Chairman Kim Ho-sung of the Korea Nuclear Energy Agency (KNEA) called for a shift to responsiveness in communications to ease public misgivings about nuclear energy and cope with urgent energy issues. In his New Year’s message, KNEA Chairman Kim said, “The new Post-2020 Climate Change Regime was launched officially last Nov. 4, and the international pact, declaring the fact that coal and petroleum-oriented fossil fuel era will not be sustainable, calls a for a new paradigm shift in human beings’ using of energies.”
“Energies are not only a global cause of preserving the environment of the Earth, but also they are thorny national issues, which have an impact on national prosperity,” he said. “This year marks the 40th years since Kori Nuclear Power Unit 1 was put into commercial operation in 1978, and now is a time in which solutions of the pending nuclear power issues related to new nuclear power units and how to treat spent nuclear fuel are badly needed,” the chairman added.
“If we fail to reach an agreement through communication and consensus in the course of the implementation of major nuclear issues, including the strengthening of nuclear safety and spent nuclear fuel management, we have confirmed that exhaustive disputes and arguments will have a massive social cost,” he said.
He called for a paradigm shift in communications toward pending nuclear issues to solve public misgivings. He stressed the need to gather a wide range of public views by providing objective and detailed information based on scientific facts and facilitating communications that correspond to public demands and expectations, departing from the past’s one-sided supplier-oriented approach.
KNEA Signs MOU on Collaboration with SNU-NEPC
KNEA has teamed up with Seoul National University Nuclear Energy Policy Center (SNU-NEPC) to promote public trust of nuclear power.
KNEA signed an MOU on ways to promote trust of nuclear power through information provision, communications and the collection of opinions with SNU-NEPC to implement diverse collaboration programs, including academic surveys to solve nuclear power conflicts and promote public acceptance, policy research and seminars.
In particular, both institutions plan to implement in-depth programs involving advice from policy center experts, including ways of proving nuclear power information through communications corresponding to public needs and expectations and fact-checking of unconfirmed nuclear power information.
The singing of the agreement takes on significance as the institution specializing in nuclear power communications and the independent technology research body joined forces to explore detailed ways of promoting public trust toward nuclear power.
On Jan 12, KNEA also signed an MOU on building consensus in the nuclear energy sector with the Kyunghee University Future Society Energy Police Research Institute.
“The providing of information based on scientific expertise, the enhancing of public awareness, and communications in consideration of such things as public acceptance are essential to improve public trust toward nuclear power,” KNEA Chairman Kim said.
He said the signing of agreements with institutions specializing in not only technology and policy but all other areas, including humanities and social sciences, are expected to serve as a first step to expanding a groundwork for communications on nuclear power.
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