plants either temporarily or permanently. Similar to Germany, Japan has maintained a secure energy supply that is characterized by a significantly decreased or even zero nuclear energy since Fukushima happened in March 2011. Japan and Germany have maintained approximately 30% of electricity produced from nuclear power plants. However, the aftermath of the Fukushima accident was characterized by steep reduction in dependence on nuclear power though these countries had different ways of responding to the crisis.

Wittneben (2012) examined the impact of Fukushima on nuclear policy in Germany and the UK, two of the major European users of nuclear power. The author identified that there were five factors that affected the impact of Fukushima imminent elections, the intensity of media reports and the trust in renewable energy innovation. The two other factors were the history of nuclear resistance and perceived cultural proximity. The former is a key element in the second hypothesis, and will be given more discussion in that upcoming section.

The intensity of media reports is an interesting point of study that Wittneben (2012) looked at, since media informs a lot of what people perceive about key issues. German media, the author found, covered Fukushima extensively, but in a manner than provided in-depth scientific explanations. In the UK, media reports were less frequent, and were soon eclipsed by UK troops fighting in Libya. The differences in coverage would lead to the view that Germans would have higher awareness but that their opinions would be more informed. There would be a risk that British citizens, having received fairly limited knowledge, might be less aware of Fukushima but could have a higher level of concern because they did not receive the same high level of technical information.

German response would also have been affected by the fact that Germany has a strong market for renewables, and that Germany has a long history of anti-nuclear sentiment. Germany is also seen as having a closer cultural similarity to Japan, that if a disaster could occur in Japan with its engineering prowess, the same could happen in Germany (Wittneben, 2012). The UK has less closer cultural proximity, less anti-nuclear sentiment and the UK is further behind the curve on renewables. Based on this examination, it would be predicted that UK response to Fukushima would be minimal, but that in Germany there could be considerably more response, and much of it may well be negative.

Sure enough, Wittneben (2012) found that the German response to Fukushima was to shut down older reactors temporarily and perform safety evaluations on its facilities, while the British response was a relatively brief affirmation of the current nuclear strategy, which included increasing capacity. Overall, these responses were predicted by the variables that Wittneben identified, and those variables might form an interesting framework for further analysis of public perceptions of nuclear power. It is clear from the evidence presented here, however, that disasters can affect public perceptions of nuclear power, and that public perceptions can affect public policy.

One of Wittneben’s points in the framework was history of resistance to nuclear power, and another country that has been studied is Australia, which traditionally has had a high level of resistance to nuclear power. Schneider (2012) did not list Australia among the nations with nuclear power, but it is also worth noting that Australia also has taken an anti-renewables stance for some reason in recent years, offering a rather conflicted stance with respect to energy policy — a nation with a strong coal lobby doubling down on fossil fuels.

Bird (2014) noted that public opinion in Australia changed after Fukushima, from 42% of Australians in favor of nuclear power, as a means of reducing carbon emissions, to ranking it as 40% opposed a year later, and well behind three other options for addressing climate change through a shift in energy policy. The views of nuclear power have always been more negative after disasters. In a study published shortly after Chernobyl, Carter (1987) found that the views about the handling of nuclear waste shifted from being something that should be recycled if possible to being something that needed to be buried deep in the ground. Thus, the risk perception of nuclear energy changed after the Chernobyl disaster.

Further back was Three Mile Island, which occurred in the United States and arguably remains the highest-profile nuclear disaster in the U.S. (Dunlap, Kraft & Rosa, 1993). The perceptions of nuclear waste handling were affected by Three Mile Island, the authors found. More important, they found that the effects seemed to be fairly long-lasting, as the public debate about the handling of nuclear waste continued on through the 1980s, many years after Three Mile Island was no longer a major talking point.

In order to understand the degree to which disasters influence public perceptions of nuclear power, it is worth considering what the other factors influencing public perceptions might be. Some of the key influencers are ideology, partisanship, government approval and environmental concern (Jenkins-Smith, et al., 2011). The authors also found that people living closer to nuclear power plants are less worried about safety, though causal factors such as higher knowledge or appreciation for the job creation were not studied.

Public perceptions can also be influenced by misinformation. An example would be with strontium-90 pollution. A self-styled activist group claimed that Sr.-90 levels in the environment are rising, and tied to an increase in cancers. Not only is this claim unfounded in the scientific literature, but 99% of Sr.-90 in the environment is there as the result of atmospheric nuclear weapons testing in the Cold War era. The dose has basically nothing to do with nuclear power, and only consists of 0.3% of the average American’s exposure to background radiation. Nuclear power plant emissions of Sr.-90 are negligible (NEI, 2014). The Nuclear Energy Institute logs and routinely has to counter spurious and entirely unfounded claims about nuclear power that arise from nuclear power opponents. The impact of misinformation is not entirely known, but there are plenty of recent examples of how misinformation can inform opinion for large numbers of the public.

The doctrine by which disasters will shape opinions is not dissimilar to the idea of the shock doctrine, wherein a major shock allows for a change in public consciousness. People are generally oriented to the status quo until such time as the status quo becomes a problem. The need for change, therefore, is the main driver of the change. In the shock doctrine, politicians have an agenda ready, waiting for the shock so that they can implement it (Klein, 2007).

Where nuclear power is concerned, disasters do shape opinions, but disasters not relating to nuclear energy can similarly be leveraged as an opportunity to reshape public opinion with respect to nuclear power. Disruptive emergencies can shift the fate of both politicians and public policies, because of the profound impact that emergencies have on the public (Boin, Hart & McConnell, 2009).

Hypothesis #2: Public perceptions can influence political decision making

As a bit of background information, Slovic (1991) studied the relationship between perceptions and policy-making with respect to nuclear power. The political environment seeks to weight the trade-offs between the risks inherent in nuclear power and the benefits that it can convey to a society. One of the problems that the authors identified are that not only is there a distrust of nuclear power among many people –they largely do not understand the issues. But this distrust cannot be overcome by politicians because there is a deep-rooted distrust of politicians as well.

Wittneben (2012) studied the effects of Fukushima on policy-making in both Germany and the UK. One finding was that Germany had some regional elections in the weeks following Fukushima, while the disaster was ongoing, and the result was that the politicians had to address the issue of nuclear power, which remains a significant power source for Germany. There were no elections in the UK, so politicians had no incentive to address the issue of nuclear power, at least as Wittneben notes, in the short run.

Wittneben’s study looked at the other factors and predicted that the reaction to Fukushima would be stronger in Germany, and more negative towards nuclear power, at least compared with the United Kingdom. The reality is that Germany ended up issuing temporary shutdowns on some nuclear facilities, and safety inspections of the others. There were optical reasons for this, but also historical and cultural reasons. For these same reasons, the UK did not shut down older facilities, and politicians were able to relatively easily reaffirm Britain’s use of nuclear power going forward. The basic lesson to draw from this is that with Germany, public perceptions of nuclear power were affected by Fukushima, and politicians were therefore compelled to react. In the UK, public perceptions were not as significantly affected, and the outcome was that politicians were not as motivated to do anything, and therefore did. The evidence for these two countries affirms both the first and second hypotheses.

Schwarz & Cochran (2012) argue that decisions to decrease or stop the future use of nuclear power were not based on rational economic analysis in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster (p.691). Some countries such as Germany made the decision to close some existing nuclear power plants and established plans to close all of them by 2022 because of public perception regarding the nuclear power in the aftermath of the incident. Public perceptions and attitudes regarding nuclear power influenced political decision making in Japan, Italy, and the United States among other nations.

Italy abandoned plans to reactivate old nuclear energy power plants, Japan temporarily halted operations of nuclear power plants, and the United States tempered the push for a nuclear resurgence (Schwarz & Cochran, 2012, p.691). These decisions were largely influenced by public perceptions about the nuclear power after the Fukushima incident. The decisions also demonstrate how public perception affect political decision making as well as affirms the first hypothesis. Notably, these countries adopted the new policies largely because of public perceptions about nuclear power rather than rational economic analysis of nuclear energy.

Wolsink (2010) noted that the public does play a role in forming public policy. The role is twofold. First, the public has a need for infrastructure, and that need is part of what drives policy. Second, the public acts as a constraint on certain types of infrastructure. For example, should the infrastructure project in question conflict with other ideals, such as environmental protection or perceptions of safety, there can be public outcry (Wolsink, 2010).

Several studies have examined the role that public opinion has played in forming policy with respect to alternative energy forms. Studies of wind energy have found that “public acceptability often poses a barrier towards renewable energy development” and that opposition will often take the NIMBY form (Devine-Wright, 2005). Acceptance often comes over time, especially after something has been implemented and there has been no harm come.

One of the interesting aspects to the role that the voting public has on political decision making is that in general people, even when concerned about climate change and motivated to take action, do not have any particular idea about what they can do. There has simply not been any focus on driving home the necessary information so that people can actually feel empowered to make the right changes in their lives. Instead, they can be motivated by more information, or even a movie, but ultimately have little way of connecting something like support for nuclear power and support for anti-climate change initiatives (Lowe et al., 2006).

Hypothesis #3: Unresolved technical issues contribute to policy

There are a number of technical issues with respect to the disposal of nuclear waste. This disposal is highly complex, and the science of it remains uncertain. Moreover, the science of nuclear waste disposal is almost entirely unknown to the average citizen or politician, even among general energy analysts, because it reflects high level chemistry knowledge.

Following a revision of testing methodologies in the early 1980s (McPheeters et al., 1984), Chapman and McKinley (1987) point out that burying nuclear waste is generally the safest method of handling the waste, though even burial comes with many issues. In particular, there are issues with the use of certain materials in the burial process that need to be better understood. Further, waste typically needs to be treated to some extent prior to disposal, and major sites for treating waste exist in all major nuclear power producers (Giusti, 2009).

When looking at waste disposal issues, an important starting point is to understand what types of waste are generated by nuclear power, and how much of such waste there actually is. Ewing, Weber and Clinard (1995) wrote about this twenty years ago, discussing how much waste was around at the time, but also analyzing some of the chemical treatments needed to manage waste. Pyrochlore is used to neutralize plutonium, for example. However, the study of how chemicals like pyrochlore are affected by their exposure to nuclear waste is ongoing, science has no definitive answers to some of the problems that are presented in the management of nuclear waste (Ewing, Weber & Lian, 2004).

Weber et al. (1998) lend specific discussion to the issue of crystalline ceramics. Radiation affects the materials that are used to encase it. Given the very long half-life of some forms of nuclear waste, it is essential to understand how the waste will degrade the materials to ensure that the materials will survive the length of time needed.

More recent studies have begun to look at different rock types, to determine the best storage locations. Neeway et al. (2015) modeled the effects of nuclear storage on the environment, in particular on Callovo-Oxfordian clay rock in France, where nuclear glass is stored. This is one of the emerging issues in the science of nuclear waste disposal, and it shows that the work is still ongoing, and until everything is understood that there will still be some risk associated with nuclear waste disposal.

Fukushima has also presented science with some other problems. One such problem that has been identified is that Fukushima created radioactive ash (Parajuli et al., 2013). There is work now being done to understand not only the composition of this ash but its effects on the environment as can blow around the world, so the effects may be distant from the disaster site. Further, there needs to be an understanding of how to mitigate such effects as might occur from things like radioactive ash. The reality is that each new paper seems to show more about what science does not know about nuclear power, rather than contributing certainty and solutions. This has to be disconcerting for those seeking to promote nuclear power to an increasingly skeptical populace and political base that must act with popular opinion in mind.

Tsumune et al. (2012) have contributed study of the distribution of oceanic 137Cs from Fukushima. The authors used a model to predict how this radioactive cesium would be distributed around the world by ocean currents, in order to better understand some of the risks that are associated with nuclear disasters. Understanding the nature of risk is important in policy-making. Thus, while is alarming that so many different issues have arisen from Fukushima, that disaster also provides science with many more opportunities to learn about the risks associated with nuclear power, something that should improve policy-making going forward.

Another emerging issue is the use of photocatalytic processes to degrade and mineralize materials under CV-radiation (Rekab et al., 2014). A lot of the waste from nuclear power generation is in the form of water, and it is necessary to pull contaminants out of the water in order for the water to be disposed of. There are different processes, and the current studies on the issue are focused on examining the effectiveness of the different techniques, again highlighting the emerging nature of this research, even some sixty years after nuclear power was first introduced by the Soviets.

Broczkowski, Noel and Shoesmith (2004) studied the effects of hydrogen on the corrosion of uranium dioxide under nuclear waste disposal conditions, noting that dissolved hydrogen can polarize the UO2 surface to reducing potentials. Underground repository conditions are a critical success factor for nuclear waste disposal, and there is significant work being done still to determine the best conditions, given corrosion and other variables. Archaeological artefacts can inform researchers about the best methods of storing waste long-term, and predictive models are still a work in progress (Feron, Crusset & Gras, 2008).

The models will often make use of probabilistic risk assessment. One of the issues with this is that studies usually relate to “known” or anticipated risks. It will be critical to improve the value of such predictive models by building more complex models (Lee & Lee, 2006). All of the researches are still being done on storage of nuclear waste makes it quite clear that there is much that we do not know about this disposal, something that has to inform political opinion with respect to the reliance of nuclear power.

In an article about nuclear hot water, Alley and Alley (2013) point it out explicitly — we do not know all that much more about nuclear waste disposal than we did fifty years ago. There is significant room to improve our knowledge of nuclear waste disposal, but the fact that so much remains a mystery definitely makes it more difficult to convey to the public, and to politicians, that nuclear power usage should be increased, especially as it competes for the climate change narrative with renewable sources of energy that do not have nearly the same amount of dangerous waste associated with them.

Further complicating the issue is that the more that is known about nuclear waste disposal, the more regulation is going to be required. Even the German response to Fukushima involved more inspections, but with new knowledge comes new regulations and new protocols. Ojovan and Lee (2014) cover some of this in their book on immobilizing nuclear waste, and the challenges associated with the management of such waste. The regulatory environments with respect to nuclear power differ from country to country as well, but of course this also creates differential risk environments. The International Atomic Energy Association has set out basic guidelines for the handling of nuclear waste, but individual nations also have their own regulations (IAEA, 2009).

Risk-based regulation is common, but can be challenging to implement with respect to nuclear waste because while overall probabilities are very low, the negative outcomes are very high should they occur (Rothstein et al., 2006). This can make for normal risk-based analysis to be an ineffective means of setting policy no politician wants a disaster on their watch, even if the risk of such disaster is minute. Politicians and civilians alike are not risk-neutral, but risk-averse.

India, for example, is a nuclear power. It has sought to manage the safety of nuclear energy by reprocessing to recover plutonium and unused uranium, effectively diverting this waste for other purposes (Raj, Prasad & Bansal, 2006). Actinides are recycled back into fuel, and the Indian government has a program to research the “long-term evaluation of vitrified waste product under simulated repository conditions” (Raj, Prasad & Bansal, 2006). Vitrification is a process that is commonly used for immobilizing high level nuclear waste by “combining it with borosilicate base glass” (Hand et al., 2005).

Not all countries are using vitrification as a means of handling nuclear waste; this is something the more developed nations do. Many other nations simply store the waste in ceramics, and avoid reprocessing, but just aim for finding safe disposal sites. This approach is less sophisticated, but it also reflects that not every country with nuclear power utilizes the most up-to-date disposal practices (Lee, et al., 2006).

Hypothesis #4: Nuclear energy is not viewed as a viable solution to climate change

There are only five energy generation methods that are capable of providing baseload electricity while meeting the greenhouse gas emissions guidelines of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and Generation III nuclear fission is among them (Nicholson, Beigler & Brook, 2011). Sailor et al. (2000) argue that nuclear is the only viable option, based on their calculations. The authors note that nuclear power can bring about the target greenhouse gas emission reductions faster than any other form of energy generation, which puts nuclear power at the center of the debate with respect to reducing carbon output.

Nuclear power is, the authors conclude, the best to replace fossil fuels, but that at present carbon remains underpriced, something that makes things like pulverized fuel coal a cheaper alternative. Until carbon pricing is better aligned with its costs to the environment, nations will be hesitant to switch, even to nuclear (Nicholson et al., 2011). Still, if nuclear is the only option, however that might not appeal to people, the responsible thing to do is to change people’s attitudes about nuclear power and to seek to implement more nuclear power, at a time when the world is actually decreasing its usage of nuclear power.

The economics of using nuclear power as a climate change mitigation policy are favorable. The early closing of Fukushima is estimated to cause cumulative global GDP losses of 0.7% by 2020, as that energy will be replaced by carbon. The current trend of decreasing nuclear capability, therefore, is a blow to efforts to mitigate climate change and for the affected countries to meet their carbon emissions reduction guidelines going forward (Bauer, Brecha&Luderer, 2012).

Bird’s study (2014) showed that in Australia, nuclear power as a solution to climate change went from being a favorable option pre-Fukushima to an unfavorable option post-Fukushima. This illustrates that under normal circumstances, when there are no disasters, nuclear power is viewed as a method of reducing carbon emissions while retaining our energy capacity. The fact that the views about nuclear energy were strong before Fukushima shows that this is essentially a default position, but that when people are reminded of the risks associated with nuclear energy, they turn to other ways of addressing climate change. Nuclear power must compete, in the mindset of the public, with renewable energy sources, in terms of the climate change debate.

Skea, Lechtenbohmer and Asuka (2013) studied the response to nuclear power as a climate change solution in the UK, Germany and Japan, after Fukushima. The authors note that in all three countries, citizens and policymakers alike had seen nuclear power as a viable strategy for mitigating carbon emissions and managing climate change. After Fukushima, the UK has maintained its pro-nuclear stance, while Germany is looking to exit nuclear power, and Japan is also going to phase out its nuclear power as well. There are some similarities between those countries, as Wittneben (2012) noted, but it should be noted that they are in very different places with respect to their adoption of renewable energy sources.

Germany is far along, and can probably better envision a smooth transition to solar and other renewable energy forms. Japan may be less further along in its adoption of renewables, but the decision to phase out nuclear power there stems from strong public concern about Fukushima, combined with historically negative views about nuclear power, and the evident risk that Fukushima presents to Tokyo, which houses around a quarter of all Japanese people. The threat to Tokyo can be expected to have a significant impact on public perception of nuclear energy, in particular with respect to how nuclear energy can be used as part of a climate change mitigation strategy.

While politicians in the UK have taken a generally favorable view of nuclear power, the British public is less enthusiastic. A survey conducted in 2007 showed that the British public has generally unfavorable views about nuclear power. These views are somewhat conditional, especially when nuclear power is framed as a means of mitigating climate change. Faced with that argument, the British public was found to be slightly more willing to accept nuclear power, though the authors note that most respondents did not have a sophisticated understanding of the risk-risk analysis on which to base their opinions (Pidgeon, Lorenzoni&Poortinga, 2008). There are very few Britons who unconditionally accept nuclear power as a means of mitigating climate change and carbon emissions, and attitudes do not appear to be shifting particularly quickly, based on surveys conducted over the years (Corner, et al., 2011; Poortinga, Pidgoen&Lorenzoni, 2006).

There is the possibility, however, that information campaigns can reframe nuclear power. In particular, the fear of climate change is growing, and at a rate faster than the fear of nuclear energy. While public perception of nuclear power is not especially safe at the moment, it may be that in the near future the fear of climate change is greater than the fear of nuclear energy, and at that point there may be a shift in public sentiment with respect to nuclear energy (Bickerstaff et al., 2011), something that is also predicted in Wolsink’s (2010) discussion of how public fears can place constraints on infrastructure investment.

In countries that are major fossil fuel economies, the discussion about climate change tends to be one of willful ignorance, unfortunately. Oh, Pang and Chua (2010) conducted a study in Malaysia that found only a small movement towards green power, and basically zero appetite for nuclear power, even though climate change affects everybody. Another consideration within this subject is that there is carbon emissions associated with nuclear power, something that is often ignored when nuclear power is presented as a climate change mitigator. The carbon output of nuclear power, especially when the life cycle approach is taken, is not insignificant, and there are unknown variables (Fthenakis & Kim, 2007). In the UK, people have become more accepting of wind power, but that aesthetics, and not a logical analysis of energy policy alternatives, is the driver of public perceptions about wind power (Warren et al., 2005).

Indeed, the visuals and type of landscape seem to be almost the entire driving factor in most people’s decision making on the issue of wind power (Wolsink, 2007). This could mean that people are less willing to accept nuclear power if they can see the cooling towers, which would put the perception of risk towards a more immediate perception. It has also been found that higher levels of citizen participation in determining energy policy will bring about lower levels of resistance — many citizens in particular want to understand how a proposed project will benefit their community (Rogers et al., 2008). It is believed that lessons learned from wind power are roughly applicable to nuclear power, though certainly wind power does not have the same degree of baggage as nuclear, which was a boogeyman for many people who grew up during the Cold War and the nuclear testing era.

One of the issues that arise is that there is a gap in concern about climate change, and fear of nuclear power. For example, Lorenzoni and Pidgeon (2006) found that while many people in the U.S. and UK are concerned about climate change, this concern tends to be secondary in their everyday lives. The reality is that this guides and informs their opinions about climate change solutions. There is simply no sense of urgency, and nor will there be until climate change has directly affected their lives. Maybe even then not, if recent U.S. experience says anything. But changing attitudes is simply the first step; the next step is to change behaviors. For voters in either of these countries, it appears that for them to be more welcoming of nuclear power they would have to be more concerned about climate change, as the authors seem to indicate that there is a link between these things.

Indeed, there is a link between physical vulnerability and willingness to accept alternatives to carbon. It has been found that the more people become physically vulnerable to the effects of climate change, the more they are willing to accept other alternatives, even alternatives that they had previously considered palatable (Brody, et al., 2008). There is an element of immediacy that matters to people. So someone who otherwise does not accept the idea of nuclear power may be swayed by a carbon-related or climate-change related disaster. This is the same conceptually as someone changing their mind about nuclear power in the wake of Fukushima or some other nuclear disaster. The way that people conceptualize their policy options is definitely dependent on the stability or lack thereof in their immediate circumstances (Brody et al., 2008).

Some opposition to nuclear power, however, is based on unfounded concepts and ones that make no sense. One opposition argumentative text, for example, argues about high capital costs, rising uranium costs and other irrelevancies — what matters is how these costs compare with the costs associated with carbon (Sovacool & Cooper, 2008). Safety issues and national security issues — reactors are targets for attack are perhaps more meritorious points of opposition. Such sources highlight the need for discourse on nuclear power in the public sphere to be driven by scientists.

Furthermore, there are people who object specifically to nuclear power being a factor in green energy solutions. Though it has been demonstrated to be the most effective means of mitigating climate change, nuclear power is simply not viewed either as “green” or as renewable by many (Wustenhagen&Bilharz, 2006), which may be a causal factor for why publics in many countries do not necessarily view nuclear power as an acceptable climate change solution, even though the evidence says that it is.

American perceptions of climate change have followed this somewhat predictable trend. Public support for policies to deal with climate change “will be greatly influenced by public perceptions of the risks and dangers posed by climate change” (Leiserowitz, 2005). In particular, when the risk is abstract, it is easier to dismiss but likewise when the response to the risk is also viewed in the abstract, people are more likely to accept it. The author here found that climate change risk is generally perceived to affect other people — geographically and temporally distant people — and that Americans generally do not care about those people. The study did not say whether these findings could apply to other cultures, though behavior says they probably can.

There is in fact little voluntary work done to mitigate the effects of climate change. Awareness of climate change is high, but it is unusual for people to directly take action to address climate change, 43% of people reduced energy usage at home and 39% reduced gasoline consumption in response to concerns about climate change (Semenza, et al. 2008), but the authors did not examine the role that acceptable of nuclear power might play in fighting climate change and what the perception of such a policy might actually be.

Overall, there has been a considerable amount of research done on all four of these topics. This interdisciplinary approach will serve to best explain some of the phenomena that surround nuclear power, the disposal of nuclear waste, and the public perceptions of nuclear power. By examining this research, it should be possible to derive some critical insight as to the role that nuclear power can and will play in the post-carbon energy future.Summary of Literature ReviewThe decline in the development and growth of nuclear power industry can be attributed to several dimensions, particularly social, political, and economic factors. These factors impact the industry through shaping public perception and political decision making on nuclear energy. The impact of these dimensions on nuclear power is evident through four hypotheses, especially in relation to the aftermath of incidents or accidents in this industry.

The first hypothesis is that public perceptions of nuclear energy are largely driven by disasters. Disasters in nuclear power industry such as the 1987 Chernobyl accident and 2011 Fukushima incident affect public perceptions regarding nuclear energy. In the aftermath of these incidents, public support for nuclear power declined significantly as people became concerned with the safety of nuclear power plants.

The second hypothesis is that public perceptions can influence political decision making. There is a strong link between public opinion and policy making or political decision making. In the aftermath of Fukushima accident, which affected public opinion on nuclear power, several countries like Italy, Japan, Germany, and the United States adopted new policies. Given the negative public perception about nuclear power, these countries adopted new policies to temporarily or permanently stop the operations of nuclear power plants. These decisions were not made based on rational economic analysis but were largely based on the negative publicity on nuclear power and energy.

The third hypothesis is that unresolved technical issues contribute to policy. As evident in the analysis, the decline in the growth of nuclear power is not only brought by public perception but also affected by unresolved technical issues. Some of the major unresolved technical issues that contribute to policy relating to nuclear energy include science of nuclear waste disposal, the issue of crystalline ceramics, radioactive ash, and photocatalytic processes. These unresolved technical issues have influenced policy in nuclear power industry largely because of the need to ensure and promote the safety of nuclear power. Actually, the emergence of these issues necessitates development of more regulation regarding nuclear power.

The fourth hypothesis is that nuclear energy is not regarded as a viable solution to global climate change. While nuclear power is the seemingly the best alternative to substitute fossil fuels, it is not regarded as a viable alternative to resolve climate change, which has become a major environmental problem across the globe and attributed to increased greenhouse gases emissions to the Earth’s Atmosphere. Despite its probable effectiveness in addressing the issue, nuclear power does not appeal to many people because of people’s attitudes and opinions towards it. Actually, efforts to portray nuclear power as a viable option or solution to climate change have been hindered because of the current trend in decline in nuclear capability and the overall decline in the growth of nuclear power. Moreover, nuclear power moved from being a favorable option to deal with climate change to a dangerous energy source in the aftermath of Fukushima

Chapter Three: Methodology

Research TraditionsThere are a number of different research traditions that could be used to understand a subject as broad as nuclear power. Generally, the wide nature of this issue implies that the research methodology utilized, measurements undertaken, and the kinds of people examined differ depending on the study while the topic is the same (Glass, 1977, p.351). The appropriate method, ultimately, depends on a number of different variables.

The availability of hard data will determine whether quantitative methods can be used. What data is available is dependent on the research question itself. In the case of this project, the research question focuses on the future of nuclear power. Nuclear power decisions are made most often at the political level, as a matter of national energy policy, rather than the scientific level. In terms of the science, there is little doubt that nuclear power can be used, albeit with some fairly significant risks (Alic, 2012).

Nuclear power has remained an increasingly controversial issue for a long period of time. The controversy has largely been centered on whether using this type of power as an energy source would be beneficial or harmful to the society and environment. Even though nuclear power is associated with some harmful effects that could be devastating to the environment, there are significant benefits attributed to using it as an energy source.

The controversial nature of this topic implies that a suitable methodology has to be selected for this study in order to generate accurate findings and conclusions. Actually, this research issue entails examining the benefits and harms associated with nuclear power in order to develop management strategies for using nuclear power and waste disposal in a sustainable manner (Alic, 2012). The researcher’s ability to effectively examine these issues and develop accurate conclusions for future studies and implementation is directly affected by the research methodology.

Moreover, the broad nature of the research issue implies that the researcher must careful consider the various research methodologies and approaches before selecting a suitable one. In light of these factors and considerations, the most appropriate methodology for this research would be the Meta- Analysis Technique, which is a statistical process that integrates the findings of different independent studies that are regarded as combinable (Egger, Smith & Phillips, 1997, p.1533).

Meta-Analysis technique is an appropriate research methodology for this study mainly because effectively performed meta-analyses promote a more objective evaluation of evidence or selected studies that conventional narrative or literature reviews (Egger, Smith & Phillips, 1997, p.1533). The other benefits of using meta-analysis technique in this research include its provision of more accurate prediction of results and comprehensive explanations of the heterogeneity between findings of individual studies. In this case, meta-analysis will enable the researcher to provide comprehensive explanations of the heterogeneity between the results of several studies regarding the use of nuclear power as an energy source and waste disposal in a sustainable and beneficial manner. However, these benefits would be realized through carefully planning the research project via a comprehensively written protocol that is prepared before commencement of the study.

The suitability of meta-analysis technique for this research is attributed to the fact that it’s a collection of methodical techniques for resolving obvious contradictions in research findings. This technique also involves translating results from varying studies to a universal metric and statistically examining relation between research characteristics and findings (Bangert-Drowns & Rudner, 1991).

According to Egger, Smith & Phillips (1997), meta-analysis is a statistical process that entails integrating the findings of various independent studies that are considerably combinable (p.1533). Similar to any other research process, the use of meta-analysis in this study will be characterized by several steps i.e. formulating the issue or problem to be studied, data collection and analysis, and reporting the findings. Meta-analysis technique is also appropriate for this study since it promotes clear definition and analysis of the issue or problem being examined. Actually, natural, biological, and physical sciences usually enable research problems or issues to be clearly defined and evaluated through uniform and commonly accepted methodologies and measures (Wolf, 1986, p.9).

As previously mentioned, nuclear power is a broad topic that has attracted significant attention in the recent past, which has contributed to numerous research and studies on this issue. In essence, the broad nature of the study not only contributes to use of different research traditions but also generate various kinds of studies. The findings of the numerous existing studies on the issue of nuclear power are relatively fragile as research on the topic is increasing at an astounding rate, particularly because of increased climate change in the recent past. Research findings of existing studies on the issue of nuclear power are fragile since they are characterized by irregularities across several factors such as contexts and classes of subjects.

This is usually a major challenge in education research because of the rapid increase in research on dozens of topics (Glass, 1976, p.3). Therefore, the need for meta-analysis technique in conducting this study is relatively clear. Through the use of this technique, the researcher will primarily focus on examining different studies in terms of their information and contradictions before statistically examining their characteristics and findings. This process will be geared towards integrating the results of these independent studies to generate significant conclusions regarding the topic. The use of meta-analysis technique in the study will help generate important information about the issue.

Thus, this is not a paper rooted in the technical sciences, but rather in the social sciences. The matter at hand in the four research hypotheses that are being examined is essentially qualitative in nature. The studies that have been produced are somewhat thin on the ground, there have been a handful of studies, but none so closely related that they can be subject to traditional quantitative analysis. But this does not mean that these studies cannot be analyzed for common traits, nor does it mean that we cannot extrapolate from a grouping of studies truths about the world at large. To be certain, one country’s experience cannot fully and smoothly equate to another country’s experience, there is always local context, but again, that is inherent in the social sciences. Social sciences work is not conducted in a laboratory, but in the real world. The problem with quantitative studies is that they leave little room for things like context and nuance; only qualitative analysis by an expert practitioner can result in a meaningful interpretation of diverse sets of qualitative and quantitative data, for instance the Meta-Analysis Technique (Ritchie & Lewis, 2003).

However, since qualitative research does not entail creating research hypothesis, the researcher will also utilize quantitative methods in this study. The significance of quantitative research method is that it enables development of several hypotheses that are used in the research process in order to examine the specific issue under evaluation. On the contrary, qualitative research will be utilized since it is more effective in social research.

Given that this study is not based on technical sciences but on social science, qualitative research will be vital. Actually, qualitative research has a longstanding history of providing significant insights regarding social structures, cultures, and behaviors. Moreover, qualitative methods help in development and evaluation of social policy, which makes them effective in social research (Ritchie & Lewis, 2003, p.25).

Type of Meta-Analytic Approach to be utilized

There are a number of critical competencies that a researcher needs to have in order to apply expert analysis to a given subject matter. The research needs to be able to effectively manage information; the organization of the literature review along the individual research questions was instrumental in developing the needed organization to answer these questions. There also needs to be systemic competencies such as research capabilities, the ability to apply knowledge, the ability to adapt to one’s set of circumstances and creativity (Verd, 2010).

The field of meta-analysis has different approaches that can be used depending on the suitability of the approach in examining the research issue. These approaches differ on the basis of processes, computations of research findings, and interpretation of these findings. As a result of the existence of different meta-analytic approaches, researchers need to clearly state the approach utilized in the specific study. Glass (1977) argues that academic research and analysis is wide and broadly scattered as evident in the production of hundreds of studies within a short period of time (p.351).

Therefore, research techniques, undertaken measurements, and types of people studies tend to vary from one research to the next even if the research issue or problem is the same. The nature of academic research and evaluation in the past few years as well as differences in these components imply that selecting a suitable research methodology is crucial towards generating accurate research findings and conclusions. Therefore, the researcher will clearly state the type of meta-analytic approach to be utilized in this study based on its suitability in the research. However, the researcher will provide a brief description of the other meta-analytic approach that is commonly used in research projects before elaborating the techniques of the selected approach in light of their suitability in this study.

The two most common types of meta-analytic approaches that are commonly used in researches are Study Effect Meta-Analysis and Classic or Glassian Meta-Analysis. Study Effect Meta-Analysis differs from the other approach on the premise that it has more selective inclusion rules and the study act as the unit of analysis (Shachar, 2008). In this approach, researches with serious methodological mistakes are excluded from the study while one effect size is computed for every research or study.

In contrast, Glassian Meta-Analysis is regarded as the precedent or pattern for conventional meta-analysis and adopts liberal inclusion criteria. In this approach, the study finding is the unit of analysis and allows several comparisons between groups and subgroups on varying criteria. Unlike in Study Effect Meta-Analysis, the effect sizes in Glassian Meta-Analysis are calculated or computed for every comparison.

For this study, the researcher will utilize Glassian or Classic Meta-Analysis, which incorporates various steps including defining questions to be analyzed, collecting data, and examining relations between code study characteristics and results. As previously mentioned this meta-analytic approach applies a more liberal inclusion criterion and considers the study finding as the unit of analysis (Shachar, 2008).

These two components of Glassian Meta-Analysis are important in this study because of the nature of the issue or problem being examined. Since nuclear power is a broad and increasingly controversial issue, liberal inclusion criteria will enable the researcher to examine many studies relating to the topic area through a robust search of the topic area. The liberal inclusion promotes a robust search of issues relating to the topic and enables the researcher to carefully and effectively select studies that provides significant insights to this issue (both published and unpublished)

The use of liberal inclusion criteria for this study is also based on the fact that the controversial nature of nuclear power has contributed to numerous studies being conducted on this issue. The availability of huge literature and data relating to nuclear power implies that a restricted inclusion criteria would limit the ability of the researcher to gain more insights on this issue and hinder the likelihood of generate accurate research findings and/or conclusions.

Secondly, the use of study findings as the unit of analysis is crucial in this research since meta-analysis process will entail making comparisons of research findings and combining research results. If the study is used as the unit of analysis in the way it is carried out in Study Effect Meta-Analysis, the researcher will seemingly be unable to make effective comparisons of study findings. The nature of the research requires research findings to be the premise or unit of analysis so that the researcher can combine research results while making comparisons between study findings.

According to Glass (1976), meta-analysis can be described as the analysis or evaluation of analyses in which statistical analysis of a large collection of the findings of individual studies is carried out in order to integrate these findings (p.3). Based on this definition, the unit of analysis is meta-analysis is the findings or results of individual studies utilized in a research project. Since this study focuses on analysis of findings of individual studies in order to integrate them, Glassian Meta-Analysis will be utilized as the meta-analytic approach.

Glassian Meta-Analysis involves the use of statistical methods to conduct integrative analysis since meta-analysis differs from conventional narrative research methodologies on the basis that it is increasingly statistical and quantitative (Glass et. al, 1980, p.1).

As a result, meta-analysis approaches are simply statistical techniques that are appropriate and applicable to the process of integrating study findings. Glassian Meta-Analysis basically relies on several measures for integrating research findings including definition of the problem, identifying research studies, coding study attributes, evaluating these findings on a common scale, and examining the aggregation of findings and how they are linked to the characteristics.

When coding the research characteristics, the reported thinking and research is documented in relatively the order. This is primarily because the report incorporates general background or approach, various illustrations of the approach, findings of certain initial research on characteristics, and the outcomes of original research on meta-analytic approach.

Steps in Meta-Analysis and their Application in this Research

As previously mentioned, this research will utilize Glassian Meta-Analysis as the meta-analytic approach in comparing and integrating research findings. This approach consist different steps that are geared towards conducting integrative analysis through statistical methods. While using this meta-analytic approach, the research will incorporate each step in this technique for effective analysis and to generate accurate research findings and conclusions. Some of the major steps that will be utilized in conducting integrative analysis based on Glassian Meta-Analytic approach include:

Formulation of Problem to be addressed

The first step in meta-analysis technique is formulating the issue or problem to be examined, which is relatively similar to any other research work. According to Walsh & Downe (2004), similar to any other research activity, meta-analysis research methodology begins with formulation of the issue to be addressed (p.206).

The problem to be addressed through meta-analysis in a research project is formulated through determining a suitable research question, purpose, and aim. This is the first step in the process because meta-analysis can be regarded as observational evaluation or study of evidence (Egger, Smith & Phillips, 1997, p.1533). This process requires researchers to prepare a detailed research protocol that clearly shows the objectives, hypotheses to be tested, relevant subgroups, and proposed techniques and method for determining relevant studies. During this process, the researcher also writes comprehensive means for collecting and analyzing information from the selected studies.

When formulating the problem to be addressed, the researcher needs to generate a more specific study question, purpose, and aim. This is primarily because broadly framed research questions, purposes, and aims do not necessarily provide accurate research findings or conclusions even if the meta-analysis process is carried out effectively. In this study, the researcher will develop a research proposal that clearly shows the study objectives, hypotheses, relevant subgroups, and proposed research methodologies and techniques. Generally, the proposal will provide a background of the issue and proposed methodologies or techniques for conducting the study. Therefore, the process of formulating the problem or issue to be examined in this research will entail developing a research proposal that contains important information regarding the issue and research process.

The researcher will adopt a more specific approach towards formulating the research problem to be addressed, especially because of the broad nature of the topic or issue of nuclear power. The scope of meta-analysis in this case would be on management strategies for utilizing nuclear power as an energy source and waste disposal in a sustainable way.

The researcher will examine this issue with a view of demonstrating how the use of nuclear power as an energy source can be beneficial in efforts to lessen global warming and climate change. The adoption of a more specific study question, purpose, and aim would help in locating relevant studies that will be utilized in the meta-analytic process. This implies that formulating the research problem or issue to be addressed through a more specific approach helps in easy identification of relevant material for use in the review or analytic procedure.

Locating Relevant Studies

The outcome of the meta-analysis relies and is based on quality and effectiveness of an industrious search of probable studies. This entails determining probable search directions that will govern the robust search of studies on the topic area. Some of these directions that will be utilized to locate relevant studies for the research include using computer search engines, identifying reference lists from studies, electronic databases, and libraries (Shachar, 2008).

The strategy for identifying and selecting appropriate studies for the research process will be extended to include unpublished articles. In essence, the researcher will utilize published and unpublished articles that relate to this subject. The use of unpublished work in this project is fueled by the fact that the findings of this study may differ from published works and restricting the study to published articles may result in distorted findings because of publication bias (Egger, Smith & Phillips, 1997, p.1533).

However, the researcher will define a preferable inclusion criterion through a comprehensive sensitivity analysis to help ensure that both published and unpublished trials utilized for this study are relevant to the topic. The identification of published and unpublished articles will be conducted through electronic databases and manual search of journals. This will also entail using a standardized record form to extract data and avoid errors as well as rating the quality of each study. These measures will help in conducting a detailed scrutiny of each article before determining its use in the research.

The criteria for inclusion of articles in conducting meta-analysis include determining a suitable time period to be covered in the review. In this case, the researcher will examine studies that have been conducted on this topic area from 2000 to date.

The second criterion to be utilized in meta-analysis is a liberal inclusion strategy in which both published and unpublished works will be incorporated.

Third, while the study adopts a more liberal inclusion measure, the researcher will utilize studies that have no severe methodological flaws as a means of ensuring the quality of a study used in this research undertaking.

The fourth criterion is the establishing a control group in which every primary study needs to have a comparison or control group. This is an important criterion in the study since meta-analysis will entail calculating the effect size, which can be described as the mean difference between groups in the form of standard score (Shachar, 2008).

The fifth criterion is ensuring the studies have adequate quantitative data from which the effect size can be calculated. The adequate quantitative data in the studies include sample size, standard deviation, and mean.

Moreover, the researcher will utilize these different measures for deciding which studies to utilize because there are various statistical means for combining the data but no single method is accurate or correct by itself. Synthesizing or combining data for use in this research requires using varying statistical methods in order to enhance the accuracy of research findings and conclusions. Therefore, the researcher will utilize a thorough sensitivity analysis, which is important in evaluating the robustness of combined projections to varying assumptions and criteria for inclusion (Egger, Smith & Phillips, 1997, p.1536).

A thorough sensitivity evaluation will be carried out as part of meta-analysis process because of the divergence of opinion regarding the most appropriate means for conducting a specific meta-analysis. The comprehensive sensitivity analysis helps in examining the robustness of the findings with regards to differing assumptions and opinions. The use of robust qualitative meta-synthesis and thorough sensitivity analysis in this study helps in enhancing the credibility of the research process since these two measures act as quality markers for judging qualitative research. These measures also help in determining studies for inclusion in meta-analysis given that published and unpublished works are used.

The first step towards locating relevant papers or studies to be utilized in meta-analysis would entail conducting a robust search on the topic area or issue. Walsh & Downe (2004) state that it’s good practice to conduct a robust search on the topic issue or area in the early stages of meta-analysis similar to the way it’s conducted when undertaking a systematic review (p.206). While this process may be relatively inadequate in locating all relevant literature on the issue, it helps in providing direction in the search process and narrowing down to literature that addresses the research issue or problem.

Actually, a robust search on the topic area is relatively a straightforward process in meta-analysis as compared to a systematic review. As previously mentioned, established databases provide a good platform for undertaking a robust search in meta-analysis since they tend to keep studies that are published as journals, produced as books or reported in journal papers. The use of unpublished works in this process is because the depth of meta-analysis synthesis requires the use of such kinds of sources though they are relatively difficult to obtain in some cases.

Once the robust search on studies on the topic area has been carried out, the selected articles will be compiled into an electronic spreadsheet known as Master Database (Shachar, 2008). The compilation of the identified studies enables convenient repetitive sorting and data extraction. This will also help easy selection of the final set of studies that meet the previously mentioned inclusion criteria.

The use of various approaches in deciding which articles to use in meta-analysis is primarily because the qualitative paradigm of this process views truths as multiple unlike classic meta-analytic accounts which only allows the inclusion of controlled, randomized studies (Walsh & Downe, 2004, p.206).

Once the different approaches are utilized in deciding the articles to include in the study, the researcher will synthesize the studies. This process entails translation of one study into another and literally transferring ideas, concepts, and metaphors from one study to another. This implies that the three approaches the researcher will utilize in deciding relevant literature to utilize in this study with regards to meta-analysis include integration of results of several studies in a related field, synthesizing studies from different researchers, and generating quantitative summary of major elements in the various studies or researches.

Collection and Analysis of Relevant Data

Once the problem or issue to be addressed in the research has been formulated and relevant studies identified, the other step in meta-analysis is collecting and analyzing relevant data. This process entails determining an inclusion criterion for selecting articles to be analyzed and ensuring that a suitable approach is utilized for examining the quality of a study (Egger, Smith & Phillips, 1997, p.1533). The researcher is required to consider trials or articles that are relevant to the topic or issue in order to generate the most optimal research findings. The identified studies focus on the problem purpose of this research i.e. effective management strategies for using nuclear energy in a manner that generates social sustainability. The problem purpose of this research provided the basis for searching and identifying studies to be utilized and reviewed. Moreover, the researcher has used research propositions or hypotheses as the basis for conducting robust search for studies to be utilized. These research hypotheses or propositions that were utilized in the search are:

Hypothesis #1: Public perceptions of nuclear energy are largely driven by disasters.

Hypothesis #2: Public perceptions can influence political decision making.

Hypothesis #3: Unresolved technical issues contribute to policy.

Hypothesis #4: Nuclear energy is not viewed as a viable solution to climate change

The results of each study’s rating will be demonstrated in a standardized format to enable comparison of the selected articles. Moreover, the use of these strategies is part of using statistical procedures in meta-analytic review to integrate research findings from various studies and express results through numerical effect-size projections (Bushman & Wells, 2001, p.1123).

The process of analyzing data in this study will also involve calculating the general impact through data combination. However, the researcher will not use a simple arithmetic average to combine data since it would generate misleading results. The methodologies used in meta-analysis to combine data involve weighing average of the results through statistical measures. During this process, the degree of similarity in the studies’ findings will be tested for heterogeneity across these studies or articles.

During data extraction and coding, the researcher will review all study in order to identify relevant information and important characteristics, which may linked to the effect size and are linked to the study (Shachar, 2008). The process will entail comparing these studies in terms of their characteristics and findings as well as eliminating any discrepancy. Notably, the data coding process will involve recording research and thinking in the same order based on characteristics described in Glassian Meta-Analysis such as background of the approach and several illustrations of the approach (Glass et. al., 1980, p.1).

Determining Effect Sizes

After data extraction and coding, the next step in this meta-analytic process is identifying the individual and overall effect sizes throughout the studies. In this case, the individual effect sizes across studies should be demonstrated in a standardized manner in order to enable comparison between the identified relevant studies. Once the effect sizes of the individual studies have been obtained, the overall effect sizes should be calculated using statistical measures such as the use of statistical software or computing program. This process will involve using direct weights that are described as the inverse of the difference for every study. For this study, the researcher will determine the individual and overall effect sizes throughout the relevant studies or researches through the use of previously described statistical methods. Moreover, the researcher will use fixed effects model instead of random effects model for determining the effect sizes across the studies. The use of fixed effects model rather than random effects model is because of the difference in the results and variance in treatment of studies (Shachar, 2008).

Analysis of Bias and Homogeneity

Egger, Smith & Phillips (1997), state that the process of meta-analytic review of studies entails examining homogeneity and bias in studies (p.1533). The analysis of bias and homogeneity is fueled by the fact that the technique primarily focuses on explaining the homogeneity between the findings of individual studies. In this case, the researcher utilizes a more objective appraisal of the evidence in the studies in order to clearly demonstrate homogeneity between study findings and develop accurate research findings and conclusions.

For this study, analyzing bias and homogeneity will entail conducting a synthesis of several studies through appropriate calculations. Moreover, the robustness of research results will be examined based on different assumptions. In this case, the researcher will conduct three analyses of homogeneity and bias to evaluate robustness of research outcomes to different assumptions. The first homogeneity analysis will focus on individual characteristics which will demonstrate chance difference in research findings. Therefore, the researcher will examine whether the differences in the individual characteristics are bigger than those anticipated by chance only (Shachar, 2008).

The second analysis is an analysis of bias in which bias will be detected by examining the left-right symmetry of the plot. Juniet. al. (2001) argues that one of the major concerns in carrying out meta-analysis is the likelihood of bias to emerge when trials with statistically important results are increasingly likely to be published and used. The outcome of the arising bias is that plots of trials’ differences or sample size against effect size would always be biased and asymmetrical because of publication bias and other partialities that may affect small trials.

The final analysis of homogeneity and bias evaluation is a Fail-Safe-N evaluation, which focuses on ensuring that significant effects relating to the research issue or problem are identified (Shachar, 2008).

This analysis will be carried out because published article utilized in the research may not publicize significant effects. This analysis will be carried out in light of the unpublished articles utilized in order to demonstrate that the effect sizes would be smaller.

Reporting the Results

The final step in the meta-analysis technique for research is reporting the results once data has been collected and analyzed. In this case, the researcher provides his/her findings from combination of the studies’ findings. The researcher not only reports similarities between these articles but also demonstrates the differences in the studies. This is an important part of the process since it demonstrates the applicability of the research findings. According to Bushman & Wells (2001), the findings of a meta-analytic review are usually reported by describing the results through numerical effect-size projections (p.1123).

In this study, the researcher will describe the results of the meta-analytic review or technique through the use of numerical effect-size projections. The projections or estimates will be based on the similarities or differences between the studies that were identified in the analysis process. The researcher will document and describe the findings obtained from combination of the findings from both published and unpublished studies used in this research. The projections are not based on simple arithmetic average of the results but on results generated from statistical measures used in the combination process.

During presentation of research findings, the researcher will demonstrate or report the overall effect size across the various published and unpublished studies utilized in this study. Shachar (2008) states that an overall effect size that is calculated from a huge sample is increasingly likely to be accurate as compared to an overall effect size calculated from a small sample. Therefore, using published and unpublished works implies that the study will have a huge sample through which increased accuracy of results can be generated as compared to using a small sample.

The researcher will also utilize graphical display of results because the graphical display of findings from individual studies on a standardized scale is a vital step that enables a visual evaluation of the extent of heterogeneity between various studies. Egger, Smith & Phillips (1997) state that results or findings from every trial are beneficially graphically displayed alongside their confidence intervals (p.1535).

With regards to confidence intervals, the margin of error in meta-analysis will be quantified or calculated through the concept of a 95% confidence interval. According to Egger, Smith & Phillips (1997), meta-analysis results are better reported and understood when they are graphically displayed while their effect sizes with 95% confidence intervals are displayed through the use of a Forest Plot or through a histogram of the distribution of the effect size (p.1535). In this case, the researcher will choose the most appropriate means for graphically displaying the effect sizes with 95% confidence intervals.

The use of confidence intervals is attributed to the fact that whenever a parameter is estimated in meta-analysis of studies, the distribution of the specific estimator needs to be determined. The researcher not only provides a point estimate or projection of the parameter but also obtains a confidence interval (Shachar, 2008). If the process for computing or calculating a 95% confidence interval is used several times, the interval will have the actual parameter value 95% of the time. In this study, the parameter of interest under examination is the individual and overall effect sizes across the studies.

Qualitative Interpretation of Effect Size

The final step in meta-analysis in this study is conducting qualitative interpretation of effect size i.e. the individual and overall effect sizes across studies. This is an important step because interpretation of results or outcomes in meta-analysis technique requires an understanding of standards utilized in order to promote meaningful and beneficial interpretation of individual and overall effect sizes. The existing measures for qualitative interpretation of effect size not only evaluate the meaningfulness of an effect size but also provide guidelines for conventional measures for this process (Shachar, 2008).

In this study, the researcher will conduct the qualitative interpretation of effect size through using the method suggested by Cohen as part of statistical power evaluation for behavioral sciences. The researcher will qualitatively interpret effect size based on 0.2, 0.5, and 0.8 as minimal, moderate, and meaningful effect respectively (Cohen, 1988). Through this method, the researcher will classify effect sizes into three major categories or groups i.e. small, medium, and large. The small effect size category will be for effect size below 0.32 while medium and large will be for effect sizes between 0.33 and 0.55 and greater than 0.56 respectively (Lipsey, 1990).

Expert knowledge and thorough research are critical because of the inherent need for rigor in qualitative research, the field having essentially shifted away from quantitative concepts such as reliability and validity. The concept of rigor should include thoroughness in research, the development of expert-level knowledge of a subject, and the application of unbiased analysis of the information that is available (Morse et al., 2002). The absence of any of these things in the Meta-Analysis Technique can undermine any research, including quantitative, but in qualitative research the researcher must pay extra care and attention to issues of bias and completeness, not passing up any potentially valuable information.

One of the significant issues with the Meta-Analysis technique is that there will inevitably be gaps in the existing knowledge. The purpose of the research is therefore to piece together what truths are known, and identify the different areas where future research would benefit. Ultimately, the methodology has to move beyond the literature review and arrive at generalizations that can be more broadly applied, also known as empirical generalization.

There are a number of approaches to generalization. First, the researcher must answer the question as to whether the material uncovered can be generalized. Second, the researcher needs to examine this with respect to each different study. Third, the researcher has to understand whether theories can be derived from the research in question (). In this case, no theories are being sought.

However, the first two questions about generalization are valid for this research. It is reasonable that no one study can be extrapolated globally, because of the role that cultural context plays in the perceptions and applications of nuclear power in each national context, but it is also reasonable that by examining findings on these questions from a wide number of countries, that any commonalities that span enough countries, and with enough strength, could be generalized and those findings apply to any similar situation.

Of course, there will be limits in this. For example, findings from Anglo-tradition democracies may be extrapolated to Germanic or Franco-tradition democracies, but the research has noted that this is not necessarily the case. There is less applicability of such findings to the Japanese context given the cultural gap between Anglo-tradition democracies and Japan. And there might not be any applicability to Russia, Iran or other country that essentially has no tradition of democracy and whose cultural roots are dramatically different from those in Anglo-traditional countries.

The optimal technique for the research questions at hand is known as research synthesis, which is the qualitative equivalent of meta-analysis (Jefferies, 1999). Research synthesis is a technique by which the researcher examines the sum total of the literature on a given subject matter in order to identify trends, as well as gaps in the literature. A research synthesis is thus a form of evolved literature review, wherein the researcher subjects the research to logical and systematic patterns of evaluation (Jefferies, 1999. The research synthesis will be based on published and non-published studies that the researcher will identify and select for this research. The number of studies to be utilized in this study will be described towards the end of this chapter.

The research synthesis is optimal for the social sciences, because much of the existing body of research is qualitative in nature. It is also optimal in situations where the existing body of research on a subject is somewhat thin, with gaps. Where research on a subject is specific, dense and quantitative, a meta-analysis would be more appropriate. The body of existing literature on the subject of this report does not meet the criteria for a meta-analysis, being understudied, disparate and qualitative in nature. Thus, the most appropriate research methodology is the research synthesis. Unlike literature review, research synthesis is a quantitative research methodology that is used for objective and effective review of completed research or studies (Jefferies, 1999).

The other aspect of research tradition is multi-disciplinary study. While multi-disciplinary study does not always lend itself to the narrow focus of academic journals, the real world is often multidisciplinary. Actually, multidisciplinary study is increasingly being recognized as a necessary component for answering complex questions, resolving multifaceted problems, and obtaining logical understanding of complex issues that cannot be resolved sufficiently or addressed comprehensively by any single discipline (“Defining Interdisciplinary Studies,” n.d.). There is a time and place for laboratory questions that exclude real world factors in order to isolate variables, but this is not the time.

Research about nuclear power and its role in our energy future is by its nature multi-disciplinary as it lies at the intersection of nuclear science, sociology, psychology and political science. Journals from all of these disciplines have contributed to this study. There is not just one variable, acting independently, that governs this issue. It is indeed many variables, and they sometimes work together to influence opinions and actions (Bauer, Brecha&Luderer, 2012, p.16807).

The outcome of meta-analysis, across disciplines, in a qualitative research format, is going to be research that is more accurate and reflective of the real world problem that is to be solved than would be possible in a controlled experiment. The fact that the data needed does not always exist, may not be accessed, or that there are ethical issues with conducting experiments in this field only add to the necessity to conduct qualitative research in this area. Walsh & Downe (2005) state that meta-analysis is an important method for qualitative research since it helps deepen understanding of contextual dimensions of the issue being examined (p.204).

Studies to be researched

The researcher has identified 20 studies in the meta-analysis on this research issue. These studies will comprise published and unpublished articles addressing the issue of nuclear power, especially with regards to reducing climate change. The major criterion for the identification and selection of these studies will be their relevance to the research issue, particularly on how nuclear energy may be the most suitable solution to climate change. In addition, the researcher will employ other criteria for selecting the studies since the research issue is broad and has attracted considerable attention in the recent past.

As previously mentioned, the studies to be researched will be both published and unpublished articles relating to the topic area. The selection of the studies to be researched will be based on the liberal inclusion criteria that were previously described. Apart from using published and unpublished articles, the inclusion criteria will include limiting the robust search of the topic area to studies conducted between the years 2000 to date (Shachar, 2008). With regards to the quality of a study, the researcher will only utilize studies that do not show severe methodological flaws. Moreover, these studies must have adequate quantitative data and a comparison or control group that can be utilized in calculating the individual and overall effect sizes.

One of the key measures in determining studies to be researched is their relevance to the research topic or area. This is a major component in selecting studies to be researched because the research area is a broad topic that has attracted many studies because of the controversial nature of nuclear power in relation to its use as an energy source, environmental harms, and benefits. The 20 studies to be reviewed were identified through the robust search of the topic area, which is considered as an important process when conducting meta-analysis.

While robust search of the topic area will be used as the first means to identify studies to be researched, the researcher will adopt a more specific approach in order to ensure relevance of these studies to the research topic. The researcher will have preference of journal articles over other types of articles because of the likelihood of published and unpublished articles to meet all requirements in the inclusion criteria. The preference of journal articles over other types of articles is also fueled by the fact that they seem to be credible as compared to other kinds of articles.

Akobeng (2005) claims that meta-analysis primarily relies on the validity or credibility of the studies (p.846). As a result, a researcher is required to explicitly show the kinds of studies included in the meta-analytic review based on the suitability of the articles on the study design and research question, purpose, and aim. In this study, the researcher will utilize different electronic databases since a single electronic database search lacks sensitivity and may make the researcher miss relevant articles.

The researcher will utilize different or multiple sources to conduct comprehensive search and avoid the issue of publication bias. A comprehensive search will be utilized to identify studies to be researched since extensive searches help to avoid publication bias that may occur when trials with statistically important outcomes or findings and increasingly likely to be published and cited, particularly in English language journal articles.

When conducting the searches, the researcher will utilize the established research question to guide the search and help ensure that relevant articles are identified. In this case, the researcher will use keywords and synonyms from the research question to conduct the extensive search in various databases with the aim of identifying articles for inclusion in meta-analytic review or study (Akobeng, 2005, p.846).

Research Questions and Hypotheses

This research is by its nature primarily qualitative. However, the researcher will also utilize quantitative methods, especially to develop research questions and hypotheses. As previously mentioned, this research will involve the use of both qualitative and quantitative research methods though much focus will be on qualitative methods. As a result of the use of quantitative studies, there researcher will test four hypotheses in this study.

The first hypothesis reflects on the effect that disasters have on public perceptions of nuclear power. For obvious technical and ethical reasons, it is not possible to induce a nuclear disaster in order to study this issue knowledge must be gained from the studies that have already been conducted. There have been three high profile nuclear power disasters at Three Mile Island, at Chernobyl and at Fukushima.

There is information available from surveys that were conducted in the wake of Chernobyl, and there have been numerous studies in the past decade about nuclear power acceptance by the public. These recent studies include some specific before-and-after data about Fukushima, The researcher will review at least four studies from surveys that were conducted in the aftermath of Three Mile Island and Fukushima incidents. In essence, the researcher will review two studies conducted in the wake of Chernobyl and two studies conducted in the aftermath of Fukushima incident.

To address the first question (Hypothesis #1:Public perceptions of nuclear energy are largely driven by disasters), then, it will be necessary to review the literature, in the style of a meta-analysis, in order to determine whether or not public perceptions have changed before and after the Fukushima meltdown. This information can then also be compared against the information that exists from Three Mile Island and from Chernobyl.

One of the most valid reasons for conducting a meta-analysis on nuclear energy, specifically the fixed effects model is that this type of research can allow for more complex concepts to be visited than would be possible via other means. This topic has four distinct hypotheses, and they are multi-disciplinary in nature. Moreover there are specific technical and ethical barriers to answering these questions in a laboratory-style study design. Even today, it would be impossible to effectively gauge public reactions to Fukushima, as that was four years ago.

On the second question, (Hypothesis #2: Public perceptions can influence political decision making) there has been a lot of data gathered about this. Much of this data, unfortunately, is not in the public domain. Political parties would be the ideal source of this information, as they know exactly what drives people to vote, and can probably express this as well as anybody. The problem, of course, is that this information is gathered for proprietary purposes, and ultimately this data is unlikely to be made available to the public while it still has value, as this is a key source of competitive advantage for political parties.

The academic information on this is somewhat limited. To study this would entail staging an election instead there are proxies used. One proxy is to substitute voter action for voter intent, though in the real world those two things can diverge significantly. While experts have been able to predict voter intentions quite well (Singh et al., 1995), nuclear power is fairly low on the list of issue that people take into consideration when voting. It may be entirely impossible to predict voting behavior by comparing voter’s beliefs about nuclear power and a politician’s stated policies on the matter.

While such information would clearly answer the question at hand: (Hypothesis #3: Unresolved technical issues contribute to policy): it has never been gathered directly, and the reality is that there is going to be a lot of noise in such a survey. Again, where hampered by a lack of data, it is necessary to rely on qualitative techniques such as meta-analysis to provide the rich level of description required to understand this complex, multidisciplinary subject.

The third question is even more difficult to prove. There is a lack of transparency in government decision-making, even within the most democratic of societies. Thus, it is difficult to do anything other than speculate as to the motivations of a given politician, and how that person’s voting patterns might be determined. This again calls for the meta-analysis technique, in the hopes that gathering a preponderance of evidence will either confirm the hypothesis, reject it, or if there is insufficient data at least at that point the future directions for study can be determined, assisting with uncovering this critical knowledge.

The fourth question: (Hypothesis #4: Nuclear energy is not viewed as a viable solution to climate change): has actually received a fair bit of study. The evidence more or less shows that there is disparity between the experts, and to a lesser extent the politicians who rely on the experts, and the general public with respect to the role that nuclear power can play in climate change mitigation. There is hope that some actual figures can be derived here, because only two sources appeared to address this directly, comparing the amount of carbon use that is offset with nuclear power use.

The meta-analysis technique allows for some interpretation of the data on this issue. The question is sometimes posed directly, and there is one set of papers that covers UK attitudes over time, which will be tremendously valuable (Morse et al., 2002). However broadening the perspective on this question is something that will allow for better information to be collected prior to drawing conclusions about this issue.

The research objective for this report is:

“This research seeks to identify whether or not there are any commonalities in the reasons why nuclear power is in decline, at a time when it probably should be increasing in importance in the global energy mix.”

There are four hypotheses that are being examined in the report. They are as follows:

Hypothesis #1: Public perceptions of nuclear energy are largely driven by disasters.

Hypothesis #2: Public perceptions can influence political decision making

Hypothesis #3: Unresolved technical issues contribute to policy

Hypothesis #4: Nuclear energy is not viewed as a viable solution to climate change

Research Design

The research design is built around the four hypotheses. These hypotheses are derived from the research objective, and from the preliminary research that was conducted on this subject. The hypotheses are each subject to their own literature review, as part of the research synthesis. The literature review essentially gathers the information without any interpretation or discussion. It is only in the methodology phase when then research is examined, analyzed, and the similarities and differences between the findings are subject to analysis and discussion (Lewis and Ritchie, 2003). The research will be based on the Meta-Analysis technique.

A systematic approach is taken with respect to analyzing the research. The most important component is to analyze for the research hypothesis, to understand what the body of research is telling us about that hypotheses (Jefferies, 1991). Furthermore, there will be an opportunity to identify how the different studies differ from one another at this point and in doing so the studies can be subject to an appropriate comparison.

The final stage is to pull the four hypotheses together. The four hypotheses exist because they all form part of the research question. The research question can only be understood when all four of the research questions are examined together, and their individual conclusions drawn together. The key research elements of reliability and validity are determined by the thoroughness of the research, and an acceptance of the limitations that are inherent in the research (Jefferies, 1991).

Ethical Issues in Research

There are a few different areas of ethical consideration in research such as this. As noted elsewhere in this work, some of the issues described relate to situations that cannot be ethically replicated. There is no way to re-create a nuclear meltdown to effectively test people’s opinions of nuclear power before and after. The only thing to do is to use the research that was already done on this subject, accepting whatever flaws and gaps it might have. The research was guided by the harm principle, wherein the researcher would not do harm.

Another ethical issue is that of privacy. It is important to retain the privacy of any subject that contributes to this research. The chosen methodology allows for the research to be gathered without the involvement of human subjects. Human subjects are the primary source of the need for ethical safeguards, and their absence makes the issue moot. Nevertheless, it is important that the need for ethical safeguards is remembered, because there may be a situation that arises in the course of this research where someone’s privacy does need to be safeguarded, and the researcher will need to understand the protocols that need to be applied.

This Research proposal was produced to the highest standards of ethical research. Where human subjects were involved, their privacy was under strict protection. No humans or animals were subject to any risky situations, and full disclosure has been provided to any human subjects so that they had the opportunity for informed consent, prior to performing any research.

Summary of Chapter Three

A multi-disciplinary study involving conditions are that are not easily replicable requires a different sort of approach. There is not just one variable involved in this research, but multiple variables working together simultaneously, under real world conditions. In many cases, specific data is either non-existent or unavailable. Thus, it is necessary that this research take the form of a qualitative research synthesis. This technique allows for the case to be made with respect to the four hypotheses on the basis of a preponderance of evidence. This evidence can be analyzed and described, and different studies can be put together to reveal some truths about nuclear power, the public’s perceptions of it, and how those perceptions are applied in policy.

The research spans multiple different disciplines, which allows for the distillation of different perspectives into a single, coherent narrative that provides valuable insight into the current state of nuclear power and how it can be used as a means of mitigating climate change. There is clearly, on the basis of the research done, not enough research on some of the key areas, but that is also an important finding, to determine where the work needs to be done, from an academic perspective, to increase the level of understanding on this subject.

The qualitative analysis technique is coming back into vogue specifically for these types of situations. The research here is essentially social sciences research, to tackle a management program. This requires the ability to understand and process subtle nuances in a way that quantitative analysis can never hope to achieve. One can gain vastly more insight from examining several different variables, and being able to see patterns in multiple different areas, relying on one’s own skill and insight to understand key truths, and that is what this paper offers for the reader.

To answer the research problem, four separate but related questions need to be answered. There is a varying degree of information relating to each question available, both in the academic literature and in the government and NGO-produced literature on the subject of nuclear power. The type of methodology has to flow from the type of inquiry that is being made, and the information that is available to respond to the inquiry. First, it is clear that most of the information available is qualitative in nature.

This is not surprising, considering that ultimately the study of the future of nuclear power is tied to the political dimension. This makes the research question inherently rooted in the social sciences, and qualitative methods are frequently used in the social sciences. Qualitative methods are most appropriate because of their ability to handle the subtleties of the human dimension, and real world situations where laboratory conditions never apply and where external variables are both constant and fluid. There is also some quantitative data available, and in this case that data provides a valuable backdrop, in particular to the issue of context.

The researcher will conduct a comprehensive search to identify articles to utilize in meta-analytic review of literature. The comprehensive search will focus on identifying published and unpublished articles that relate to the topic area or issue. The use of published and unpublished articles will be geared towards avoiding the issue of publication bias and ensuring that many articles with relevant statistically significant findings and/or results and included in the review. The use of these different studies also helps in ensuring that the effect size is significant since a large sample helps in generating significant effect size of studies as compared to a small sample.

While this study is primarily qualitative in nature, quantitative research will also be carried out since qualitative studies do not entail testing research hypotheses. The use of quantitative research in this process is crucial because testing hypotheses is important to obtain necessary information that helps deepen understanding of the research problem or issue. Testing hypotheses will also help the researcher to suitably examine underlying assumptions that influence opinions and actions relating to nuclear energy. In essence, it would be relatively difficult for the researcher to gain an understanding of these assumptions, opinions, and actions without generating and testing several hypotheses in this study.

The appropriate methodology for this study, therefore, is the research synthesis. This method is common in the social sciences, and seeks to tie together multiple threads of existing research in order to understand a complex issue. The issue at hand is inherently complex, and multidisciplinary, as it ties together elements of science, politics and energy policy. It is also a global issue, and the differences in the ways that this issue spans the world necessitate a form of research that is flexible.

Research synthesis requires that the research be thorough, and that it is subject to interpretation by an expert, using systematic means of examining the data. Thus, this is the methodology that has been used in this research, to provide expert analysis of this issues that are holding back the growth of nuclear power, even when the use of nuclear power appears to be a logical solution to growing carbon emissions and the threat posed by climate change.

The most suitable meta-analytic approach that will be utilized in this study is the Classic or Glassian Meta-Analysis, which allows liberal inclusion criteria and considers the study findings as the unit of analysis. These two parameters are important when conducting this research study since they enable the researcher to generate more accurate research findings and conclusions unlike Study Effect Meta-Analysis which allows restricted inclusion criteria and is unsuitable for this study. When conducting meta-analytic review of the various studies utilized in the article, the researcher will employ various strategies that are commonly used in this technique. Some of these major steps that will be employed in meta-analysis of studies on the topic area include formulating the research question or domain, locating relevant articles, collecting and analyzing data, determining effect sizes, analysis of bias and homogeneity, reporting results, and interpretation of effect size.

CHAPTER FOUR

Chapter Four: Findings

This chapter will examine the data as per the methodology of research synthesis. There will be five main sections for this analysis — one each for each research hypotheses and a final conclusion that ties the four questions together. The fifth section of the findings is the most important, because that is where the ultimately conclusions will be drawn from. The four prior questions all lead up to the final interpretation of the research, where conclusions can be drawn about the future of nuclear power, and the challenges that the nuclear power industry is going to face going forward. In attempting to analyze the merits of proper waste disposal of nuclear fuel, it is difficult to separate the specific role of the broader questions of the best fuel cycle option. It is therefore necessary to emphasis on the aspect of waste disposal, the benefits, and the drawbacks of the disposal process.

Furthermore, the findings of this study may be based on the comparative analysis of the fuel cycles through the use of the meta-analysis technique with a focus on the role of reprocessing of nuclear material waste for sustainability. In relation to waster burden, compared to the current once through life cycle, one passes recycling is detrimental in the near-term and is moderately beneficial in the long-term. A full actinide recycle would be superior to both the short and the long-term. However, in any case, the time lag of the implementation process implies that that the new processing policy is not capable of fully appreciating the ease of the current controversy of the general necessity to site the geological repository for the existing waste.

Findings — Hypothesis #1

The first hypothesis that was examined was that public perception of nuclear power is largely driven by disasters. The hypothesis is rooted in a couple of observations. First, that nuclear power has a certain hold on the public at large. In Japan, this hold is direct — there are numerous studies as to how the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki affected Japanese popular culture. The creature Godzilla is perhaps the most relevant manifestation of Japanese fears of nuclear power to the Western audience, always destroying Tokyo and by extension Japan itself, but it is by no means the only point of resonance for the Japanese with respect to nuclear power.

The threat of nuclear annihilation was a driving force in public opinion in the West for decades. This threat of nuclear annihilation has been used to exaggerate justification of inaction and to create the fear of death. Public opinion regarding nuclear power has largely been centered on the idea of the negative effects of nuclear war or increased focus on the worst possible outcome relating to nuclear energy. People often conflated nuclear weapons and the idea of nuclear holocaust with nuclear power. Three Mile Island provided life to those fears, undermining the track record of success that nuclear power was developing in the West.

In Eastern Europe, the same nuclear fears existed, and Chernobyl was a catalyst for equating those fears with nuclear power, rather that military use of nuclear weapons. Chernobyl’s affect was broad-based, and the term meltdown entered the public lexicon after that event. It is also worth considering that the name Chernobyl is what is identified with the event — the name of the nuclear power plant — not the name Pripyat, which was the town built around the reactor and the location of the actual human suffering caused by that meltdown.

In the past few years, public opinion regarding nuclear energy has largely been influenced by the Fukushima accident. The Fukushima accident in 2011 had largely varying effect on public attitudes and energy policies across the globe similar to other major disasters that have taken place in the nuclear power industry (Duffy, 2012). According to a poll or survey conducted by the Huffington Post in the aftermath of the Fukushima accident, 25% of people who oppose nuclear power or energy did so because of Fukushima and other accidents in the nuclear power industry (Duffy, 2012). Generally, Fukushima and other accidents in nuclear power industry have largely reinforced current views or opinions and pushed those who are skeptical into negative perspectives about nuclear energy.

Therefore, the first hypothesis was driven by observation, that disasters at nuclear facilities allow people’s worst fears to be realized. As many people do not understand the science behind nuclear power, fear of the unknown can also play a role in public perceptions of nuclear power. When the only thing that breaks that fear is news of a disaster, it stands to reason that the public would have its opinions largely driven by disasters.

Studies in Germany and the United States both supports the idea that the public receives an inordinate amount of its information about nuclear during times of disaster. Wittneben’s studies about the perceptions of nuclear power in Germany show us a couple of important things. First, they highlight that nuclear disasters have a global reach. Chernobyl is a household name, and Germans in particular were found to be riveted by coverage of the Fukushima disaster. This coverage was a primary driver of public opinion. Most Germans became more knowledgeable about nuclear power as a result of Fukushima. This experience contrasted with that of Americans, however. Americans, with other major news items to distract them, paid less attention to Fukushima than people in other countries. Americans were therefore less concerned with Fukushima. This illustrates that news coverage, which peaks during times of nuclear disaster is a moderator of public opinion. Where news coverage is lower, concerns about nuclear power are lower.

Furthermore, Wittneben’s studies highlighted some of the other moderating factors for public perception of nuclear power. Where there is longstanding opposition to nuclear power, reactions tend to be more intense. Australia, for example, has had a long history of strong opposition to nuclear power, and events such as Chernobyl and Fukushima intensified those feelings among the Australian public. In the U.S., where opposition to nuclear power has been lower in general, these disasters were viewed more as faraway phenomenon, and aside from a small spike in anti-nuclear sentiment following Three Mile Island, most Americans do not oppose nuclear power in part because they never have. But Americans were the ones doing the bombing, and were the first to split the atom — there is an inherently higher level of trust that likely relates to that country’s power position with respect to nuclear power. If events occur in other countries, those are not viewed as likely to occur in America. This view is directly contrasted by the studies of Germans and Australians, both of which have seen significantly higher levels of anti-nuclear sentiment since Fukushima.

A British study showed that people living near to a nuclear power plant were less likely to be worried about nuclear power. This supports the hypothesis in that it supports the idea that fear emerges more in an information vacuum. Some of the highest levels of anti-nuclear sentiment are found in Australia, which does not have nuclear power or nuclear weapons. Australia, being conservative and not necessarily having a high level of environmental concern if its record on climate change means anything, does not necessarily fit the paradigm for a country with high anti-nuclear sentiment, but the country’s long-standing anti-nuclear sentiment, bolstered by information vacuum, may fuel its relatively high level of opposition to nuclear power. Germans are also resistant to nuclear power, but they have their own, and have an exception safety record. This should, if the theory holds, help to mitigate the fears about nuclear power.

In the British study, the towns that are closest to nuclear facilities have higher overall levels of tolerance for nuclear power. There are a few things to note here. First, such towns will have a higher overall level of knowledge about nuclear power, given that people expert in the subject will live in those communities. Second, the nuclear facilities provide jobs, which may bias public opinion on the matter. Third, when nuclear facilities exist without incident, people are more likely to see the fears about nuclear power as unfounded, and fourth, nuclear power plants are only part of the fear with respect to nuclear power.

There is also the issue of disposal, which would typically take place in a rural (mountain) area. That there are more fears about nuclear power plant than there are about nuclear waste disposal may actually support this hypothesis as well. While there is certainly evidence that people fear nuclear waste, few people actually live near a waste disposal site, as these tend to be in very remote areas. Thus, even though the science regarding disposal remains uncertain, to this point there is not been any disaster relating to the handling or storage of nuclear waste that has resonated in the media or public to the extent that nuclear meltdowns have. As such, it is again reasonable to conclude from what is known that the public’s perception of nuclear power is related more to disasters than anything else.

This is not to discount the fears about nuclear waste disposal. This subject, based on the research conducted, is clearly on the radar for people who are opposed to nuclear power. The technical issues with respect to nuclear waste disposal remain a challenge. But the evidence also shows that fewer people are concerned with nuclear waste disposal than are concerned with meltdowns. Still, the issues inherent in the disposal of nuclear waste cannot be discounted as a causal factor in public perceptions about nuclear power, and they may also be taken as a pair with the threat of meltdown — two major negative issues that contribute to public perception of nuclear power.

There are several methods that are applicable in the proliferation of plutonium. A terrorist group could steal the rogue state of the plutonium from the product stream of another country’s processing plant or either acquires the technology for itself on the black market in the isolation of plutonium. Another risk involved is the state legally operating in the reprocessing facility in the diversion of plutonium from the product stream of operation especially if it is in parallel. According to Flynn and Slovic (2002), the risks of plutonium recycling vary based on the flow of material and the amount of transport that is required and the technological safe guards that are necessary in the issue of plutonium isolation.

Economics and fuel supply

It comes about in any national policy that the fate of the policy is dependent on the economic viability of the nation. The moratorium on reprocessing is based on the primary functions of the cost of acquiring uranium ore. Marais et al. (2004) give the reason behind this is the fact that the cost of reprocessing and disposal is higher than that of the direct proposal and the value of the recovered fissile material elevates with the varying price of the natural uranium. It is therefore observable that the theoretical, breakeven price that reprocessing and direct disposal is considered to have the same net presence that can be calculated through the satisfaction of an equation.

Although the demand for uranium has over the past years increased with the expansion of the nuclear industry, the rate of supply has also grown in step. Similar to other natural resource commodities, the efforts put in place to maintain a steady market have resulted in an incentivized exploration of new mines in addition to the enhancement of the mining techniques. Under the current rate of consumption, the major sources of uranium are estimated to last for over 100 years (Marais, Dulac and Leveson, 2004).

In the year 2011, the World Energy Outlook presented a reference of the business as usual scenario essentially based on the continuation of existing policies and trends. The new policies that were put in place take into account the importance of nuclear energy and announced the commitment and the plans. Given the necessity and importance that is observed in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, the major scenario of the company policy examine the changes that take place in the energy system that would be essential in the long-term in bringing the concentration of the carbon (IV) oxide equivalence in the atmosphere to below 450 parts per every million by the year 2050. According to Marais, Dulac and Leveson (2004), this is the optimum level considered with the aim of avoiding the worst effects related to the global warming effect.

Nevertheless, the economic indicators do not have any effect on the prospects involved in the reprocessing cycle. There is however a large degree of uncertainty involved in the forecasting of nuclear energy growth and the production of uranium in addition to the development of advanced fuel cycle technologies. Therefore, as a national waste management policy, it cannot be dependent on the industry and its evolution in a particular way. Moreover, the growth infrastructure for an advanced fuel cycle would result in the deployment of multiple decades of practical policy implementation as it is aimed at anticipating the future economic conditions even if they are in conflict with the present laws.

There is a final note about these findings — disasters occur with most forms of energy, especially with fossil fuels. Fossil fuels also have a fairly visible impact on smog, and there is news about climate change every day. The nuclear industry, should it wish to do so, can use the same fundamental understanding of how disasters shape public opinion.

While the threat of nuclear annihilation has been used to shape public opinion about nuclear energy, there is minimal evident to demonstrate that the use of nuclear energy could automatically result in nuclear war. Moreover, nuclear war is not necessarily caused by the use of nuclear power as an energy source but attributed to other factors such as global politics and international relation issues. According to Martin (1982), the notion of global nuclear war emerging from the use of nuclear power to kill nearly most or all population across the globe has little to no scientific evidence (p.287). This belief is only presented to justify inaction and concern, promote white western orientation, prevent reformist political analysis, and promote the fear of death.

With reservations, hypothesis one is found to be upheld. The reservations are that the evidence is somewhat weak. This specific issue was not studied, and there is data from only a small handful of countries. Actually, the United States, Japan, China, and Germany are seemingly the only countries that have experienced nuclear disasters and use the disasters to seemingly shape public opinion. The fact that there are only a handful of countries to have experienced such disasters implies that there is insufficient evidence to explicitly state that public opinion regarding nuclear energy is completely shaped by nuclear energy disasters. In essence, the evidence in a handful of countries cannot be extrapolated to include the entire world and imply that global public opinion on nuclear power is entirely shaped by nuclear energy disasters. Secondly, the threat of nuclear annihilation and war has played a crucial role in shaping public opinion about nuclear energy despite the little or no scientific evidence to show that nuclear war would kill nearly the entire population across the world. This provides evidence that public opinion on nuclear energy is not exclusively an issue determined by nuclear power disasters but incorporate other factors.

Consequently, there are multiple points of evidence that can support the hypotheses but they do not explicitly support it without reservation. Thus, while it appears that this hypothesis holds, based on what we know about the way the public received information about nuclear power and the overall knowledge level the public has with respect to nuclear power that arises from non-disaster situations, a more specific study would be ideal to confirm this with more authority.

Findings – Hypothesis #2

The second hypothesis was that public perceptions influence political decision-making. This is an important issue because, ultimately, the use of nuclear power as part of a nation’s energy system is a political decision. Even in the United States, arguably the most free-market of all nuclear nations and the one with the most deregulated energy industry, this is so. There is no country in the world where the role of nuclear power in a nation’s energy system is not a political decision. Usually, the decisions are made by authorities at the federal level, though sometimes with region and local input. There are obviously going to be a number of different factors that affect these sorts of decisions. Some factors might be capital cost, availability of technology, cost of technology, and of course public opinion. The reality is that there are a number of different major potential influencers on energy policy, and that government decision-making is not necessary transparent. That makes this particular hypothesis quite difficult to research.

However, the hypothesis relates to the general public, which also means that the influence the public may or may not have is something that can be subjected to academic studies, or public surveys that are publicized through media outlets. Theoretically, at least, there are ways to determine what sort of the influence the public may have on political decision-making processes, both in general and also specifically in terms of nuclear power policy.

Generalized research from the political science field shows that in most democracies, the public’s views on an issue can drive its politics. Politicians in democratic societies have been found to be responsive to public pressure, when that pressure is sufficiently strong. Where the pressure is weak, or where there are more important competing issues, the public is generally less effective at driving the political agenda. There will also be country-specific differences as well, in line with the findings of both Wittneben and Schneider.

With respect to energy policy, the public usually has input, especially where the location of power generating facilities is concerned. Even relatively clean forms of energy generation, such as wind power, can be subject to public approval. People like power, and never want the lights to turn off, but they are remarkably fussy about power production in their own backyards.

One key study here highlighted the influence of timing on this issue. Fukushima occurred while Germany was in the midst of an election cycle, and nuclear power’s future in Germany became a political issue. In the United States, which was not in the midst of an election cycle, nuclear power did not become a political issue in the wake of Fukushima. A major gap in the research was identified here, however. Germany was not the only major nuclear power generator in an election cycle at the time of Fukushima — Canada was having a federal election. While a Google scan on the issue did not reveal much, that is not the greatest substitute for a comprehensive study on the issue. It would have been interesting to have such a study available.

The German study showed that because there was an election, and public knowledge of and fear of nuclear power was higher around that time because of Fukushima, politicians were less likely to support nuclear power. Germany has in fact softened its commitment to nuclear power going forward in the years after Fukushima. There is just not a lot of evidence that links public opinion to government policy.

In the aftermath of the Fukushima accident in Japan in 2011, public support for nuclear power decreased significantly within the country and outside. In the United States, public support for nuclear power decreased by approximately 15%, which was slightly lower when compared to surveys carried out in the aftermath of the Three Mile Incident in 1979. The decrease in public support for nuclear power after this disaster was attributed to the fact that it was characterized by fires and affected neighboring milk products, water supplies, and spinach through elevated levels of radiation. The decreased public support for nuclear power after the occurrence of this accident is considered as a strong deterrent from using nuclear energy to resolve the problem of climate change across the globe.

The influence of the waning public opinion on policy making is evident in policy initiatives that were adopted in several countries after the accident such as Japan and Germany. While it is unclear whether Japan overhauled its national public policy on nuclear energy after the Fukushima accident, the country started closing its nuclear power reactors one by one. Actually, Japan had closed all its nuclear power reactors in less than a year after the Fukushima accident. In contrast, Germany responded to the crisis through closing seven older nuclear power reactors temporarily given that the incident occurred during an election period in the country. On the contrary, Italy developed a 1-year suspension on plans for revival of its nuclear industry that had been closed after the Chernobyl accident. On the other hand, the European Union ordered its member countries to carry out tests of all nuclear power plants in the region while the United States’ President asked for a comprehensive safety review of all power plants in the country. This comprehensive safety review of nuclear power plants in the United States was carried out by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (Pralle & Boscarino, 2011, p.329).

There are two other countries where government policy and public opinion appear to be linked, based on the research. These are Australia and Japan. In Japan, public opinion is very strong, for fairly obvious reasons. The Japanese people recognize now the risks that are posed by running nuclear power plants in their earthquake-prone country. Nevertheless, it cannot be argued convincingly that the Japanese people are the drivers of policy on the matter — there is a reasonable body of science that shows the risks that future seismic activity poses to nuclear power in Japan. The country only adopted nuclear power because of its lack of fossil fuel resources, but has come to realize that nuclear power may not be a great option for it if safety cannot be guaranteed.

Australia is an interesting case. The Australian public has limited appetite for nuclear power, as does that country’s government. But while there is apparent alignment, this opposition to nuclear power a) has existed for so long that is not particularly easy to discern causality and b) might relate to the entrenched and powerful fossil fuel industries, especially coal. The coal industry powers most of Australia, to the point where the “sunburnt country” is actively against the use of solar power. In that context, opposition to nuclear power might reflect a bias against anything but coal among policymakers and may therefore be unrelated to public opinion about nuclear power. For what it is worth, studies do show that Australians are fearful of nuclear power, and have become more so after Fukushima, so there is just enough reason to believe that Australia’s politicians are responding to public sentiment.

This hypothesis should in theory hold in a democratic society where people vote for their politicians and politicians set energy policy. Those politicians have incentive to set policy in line with the perceptions and desires of the public. However, the hypothesis is not expected to hold in non-democratic societies, should there be any information available from such countries. But in democratic nations — both those with and without nuclear power, it is believed that the public’s views about nuclear power play an influencing role on public policy regarding nuclear power.

Political decision making is a policy area that is largely influenced by public opinion or perceptions and sometimes protest-led. Public opinion shapes political decision making relating to nuclear power or energy because politicians use these opinions in attempts to balance competing concerns among various interest groups. Similar to other sectors, political decision making in the energy sector is largely influenced by public opinion since the public consumes energy resources and is better placed to provide feedback regarding the various issues relating to nuclear energy.

However, it cannot be said that the research supports this hypothesis. There were no studies directly related to nuclear power other than the studies about the location of nuclear power plants and fears of nuclear power in general. The non-specific research did not seem to support the idea explicitly that the public can drive political action. Again, this comes down to a relative paucity of research on the subject. In some countries, public opinion matters more than others, to be certain. But even in the U.S., where arguably public opinion matters little in politics, public opinion is largely in favor of nuclear power, so the public’s views are aligned with those of the government on this issue.

Thus, there is insufficient research to confirm this hypothesis. The thin body of research that does exist is a) circumstantial and b) does not strongly confirm this. As such, the hypothesis cannot be confirmed. This does not mean that public opinion does not matter. In democracies, it probably does. But the findings do mean that there is only a thin veneer of evidence that public perceptions of nuclear power are driving nuclear policy. Further research would definitely be required to investigate this issue. And of course, the entire question really only affects nuclear democracies. In other countries, the public perception of nuclear power is highly unlikely to the relevant because politicians are unaccountable to the public at large.

Findings — Hypothesis #3

The third hypothesis was that the ongoing technical issues surrounding the disposal of nuclear waste contribute to policy. This is important to study, if only to rule this out as a policy driver. It is also worth understanding how powerful a policy driver this is relative to public perceptions. There are two major issues with respect to the technical issues — the safety of nuclear power plants and the safe disposal of nuclear waste.

On the former, the evidence shows that Japan in particular has adapted its nuclear policies in line with technical issues. Fukushima revealed specific technical issues relating to Japan’s seismic uncertainty that have caused the Japanese government to reconsider its views on nuclear power. Hymans (2015), states that Japanese nuclear policy change seemingly occurred after the Fukushima accident, which demonstrated several technical issues relating to nuclear power and energy. By the time the Fukushima accident occurred, Japan had 54 operative nuclear power reactors, which were reduced after the occurrence of the accident. The reduction of the number of nuclear reactors in the country in the aftermath of this disaster was largely driven by the development of new nuclear energy policy to help deal with the technical issues that were revealed by the accident. Actually, by May 2012, Japan had no nuclear power reactors functioning in the country since the 54 nuclear operators before the Fukushima accident had been taken offline one after another.

Japan’s example of the dramatic change in nuclear behavior was not a by-product of an overhaul of its nuclear policy but was simply a reaction to the unprecedented event i.e. Fukushima accident. In essence, this accident tragically showed that the existing nuclear safety standards are considerable insufficient and are based on unresolved technical issues that could be exposed by an accident in nuclear power plants.

Outside of Japan, a major form of opposition to nuclear power is more related to either the threat of meltdown or the issues regarding the handling and storage of nuclear waste. The literature highlights a few important points. The main takeaway is that there is little certainty about the long-term storage of nuclear waste. There are different types of waste, and studies are continuously seeking to investigate new ways to store such wastes. There are numerous issues, such as rock types, container types, the interface between rock and containers, the moisture and other such issues. Thus, this is complicated science. It also typically utilizes models, since the time frames are so long. As such, there is a lot that is unknown or uncertain with respect to storing materials that have half-lives ranging from 1000 to 1 million years.

There are other risks that might be site-specific as well. Fukushima has presented an opportunity to study ocean-born radiation, for example. The science of this is very much nascent. Policymakers need not be experts in the handling of nuclear wastes to understand quite clearly that there remains a fair bit of uncertainty about this. Even seventy years after the first nuclear reactors came online, there is a tremendous amount of uncertainty with respect to the science regarding nuclear waste.

While there are international bodies to help nuclear nations with their issues, and share information, the reality is that nuclear waste disposal is also subject to patchwork regulations, each country having its own set, and the quality of these sets varying quite significantly from one country to the next. In the year 2011, the World Energy Outlook presented a reference of the business as usual scenario essentially based on the continuation of existing policies and trends. The new policies that were put in place take into account the importance of nuclear energy and announced the commitment and the plans. Given the necessity and importance that is observed in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, the major scenario of the company policy examine the changes that take place in the energy system that would be essential in the long-term in bringing the concentration of the carbon (IV) oxide equivalence in the atmosphere to below 450 parts per every million by the year 2050. According to Marais et al., (2004), this is the optimum level considered with the aim of avoiding the worst effects related to the global warming effect. In the long-term, Mitchell and Woodman (2006) state that it is possible for one to see the benefits of recycling options available. The total amount of radio-toxity of the waste is the most important factor that acts as an indicator in the long-term, thus exponentially improving the degree of recycling. Despite the fact that engineers had planned to develop the Yucca mountain facility to withstand the radiation release for more than a million years, it is impossible for us as a society to have confidence in the plan for scenarios based on that timeframe is very low.

According to Goff (2008) the recycling process is detrimental in the near-term and comes with a beneficial form of moderation in the long-term. With this type of fuel cycle, it is possible for the long-term mitigation and measurement of the fuel cycle procedure. Despite the dangers that are involved in the dual purpose if the nuclear technologies applicable in the energy proponents, the fundamental determinants remains the splitting of the atom. Hippel (2007) emphasizes on this as similarly observable in the proliferation of the technologies that are used to split atom bombs. It is thus futile to seek proliferation proof of nuclear policies; it is instead advisable for there to be an aim that can maximize the proliferation resistance under the given circumstances.

However, in the case of reprocessing and application of nuclear fuel, the main concern is the isolation of plutonium in the process of the product steam that could be converted for use as a bomb. Unprocessed and used nuclear fuel is sufficiently secure against physical enemy intrusion due to the multiplicity if the highly radioactive components that are contained on it. Although the newer reprocessing technologies have a different radioactive contamination in the product stream of the loss and proliferation resistance, none of them has the remaining significant (WEC, 2004).

It comes about in any national policy that the fate of the policy is dependent on the economic viability of the nation. The moratorium on reprocessing is based on the primary functions of the cost of acquiring uranium ore. Marais et al. (2004) give the reason behind this is the fact that the cost of reprocessing and disposal is higher than that of the direct proposal and the value of the recovered fissile material elevates with the varying price of the natural uranium. It is therefore observable that the theoretical, breakeven price that reprocessing and direct disposal is considered to have the same net presence that can be calculated through the satisfaction of an equation.

Nevertheless, the economic indicators do not have any effect on the prospects involved in the reprocessing cycle. There is however a large degree of uncertainty involved in the forecasting of nuclear energy growth and the production of uranium in addition to the development of advanced fuel cycle technologies. Therefore, a national waste management policy cannot be dependent on the industry and its evolution in a particular way. Moreover, the growth infrastructure for an advanced fuel cycle would result in the deployment of multiple decades of practical policy implementation as it is aimed at anticipating the future economic conditions even if they are in conflict with the present laws.

On one hand, there is ample research on this subject available. There is a rich body of work on the different issues regarding the storage of nuclear waste, in particular in the scientific journals. It is certainly not for lack of effort that there remain many unknowns with respect to nuclear energy safety; it is the complex nature of this field that has limited the ability of scientists to determine fully safe methods of neutralizing, recycling or storing nuclear waste. While many in the public know next to nothing about the science of this issue, policymakers would at the very least be aware that there are so many unknowns and that, despite the fact that there have not been any significant safety issues to this point regarding long-term storage of nuclear waste, there are no guarantees that such a situation will persist in perpetuity.

The literature on nuclear power shows that the treatment and disposal of waste continues to be a challenge. There is no clear consensus on the best way to handle waste. Studies seem to indicate that there are multiple ceramic types that are used, and that these can vary in effectiveness depending on the conditions of the surrounding rock, moisture levels in said rock, and other environmental factors. There appears to be quite a bit that scientists do not know about nuclear waste disposal, even after sixty years of nuclear power. These issues are more technical in nature, but those involved in setting energy policy should be able to process that knowledge. Thus, technical issues and the awareness thereof should be factors in setting policy with respect to nuclear energy.

What the research does not provide, however, is a specific answer to the question. This was a risk from the very start, because political decision-making is not known for its transparency. If policymakers are making decisions about nuclear energy in their countries, in most cases the true motivations for those decisions are not known. It is reasonable to expect that scientific advisors would be in a position to point out the strengths and weaknesses of nuclear power, but that is about it. There is no evidence in the research that links the current knowledge level about nuclear waste storage to specific or generalized policy decisions. Even when the public policy is fairly clear — as is the case with Australia — the reasons cited are not typically about the storage of the waste.

As such, the hypothesis is not upheld. The reason that the hypothesis is not upheld is simple. While there is ample research concerning the nitrification, the storage and the handling of nuclear waste, this research is entirely technical in nature, and found in scientific journals. It may be possible that internal policy documents exist highlighting the rationale for specific public policies regarding nuclear power, but such documentation has not necessarily been made public. The reality is that in most cases we do know truly know the motivation for nuclear power policy. In countries that possess nuclear power, it is reasonable that decision-makers understand that the science is unproven but that storage is generally considered to be safe, but that is an assumption, not something founded in fact.

The conclusion that can be drawn from the apparent inability of the research to confirm either the second or third hypotheses is that government decision-making is not sufficiently transparent. Yet, the reality is that governments do call the shots with respect to nuclear power in their nations. If there was a higher degree of transparency, it would be interesting to know to what degree the risks associated with nuclear waste storage are built into policy decisions. That knowledge would be important to this study. But as yet, that knowledge is seemingly unavailable, which sadly will affect the ability of this study to offer specific links to policy making, something that affects nuclear power.

Japan’s concerns are well-known, but less related to storage than to the risks of meltdown. Germans are also motivated more by meltdown. Americans, when they oppose nuclear power, are more concerned about the storage of nuclear waste, at least based on informal internet searches. But to derive any meaningful conclusions from the literature about this issue would be grasping at straws.

While various governments across the world respond to nuclear power disasters through some measures, the initiatives that are adopted in such cases do not represent an overhaul of existing or establishment new policies regarding nuclear power. Actually, most of these countries only conduct safety reviews, tests, and temporal closure of nuclear power plants. The safety reviews, tests, and temporal closures do not represent change of nuclear policy but measures for preventing the occurrence of nuclear power disasters in their countries. These measures are usually adopted as part of response to public opinion regarding nuclear power after the occurrence of a disaster. The response strategies cannot be considered as public policy changes or initiatives but can simply be regarded as efforts to prevent disasters.

Findings — Hypothesis #4

The fourth hypothesis is that nuclear energy is not generally viewed as a solution to climate change. The reason for this question is twofold. First, the nuclear industry has sought to perhaps re-brand nuclear power as climate change mitigation, leveraging public fears about climate change, and hoping that those fears are greater than the fears associated with nuclear power. The second reason is that nuclear power is losing market share. Despite the obvious climate benefits, and the commitments that many nations have made with respect to reducing their carbon footprints, nuclear power has been unable to grow its share. That reality makes one curious as to how such a situation can arise. Is it the emergence of alternatives? Is it fear of the nuclear bogeyman?

The problem of global warming or global climate change developed from an issue in academic, advocacy, and scientific communities to become a central issue for local, national, regional, and international political institutions. As these political institutions have become concerned about global climate change, the focus has shifted from whether it is a major environmental problem to what should be done to mitigate its impact. Following a series of evaluation of potential solutions and public policy initiatives, the scientific and international political institutions have started focusing on initiatives that would lessen our dependence on burning fossil fuels to generate energy. As a result, policy makers and industry stakeholders have increasingly considered a series of seemingly controversial energy technologies (Pralle & Boscarino, 2011, p.323).

One of the trade-offs or technologies that has been considered as a potential solution to the problem of climate change across the globe is nuclear energy. Nuclear renaissance attracted considerable attention before 2011 Fukushima accident in Japan since it was believed to be a suitable solution to global climate change. The increased attention on nuclear renaissance during this period was largely attributed to the attempts by the nuclear industry to promote the green credentials and benefits of nuclear technology. Since the mid-1960s, the nuclear industry has occasionally demonstrated environmental benefits associated with nuclear energy, particularly in relation to global climate change and burning fossil fuels. Actually, prominent individuals in the scientific industry and environmental movement including renowned conservationist have argued for the case of nuclear power or nuclear energy as a solution to global climate change.

The reality is that nuclear power is the most powerful of the five power generation methods that do not burn fossil fuels, and as such should be in the conversation for climate change mitigation. Nuclear power is one of the technologies that are currently available to help with climate change mitigation since nuclear power generation techniques do not burn fossil fuels (Biello, 2013). However, nuclear energy technologies require massive improvements in order to act as climate change mitigation alternative. The need for massive improvements on nuclear energy generation is related to the threat that nuclear power poses to humans in the likelihood of emergence of nuclear war.

Perhaps even more amazingly, two of the nations who commitment to nuclear power has waned the most are Germany and Japan, both net fossil fuel importers by a significant degree. It is one thing for Australia to blow off nuclear — if they did not have coal they would still have abundant solar resources. But Germany and Japan need alternative energy-generation technologies, which is why those nations became enthusiastic producers of nuclear power in the first place. In 2009, nuclear energy represented 13% if the global electricity generation and nearly over 21% of the OECD’s electricity generation. In the same year, direct carbon (IV) oxide from fossils such as coal and natural gases for electricity and heat reached a level of approximately 12Gt (CO2). Out of this, 4.7 Gt was produced in OECD countries and over 7% was produced in non-OECD countries (Sovacool, 2008). The gap between the overall global percentage and the OECD percentages is according to Sovacool, (2008) a viable component in demonstrating the nature of the difference between renewable and non-renewable sources of energy.

Fukushima did affect Germany, Japan and Australia. In these countries, there was a move to position nuclear power as a means of reducing those nation’s carbon footprints, but the reality is that Fukushima reduced the support for nuclear power as a carbon alternative significantly. Germany is now looking to exit nuclear power as a result of Fukushima. In the UK, views are not as strong, and that country still views nuclear power as a viable long-run power alternative.

One of the more interesting studies showed that information campaigns can assist in improving the brand of nuclear power. It is worth remembering that nuclear power often has a favorable image until the public is reminded of the risks. The risks of nuclear power are actually fairly small, but when something goes wrong it tends to be global news — yet climate change is still dramatically underreported. But it was also shown the nuclear power perceptions are based on disasters in part because this is the only time people hear about nuclear power. Those who live near nuclear power plants have less opposition to nuclear power.

So there is potential for an information campaign to exploit fears of climate change. One of the issues here is that climate change fears are minimal and background. People tend to admit being concerned about climate change, but in general they know little about it, and consider it a fear that is below their immediate concern. As such, it is still not a sufficiently powerful motivator for people. Business literature — the management of organizational change — actually argues that crises are needed to motivate people into supporting a dramatic change. Without a disaster to galvanize the support for change, the status quo is normally what is supported. Thus, until climate change starts to seriously ruin people’s lives, they might not be motivated to allow nuclear power in their area, or to support it as a climate change solution. The short-sightedness of people has been clearly identified as a barrier to this narrative.

Furthermore, Vandenbosch and Susanne (2007) define waste burden as the negative effects of the waste products. It is referred to as the risk of radiation to the people and the environment and the difficulties that are involved in the failure to mitigate them. Some of the components of the nuclear waste vary in the level of radiation and the duration of radioactivity. The components of nuclear waste and the dangers that are involved in the nuclear process have long-term implications. On the analysis of such intricate issues, it is useful and effective to employ the concept of integration equity to distant generations (Vandenbosch and Susanne, 2007).Regarding the near-term burden as per the sitting of engineering of a geologic depository or any other improvement, it would be applied to the most minimum level available. There is currently almost enough used fuel that can fill the repository to its statutory capacity of the 70,000 metric tons and by the year 2050, there may be enough to reach a technical capacity of about 120,000 metric tons (Marais et al., 2004). With such a time-frame, it becomes essential for there to be a repository and the longer the delays, the more the need for there to be a probability to move the sitting of the geologic repository that is engineered by any dependable alternative to an available process.

Generally, nuclear energy is not a significant contributor to climate change. Thus, in some circles it has been marketed as a potential solution to climate change, allowing us to meet our energy needs while at the same time reducing our carbon emissions. This hypothesis is that as of yet, policymakers are either not searching for carbon alternatives to mitigate climate change, or they do not see nuclear power as a viable alternative. The degree to which this hypothesis holds is going to be important going forward, if this is to become a selling point for renewed investment in the nuclear sector going forward.

The development and growth of nuclear energy relative to climate change has attracted controversies and different opinions between proponents and opponents. The nuclear industry has been characterized by perennial issues associated with problems of safety, environmental, and security. These perennial issues have been the reasons some countries have decided against the development and growth of nuclear energy (“Climate Change Briefing,” n.d.). These perennial issues are largely attributed to the fact that radioactive contamination from nuclear power has significant impacts beyond borders, which poses significant threats to the health and well-being of environments and nations across the globe.

Hypothesis #4 is upheld, albeit with reservations. The major reservation is that many people are not motivated to seriously consider solutions to climate change. This short-sighted approach exists because there is no direct, immediate physical threat to people today to change their behavior — the negative effects of their actions will be felt by their children and grandchildren. But otherwise, if climate change was a strong enough motivator for people, there is evidence that shows that this is connected to their willingness to accept nuclear power as an alternative. It may be the case that people are willing to accept other forms of energy more readily, but nuclear gets a bump from framing as a climate change mitigator as well, which is the reason to uphold this hypothesis.

Findings — Tying everything together

The link that ties these four together is that they will specifically address whether public perception is a means by which nuclear power can increase its market share. Public perception can be a limiting threat to the growth of nuclear power, but it can also be an opportunity for nuclear power to increase its market share.

It is unfortunate that the motivations for government action were not supported. There is simply not enough study on the matter, probably because government decision-making is not particularly transparent. But what was learned is that governments that are interested in nuclear power can influence the public with information. In an information vacuum, people conflate nuclear power with nuclear weapons, something that taps into their Cold War fears — remember that people born at the end of the Cold War are only 25. So anybody over 30 — a group which contains most voters and almost all policymakers — would still have Cold War nuclear fears as a backdrop to their decision-making. In such an information vacuum, there is the conflation of power and weapons. There are long-held fears. And the only time people learn anything about nuclear power is when a disaster occurs and they learn from the news, or when a plant opens nearby and they learn from the people who work there and live in their community. In other words, there is an information gap, and fear of nuclear power thrives in that gap.

Actually, while the nuclear industry has made considerable attempts to promote the green energy credential associated with nuclear technology, the consideration of nuclear energy as a suitable alternative to the issue of global climate change has become more complicated in the aftermath of the Fukushima accident in Japan in 2011. The Fukushima accident as well as other nuclear power plant accidents has generated a series of problems that have relatively impacted public opinion on nuclear energy. In the aftermath of this incident in Japan, public support for nuclear energy decreased not only in Japan but other parts of the world such as the United States. A survey that was conducted in the aftermath of this incident showed a 15% decline in support for development of nuclear power facilities in the United States. This generated arguments and conclusions that public perception and opinion regarding nuclear power could act as a major restriction to the use of nuclear energy as a solution to the problem of global climate change or global warming.

There are obviously some technical issues with respect to the disposal of nuclear power, and those issues may yet remain because they will not easily be assuaged by information campaigns, but the overall public perception of nuclear power would most certainly be improved with better information campaigns. If public perception drives political policy — remember that insufficient evidence was found for this with respect to nuclear power — then such information campaigns would also have an influence on policy makers, whose stances would be expected to mirror those of the general public.

The economics of reprocessing raises various questions. For instance, the analysis of the breakeven uranium price shows that the full actinide recycle would be more economical as compared to the conventional one pass recycle regardless of both processes being non-effective with the current variations in the uranium prices. With the increasing demand for uranium and the expansion of production in the maintenance of a low price, the result is that the possibility of a change in the structure of the market and a long-term anticipatory nature of the nuclear policy, the investments in a new cycle may be economical.

The role that nuclear power can play as climate change mitigator is an important consideration, especially where information campaigns are concerned. People are concerned about climate change, maybe not as much as they should be, but that is the current reality. It could however, be an effective strategy for the nuclear power industry to increase education not just about climate change risks but the role that nuclear power can play in mitigating climate change, in order to improve public perception about nuclear power. If nothing else, such a strategy would be making a “pro” case for nuclear power, which would serve to counter the “con” case made by disasters such as Chernobyl and Fukushima.

Many government and industry leaders have argued that nuclear power or nuclear fission is required to deal with global climate change despite the ethical issues or ethical demands relating to the use of nuclear power as a sustainable and efficient source of energy (Shrader-Frechette, 2013, p.1). The use of nuclear power or nuclear energy to mitigate global climate change is attributed to various factors including low-carbon, its increased availability, its inexpensiveness, and the fact that it is an electricity source without additional needs for energy storage. Moreover, nuclear fission or nuclear energy is a potent solution or alternative to address climate change because it is a non-intermittent source of energy. As compared to wind and solar energy sources (which are also probable solutions to the problem of global climate change and only provide intermittent energy), nuclear energy is a more feasible solution since it only provides non-intermittent energy, which is crucial towards addressing global climate change. Therefore, existing literature relatively demonstrates the nuclear power is a necessary solution for addressing global climate change or global warming.

Summary of Chapter 4

This chapter focuses on evaluating data based on the methodology of research synthesis and provides five major sections. The first four sections in the chapter conduct a test of each of the four hypotheses and the final section provides a conclusion that links the four hypotheses together. The first four sections of this chapter lead up to the final interpretation of the research as reflected in the fifth section, which is the most important since it provides the basis for generating conclusions regarding this researcher project. The test of each of the four hypotheses provide the basis for drawing conclusions on the future of nuclear power and the challenges that the nuclear power industry is going to face going forward.

The first hypothesis to be examined was that public perception of nuclear power is largely driven by disasters, which is rooted in a couple of observations including the fact that nuclear power has a certain hold on the public at large. The other observation for this hypothesis is that disasters at nuclear facilities allow people’s worst fears to be realized. Following a test on the hypothesis, the researcher concludes that the hypothesis is upheld with reservations. The reservations are that the evidence is somewhat weak. This specific issue was not studied, and there is data from only a small handful of countries. There are multiple points of evidence that can support the hypotheses, but do not explicitly support it without reservation. Thus, while it appears that this hypothesis holds, based on what we know about the way the public received information about nuclear power and the overall knowledge level the public has with respect to nuclear power that arises from non-disaster situations, a more specific study would be ideal to confirm this with more authority.

The second hypothesis to be tested was that public perceptions influence political decision-making. This is an important issue because, ultimately, the use of nuclear power as part of a nation’s energy system is a political decision. The researcher found that this hypothesis cannot be upheld or confirmed because of insufficient research to demonstrate it. The thin body of research that does exist is a) circumstantial and b) does not strongly confirm this. As such, the hypothesis cannot be confirmed. This does not mean that public opinion does not matter. In democracies, it probably does. But the findings do mean that there is only a thin veneer of evidence that public perceptions of nuclear power are driving nuclear policy. Further research would definitely be required to investigate this issue. And of course, the entire question really only affects nuclear democracies. In other countries, the public perception of nuclear power is highly unlikely to the relevant because politicians are unaccountable to the public at large.

The third hypothesis that was tested was that that the ongoing technical issues surrounding the disposal of nuclear waste contribute to policy. The importance of the hypothesis is the need to understand how potent technical issues can be a policy driver. This hypothesis is not upheld because even though there is ample research regarding storage and handling nuclear waste, the research is entirely technical in nature, and found in scientific journals. It may be possible that internal policy documents exist highlighting the rationale for specific public policies regarding nuclear power, but such documentation has not necessarily been made public. The reality is that in most cases we do know truly know the motivation for nuclear power policy. The conclusion that can be drawn from the apparent inability of the research to confirm either the second or third hypotheses is that government decision-making is not sufficiently transparent. If there was a higher degree of transparency, it would be interesting to know to what degree the risks associated with nuclear waste storage are built into policy decisions. That knowledge would be important to this study. But as yet, that knowledge is seemingly unavailable, which sadly will affect the ability of this study to offer specific links to policy making, something that affects nuclear power.

The fourth hypothesis to be tested was that that nuclear energy is not generally viewed as a solution to climate change. The researcher upheld this hypothesis, albeit with reservations. The major reservation is that many people are not motivated to serious consider solutions to climate change. This short-sighted approach exists because there is no direct, immediate physical threat to people today to change their behavior — the negative effects of their actions will be felt by their children and grandchildren. But otherwise, if climate change was a strong enough motivator for people, there is evidence that shows that this is connected to their willingness to accept nuclear power as an alternative. It may be the case that people are willing to accept other forms of energy more readily, but nuclear gets a bump from framing as a climate change mitigator as well, which is reason to uphold this hypothesis.

The link that ties these four hypotheses together is that they will specifically address whether public perception is a means by which nuclear power can increase its market share. Public perception can be a limiting threat to the growth of nuclear power, but it can also be an opportunity for nuclear power to increase its market share. It is unfortunate that the motivations for government action were not supported. There is simply not enough study on the matter, probably because government decision-making is not particularly transparent. There are obviously some technical issues with respect to the disposal of nuclear power but the overall public perception of nuclear power would be improved with better information campaigns. The role that nuclear power can play as climate change mitigator is also an important consideration.

The next chapter is the final chapter that provides conclusions of the study in terms of factors that limited the extent for conducting the study to a wider scope, recommendations for the nuclear industry, and suggestions for future research in the nuclear field.

Chapter Five

Chapter Five: Conclusions

This is the last chapter in this proposed study. This chapter shows a number of factors that limited the extent which the study would go. The chapter offers recommendations that would help the nuclear industry if they were put into place. The chapter also offers recommendations for future research, which is quite important for the nuclear field.

Limitations of the Study

There were several limiting factors for the study. By its nature, a research synthesis is bound by the existing research that exists. The synthesis will expose any weaknesses that there are in the existing research. Several gaps were uncovered in the course of this project. Those will be addressed in the section subsequent, which is entitled “Recommendations for Future Research.” Key among these limitations was with respect to the second and third hypotheses. These hypotheses were not affirmed, but that was partly because there was insufficient research, in particular on the second hypothesis. The problem is that all four hypotheses were essentially a package deal, each one contributing a different piece of the overall puzzle that sought to explain why nuclear power has fallen out of favor and what the solutions to that might be. The present study is only looking at 60-70% of the puzzle. The factors that are missing, of course, are important. They relate to the way that politicians, in particular those involved with energy policy, make their decisions.

So the study cannot draw the full range of conclusions that it ideally would. This points to the need for other research on the subject, but it also leaves the conclusions perhaps less robust than they otherwise would be. Such is the risk of tackling a subject that has not received much study. There are times when one must reach whatever conclusions can be reached, and set aside those that cannot. There is simply not enough transparency in government decision-making, and goodness knows this paper would not be the first time someone arrived at that conclusion. But in order to truly understand the future fate of nuclear power, understanding how decisions about nuclear power capacity are made is important. We know a few things, especially about Japan and Germany, and maybe Australia and Malaysia, but far too many countries are simply not covered in the research.

In terms of extrapolating the findings, it is believed that these findings can generally be extrapolated to any democratic society. Such countries, despite their differences, are fundamentally the same in that policymakers are ultimately accountable to voters. Such a reality means that the basic power dynamic between voters and policymakers, while different in different countries, is roughly analogous. These findings cannot be extrapolated outside of the democratic context, because there is no meaningful connection between the voting public and the policymakers. The latter are not held accountable to the public.

The study also affirmed that disasters are a major driver of public opinion about nuclear power. While this is generally true, there were far more studies that investigated the “after” side of this than the “before.” Only one set of longitudinal studies existed. Those affirmed the hypothesis, and high levels of apprehension about nuclear power were reported in other countries, albeit without the same statistical rigor.

Overall, however, the most significant limitation of the study is simply that there is not enough information. The subject has received some study, or at least certain elements of it have, in recent years, but most of the meaningful information has been published since Fukushima, which occurred in 2011. That limits the volume of information. Further, as the different studies were neither compatible nor comparable, there is a limit to the ability of the research to draw neat, clean conclusions about what the studies say.

The researcher may also have been limited by a lack of technical knowledge or insider political knowledge of nuclear power or nuclear power policy. The former is not necessarily a major issue, although a significant amount of the research on Hypothesis #3 had a technical bent. The latter, however, would have been valuable, as this was the area where there was the least amount of published data. Better access to existing data would be valuable. The problem, of course, in addition to the lack of studies, is that many nuclear facilities online today date back decades, to a point when information was not digitized. Even in jurisdictions where this information can be made available upon request to the public, actually accessing the meaningful documents may be a task that stretches into the years. Additionally, knowing how decisions were made in the past does not necessarily inform how decisions are going to be made in the future.

Implications for Practice

There are a number of implications for practice. The purpose of the study was to explore why nuclear power generation is declining in an age when it seems well-positioned to be a climate change mitigator. There are some truths that the study has been able to reveal. One of these is simply that people are not sufficiently motivated to do anything about climate change, but once they are, they are more likely to be willing to accept nuclear power, or any other alternative energy for that matter. But this is important for nuclear power, because nuclear power is the most powerful method of powering an electrical grid. Thus, nuclear power could power not just our homes but our cars as well, once electric vehicles become the norm.

The major goal of sustainability in development is the compilation of energy, mostly electricity since the current era cannot survive without it. The best promise for the future is an electrified network that will meet the needs for the expansion of the economy. Resultantly demand for power with the current increasing population is the use of nuclear generated power. Thus if the nuclear power is nurtured in the proper environment, the merits will outweigh the demerits on the social structure. This source of power has proven to be efficient and should be considered a reliable source of power for decades to come.

The concept is that the use of nuclear power is a controversial topic when it comes to the production of energy, economic significance and environmental concerns. This observed during the Commission on Sustainable Development meeting that took place in the 2001. In the meeting held by the United Nations, there was a long debate on the use of nuclear power and the meeting concluded with the agreement that the choice of using nuclear energy will lie upon the country since there was no agreement in the role of nuclear power as a source of sustainable development (Lewis et al., 2003).

For policymakers, nuclear power represents a certain quandary. On one hand, it can be highly effective as a means for supplying power. In some countries, there is sufficient uranium to supply their own needs. In other cases, there are net uranium exporters like Niger that can be relied upon for supply. So there is tremendous appeal in nuclear power. But this appeal runs up against public concerns, some of which are probably irrational, but others such as concerning disposal are rooted in the reality that the science concerned waste disposal remains a work in progress. Policymakers are likely to balance these factors, but they do have the power to change the perceptions of the public, if that is something that is genuinely needed in order to push a nuclear program expansion.

But even politicians seem to frequently lack an appetite for nuclear power, and it has even fallen out of favor in countries that are traditionally major importers of fossil fuels. The reality is that even policymakers are concerned about disasters. There is some evidence to tie political support for nuclear power, or lack thereof, to election cycles, meaning that for long stretches of time governments can pursue nuclear power projects, should they so desire. If safety concerns about the handling and storage of waste are a concern, science is going to have to address that issue. If it is public perception that is the issue, then climate change needs to become a factor in shifting public perception. People are simply too complacent about climate change, and it may be necessary for government to start changing that complacency. Herein lies the rub, however, as implications for practice are concerned. In many countries — studies identify Australia, Malaysia and maybe the U.S. — fossil fuel interests are drivers of government policy. Thus, the pursuit of nuclear power is not necessarily even a priority at the government level.

This is where something like Kyoto, or a successor to Kyoto, might come in handy. Many nations have committed to reducing their carbon footprints, and ultimately they are likely to only become more concerned about reducing their carbon output as the 21st century progresses.

For those who wish to promote the increased use of nuclear power, there are some distinct lessons here. First, the climate change narrative has potential. Second, it has not lived up to that potential yet, mostly due to the climate change part. The climate change threat is something that can, if sufficient in scope, motivate people to support an increase in nuclear power. But for right now, nobody seems particularly motivated to address climate change, especially if doing so might lead to any sort of change in their lifestyle. Some of sort crisis point will need to be reached in order to shift the public sentiment with respect to both climate change and mitigation strategies. How that might be done is not entirely certain, but it right now this particular narrative is merely untapped potential.

It is also worth noting that this might be better at the political level directly. The link between public sentiment and political action might be strong in some countries, but the research shows that there is plenty of reason to doubt whether this link exists. Policymakers may well be in the business of selling their policies to their constituents, as opposed to taking policy cues from them. As such, it may be the policymakers who most need to be convinced of the merits of nuclear power. In many countries, this is possible, as nations struggle to meet their commitments to carbon output. Unfortunately, many of the largest polluters seem disinterested in developing actual climate change solutions.. In those cases, nuclear power cannot leverage its climate change merits to gain support in those circles anyway. But there is definitely reason to believe that many countries can be convinced to take up or increase nuclear power as a direct response to the threat posed by climate change.

Implications of Study

The study has shown that there a lot of factors which have led to the decline in the use of nuclear power. Policies, public opinion and environmental impact of nuclear power are seen as very essential factors that determine the usage of nuclear energy.

Implication 1: Effective policies are needed when it comes to disposal of nuclear waste. A lot of countries have found solutions that help them to properly dispose this waste but a lot of research is still needed. Proper disposal levels will make the public to have a better view of nuclear power hence, they will help advocate for its usage. Proper disposal will also reduce the number of disasters that are caused by nuclear waste hence the public will accept the use of this source of energy.

Implication 2: Policies have had a huge effect on the usage of nuclear power. Policy makers must be brought to board if nuclear energy will see a rise in use. Policy makers have a lot of power in terms of implementation of policies, hence if they are in favor of a certain project it will prosper. However it is important to note that nuclear power can be used for wrong and evil endings therefore, its use must be curtailed to a huge extent. Policy makers should be given the power to decide which power organizations have the ability to produce nuclear power.

Implication 3: The globe is facing a lot of climate change and there are a lot of efforts being made to reduce this change as it is quite negative. There are a number of climate change techniques that are being used including saving energy, utilization of renewable sources of energy and switching fuel. Nuclear power is a solution to climate change however a lot of research must be carried out so as to make it sufficiently secure and safe.

Recommendations for Future Research

Given that one of the biggest concerns in this research was that there was in some cases a surprisingly limited amount of information available, it is worth considering what information might have made the study stronger. What do we need to know to improve the state of this research going forward? There are a few suggestions that can be made.

First, Hypothesis #1 was hampered to some degree by a lack of studies on how people perceived nuclear power before major disasters. The disasters themselves spurred studies about perceptions, but without “before” studies, the change in perception is more difficult to measure. There needed to be studies in more countries as well. . There are dozens of nuclear power producers, and several major nations that do not utilize nuclear power, and they were all seemingly omitted from study. More research in this area would lead to stronger conclusions, even if just to affirm the current hypothesis.

The second hypothesis also suffered from the same gap in information — there needs to be more breadth of study to determine how the public perceptions affect policymaking in a broader range of countries. Right now, research on these two issues is ad hoc, with different researchers seemingly not in communication, and just doing their own thing. Better coordination among researchers would help to increase not only the volume of research on this topic, but would allow for stronger conclusions to be made, because there would be more similar data sets from which conclusions could be drawn.

The third hypothesis was long on research on what the technical issues were, but short on what the impact of those issues on policy was. This may have been a case where no smoke means no fire, but it could also reflect an area where research simply has not been conducted. Yet, given the threat posed by climate change, it would be good to know what drives the decision-makers. The lack of available information on such an important subject is disconcerting. Researchers need to start taking a look at things like this, so that we have meaningful knowledge that affects the decisions that ultimately structure our society and contribute to our very future as a nation. It is distressing to see some of the weak nonsense that is studied these days, and then come up with very little about how policymakers make decisions with respect to something as important as energy policy. It makes a pretty big difference as to how we can move forward to understand the influences today. There is some information available from other countries, and in some cases this might be transferable to other nations, but this is not necessarily the case. Nevertheless, it is clear that examining the issues in Hypothesis #3 is a priority for future research, to begin to fill in the gaps.

The fourth hypothesis tested fairly well, but again there were some gaps identified. In particular, the link between climate change and nuclear power has not yet been fully explored. There has been some talk in nuclear circles, and among policymakers, but not much has been done with respect to the links between nuclear power and climate change policy. Also, the question of how such links can be drawn with the general public has not been fully explored. So in this there is still some work to be done. In fairness, this thread of research is the newest, having only really come into serious consideration in the past few years. It will still be hampered by a generally weak level of public knowledge about both subjects, nuclear power and climate change, and may well be less important than the relationship between the public’s fear of climate change and energy policy, but exploring this gaps is entirely the point in laying out future research.

Reflections

To understand where we need to go, we need to understand where we are today. That is one of the major roles that a research synthesis can play. Once an issue has been identified, researchers can start to explore the different threads that bind that issue. In this case, the declining market share of nuclear power is of specific concern because it represents one of the best hopes for mitigating the negative impacts of climate change. By all logic, nuclear power should be increasing its share, not losing share, and it most especially should not be losing share to fossil fuels. But policymakers apparently think otherwise.

With the increasing demand for energy and the rising concerns for the use of fossil fuel economies, nuclear energy is poised to grow in a substantial rate in the current century. However, the waste burden of the current methods of nuclear waste disposal will not be sustainable in the long-term. In order for the growth to be occurring, there must be an eventual transition toward the advanced fuel cycle that utilizes the reprocessing protocols. The conventional one pass recycling alternative is not efficient enough in the provision of sustainability. It only improves the fuel supply and the waste burden while at the same time posing proliferation concerns. Instead, the United States of America should do its best to promote the development of improved and processed technologies, real time proliferation monitoring systems and other advanced fuel cycle technologies. Through long-term commitment programs regarding goal oriented research and development and the demonstration of technologies, perhaps by the mid-century of the U.S. will have the option to implement the closed fuel cycle system. Indeed the future of nuclear energy is reliant on the security of the broader energy system as it is dependent on it.

Despite the nature of nuclear material and the level of knowledge that has been realized over the past half a century, the use of nuclear material is still skeptical and controversial to the environment and to humans. This will be considered henceforth until there emerges a solution to the permanent and safe disposal and handling of nuclear waste material. Thus research should continue being handled until the appropriate and advantageous solution has been generated. But for now, the use of nuclear material is still a risk and an insignificant loss to the global economy.

The fact that nuclear power’s major issues are so high profile — meltdowns can dominate a news cycle – makes it an interesting case study. But as Deepwater Horizon showed, nuclear is not the only energy source capable of generating a disaster. In this context, however, there is still not a lot of logic behind the decisions to close reactors. Are such closures based on hard science, or public perception? How is public perception of nuclear power defined? What is the link between climate change, public perception and nuclear power? And are there other issues involved? The reality is that we are just starting to address these questions. The early evidence suggests that people do form their opinions about nuclear power largely based on disasters and the reporting thereof. However, t there is also a case to be made that people can change their minds about nuclear power, especially if climate change is seen as a bigger existential threat than nuclear power is. Further research will be needed to determine if this truly is the case, or if public perception is irrelevant and it is mainly the policymakers themselves who need to be convinced of the merits of nuclear power, a finding that is important because it would probably change how climate change is framed for each different audience.

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APPENDIX

Appendix A: Nuclear Energy Market Share Worldwide (source: IAEA, 2015)

Appendix B: Nuclear Reactors Operating Worldwide (source: IAEA, 2015)

Appendix C: Number of Nuclear Reactors Under Construction Worldwide (source: IAEA, 2015).

Appendix D: Dose rate relative to the IAEA self-protection standard for various disposal schemes (source: IAEA, 2015).

Appendix E: Share of electricity production by technology in the year 2009 at the global scale (on the left) and at the OECD level (on the right) (source: IAEA, 2015).

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Are you busy and do not have time to handle your assignment? Are you scared that your paper will not make the grade? Do you have responsibilities that may hinder you from turning in your assignment on time? Are you tired and can barely handle your assignment? Are your grades inconsistent?

Whichever your reason is, it is valid! You can get professional academic help from our service at affordable rates. We have a team of professional academic writers who can handle all your assignments.

Why Choose Our Academic Writing Service?

• Plagiarism free papers
• Timely delivery
• Any deadline
• Skilled, Experienced Native English Writers
• Subject-relevant academic writer
• Adherence to paper instructions
• Ability to tackle bulk assignments
• Reasonable prices
• 24/7 Customer Support
• Get superb grades consistently

 

Online Academic Help With Different Subjects

Literature

Students barely have time to read. We got you! Have your literature essay or book review written without having the hassle of reading the book. You can get your literature paper custom-written for you by our literature specialists.

Finance

Do you struggle with finance? No need to torture yourself if finance is not your cup of tea. You can order your finance paper from our academic writing service and get 100% original work from competent finance experts.

Computer science

Computer science is a tough subject. Fortunately, our computer science experts are up to the match. No need to stress and have sleepless nights. Our academic writers will tackle all your computer science assignments and deliver them on time. Let us handle all your python, java, ruby, JavaScript, php , C+ assignments!

Psychology

While psychology may be an interesting subject, you may lack sufficient time to handle your assignments. Don’t despair; by using our academic writing service, you can be assured of perfect grades. Moreover, your grades will be consistent.

Engineering

Engineering is quite a demanding subject. Students face a lot of pressure and barely have enough time to do what they love to do. Our academic writing service got you covered! Our engineering specialists follow the paper instructions and ensure timely delivery of the paper.

Nursing

In the nursing course, you may have difficulties with literature reviews, annotated bibliographies, critical essays, and other assignments. Our nursing assignment writers will offer you professional nursing paper help at low prices.

Sociology

Truth be told, sociology papers can be quite exhausting. Our academic writing service relieves you of fatigue, pressure, and stress. You can relax and have peace of mind as our academic writers handle your sociology assignment.

Business

We take pride in having some of the best business writers in the industry. Our business writers have a lot of experience in the field. They are reliable, and you can be assured of a high-grade paper. They are able to handle business papers of any subject, length, deadline, and difficulty!

Statistics

We boast of having some of the most experienced statistics experts in the industry. Our statistics experts have diverse skills, expertise, and knowledge to handle any kind of assignment. They have access to all kinds of software to get your assignment done.

Law

Writing a law essay may prove to be an insurmountable obstacle, especially when you need to know the peculiarities of the legislative framework. Take advantage of our top-notch law specialists and get superb grades and 100% satisfaction.

What discipline/subjects do you deal in?

We have highlighted some of the most popular subjects we handle above. Those are just a tip of the iceberg. We deal in all academic disciplines since our writers are as diverse. They have been drawn from across all disciplines, and orders are assigned to those writers believed to be the best in the field. In a nutshell, there is no task we cannot handle; all you need to do is place your order with us. As long as your instructions are clear, just trust we shall deliver irrespective of the discipline.

Are your writers competent enough to handle my paper?

Our essay writers are graduates with bachelor's, masters, Ph.D., and doctorate degrees in various subjects. The minimum requirement to be an essay writer with our essay writing service is to have a college degree. All our academic writers have a minimum of two years of academic writing. We have a stringent recruitment process to ensure that we get only the most competent essay writers in the industry. We also ensure that the writers are handsomely compensated for their value. The majority of our writers are native English speakers. As such, the fluency of language and grammar is impeccable.

What if I don’t like the paper?

There is a very low likelihood that you won’t like the paper.

Reasons being:

• When assigning your order, we match the paper’s discipline with the writer’s field/specialization. Since all our writers are graduates, we match the paper’s subject with the field the writer studied. For instance, if it’s a nursing paper, only a nursing graduate and writer will handle it. Furthermore, all our writers have academic writing experience and top-notch research skills.
• We have a quality assurance that reviews the paper before it gets to you. As such, we ensure that you get a paper that meets the required standard and will most definitely make the grade.

In the event that you don’t like your paper:

• The writer will revise the paper up to your pleasing. You have unlimited revisions. You simply need to highlight what specifically you don’t like about the paper, and the writer will make the amendments. The paper will be revised until you are satisfied. Revisions are free of charge
• We will have a different writer write the paper from scratch.
• Last resort, if the above does not work, we will refund your money.

Will the professor find out I didn’t write the paper myself?

Not at all. All papers are written from scratch. There is no way your tutor or instructor will realize that you did not write the paper yourself. In fact, we recommend using our assignment help services for consistent results.

What if the paper is plagiarized?

We check all papers for plagiarism before we submit them. We use powerful plagiarism checking software such as SafeAssign, LopesWrite, and Turnitin. We also upload the plagiarism report so that you can review it. We understand that plagiarism is academic suicide. We would not take the risk of submitting plagiarized work and jeopardize your academic journey. Furthermore, we do not sell or use prewritten papers, and each paper is written from scratch.

When will I get my paper?

You determine when you get the paper by setting the deadline when placing the order. All papers are delivered within the deadline. We are well aware that we operate in a time-sensitive industry. As such, we have laid out strategies to ensure that the client receives the paper on time and they never miss the deadline. We understand that papers that are submitted late have some points deducted. We do not want you to miss any points due to late submission. We work on beating deadlines by huge margins in order to ensure that you have ample time to review the paper before you submit it.

Will anyone find out that I used your services?

We have a privacy and confidentiality policy that guides our work. We NEVER share any customer information with third parties. Noone will ever know that you used our assignment help services. It’s only between you and us. We are bound by our policies to protect the customer’s identity and information. All your information, such as your names, phone number, email, order information, and so on, are protected. We have robust security systems that ensure that your data is protected. Hacking our systems is close to impossible, and it has never happened.

How our Assignment  Help Service Works

1.      Place an order

You fill all the paper instructions in the order form. Make sure you include all the helpful materials so that our academic writers can deliver the perfect paper. It will also help to eliminate unnecessary revisions.

2.      Pay for the order

Proceed to pay for the paper so that it can be assigned to one of our expert academic writers. The paper subject is matched with the writer’s area of specialization.

3.      Track the progress

You communicate with the writer and know about the progress of the paper. The client can ask the writer for drafts of the paper. The client can upload extra material and include additional instructions from the lecturer. Receive a paper.

4.      Download the paper

The paper is sent to your email and uploaded to your personal account. You also get a plagiarism report attached to your paper.

PLACE THIS ORDER OR A SIMILAR ORDER WITH US TODAY!!!

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