Continuing the Nuclear Dialogue: Alvin Weinberg's Nuclear Renaissance at 30

Continuing the Nuclear Dialogue: Alvin Weinberg's Nuclear

Renaissance at 30

William J. Kinsella Department of Communication

and Program in Science, Technology & Society North Carolina State University

[email protected]

Annual meeting, Oak Ridge Associated Universities Council of Sponsoring Institutions, 4-6 March 2014

mailto:[email protected]

Background – What Am I Doing Here?

• Communication researcher, background in physics, focus on energy, environment, and science & technology studies

• Research on nuclear fusion community; U.S. nuclear weapons production complex; commercial nuclear energy in U.S., Germany, Japan

• Asked to speak about nuclear energy communication in U.S. and global contexts

• Framing the topic with help from Alvin Weinberg

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A Word about Communication

• Discipline has dual humanities and social science roots: rhetoric and communication

• Post WWII communication models: information transfer and cybernetics

=> focus on transmission, reception, control

• One rhetorical model: persuasion

• Another rhetorical model: community & democracy

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Communication, Democracy, and Dialog

• Quintillian: “Good man speaking well”

• Update: “Good citizen speaking well”

• “Good” — engaged & well-intentioned re: topics of common concern

• “Speaking well” — informed, ethical, common interest at heart

• Dialog and collaboration vs. one-way persuasion

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21st Century Context

• Plurality, diversity, risk of fragmentation

• Complexity in tension with emphasis on specialized knowledge

• Expert vs. vernacular knowledge

• Technocratic vs. cultural, personal, local forms of knowledge

• “The public” multiple “publics”


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Two Relevant Perspectives • Niklas Luhmann

-- science and technology as radical simplification

-- paradox: maintaining simplicity demands complex support systems

-- differentiation of “social subsystems”: e.g., science, politics, economics, law

-- “system rationality ceases to be world rationality”

-- essential factors viewed as “externalities”

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Two Relevant Perspectives

• Ulrich Beck: “risk society” and “reflexive modernity”

-- solutions to problems of scarcity produce problems of risk

-- risk as new fundamental societal organizing principle

-- reflexive risks demand collective societal reflection


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Alvin Weinberg and the Nuclear Dialogue

• Weinberg (1972a). “Science and trans-science.” Minerva, 10, 209-222. • Weinberg (1972b). “Social institutions and nuclear energy.” Science, 177(4043), 27-34. • Weinberg, & Spiewak (1984). “Inherently safe reactors and a second nuclear era.” Science, 224(4656), 1398-1402. • Weinberg, Spiewak, Phung & Livingston (1985). “The second nuclear era: A nuclear renaissance.” image credit: orau.org

Energy, 10(5), 661-680. • Weinberg (1985). Continuing the Nuclear Dialog (ANS)


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Essays in Continuing the Nuclear Dialogue • “Is nuclear energy acceptable?”(1977a)

• “Do nuclear engineering educators have a

special responsibility?” (1977b)

• “The future of nuclear energy” (1981)

• “Nuclear Safety and public acceptance “(1982)

• “’Immortal’ energy systems and

intergenerational justice” (1985)


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Key Points: Science, Technology, and Institutions

• Some questions cannot be answered by science (or science alone) (1972a)

• Social institutions must match the demands of technologies (1972b)

• Nuclear professionals have special responsibilities (1977b)

• Call for continuing public dialog


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Key Points: Future of Nuclear Energy

• Early vision of a “second nuclear era” or “nuclear renaissance” (1984-1985)

• Explicit link to “inherently safe reactors” (1984)

• Premise: “economic breakthrough of nuclear power” (1972b)

• Premise: robust institutions (regulation and governance) ensure safety and public trust


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A Dialogue with Nature • Inherently safe, or inherently risky? -- extreme physical conditions -- demand for precise control -- maintaining simplicity requires complexity -- precise control requires precise knowledge • “Limits of representation” -- risk analysis & epistemic uncertainty -- seismology and other natural hazards -- human error -- human intentions -- climate change vs. technology development timescale


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A Dialogue with Economics

• “Since per unit of output a large power plant is cheaper than a small one…increase in reactor size was largely responsible for the economic breakthrough of nuclear power.” (1972b)

=> AP 1000, not SMR

• Economic breakthrough not sustained

• Cost/safety tradeoff

• Emerging competitive energy sources

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A Dialogue with History

• “Today the United States is committed to over 100 X 106 kilowatts [0.1 TW] of nuclear power, and the rest of the world to an equal amount. Rather plausible estimates suggest that by 2000 the United States may be generating electricity at a rate of 1000 X 106 kilowatts [1 TW] with nuclear reactors.” (1972b)

• U.S. nuclear capacity, summer 2009: 0.101 Net TW(e) http://www.eia.gov/nuclear/reactors/stats_table1.html accessed 28 February 2014


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http://www.eia.gov/nuclear/reactors/stats_table1.html

http://www.eia.gov/nuclear/reactors/stats_table1.html

A Dialogue with History: The Global Picture

Year Global Power Reactors Global Capacity

2000 438 0.351 TW

2010 442 0.375 TW

2012 440 0.374 TW

http://www.iaea.org/PRIS/WorldStatistics/WorldTrendNuclearPowerCapacity.aspx

Accessed 28 February 2014

vs. Prediction for U.S. 1 TW by 2000


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Institutional Challenges “When nuclear energy was small and experimental and unimportant, the intricate moral and institutional demands…could be ignored or not taken seriously.” (1972b)

• Public trust

• Regulatory effectiveness

• Emerging nuclear nations: technical and regulatory capacity

• Technology dissemination and proliferation potential

• Nuclear waste won’t go away

-- cf. “’Immortal’ energy systems and

intergenerational justice” (1985)

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Nuclear Dialogue: Communication Challenges

• Technocratic assumption: technical knowledge is better knowledge and most important knowledge

-- social completeness

-- technical completeness

-- “requisite variety” of knowledge to match sociotechnical complexity


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Nuclear Dialogue: Communication Challenges

• “Deficit model” of public understanding

-- assumes lack of public capacity

-- characterizes concerns as irrational, emotional,

ignorant, extreme, driven by special interests

-- seeks to avoid complicating the process

• Historical amnesia

• Next-generation narrative (e.g., inherent safety, SMR, travelling wave, thorium) not publicly persuasive

• Proprietary information and self-regulation undermine trust (compare with other industries)


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Closing Thoughts

“I believe the only path available to the nuclear community is…to establish a record of safe operation, even with 500 reactors in the world, over the next two decades. Common sense must eventually prevail over…narrow sectarianism…” (1982)

• Safety, sectarianism, and common sense are products of continuing dialogue

[email protected]


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Continuing the Nuclear Dialogue: Alvin Weinberg's Nuclear Renaissance at 30