The attitudes towards further construction of nuclear power plants were also studied from a more topical viewpoint. Respondents were asked their opinions on how many new power plants should be granted a construction permit in Finland in the near future¹. The results show a significant diversity of attitudes. All figures receive noteworthy support. The single largest group is formed by those who do not wish to grant a permit to a single power plant (37%). One in five accept one power plant (20%), two power plant permits are supported by about one out of seven (15%) and three permits receive support from one tenth (10%). The 'limitless' number, which depends on the will of constructors, receives support from about one out of ten (9%) [Figure 4a.].

When the alternatives are summed up, fairly positive attitudes can be seen. If the shares of those who are in favour of granting one or more permits are added together, it can be seen that even a majority of Finns (54%) is in favour of constructing at least one new unit [Figure 4b.]. The result measured this way is more positive towards nuclear power than the above-mentioned result on opinions at the principle level (44% in favour of increasing and 26% in favour of decreasing the use of nuclear power, Chapter 2.1). A natural background assumption is that a permit and a power plant are the same, i.e. the granted permits are considered to be realised in the form of constructing new power plants. The questions are also separated by the time frame: one question has a clearly defined time frame ('in the near future') while the other does not include a time frame. Altogether, the result shows that citizens are ready to approve the further construction of nuclear power plants to some extent.

If the results are studied in accordance with political views (how people are going to vote in the following general election), a certain congruity with the current discussions can be observed. The definitions of the measures publicly presented by the largest parties can be also seen in the opinions of their supporters. The supporters of the National Coalition Party stand clearly out from the supporters of the Centre Party and the Social Democratic Party as they are more permissive. Then again, the opinions of the Centre Party and the Social Democratic Party are quite uniform. However, the supporters of the Centre Party and the Social Democratic Party also provide somewhat more support for further nuclear power plants than all citizens on average (the share of the choice 'none' is smaller for the supporters of these parties than for all citizens) [Figure 4c.]. The connections of other background factors with the permit opinion are described in the following chapter, which also surveys the differences in the assessments by population groups more generally.

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