Interview with Bjorn Stigson, former President WBCSD, at ThEC15 in Mumbai

More on Thorium at: www.thoriumenergyworld.com/
Watch Björn Stigson, Former President of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, talk about sustainability, thorium energy’s potential role in the world’s future energy mix, and public perception of nuclear in an interview conducted during the Thorium Energy Conference in Mumbai.
Mr. Stigson has worked with energy and sustainable development issues for more than 25 years. ‘I think the world is clearly facing a situation where we will have to move to a low carbon economy. That has to happen in the context where we know that over the next 25 years we will increase energy demand by some 40 percent. So how do we then create an energy system that is not destroying the climate? We need to look at low carbon energy sources, and nuclear is one such energy source. Traditional nuclear is met with quite a lot of scepticism from the public - thorium represents potentially one of the new nuclear technologies that could have a higher degree of acceptability.’
‘The challenge is that actually nuclear has been pretty safe but it is perceived by people to be out of their control. Compare it with smoking. Smoking is more lethal than nuclear but you decide yourself.’ explains Mr. Stigson the problem with nuclear. ‘We are faced with a perception problem and people are nervous about the risks. This is a very difficult issue in many countries and it is not easy for the governments to push for nuclear.’ he continues.
The question then is, who will deliver the trust that nuclear is ok? In his speech, Mr. Stigson talked about different roles in society. ‘Government and business don’t have much trust with the public. The natural suppliers of trust are civil societies. Academia has trust but they are normally not good communicators. If we want to have more nuclear, we need to find a partnership between governments, business, academia and the civil society.’
Government's’ role should be that of creating the regulatory framework. Mr. Stigson does not believe in state-run enterprises anywhere. ‘I don’t think you can build a broad program and rely on state-owned companies to be efficient. What we see in other parts of the world, is that the energy system is owned by private enterprises.’
Mr. Stigson sees the potential in thorium energy and believes thorium technology is close to a breakthrough, based on the presentations in Mumbai. Having the technology accepted by the public is another thing. ‘I think that thorium energy has a clear potential. One has to really think about how to market that. If you make it sound like traditional old nuclear energy, it’s not going to fly. One has to re-brand it into something else, otherwise people won’t buy it.’

[@achalhp]

Thanks for posting these interviews. Person who conducts these interview is a genius, very apt questions.

[@ItheoOrg]

+Achal H P Thanks for the kind words Achal!