The Good Lessons of Bad Experience

Abstract

New scientific and political realities make it necessary for the United States to continue research and development (R & D) in commercial nuclear power. However, this approach must be based upon a new institutional management structure that recognizes commercial nuclear power as a “Faustian technology,” the management of which requires new forms of institutional controls. This new institutional design should involve a government-private consortium that is aimed at correcting past mistakes made by the institutional management of the commercial nuclear power industry from 1950 to 1975. The new institutional design must (a) involve a multiple partnership between government, industry, environmental interests, and other significant stakeholders; (b) begin with small-scale start-up technologies; (c) include an open public involvement process throughout its duration; (d) aspire to a new standard of institutional constancy; and (e) explicitly socialize management to the political aspects of risk communication as a basic technical preparation. The institutional constancy standard is particularly significant because it involves provisions for managing the intergenerational equities associated with commercial nuclear technology and an explicit recognition of problems associated with the social and temporal distribution of risk.