Nuclear and Radioactive Waste Management Communication for a Safe Future

1. SIEN, octombrie 2009 Radioactive waste management communication and Nuclear communication: Two players for ONE SAFE FUTURE Authors: Stela Diaconu, Ilinca Covreag ANDRAD

2. SIEN, octombrie 2009 Content • Communication goals • Target groups • Messages • Tools • Feedback assessment • Efficiency monitoring ANDRAD

3. SIEN, octombrie 2009 Communication goals • Nuclear Communication (NC) • promoting nuclear energy and applications; • getting public trust and confidence in nuclear power as a reliable source of clean, safe and not expensive energy; • getting public acceptance for power plants siting and construction; • done by Nuclear Agency and by Nuclear Power Companies (SNN and Energonuclear) • Radioactive Waste Management Communication (RWMC) • making the public aware of the existence and characteristics of RW; • making the public aware of the disposal necessity; • getting the public trust in the safety of the disposal techniques; • getting public acceptance for repositories siting and construction; • done by the waste management agency (ANDRAD) • Notes: • NC includes RWMC in its sphere, RWMC does not include references to promoting theexpansion of nuclear and nuclear capabilities, being not involved in these issues. On the other hand, a good RWMC can be very useful to NC, because it may diminish one of the great concerns of the public about nuclear energy, namely the one related to solving the problem ofradioactive waste. ANDRAD

4. SIEN, octombrie 2009 Target groups • Target groups are basically the same for NC and RWMC: • General public • Politicians; • NGO’s; • Local communities • Media • but actually they differ sometimes: The repository siting community can be the same as that which host the power plant or may be different. • Example: • NC and RWMC have a common target when we are talking about DFDSMA project – this target is the community near Cernavoda NPP. The targets may be different in the case of the geological repository ANDRAD

5. SIEN, octombrie 2009 Messages:The hierarchical system of main messages The hierarchical system of the main messages are basically the same for NC and RWMC. First of all our facts should prove a lot of consideration for the people and the environment. ANDRAD

6. SIEN, octombrie 2009 Main Messages

7. SIEN, octombrie 2009 Main Messages • In both cases, siting of a NPP and siting of a repository, two main factors influence the public acceptance: safety of the facility and communities benefits; • The perception exists that radioactive waste management involves risks that are higher than operating nuclear power plants; the reason may be the low visibility of the waste repositories’ benefits; • At NPP’s the safety can be more easily proved and the confidence can be obtained; in the repositories case, due to the long-term frames involved (especially for geological repositories), the safety is not easy to be proved and the confidence is low and hard to be achieved. ANDRAD

8. SIEN, octombrie 2009 Tools Same tools for NC and RWMC: • Media tools: press conferences, press releases, workshops/trainings for journalists, interviews, etc; • Publications: flyers, brochures, annual reports, posters, etc; • Websites; • Debates: public debates, meeting with formal liders, scientific events, etc; • Opinion polls; • etc These tools are used in a individual way – each organization has its own strategy, but they also can be used in an integrated way (common activities such us: common public debates, scientific conferences, common media conferences, etc) ANDRAD

9. SIEN, octombrie 2009 Feedback assessment • NC and also RWMC receive permanently a real feedback, which deserve a close attention and is periodically analyzed, from: • Media : journalists are the gatekeepers (ours ideas and information are filtred for publication ) showing us which messages are important and which are not for the public, which are the public’s concerns, the misperceptions and the interests. We receive this feedback from papers, conferences, formal and informal discussions or surveys applied to the journalists ; • Politicians:the feedback from politicians is represented by their awareness level regarding nuclear and radioactive waste management field. We can receive this feedback from their public statements on the strategy for nuclear energy development and formal discussions; • NGO’s:they express attitudes pro or against nuclear issues which must be taken into account; • Local communities:the most important feedback consists in the acceptance level for the construction of new nuclear facilities (power plants or repositories); • General public:its feedback can be assessed meainly throughopinion polls. Notes: Feedback assessment is an integrated part of efficiency monitoring, and represents a very useful tool in improving our communication strategies on short and long-term. ANDRAD

10. SIEN, octombrie 2009 Efficiency monitoring • Media analysis: At the end of each year, we perform a media analysis. The results of 2008 analysis revealed significant increase of ANDRAD presence in media – 37 articles in the written press, 2 news stories on TVR1 news bulletins and a one hour talk show at Radio România Actualităţi on the topic of radioactive waste. • Opinion polls: As regards the opinion polls, we are using the results of three surveys: a national one, performed in 2006 in the frame of a PHARE Project, which represents a photograph of the starting moment in the communication activity of ANDRAD, allowing on one side the improvement of the communication strategy and on the other side the assessment of the evolution in time of the public perception by periodically applying the survey, a second national opinion poll, similar with that of 2006, performed in 2008, and the Eurobarometer 2008 “Attitudes towards radioactive waste”, which included Romania among the surveyed countries. • Romanians are 67,7% in favor of nuclear energy production: Romanians are 11% less informed that the EU citizens on radioactive waste: • Both, media analysis and opinion polls are instruments which allows the assessment of the evolution in the public perception of nuclear energy and radioactive waste • Institutional image analysis: by integrating the results of the above mentioned instruments, one can assess the level of public trust in their institution and can perform a SWOT analysis of it ANDRAD

11. SIEN, octombrie 2009 Conclusions • In conclusion, NC includes RWMC in its sphere but RWMC does not include references to promoting the expansion of nuclear and nuclear capabilities, being not involved in these issues. On the other hand, a good RWMC can be very useful to NC, because it may diminish one of the great concerns of the public about nuclear energy, namely the one related to solving the problem of radioactive waste. Finally, both communication processes are working hard for the same purpose: ONE SAFE FUTURE. ANDRAD