Week 5 - Lecture 1 - Social Acceptence of Nuclear Risk Flashcards
Name these two ‘understandings’
Nuclear policy in modern democracies seems to rely on two ‘understandings’
- The probability of nuclear meltdowns has been objectively calculated
- These probabilities are generally considered ‘negligibly low’
Name the wrong assumptions
Fukushima accidents were the result of wrong assumptions in risk assessments
- Low resolution of earthquakes
- Inappropriate tsunami risk assessment
- Loss of electricity insufficiently incorporated
- Crucial components flooded or damaged
Framing Limitations
One of three limitations in risk assessment
- Reliability assessments have a ‘framing problem’ because what constitutes as ‘failures’ depends on the outcome
- Some risks cannot be quantified
(e.g. Risk of impact of a hijacked fuel-laden airline and flown into a power plant is acknowledged. Yet, dismissed because manufacturers think hardened containment buildings withstand such impact)
Systemic Limitations
One of three limitations in risk assessment
- Charles Perrow’s Normal Accident Theory: Some accidents in complex systems are unforeseeable and essentially unavoidable because they stem from coincidences that are too improbable to predict in advance
- In the real world, no socio-technical system could function without irregularities. Yet, risk assessment assumes perfect human behaviour
Epistemic Limitation
One of three limitations in risk assessment
- Epistemic related to state of knowledge
- Even after 6 decades of nuclear energy production, we do not have statistically relevant nuclear failure data to help steer policy or to regulate nuclear risk
Social acceptence
Refers to the fact that a new technology is accepted or merely tolerated by a community
Ethical acceptability
Refers to a reflection on the technology that takes into account the moral issues that emerge from the introduction of new technology
Deontology
One school of thinking focuses mostly on individual rights. We call this school right or duty-based ethics, also known as deontology
(deon=duty)
Consequentialism
Another school of thinking in ethics focuses on the created burdens (risks) and benefits. An action is morally right when the net produced consequences are positive. We call this school consequentialism.
Utilitarianism
A specific group of consequentialists wish to not only create positive benefit but also maximise it
Marginal pricing
Marginal pricing refers to electricity prices being set by the variable cost of the marginal plant, i.e. the most expensive plant that is required to serve demand.
Merit order
Refers to the order in which power plants are deployed on an electricity trading platform in order to ensure the economically optimal supply of electricity to the grid. The merit order is based on the lowest marginal costs, i.e. the (operating) costs incurred by a power plant for the last megawatt hour produced.
