What affects college students’ acceptance of nuclear energy? Evidence from China

With the increasing environmental pollution and carbon dioxide (CO ₂ ) emissions in recent years, the importance of nuclear energy (an important non-fossil energy) to China's sustainable development has been growing. The public acceptance of nuclear power would directly affect China's promotion of nuclear energy. Because college students play an important role in the social development, their acceptance of nuclear energy would to a great extent represent and affect the public attitude. Thus, their acceptance of nuclear power would influence the prevalence of nuclear energy and guide China's efforts to improve the energy mix by reducing the reliance on fossil energy. As such, it is necessary to understand the factors influencing college students’ acceptance of nuclear energy. In this study, using the latest survey data collected via a questionnaire survey of college students in China's capital city of Beijing, a carefully designed structural equation model is employed to identify and investigate the most important factors influencing college students’ acceptance of nuclear energy. Estimation results from partial least-squares analysis indicate that safety perception, perceived benefits, environmental awareness, social trust and perceived nuclear knowledge have significant positive impacts on the acceptance of nuclear power. Moreover, there is evidence that the proximity of nuclear power plants has a significant negative impact on the acceptance.