Social Perception Analysis of Introducing the Nuclear Power Plant Programme in Poland

The aim of the study was an assessment of social aspects of introducing Nuclear Power Plant Programme in Poland (NPP) with special consideration of public participation process. Poland is one of the few European countries without nuclear power, however in 2009 the government has started to develop NPP. For the country, which is one of the largest hard coal producer and the second largest coal consumer in Europe, nuclear power is a real huge transition.

Studies of peoples' perceptions of technological risk, decision making process and sustainable energy transition are crucial in respect to the nuclear power plants impacts’ assessment.

Our methodological approach combines information from both qualitative and quantitative data in order to obtain results which are spectrum of knowledge from existing data (public opinion polls) and the qualitative sociological research. Internet monitoring of the nuclear discourse was being conducted as well as the analysis of public perception and expert assessment of nuclear Energy. To gain the understanding of different groups’ subjectivity we conducted the interviews within Q-methodology [1,2] which is a quantitative-qualitative approach measuring the subjectivity (opinions, beliefs, attitudes of the respondents). In this study, we identify four main Poles’ perspectives on implementing NPP and three different perspectives/narratives of the decision makers.

We present main results of the Q-methodology analysis conducted within chosen polish citizens and decision makers from the Polish government in 2016 and 2017.

[1] Brown SR. 1993. A primer on Q methodology. Operant Subjectivity. 16:91–138.

[2] Webler T, Danielson S, Tuler S. 2009. Using Q method to reveal social perspectives in environmental research. Social and Environmental Research Institute.

Acknowledgement

The studies were supported by financial resources for science in the years 2016-2017 granted for the implementation of the international co-financed project No 3672/IAEA/2017/0 and IAEA Research Contract 18541.