Small reduction in the strong support for nuclear

After the recent development at Forsmark NPP a small reduction in the support of nuclear can be observed among the Swedish population. This reduction seems to deviate from the trend of the increasing support that has been observed in the last years. The situation now is comparable to the situation e few years ago.

The amount of Swedes willing to use or develop nuclear has decreased from 80 % in June and November 2006 to 77 % in February 2007. The amount preferring phasing out nuclear has in the same time increased from 15 till 20 %.

The poll also asked the Swedes to estimate the safety at the Swedish NPPs. On a scale from 1 to 10, where 10 is the highest level of safety and 1 the lowest, the average level decreased from 7.6 in June 2006 to 7.1 in February 2007.

The poll was carried out by Swedish polling organisation Synovate Temo on behalf of The Analysis Group of the Swedish Nuclear Training and Safety Center (KSU) from 5 to 8 February 2007 – the same period when scrutiny of Forsmark led to the resignation of the head of the plant’s operating company.

The figure below shows the development of Swedes opinion about nuclear since 2001.