Low public confidence is one of the major challenges facing the nuclear industry.

That’s according to Kirsty Gogan, Co-Founder of Energy for Humanity, who spoke to ELN at the World Nuclear Association Symposium 2017 yesterday.

She said public support is needed to provide the political mandate for new build nuclear sites and to create investor confidence, which is essential to gathering finance and funding the construction of the plants.

Ms Gogan said: “Nuclear energy statistically is the safest form of electricity generation and yet people think it’s the most dangerous.

“What the industry needs to do is move more towards an engagement model which is actually a meaningful relationship building approach to really understand the values and the concerns that people have and then to actually work hard to listen and to address those.”

 
ELN also spoke to Paul Howarth, CEO of the National Nuclear Laboratory, who said nuclear has had a bad press historically, being linked to controversial defence programmes and fuelled by a lack of understanding about how it works.

He added: “I think it is improving now, I think that there’s recognition that nuclear is regarded as safe, I think it’s green credentials have been recognised as well.”