What Opinions Do People Have Through the Understanding Concerning High-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Project?

In Japan, the implementation of the high-level radioactive waste (HLW) disposal is one of urgent issues in the situation that Japan will continue the use of nuclear power. But, the lay people may not have the sufficient amount of information and knowledge about HLW disposal to hold their opinions about this issue. In this research, in order to clarify what opinions they will have with enough information and knowledge, we had the face-to-face dialogues about the HLW disposal with 2 or 3 lay persons. The dialogues were conducted 11 times with different lay persons’ groups. In these dialogues, after the lay participants had a certain amount of knowledge about HLW disposal, they became to talk about their opinions to the HLW disposal program in Japan. These opinions included the doubt against the open solicitation to select the siting area in the HLW disposal program of Japan, the emotion like NIMBY, the indication of lack of public relations about HLW disposal, and so on.