Nuclear metaphors: Why risk communication and public education haven't worked

Broad public acceptability is a necessary condition for the future success of nuclear power in the US and will be determined by the way the public perceives nuclear power - specifically, through nuclear power's metaphoric equivalences. A content analysis of a cross section of the debate over nuclear power shows that the public does not share a single concept of what nuclear power is - nuclear energy has yet to be firmly anchored in a particular context or caught in a web of relations to the rest of society. The political battleground for the contest over nuclear power is not patterns of risk perception or shortcomings in public education but rather nuclear power as metaphor. For example, is nuclear power a factory producing electricity, or is it indistinguishable from nuclear weapons? By highlighting the metaphors that underlie competing conceptions of nuclear power, one can illuminate parts of the political debate that otherwise are consigned to psychology, irrationality, or ignorance. Understanding these metaphors also makes clear the kind of deep changes that would be necessary to secure public acceptance of nuclear power