Survey on nuclear energy in Singapore

[sunshine1995]

Hi, I am seeking your help to complete this survey: http://goo.gl/forms/4kIAD9DrLc
It aims to explore how the public in Singapore views nuclear energy.

If you need participants to do your survey, you can post it here and I will help you finish it!

Thank you!

[ecureilx]

Hi, I am seeking your help to complete this survey: http://goo.gl/forms/4kIAD9DrLc
It aims to explore how the public in Singapore views nuclear energy.

If you need participants to do your survey, you can post it here and I will help you finish it!

Thank you!

Why do you need to know how much I earn, what's my qualification and my race, for a nuclear energy survey ?

[x9200]

Hi, I am seeking your help to complete this survey: http://goo.gl/forms/4kIAD9DrLc
It aims to explore how the public in Singapore views nuclear energy.

If you need participants to do your survey, you can post it here and I will help you finish it!

Thank you!

Too technical for the members of general public. Even if you aim at gathering emotionally based responses to some key-words/phrases, there will be high risk people may not be able to distinguish between the key-words.
On top of this, you have also things like, PR as a nationality, or asking people under the same set to rate nuclear accidents and contamination.

[sunshine1995]

Why do you need to know how much I earn, what's my qualification and my race, for a nuclear energy survey ?

Hi, thanks for your comment. These information is used to see whether I have collected responses from a variety of people. Singapore is made up of several races, so it is better to see how people think across their ethnicity. Similarly for qualification and income. Hope you can help me do the survey.

[sunshine1995]

Too technical for the members of general public. Even if you aim at gathering emotionally based responses to some key-words/phrases, there will be high risk people may not be able to distinguish between the key-words.
On top of this, you have also things like, PR as a nationality, or asking people under the same set to rate nuclear accidents and contamination.

Hi, thanks for your feedback and you are right. Several respondents have said the same thing to me. I have fixed the nationality question. As for nuclear accidents and contamination, i was hoping that these two are associated to different things: immediate effect on health/environment: loss of lives, direct contact with a high amount of radiation, etc vs prolonged consequences on health/environment which go unnoticed and unseen in short term.

Hope I can some how clear your doubts.

[x9200]

Thanks. Makes sense.

One question left that would be very interesting to know the answer from the general public, is whether people are really aware of the consequences of any catastrophic failure. Singapore is not Japan or Ukraine. If anything very bad happens this will mean the end of Singapore in any practical aspect it exists today. This single thing outweighs IMO any considerations on the economy and political safety benefits. Nothing is 100% proof so whatever promise the current state of art science may carry it is only a probability and always below 1. If the fate of the whole nation is at stake I would be most hesitant to take such risk.

[sunshine1995]

Thanks for the suggestion x9200. I think many people think like you. From what I read up, risk = magnitude x probability. Lay people are hesitant to take risk when it comes to nuclear energy because they inflate the probability and sometimes the magnitude as well. The actual probability of having a nuclear accident is quite small but yes the consequences can be devastating. Additionally, people are also very much affected by sensational event like Fukushima. I was too and I thought having a plant here is too risky. So I did a little research, nobody died or was sick from the radiation due to the Fukushima meltdown. The deaths were due to the earthquake and the tsunami that followed.

[x9200]

I think you missed the point. Singapore don't have the land, space, area for any catastrophic failure of this type to happen.

What this tell you?


Although the contamination was relatively limited even in the most affected areas it was still there and exceeding by 2-3 orders of magnitude typical ambient radiation. The radius of the most affected area was of the size of Singapore. The Japanese evacuated their people. Where would you like to evacuate 6 million residents of Singapore? For how long? How would this affect Singapore's economy? How much would cost to recover (decontaminate) the land, buildings, infrastructure, all the green areas?

I am not going to even make an attempt to compare it to what happened in Chernobyl.

[ecureilx]

. So I did a little research, nobody died or was sick from the radiation due to the Fukushima meltdown. The deaths were due to the earthquake and the tsunami that followed.

Wrong.

Nobody died immediately but the deaths have started ... death due to radiaton.

Plus, my 2 cents, for most people nuclear energy conjures the image of huge plants that can go out of control, gets destroyed by natural disaster etc.

Try this for a change : see how often nuclear powered aircraft carriers and submarines visit Singapore.

And try and research how safe the plants used on board the carriers and submarine are.

I believe there is room for nuclear power, vs the current gas fired Codag plants used here, especially when it comes to carbon emission etc.

[sunshine1995]

I think you missed the point. Singapore don't have the land, space, area for any catastrophic failure of this type to happen.

What this tell you?


Although the contamination was relatively limited even in the most affected areas it was still there and exceeding by 2-3 orders of magnitude typical ambient radiation. The radius of the most affected area was of the size of Singapore. The Japanese evacuated their people. Where would you like to evacuate 6 million residents of Singapore? For how long? How would this affect Singapore's economy? How much would cost to recover (decontaminate) the land, buildings, infrastructure, all the green areas?

I am not going to even make an attempt to compare it to what happened in Chernobyl.

I see where you are coming from. There have been proposals that the nuclear plant can be constructed on one of Singapore' s islands or even underground so that any leakages could be contained. I am not an expert on the technical part concerning nuclear energy but my guess is the combined capacity of the reactors in fukushima is quite huge, hence the large evacuation radius. The peak electricity usage in Singapore is about 5000MW, I dont think the government would build a plant that can produce more than this. Again, i am coming from the risk equation perspective: what is the odd of Singapore suffering from an earthquake of similar scale or any natural disaster of the sort? Of course, in order to win the public, the government has to make known all the safety measures and prepare for all kinds of circumstances. The scenario that you project is indeed grim, i dont know how to answer the questions posed. However, I believe when it comes to policy making, it is impossible to have it all figured out. If i have to give you an answer that would be: the probability of that happening, in my opinion, is near 0. As for Chernobyl, the state of technology, the safety precaution, the expertise now is very different from then.

[sunshine1995]

. So I did a little research, nobody died or was sick from the radiation due to the Fukushima meltdown. The deaths were due to the earthquake and the tsunami that followed.

Wrong.

Nobody died immediately but the deaths have started ... death due to radiaton.

Plus, my 2 cents, for most people nuclear energy conjures the image of huge plants that can go out of control, gets destroyed by natural disaster etc.

Try this for a change : see how often nuclear powered aircraft carriers and submarines visit Singapore.

And try and research how safe the plants used on board the carriers and submarine are.

I believe there is room for nuclear power, vs the current gas fired Codag plants used here, especially when it comes to carbon emission etc.

yes. that is a possibility. the health consequences due to radioactive contamination may take time to be detected. That is one of the huge setback of having nuclear power when there is an accident.

[JR8]

If the fate of the whole nation is at stake I would be most hesitant to take such risk.

I haven't looked at the survey yet, but this^ was my first impression too.
The UK had it's own mini 'Chernobyl' back in the 50s, at the Windscale plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windscale_fire The radioactive fall-out directly impacted a 300 mile radius, i.e. about 8* the width of Singapore. So I doubt SG has the geography to sustain such a risk by going nuclear.

[sunshine1995]

I took a quick look at my survey responses, most of the Singaporeans who took the survey are either against nuclear energy or give conditional support (having the choice to stay far away from the plant).