CAN THE ACCEPTANCE OF NUCLEAR-REACTORS BE RAISED BY A SIMPLER, MORE TRANSPARENT SAFETY CONCEPT EMPLOYING IMPROVED CONTAINMENTS

Sociological and psychological findings are presented which describe problems society faces with risky technologies. It turns out that for a small but influential group of the society not only the risk, but also the transparency of the technology and the engineered safeguards are important. For this group an improvement of the transparency should raise the acceptance of the technology. However, for the majority of the public, broad discussions about a different more transparent safety concept could generate a feeling of insecurity, especially concerning existing nuclear power plants. In order to improve the transparency in engineered safeguards of nuclear reactors, four basic principles are introduced. Nuclear containments, which remain intact after failure of all emergency cooling systems resulting in a core meltdown accident with steam and hydrogen explosions, are in line with these principles. Such containments are under investigation in Germany right now. It is pointed out that the public should be informed prudently about this work to improve the containments, and the required transparency of the engineered safeguards should be underlined as a major goal. Vague descriptions, providing only superficially information about safer reactors, could easily cause misunderstandings. If one goes along this line a simpler and more transparent safety concept employing improved containments will have the potential to raise the acceptance of nuclear reactors.