After Fukushima

A year on from the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami which created a succession of failures in the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant in Japan, Ipsos has brought together a pamphlet of its latest thinking on public attitudes to energy policy around the globe.

The pamphlet considers:

• Attitudes around the globe to nuclear power
• Public opinion and alternative energy sources
• Global concern about long-term environmental and energy policy issues
• The relationship between public opinion and energy dependency, intensity and use of nuclear energy

What is clear throughout is that the public supports the fundamental policy aims of protecting supplies, diversifying sources and stabilising costs. However, views on how governments should achieve this, and on the role of nuclear power in particular, are influenced by social, cultural, economic and political factors to a far greater extent than more fundamental measures such as power usage or energy dependency.