Nuclear power in jeopardy: The negative relationships between greenhouse gas/fine dust concerns and nuclear power acceptance in South Korea

Abstract

South Korea, a country that built a world-class nuclear power infrastructure, shifted to a nuclear phase-out during the previous government's reign. This shift was pursued as part of a larger task of electricity mix reform, and one of the integral motives for such reform is addressing greenhouse gas (GHG) and fine dust problems. Thus, verifying the relationships between the public's concerns about GHG/fine dust and their acceptance of nuclear power generation is essential for designing public communication strategies to revive nuclear power under the ongoing environmental regime. Our analysis using a nationwide survey sample of South Korea (N = 1009, through proportionated quota sampling method) showed that the more people are concerned about GHG and fine dust, the less they accept nuclear power. These relationships held even after controlling for the effect of a third variable—energy-related environmentalism. This finding means that despite past communication efforts positioning nuclear power as a generation source that can mitigate GHG/fine dust emissions and the widely accepted scientific evidence that supports such positioning, nuclear power in Korea is in jeopardy. Our finding provides implications for public communications and fundamental knowledge for research on the determinants of nuclear power acceptance.