This article examines the role of the Spanish Atomic Forum as the representative of the nuclear sector in the public arena during the golden years of the nuclear power industry from the 1960s to 1970s. It focuses on the public image concerns of the Spanish nuclear lobby and the subsequent information campaigns launched during the late 1970s to counteract demonstrations by the growing and heterogeneous anti-nuclear movement. The role of advocacy of nuclear energy by (...) the Atomic Forum was similar to that in other countries, but the situation in Spain had some distinguishing features. Anti-nuclear protest in Spain peaked in 1978 paralleling the debates of a new National Energy Plan in Congress, whose first draft had envisaged a massive nuclearization of the country. We show how the approval of the Plan in July 1979, with a significant reduction in the nuclear energy component, was influenced by the anti-nuclear protest movements in Spain. Despite the efforts of the Spanish Atomic Forum to counter its message, the anti-nuclear movement was strengthened by reactions to the Three Mile Island accident in March 1979. (shrink)

Given the known hazards of nuclear energy in seismically active Japan after the Fukushima meltdowns as well as the presence of viable conservation and renewable energy options, the question of Japan’s stalled energy transition warrants critical interrogation. To better understand why, after Fukushima, Japan’s energy policy trajectory maintained the nuclear status quo and an increased reliance on fossil fuels, this article employs network and historical analyses to examine the confluence of post-Fukushima political forces connected to Japan’s nuclear (...) energy sector. Our novel network dataset combines with historical analysis to identify a dense network of overlapping executives and officials in Japan that forge long-term ties between the nuclear energy industry, the state, and the leading business federation in Japan. Following the 3.11 disaster and the meltdowns at the Fukushima-Daiichi facility, a long-standing nuclear safety myth and a tightly networked nuclear energy industrial complex provided an ideological and structural context to re-legitimize nuclear energy in spite of widespread public concern. Instead of a bold, ecologically rational policy to quickly phase out nuclear power and phase in renewable energy, well-worn class and state networks aligned to recommit Japan to a nuclear-reliant energy path. These findings support a theoretical synthesis around our concept of an energy industrial complex with applications in environmental and political sociology. (shrink)

Between 1939 and 1959, the regime led by General Franco pursued a policy of economic self-sufficiency. This policy inflicted great injury on Spanish science and industry, not least in Catalonia, and in its capital, Barcelona. In response, Catalan industry looked to a future made more promising by the advent of nuclear power. This paper describes the innovative role of an industrial body, the Official Chamber of Industry of Barcelona, in catalyzing one the first programmes of teaching (...) and research in nuclear engineering in Spain. (shrink)

Nuclear power has never been free from the stifling involvement of government. Heavy regulation has reduced the ability of entrepreneurs to develop and provide new means for the generation of energy using nuclear fuel. The strict parameters dictated by government officials are based upon outdated technology, an improper regulatory philosophy, and preclude innovation in nuclear power generation. Anti-market environmentalists misunderstand the implications of a free market in nuclear power and argue against it based on problems that (...) are actually caused by government involvement. Our position is neither for nor against nuclear power. We advocate a hands-off policy where the nuclear industry is left to its own devices, free from governmental regulations and subsidies: free to succeed or fail on its own. Thus, our position is neither right-wing conservative (removing regulations), nor left-wing liberal (removing subsidies). Very much to the contrary of both positions, we propose a free-market in nuclear power. (shrink)

The nation’s nuclear power industry is in trouble. The number of operating reactors continues to decline, while only one new plant is scheduled to open and it is well behind schedule and 50% over budget. The article will investigate the possibility of a nuclear revival in this country by first analyzing the troubled history of the light water reactor, a technology that dates back to the 1950s, and one the federal government choose to pursue to ensure America’s (...) technological leadership, and one the nuclear manufactures heavily promoted to ensure profitability. All of this resulted in a rush to nuclear power in the 1960s, but abruptly ended a little more than a decade later, due largely to the exorbitant costs of constructing a nuclear plant. The article then discusses the chances of a nuclear comeback, focusing on new reactor designs, which are less complex and cheaper to construct but will be dependent upon how seriously global warming is viewed by the public and elected officials. (shrink)

ONKALO, the world’s first repository for the final disposal of spent nuclear fuel, is being constructed in Eurajoki, Finland. We study how the constructor of this facility portrays it to the local community in order to influence lay understanding of the disposal risk, build trust, and gain public approval for the construction project. The study is based on a framing analysis of the newsletters published by the constructor of the facility in 2000-2014. The results suggest that the nuclear (...) industry has developed increasing understanding of the social and communal aspects of public resistance to nuclear power. To create trust and to increase acceptance locally the industry is socially constructing a nuclear community around the repository. The gap between the nuclear experts and the local residents is narrowed and the repository is portrayed as being a shared project within the local community advancing the common interests of the industry and the residents. This may represent a new trend in pronuclear storytelling. (shrink)

Despite the nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan, a growing number of countries are interested in expanding or introducing nuclear energy. However, nuclear energy production and nuclear waste disposal give rise to pressing ethical questions that society needs to face. This book takes up this challenge with essays by an international team of scholars focusing on the key issues of risk, justice, and democracy. The essays consider a range of ethical issues, including radiological (...) protection, the influence of gender in the acceptability of nuclear risk, and environmental, international, and intergenerational justice in the context of nuclear energy. They also address the question of when, and under which conditions, nuclear energy should play a role in the world's future supply of electricity, looking at both developing and industrialized countries. The book will interest readers in ethics and political philosophy, social and political sciences, nuclear engineering, and policy studies. (shrink)

The first part of this book (“Social Waste and Non-Commodity Waste, and the Individual Circuit of Capital”) will probably be of most interest to readers of this journal. The author argues that Marx’s formula for individual circuits of capital does not allow a fully adequate comprehension of capitalism. Marx discusses the initial money capital invested (M), the commodity inputs purchased with investment capital (C), the production process (P), the new commodities produced (C’), and the money appropriated from sales of those (...) commodities (M’). Custers insists that two other elements must be included: the non-commodity waste produced in the course of commodity production, and the social waste that results when commodities have “negative use-values” (this occurs when their use inflicts net harm on society). He takes the pollution generated in the course of producing nuclear energy as the main example of non-commodity waste, while nuclear weapons provide the paradigmatic illustration of social waste. Custers adds symbols for these two phenomena (-W and =W, respectively) to Marx’s M-C-P-C’-M formula. The discussion of the profound environmental costs of each and every stage in the production of nuclear energy warrants special mention due to its clarity and comprehensiveness. Representatives of the nuclear industry and their allies are becoming increasingly emboldened to propose nuclear energy as the solution to global warming. Many of us suspect this is an insane idea. But it is important to know precisely why this.. (shrink)

We analyse managerial discourse in corporate communication (‘CEO-speak’) during a 6-month period following a legitimacy-threatening event in the form of an incident in a German nuclear power plant. As discourses express specific stances expressed by a group of people who share particular beliefs and values, they constitute an important means of restoring organisational legitimacy when social rules and norms have been violated. Using an analytical framework based on legitimacy as a process of reciprocal sense-making and consisting of three levels (...) of analysis which capture the relationship between text and context, we investigate the discourse used by CEOs in their initial and subsequent accounts of the incident. We find that CEOs aim to negotiate a resolution between their initial account and organisational audiences’ incongruent interpretations of the event by adopting an ad hoc normative attitude to stakeholders. This manifests itself in the strategic use of the discourse of stakeholder engagement as a means of signalling change, yet maintaining the status quo. It suggests that CEOs strategically use discourse to manufacture organisational audiences’ consent regarding the continued operation of the nuclear power plant affected by the incident. Our findings contribute to the critical corporate communication literature which regards corporate narrative reporting as a means of consolidating the private interests of corporations, rather than increasing transparency and accountability. (shrink)

In this article, we argue that scientists and technologists associated with the nuclear industry are building support for small modular reactors by advancing five rhetorical visions imbued with elements of fantasy that cater to various social expectations. The five visions are as follows: a vision of risk-free energy would eliminate catastrophic accidents and meltdowns. A vision of indigenous self-energization would see SMRs empowering remote communities and developing economies. A vision of water security would see SMR-powered desalination plants satisfying (...) the world’s water needs. A vision of environmental nirvana would see SMRs providing waste-free and carbon-free electricity to preserve the earth’s biosphere. A vision of space exploration would see SMRs assisting in the colonization of the moon, Mars, and possibly other worlds. These visions help create a symbolic convergence among promoters, serving to attract political and financial support, and erasing previous nuclear failures from public discourse. Moreover, underlying these visions is a technological utopian ideal world where SMRs would generate plentiful energy of multiple kinds, offering the necessary means for a life of comfort for all people by meeting various needs and without any environmental externalities or cause for concern about accidents. (shrink)

Merck suppressed data on harmful effects of its drug Vioxx, and Guidant suppressed data on electrical flaws in one of its heart-defibrillator models. Both cases reveal how financial conflicts of interest can skew biomedical research. Such conflicts also occur in electric-utility-related research. Attempting to show that increased atomic energy can help address climate change, some industry advocates claim nuclear power is an inexpensive way to generate low-carbon electricity. Surveying 30 recent nuclear analyses, this paper shows that (...) class='Hi'>industry-funded studies appear to fall into conflicts of interest and to illegitimately trim cost data in several main ways. They exclude costs of full-liability insurance, underestimate interest rates and construction times by using overnight costs, and overestimate load factors and reactor lifetimes. If these trimmed costs are included, nuclear-generated electricity can be shown roughly 6 times more expensive than most studies claim. After answering four objections, the paper concludes that, although there may be reasons to use reactors to address climate change, economics does not appear to be one of them. (shrink)

On March 11, 2011, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and thirty-eightmeter high tsunami destroyed Tokyo Electric’s Fukushima nuclear power complex. The disaster was not a high-damage, low-probability event. It was a high-damage, high-probability event. Massive earthquakes and tsunamis assault the coast every century. Tokyo Electric built its reactors as it did because it would not pay the full cost of a meltdown anyway. Given the limited liability at the heart of corporate law, it could externalize the cost of running reactors. (...) In most industries, firms rarely risk tort damages so enormous they cannot pay them. In nuclear power, “unpayable” potential liability is routine. Privately owned companies bear the costs of an accident only up to the fire-sale value of their net assets. Beyond that, they pay nothing — and the damages from a nuclear disaster easily soar past that point. Government ownership could eliminate this moral hazard — but it would replace it with problems of its own. Unfortunately, the electoral dynamics in wealthy modern democracies combine to replicate nearly perfectly the moral hazard inherent in private ownership. Private firms will build reactors on fault lines — but so will governments. (shrink)

This article examines public communication about atomic energy as an important vector in the political, institutional, and technological transformations of Ukraine's nuclear industry since the breakup of the USSR. It explores the ongoing effort to make the atom more domestic, familiar, human, and accessible against the not-so-distant backdrop of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986. The central focus of this article is the analysis of children's drawings of nuclear power stations produced for art contests organized by (...) local nuclear information centers. These contests and other activities of the centers have contributed to the increased visibility of nuclear power in Ukraine. The drawings reveal the inscription of the atom into complex representations about the Ukrainian nation, its past, present, traditions, and modernity. The analysis of these drawings as well as government and nuclear power station (NPP) documents, press articles, and interviews indicates that the notion of the “domestication” of the atom is a particularly appropriate way to describe the banalization of nuclear technologies in Ukraine. (shrink)

The acquisition of a nuclear power reactor from the North American company Westinghouse in 1964 not only brought atomic practices and knowledge to Spain but also introduced new methods of industrial organization and management, as well as regulations created by organizations such as the US Atomic Energy Commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency. This article analyzes the history of the knowledge, regulations and experimental practices relating to radiation safety and protection that traveled with this reactor to an industrial (...) space: the Zorita nuclear power plant. Within this space, the appropriation, use, and coproduction of knowledge and practices were conditioned by political, economic, industrial and social factors, and by the engineers, researchers and other professionals who contributed expert knowledge. Material held in the Tecnatom Historical Archive—the engineering company that coordinated construction of the plant—is the main source for this work, which delves into the history of knowledge and atomic technologies and adds to the historiography of radiological protection in Spain. (shrink)

The first nuclear engineers emerged from the Manhattan Project in the USA, UK and Canada, but remained hidden behind security for a further decade. Cosseted and cloistered by their governments, they worked to explore applications of atomic energy at a handful of national labs. This unique bottom-up history traces how the identities of these unusually voiceless experts - forming a uniquely state-managed discipline - were shaped in the context of pre-war nuclear physics, wartime industrial management, post-war politics and (...) utopian energy programmes. Even after their eventual emergence at universities and companies, nuclear workers carried the enduring legacy of their origins. Their shared experiences shaped not only their identities, but our collective memories of the late twentieth century. And as illustrated by the Fukushima accident seven decades after the Manhattan project began, this book explains why they are still seen conflictingly as selfless heroes or as mistrusted guardians of a malevolent genie. (shrink)

Ethics requires good science. Many scientists, government leaders, and industry representatives support tripling of global-nuclear-energy capacity on the grounds that nuclear fission is “carbon free” and “releases no greenhouse gases.” However, such claims are scientifically questionable (and thus likely to lead to ethically questionable energy choices) for at least 3 reasons. (i) They rely on trimming the data on nuclear greenhouse-gas emissions (GHGE), perhaps in part because flawed Kyoto Protocol conventions require no full nuclear-fuel-cycle assessment (...) of carbon content. (ii) They underestimate nuclear-fuel-cycle releases by erroneously assuming that mostly high-grade uranium ore, with much lower emissions, is used. (iii) They inconsistently compare nuclear-related GHGE only to those from fossil fuels, rather than to those from the best GHG-avoiding energy technologies. Once scientists take account of (i)–(iii), it is possible to show that although the nuclear fuel cycle releases (per kWh) much fewer GHG than coal and oil, nevertheless it releases far more GHG than wind and solar-photovoltaic. Although there may be other, ethical, reasons to support nuclear tripling, reducing or avoiding GHG does not appear to be one of them. (shrink)

Using critical discourse analysis, this article analyzes the discursive representation of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in The Daily Yomiuri, part of the largest and most influential media conglomerate in Japan. A critical discourse analysis of The Daily Yomiuri reveals that Japanese national identity and the ideology of technoscience are reproduced through two discursive constructions: a diminished ‘risk’ from Fukushima radiation and citizens’ national duty in the nuclear crisis. Within these two constructions, 11 major techniques are identified by which (...) The Yomiuri discursively mitigates the risks from Fukushima and calls Japanese national identity into the service of the nuclear industry. The article concludes with implications for understanding the impact of political discourse in mass media on other policy debates in Japan and elsewhere. (shrink)

The nuclear engineer emerged as a new form of recognised technical professional between 1940 and the early 1960s as nuclear fission, the chain reaction and their applications were explored. The institutionalization of nuclear engineering channelled into new national laboratories and corporate design offices during the decade after the war, and hurried into academic venues thereafter proved unusually dependent on government definition and support. This paper contrasts the distinct histories of the new discipline in the USA and UK (...) (and, more briefly, Canada). In the segregated and influential environments of institutional laboratories and factories, historical actors such as physicist Walter Zinn in the USA and industrial chemist Christopher Hinton in the UK proved influential in shaping the roles and perceptions of nuclear specialists. More broadly, I argue that the State-managed implantation of the new subject within further and higher education curricula was shaped strongly by distinct political and economic contexts in which secrecy, postwar prestige and differing industrial cultures were decisive factors. (shrink)

The nuclear engineer emerged as a new form of recognised technical professional between 1940 and the early 1960s as nuclear fission, the chain reaction and their applications were explored. The institutionalization of nuclear engineering—channelled into new national laboratories and corporate design offices during the decade after the war, and hurried into academic venues thereafter—proved unusually dependent on government definition and support. This paper contrasts the distinct histories of the new discipline in the USA and UK (and, more (...) briefly, Canada). In the segregated and influential environments of institutional laboratories and factories, historical actors such as physicist Walter Zinn in the USA and industrial chemist Christopher Hinton in the UK proved influential in shaping the roles and perceptions of nuclear specialists. More broadly, I argue that the State-managed implantation of the new subject within further and higher education curricula was shaped strongly by distinct political and economic contexts in which secrecy, postwar prestige and differing industrial cultures were decisive factors. (shrink)

This article discusses the ethics of nuclear waste management in terms of the concept of responsibility for the harmful effects of modern technology. At present, the principle that every country and new generation should assume responsibility for the nuclear waste they produce is challenged by a globalised industry and the repositories of nuclear waste that have accumulated over the past fifty years and been left for future generations to manage. The basic premise of the article is (...) that modern technology, particularly nuclear power, calls for a new kind of responsibility that extends to future generations as well. This new concept of responsibility and the principles of long-term management of nuclear waste are set out and discussed in detail, with reference to Kant, Jaspers, Jonas, Peter Kemp and others. (shrink)

Between 1942 and the late 1950s, atomic piles (nuclear chain-reactors) were industrialized, initially to generate plutonium for the first atomic weapons and later to serve as copious sources of neutrons, radioisotopes and electrical power. These facilities entrained a new breed of engineering specialist adept at designing, operating and maintaining them. From the beginning, large companies supplied the engineering labor for this new technology, and played an important role in defining the nature of their nuclear expertise. In the USA, (...) the most influential company of the period was DuPont, which assumed responsibility for the first plutonium production reactors at Oak Ridge TN and Hanford WA between 1942-6, and of the postwar production facilities at Savannah River SC 1950-87. This paper explores the transition of authority from so-called “atomic scientists” to nuclear engineers at these sites, and the role played by DuPont in consolidating this new technical profession. (shrink)

The acquisition of a nuclear power reactor from the North American company Westinghouse in 1964 not only brought atomic practices and knowledge to Spain but also introduced new methods of industrial organization and management, as well as regulations created by organizations such as the US Atomic Energy Commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency. This article analyzes the history of the knowledge, regulations and experimental practices relating to radiation safety and protection that traveled with this reactor to an industrial (...) space: the Zorita nuclear power plant. Within this space, the appropriation, use, and coproduction of knowledge and practices were conditioned by political, economic, industrial and social factors, and by the engineers, researchers and other professionals who contributed expert knowledge. Material held in the Tecnatom Historical Archive—the engineering company that coordinated construction of the plant—is the main source for this work, which delves into the history of knowledge and atomic technologies and adds to the historiography of radiological protection in Spain.ZusammenfassungMit dem Kauf des ersten Kernreaktors von der nordamerikanischen Firma Westinghouse im Jahre 1964 gelangten neue atomare Praktiken und Kenntnisse nach Spanien, ebenso wie neue Formen der Organisation und des Managements dieses Industriezweigs und bis dahin in Spanien unbekannte Regelungen, wie z. B. die der US Atomenergiekommission und der Internationalen Atomenergiebehörde. Der vorliegende Artikel analysiert die Geschichte des – angeeigneten, genutzten und koproduzierten – Wissens, der Vorschriften und der experimentellen Praktiken hinsichtlich der Strahlensicherheit und des Strahlenschutzes, die mit der Inbetriebnahme des Reaktors im industriellen Komplex des Kernkraftwerks Zorita einhergingen. Dort, wo Wissen und Praktiken durch politische, wirtschaftliche, industrielle und soziale Faktoren bedingt waren, waren neben den Ingenieuren und Forschern auch andere Fachleute beteiligt, die gleichermaßen kompetentes Wissen beisteuerten. Das Material, das im Historischen Archiv von Tecnatom, dem Ingenieurbüro, das den Bau der Anlage koordinierte, aufbewahrt wird, ist die Hauptquelle dieser Arbeit, die versucht, die Geschichte des Atomwissens und der Atomtechnologien zu vertiefen und die Darstellungen zur Geschichte des Strahlenschutzes in Spanien zu erweitern. (shrink)

Four hundred seventy-six nuclear power plants are in operation or under construction around the world. Are concepts for designing and operating plants safely sufficient? Conventional approaches are premised on expectations of predictability and control of radiation release and on assumptions that plant operations are closed systems. Field observations in the industry find, however, that the periodic necessity to refuel, test safety equipment, and continuously upgrade plant designs introduces challenges to control not originally calculated. The social and cultural contexts (...) of markets, regulation, and work systems create additional contingencies. In this dynamic environment, reactor operations produce invaluable data about the states of the entire technology and organizational system. Rereading these dynamics as "experiments" suggests an alternative epistemol ogy that synthesizes science's values of doubt, discovery, and documentation with engineering's values of efficiency, optimization, and problem solving. This redefines plant-based risk handlers as ethologists, geologists, and anthropologists of an ecology of visible and invisible hazards. (shrink)

This paper reflects on the various possible nuclear power production methods from an ethical perspective. The production and consumption of nuclear power give rise to the problem of intergenerational justice; in other words, we are depleting a nonrenewable resource in the form of uranium while the radiotoxic waste that is generated carries very long-term potential burdens. I argue that the morally desirable option should therefore be to seek to safeguard the interests of future generations. The present generation has (...) at least two duties with regard to posterity: not to jeopardize the safety and security of future generations or impose any harm upon them and to sustain future well-being insofar as that is possible with the available energy resources. These duties are presented as pluralist prima facie duties thus implying that they could well be overruled by morally more compelling duties. If we are unable to fulfill both these prima facie duties simultaneously, it should be particularly the duty not to impose harm on posterity that should be the leading incentive behind nuclear power production. This supports the arguments in favor of the introduction of a new fuel cycle that can substantially reduce the waste lifetime and therefore also potential future burdens. However, the further development and application of this scientifically proven but not yet industrialized fuel cycle give rise to additional burdens for contemporaries. This paper examines the extent of the moral stringency of the no harm duty sought for situations in which future interest should guide us in our choosing of a certain technology. (shrink)

In 1956, the Swedish Parliament decided to invest in a national nuclear energy program. The decision rested on the conviction that it would be in the interest of the nation to use the assets of natural uranium, the advanced reactor technology, and the expertise on nuclear physics that the country had at its disposal. Since the decision concerned the largest investment ever in Swedish industrial politics, the scientists and engineers had to promise that it would lead to a (...) prosperous future. In this article, the utopian discourse and the rhetoric that were developed to support the Swedish nuclear energy program are analyzed. An important conclusion is that the scientific, technological, political, economic, and moral discourse was not sufficient to create political and civil support. Instead, the scientists and engineers had to turn to the world of myths. Thereby, the conflicts between nuclear physics and magic, scientific objectivity and demons, and rationalistic belief in progress and irrational ideas of faith were dissolved. In Sweden, as in many other Western countries during the 1950s, the world was not disenchanted, but re-enchanted. (shrink)

Crucial to the establishment of a scientific discipline is a body of knowledge organized around a set of instruments, interpretive techniques, and regimes of training in their application. In this paper, we trace the involvement of scientists and engineers at Varian Associates in the development of nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometers from the first demonstrations of the NMR phenomenon in 1946 to the definitive takeoff of NMR as a chemical discipline by the mid-1960s. We examine the role of Varian scientists (...) in constructing several models of NMR instruments for research scientists in the 1950s and the Varian efforts to influence the adoption of NMR as a standard tool for chemical analysis through Varian-supported publications, participation in scientific meetings, collaborations with academic chemists, workshops, and postdoctoral fellowships. Special attention is devoted to the development of the Varian A-60, the first commercial NMR instrument intended for the broadly trained chemist rather than a custom-built tool for the research specialist. Drawing on an examination of the use-rate of NMR instruments in chemical literature, the assessment of NMR in the chemical review literature by practitioners, and indicators of the establishment of a suitable funding environment for the growth of physics-based scientific instrumentation in the post-Sputnik era, we argue that the establishment of NMR as a discipline coincided with the adoption of the A-60 in the mid-1960s. During the period of our study, Varian Associates was a primary military contractor. This paper is intended to contribute to recent interest in the relation of military fundingto scientific enterprise during the Cold War and to the larger question of university-industry interactions in the growth of knowledge. (shrink)

At a time when global warming due to greenhouse gas emissions pose a present and clear threat to the environment, the Nuclear Energy Industry is gearing up to provide a solution to this problem, trading upon a number of fallacies to argue that it neither makes, nor will in future make, any significant contribution to these or to other radiation-linked diseases. This paper exposes these fallacies and argues, to the contrary, that even should the industry be able (...) to avoid all accidents, routine radioactive emissions to the environment during power production and fuel reprocessing threaten to destroy all human life on the planet. Dr. Glynn is a Full Professor of Philosophy at Florida Atlantic University, having earned his doctorate at The University of Manchester, England. His many publications include Continental and Postmodern Perspectives in the Philosophy of Science, eds. Babette Babich, Debra Bergoffen and Simon Glynn, (Vermont: Avebury, 1995). This paper was presented at the Comparative Studies Association 2008 Conference: Interdisciplinarity and Environmental Sustainability. (shrink)

In October 2010, the German conservative ruling coalition and Free Democratic Party ) passed a law permitting the extension of contracts for Germany’s seventeen nuclear power plants. This policy amended a law passed in 2001 by a Social Democratic Party and Green Party majority to phase out nuclear energy by the early 2020s. The explosions in the nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility, however, resulted in a decision to speed up the phaseout of (...) nuclear energy. The nuclear meltdowns in Japan sent hundreds of thousands of protesters onto the streets. Angry voters made their disillusionment with the nuclear politics of the conservative government coalition clear in local elections. The federal government responded by setting up an Ethics Commission for a Safe Energy Supply, which recommended an end to nuclear energy and a shift to a renewable energy-based economy. Within months of the Fukushima disaster, the government had permanently shut down eight of the country’s oldest nuclear power plants and issued a schedule for the phased shutdown of the remaining nine plants by 2022. In addition, the government reaffirmed its climate change plans, which call for a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by around forty percent of 1990 levels by 2020 and eighty percent by 2050. Thus, out of a crisis, the German government is forging an opportunity to become a global leader in the promotion of new renewable energies, energy efficiency, and greenhouse gas emission reductions. In Japan, the nuclear crisis has also weakened support for nuclear energy, but with a strong industrial coalition calling for its continued use, both for energy stability and in response to climate change, a complete nuclear phaseout is less certain, at least in the short term. (shrink)

Atomic energy developed from 1940 as a subject shrouded in secrecy. Identified successively as a crucial element in military strategy, national status and export aspirations, the research and development of atomic piles (nuclear chain-reactors) were nurtured at isolated installations. Like monastic orders, new national laboratories managed their specialist workers in occupational environments that were simultaneously cosseted and constrained, defining regional variants of a new state-managed discipline: reactor technology. This paper discusses the significance of security in defining the new subject (...) in the USA, UK and Canada – wartime allies with similar political traditions but distinct trajectories in this field during the Cold War. The intellectual borders and content of the subject developed differently in each country, shaped under the umbrella of secrecy by disparate clusters of expertise, industrial traditions, and national goals. The nascent cadre was contained until the mid 1950s by classified publications and state-sponsored specialist courses. The early context of high security filtered its members and capped enduringly both their professional aspirations and public engagement. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Diacritics 30.4 (2000) 59-82 [Access article in PDF] Bombing and the Symptom Traumatic Earliness and the Nuclear Uncanny Paul K. Saint-Amour Many used the Japanese word bukimi, meaning weird, ghastly, or unearthly, to describe Hiroshima's uneasy combination of continued good fortune and expectation of catastrophe. People remembered saying to one another, "Will it be tomorrow or the day after tomorrow?" One man described how, each night he was (...) on air-raid watch, "I trembled with fear.... I would think, "Tonight it will be Hiroshima." These "premonitions" were partly attempts at psychic preparation, partly a form of "imagining the worst" as a magical way of warding off disaster. —Robert J. Lifton, Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima (1967) Robert J. Lifton's pathbreaking work on the survivors of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima focuses on the psychological aftermath of the bomb, but opens with a brief and surprising section called "Anticipation." Given the instantaneous and unprecedented devastation caused by the first atomic bomb, the anticipation of so singular an experience is just as difficult to imagine as its subsequent assimilation. In fact, the unassimilable nature of traumatic violence would seem to depend in some way upon the impossibility of its anticipation, as Lifton implies: "Neither past experience nor immediate perceptions—the two sources of prior imagination—could encompass what was about to occur." Yet Lifton also records an expectant, premonitory atmosphere in Hiroshima during the weeks before the bombing, a compound of past experience and immediate perceptions that, while inadequate to "encompass" the eventual experience of the bomb, cannot simply be dismissed as speculation that found an accidental correlate in the nuclear event. While no one in Hiroshima knew ahead of time what would occur on August 6, 1945, many had noted the city's eerie exemption from conventional bombardment and speculated as to the reasons for it. During the summer of 1945, a series of rumors circulated in Hiroshima, rumors attributing the sparing of the city, variously, to its modest military and industrial significance; to the presence of prominent foreigners there, possibly including President Truman's mother; to important American prisoners-of-war supposedly held in the city; to the number of its citizens who had emigrated to the US; to the presence of large numbers of American spies living among its citizens; to its physical appeal in the eyes of Americans who had saved the city as a site for their postwar occupation villas; and, most wishfully, to the wartime grace of a cartographic error: "We thought that perhaps the city of Hiroshima was not on the American maps" [Lifton 15-17]. 1 Other inhabitants [End Page 59] of the city feared that Hiroshima appeared all too prominently on US maps, but had been set aside for "something unusually big"—perhaps the inundation of the city by floodwaters that could be released by the bombing of a massive upstream dam. Still others spoke of a "special bomb" [PWRS 220-22; Lifton 17]. All these rumors responded to citizens' impression that their city had been in some way singled out, and the term bukimi—also meaning "ominous" or "uncanny"—spoke to the suspended question of whether Hiroshima and its inhabitants had been singled out for preservation or for annihilation.The survivors who recollected their anticipatory bukimi years after the bombing may have retrospectively amplified their memories of weird expectation, perhaps as a way of attempting to master an incommensurable and singular event by installing it within a narrative of causality, continuity, even prophecy. Nonetheless, the bukimi experienced by inhabitants of Hiroshima should not be understood as pure retrospection, nor as groundless hunch, since it arose from a series of empirical observations later revealed to have a single and coherent origin in US military strategy. By the summer of 1945, most Japanese cities whose size and military-industrial importance were similar to Hiroshima's had already been bombed with incendiaries: those who lived in Hiroshima had watched waves of American bombers fly past on their way to other targets, while the dozen or so bombs that had fallen accidentally on... (shrink)

Firms in controversial industries such as tobacco, alcohol, gambling, weapon, and nuclear power suffer organizational legitimacy problems. These firms, therefore, adopt various strategies to acquire legitimacy. Drawing on institutional theory, we conceptualize the top management team gender diversity as a legitimacy-seeking strategy and examines how a firm’s belonging to a controversial sector affects TMT gender diversity. Based on a cross-country sample of 1542 firms operating in controversial industries from 34 countries and control sample with another set of 1542 similar-sized (...) firms from non-controversial industries, the empirical evidence shows that belonging to a controversial industry exerts a positive impact on TMT gender diversity. The effect of industry belonging on TMT gender diversity is positively moderated by institutional gender parity and a low level of corruption. It indicates that institutional factors act as emancipative forces that foster women's empowerment. Taken together, our results for moderating variables highlight the role of institutional characteristics in supporting women empowerment initiatives. (shrink)

In the early 1970s, the major industrial states were preparing to shift to nuclear fission as their principal source of electrical power. But that change has not occurred. In part, this is due to a growing public recognition that techniques and institutions for management of spent nuclear fuel, separated plutonium, and long-lived radioactive wastes are not yet fully developed. The consequent pressures for resolution have spurred a series of often ill-defined and sometimes contradictory attempts to promote international cooperation (...) and control of hazardous activities. How are these varied suggestions to be compared and evaluated? By what criteria can plans be selected that are likely to be both effective and negotiable? In this study, Gene I. Rochlin, physicist and social scientist, explores the technical, political, and institutional aspects of international nuclear export and fuel cycle policies. He categorizes existing proposals and suggests way to develop new ones that better promote both national and international goals. Dr. Rochlin argues neither for nor against the use of nuclear power or plutonium fuels. Instead, he addresses the question of how international arrangements could be reached that might jointly satisfy the objective of the several key nations, yet not be too difficult to negotiate. He concludes that a major fault has been the tendency to improvise arrangements for specific technical or industrial operations. As a result, overall social and political goals have become the bargaining points for compromise. Yet attempts to simultaneously resolve all problems are unlikely to prove fruitful. Dr. Rochlin suggests instead the formation of institutions organized around more limited social, political, and technical objectives, even at the expense of excluding some nations or omitting some aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle. Only by so doing, he argues, can immediate agreements be reached that preserve the potential for more comprehensive future arrangements without sacrificing industrial, environmental, or nonproliferation goals. This important book will be of interest to scientists, social scientists, government officials, and others concerned with the problems of plutonium management and nuclear wastes. (shrink)

This paper provides an in-depth study and analysis of the quantitative relationship between ASEAN industry transfer and nuclear trade restructuring through the multiregional computable general equilibrium model and categorizes the ten major projects and 57 subprojects covered by the ASEAN Information Port project investment into construction, information technology, and telecommunications, according to the key directions of investment. We design and simulate the changes in production activities, trade activities, and the balance of payments behaviour of the national economy affected (...) by the project’s investment under 10 types of investment amount scenarios and prepare the corresponding social accounting matrix. Increased trade openness increases external risks and instability of the economy and fiscal revenues. At the same time, it creates other potential problems for the country such as environmental pollution and leading to unfair competition. Under free trade conditions, some manufacturers may choose to produce inputs that are not environmentally friendly to reduce costs, thereby harming the environment. For infant industries, if the government does not provide them with short-term protection or supportive policies, these new or developing infant industries may not have strong international competitiveness and may be vulnerable to the attacks of mature industries in the world. Therefore, based on the study of the influence of tax policy on trade openness, this paper examines the impact of changes in trade openness on a country’s economic environment and takes tax revenue as an example to conduct an empirical analysis and improve the factors that need to be considered when adjusting tax policy. (shrink)

This paper explores the history of a unique assemblage of researchers in the geodetic and allied sciences organised at Ohio State University (OSU) in 1947 at the beginning of the Cold War. From about 1950 to 1970, the OSU geodetic sciences group was the most significant group of geodetic researchers in the world. Funded almost entirely by military and intelligence agencies, they pioneered the technologies, organised the research initiatives, ordered the data sets, and trained the generation of geodesists who eventually (...) created the Cold War Figure of the Earth to both prosecute and prevent global nuclear war. They devised elaborate mechanisms to pursue in secrecy and isolation research that had hitherto been performed collaboratively and globally. They invented methods to maintain professional associations and protocols, both to distribute-and disguise-the fruits of their geodetic research. In accomplishing this, their work also undermined the basic hypothesis of isostasy that had been foundational to geodesy for the previous century.Fundamental progress in the geosciences and military and intelligence directives were inextricably linked during the Cold War, although the extent of their convergence has been masked by the security protocols organised to disguise it. With the declassification of key programmes underway, it is now both possible and necessary to substantially revise the history of Cold War-era geosciences and their associated technologies. (shrink)