Public and media acceptance of nuclear materials transport

Transport is absolutely essential to the continued existence of a nuclear industry that includes large-scale power generation, sophisticated research, and medicine. Indeed, transport of nuclear materials is hardly a new business. What is new is the publicʹs awareness and distrust of this transport a distrust fuelled by the wellfunded and skilled manipulation of the nuclear industryʹs detractors. The nuclear industry itself has only recently begun to acknowledge the importance and the implications of transport. This paper looks at the public and media response to the European-Japanese and the US Department of Energyʹs transport campaigns and quotes from several telling newspaper articles. It emphasizes the need for the nuclear industry to continue to be vigilant in its efforts to reach the public, media and governments with good science, openness and wellcommunicated facts.