| Notes | 'introduction to special issue that features 13 papers authored by humanists and social scientists who, though each rooted in distinct and rich scholarly traditions, share with each other an interest in the nuclear energy sector. These scholars adopt an intellectually diverse set of theoretical and methodological lenses to examine the work of nuclear energy practitioners and policy makers.\n\n - Brandon Costelloe-Kuehn'
'pedagogy: The papers in this special issue describe a number of ways in which practitioners and researchers in the nuclear sector can approach familiar, often “wicked problems”Citation35 with fresh perspectives. Many, if not all, of these new conceptual lenses could be brought into the training of future nuclear engineers such that they are better able to make sense of how their work and technologies are situated in society, how to grapple with the ethical, moral, political, and social challenges posed by the development and use of nuclear technologies, and having understood these challenges, how to frame the development of new technological designs and the management of existing ones in more nuanced ways that are attentive to the desires and concerns of the society we seek to serve through our work.\nIn an important paper that closes out this special issue, MarshallCitation36 describes how she has brought humanist and social scientific perspectives into a course on the practices surrounding the development and use of energy technologies. As part of the course, which is offered through the study abroad program in Engineering, Science, Technology and Society at North Carolina State University, students learn about both the social and technological dimensions of resource extraction for energy generation, the production of energy, its consumption, and the management of its byproducts. Given the interconnected nature of global nuclear industries and supply chains, this course suggests a template that instructors across nuclear engineering departments may wish to emulate.\n\n - Brandon Costelloe-Kuehn'
'nuclear waste: The disposition and management of nuclear waste is typically described and understood by nuclear engineers as a technically solved problem. Though numerous viable technological solutions exist for the long-term disposition of nuclear waste, they are yet to be applied at scale in practice because the ethical, social, and political dimensions of the problem of waste management—with a limited number of exceptions—remain largely unresolved in most countries. In their papers, Kaiserfeld and KaijserCitation33 and ParotteCitation34 examine these social dimensions of the nuclear waste problem.\nIn their paper, Kaiserfeld and Kaijser describe a case study with a positive outcome. The focus of their study is the Swedish Nuclear Waste System (SNWS) which had, until the 1980s, been the near-exclusive domain of scientists and engineers. The authors, through a historiography of the SNWS, describe how it underwent a change in its system culture. The change was brought about by the introduction of humanist and social scientific expertise as a result of the creation of a new advisory board, the KASAM (Samrådsnämnden för kärnavfall in Swedish), which was specifically charged with the task of widening the perspectives that had, until that point, informed the management of nuclear waste in Sweden. KASAM brought in social scientific and humanist perspectives to the SNWS by convening workshops at which scientists and engineers engaged with scholars from the humanities and social sciences. These cross-disciplinary discussions elevated the importance of the social and ethical dimensions of nuclear waste management, elements which hitherto had been underappreciated by the nuclear scientists, engineers, and decision makers. The authors posit that KASAM’s activities had a tangible and durable impact on the work of the SKB (Svensk Kärnbränslehantering Aktiebolag in Swedish), the Swedish organization charged with the long-term management of nuclear waste. Increasingly, SKB began to engage meaningfully with the potential host communities of a nuclear waste repository. The growing focus on community engagement and consent ultimately led, in the early 2000s, to the identification and selection of a host community for a Swedish nuclear waste repository. This particular case demonstrates that enfolding humanist and social scientific perspectives into the work of nuclear organizations can suggest new courses of action and the resolution of long-standing challenges. However, as demonstrated by Kaiserfeld and Kaijser for the Swedish case, the shift in perspective brought about by the integration of new expertise can only be achieved through a period of sustained work and interdisciplinary collaboration, not sporadic one-off engagements.\nParotte, in her paper, examines the problem of nuclear waste management from a different perspective. She examines how the naming and classification of nuclear waste ultimately impacts how it is managed. She comparatively studies the nuclear waste classification systems of the International Atomic Energy Agency, France, Canada, and Belgium and does so by drawing on theoretical frameworks from the STS literature. She finds that the classification of nuclear wastes often leads to a prescription for how they should be managed. Yet, nuclear waste classification systems also create several “blurred” categories that include, for example, spent mixed-oxide nuclear fuel. The top-down waste classification systems that are widely used are unable to prescribe how these blurred categories of wastes ought to be managed. Parotte suggests that the existing logic of naming and classifying wastes is an inefficient approach and that it creates considerable ambiguities about how several categories of wastes (as named by these classification systems) ought to be managed. In a reversal of the extant logics, she suggests that classification systems could be developed based on a particular disposal option, instead of vice versa. This fresh approach would avoid the creation of blurred categories and corresponding dilemmas of wastes for which no clear disposal options exist.\n\n - Brandon Costelloe-Kuehn'
|
