Nuclear Waste Risks and How Do They Influence the Decision Making - Literature review Example

NUCLEAR WASTE RISK AND HOW DO THEY INFLUNCE DECISION MAKING 1. Introduction Making decisions is an important process, as people need to make choices between two or more alternatives that can eventually affect their lives. Similarly, how one would perceive a risk determine his or her decisions about certain things like disposal of nuclear waste. Many believed that risk perceptions varies between scientists or engineers and the public because of differing risk assessment method that could lead to conflict and interference in further development of nuclear technology. The following sections discuss the concept of risk perception and its impact on decision making particularly in the area of nuclear technology development and waste disposal. These include discussions on the relationship between risk perceived by experts and the public and its implications to policy decision making particular in nuclear waste related issues. 2. Risk Perception In terms of hazardous technology management, an important factor in policy decision making is risk perception. Research on risk perception since the 1970s suggest that whenever the public is concern that perception is based entirely on emotional and ignorance of the risk. In contrast, risk perception is objective and correct as far as engineers and scientist are concern (OECD, 2005, p.57). For this reason, a risk-informed decision process according to National Research Council (2006) is often a difficult task whenever significant public stakeholders are participating. For instance, the public mostly see radiation risks as fearful and dangerous (p.1). Therefore, how risk is perceived is an important consideration for decision making by governments, industries, and consumers (OECD, 2010, p.47). Radioactive waste is no doubt a danger to human health and the environment but according to OECD (2010), it is always a danger to public perception regardless of management or presence of waste disposal facilities (p.47). Risk is commonly assessed in objective manner such as scientific and engineering calculations but unfortunately it does represent the degree of risk that affect people will feel – “perceived risk” (ibid, p.48). 3. Relationship between risks from Engineers/Scientist and from Public Point of View Risk perception level varies across groups and genders and according to the study conducted by Lattefer (2008), all nuclear hazards were rated lower by experts than by the public with engineers in between as shown below (p.58). Figure 1 - Result of one-way ANOVA test (Lattefer, 2008) Note that most male member of the public are more concern with risk associated with the environment such as industrial pollution, climate change, ozone layer, and so on while experts are focusing on lifestyle risk such as smoking, alcohol, and so on as shown in Figure 2 below. Figure 2 - Difference in perception of risk - Public, Engineers or experts (Lattefer, 2008) Another study about nuclear waste and perception risks suggest that lack of solution to nuclear waste problem is widely viewed as obstacle in future nuclear power development. This is because it is generally viewed as a safety hazard on its own right coupled by overwhelming public stimulated political opposition who perceived the risks as immense. In contrast, experts and majority of the technical community perceived nuclear wastes as safe since it could be effectively disposed in underground storage (Dunlap et al, 1993, p.64). Calculated and perceived risk can predict reactions of people to risks as wells as enabler of improvement and refinement in the area of quantitative risk assessment. However, regardless of the type perception, risk has important implications on decision making which are often complicating the problem rather than improvements in the process. According to Schwing (1980), the problem with risk is the tendency of technical experts to view risks as a matter of calculation that is more real and valid than public perceptions (p.77). On explanation provided by Margolis (1997) about the relationship between public and experts perceived risk suggest that, the latter often see risk resulting to a narrow range of consequences. In contrast, the public or ordinary people often have a much wider perspective of what is involved. Moreover, there is a tendency for experts to weigh risk against the level of precautions in placed that are inadequate or unacceptable to the public. Ordinary people typically see things differently because they have other concerns such as trust in responsible authorities, risk to future generations, and others (p.1). There is thus a distinction between risk assessment done by experts and those performed by the public. Risk is an estimation of a particular event and its probable consequences as far as scientist and engineers are concern but public risk perception is influenced by psychological and emotional factors related to the risk (Asveld & Roeser, 2009, p.203). Studies on risk perception reveal a common finding that the public have higher perceptions of hazardous risk regardless if it is nuclear or not. Acceptance of technology from the experts’ perspective is always based on quantitative aspects rather than qualitative which most ordinary people prefer. Similarly, the consequences of a particular risk are often calculated by experts in the estimated number of human deaths and the cost of destruction to property. Damaged to ecosystem and non-human forms of life are often neglected while technology acceptance of a certain technology depends on its quantitative benefits particularly when it outweigh the cost. For this reason, the public perception risk is often more broad and complex than experts do (Toth, 2011, p.351). People often find it difficult to accept the probabilistic expressions of risks but they have tendencies to adjust their perceived risk when offered new information about the risk. Some of the factors influencing public perceptions of risks are severity of consequences, familiarity of the risk, reversibility of consequences, impact on children, consequences is equitable or not, risk associated with know risks such as cancer and so forth, and if such risk is taken voluntarily or not (FOA, 1996, p.107). By analysis, the difference between expert assessment and public perception of risk is in the reliability, quality and amount information. For instance, if one would have considerable amount of data, the tendency is to decide based on what the information suggest. However, according to FOA (1996), perceived risks are not necessary a matter of education since it can be economic assessment of the cost of risk avoidance or the benefits of risk-taking (p.107). It can also be on public trust as a result of having similar conclusion as the experts despite lack of scientific knowledge since ordinary people often reflect on what types and sources of knowledge is relevant and decide which should be trusted than others (Hillerbrand et al, 2011, p.4). Risk and trust are inextricably intertwined as lack of trust often result to higher perception of risk (Kakoyannis et al, 2011, p.14) 4. The Influence of Nuclear Waste Risk on Decision Making Political decisions in matters concerning risk are sometimes influenced by perceived public demands (OECD, 2005, p.57). Similarly, decisions concerning the distribution of risk regardless of source are sometimes culture related that are reflections of decisions in the past and the structure of the society who created them (Kemp, 1992, p.21). In nuclear waste decision-making, the population expects that decisions should be made based on their interest. In a study conducted by the Nuclear Energy Agency (2005), 70% of people demand participation in decision making regarding permanent waste disposal while only 30% is willing to participate in decisions that will be made for an automobile plant. Figure 3 - Result of Nuclear Energy Survey in 2005 Moreover, the amount of demand for participation is influenced by a strong sense of mistrust toward social and political institutions. The study also suggests that demand for participation in decision-making is always accompanied by long-term interest of the greater population. For instance, in issues concerning safe storage of nuclear waste, more than 33% of the population considered disposal as a priority while 29% says they need a long-term solution to the waste disposal problem. However, when asked if they will allow building of permanent disposal in their area, 38% of respondents refused (p.141). Figure 4 - Survey result on issues about safe storage of NW The public often evaluate risks with key questions in mind such as whether the institutions that provided the information can be trusted. At this point, factuality of information has no effect on their decisions, as the public cannot assess the risk of being harmed by radiation. Either they must trust one side of the issue or none at all since this is how they evaluate reality (Friedrich et al, 2011, p.84). Social influence is phenomenon where individual judgement is altered by opinions and attitudes of other individuals. According to Melnich & Everitt (2008), this influence can be normative or informational where the latter lead to private acceptance of new belief when he or she found out that his judgement is wrong rather than publicly comply with the influencers with no change of underlying opinion. In the context of nuclear waste today, it must be noted that small insider group whose solutions are often based on technical analysis of the risk no longer influence decisions. Instead, plans and decisions are open to public scrutiny and involve a broad spectrum of society with differing viewpoints. The primary reason is the need to strengthen public trust and acknowledgement of the fact that such participative decision making process will not only lead to greater public confidence but better decisions (p.768). 5. Conclusion Risk perception is an important factor in decision-making thus governments, industries, and others must give important consideration as to how risk is perceived. Public perception of risk is often associated with emotional and lack of knowledge of a particular risk. In contrast, experts or scientist and engineers’ risk perception is objective and based on scientific facts. Moreover, risk perception varies not only with experts and the public but also across groups and genders. Experts tend to rate nuclear hazards lower than the public. Men are more interested in the harmful effects of industries in the environment while experts see smoking, alcohol, and others as more detrimental to humans. Experts such as scientist and engineers tend to view risks using a narrow range of consequences while the public are more concern with trust as influenced by psychological and emotional factors. Issues on nuclear waste is no longer decided internally using technical analysis of the risk but consultative in nature, open to public scrutiny, and involving people with different viewpoints. 6. 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