Decision Making for Complex Socio-Technical Systems: Robustness from Lessons Learned in Long-Term Radioactive Waste Governance

ISBN-13: 9789400789081 / Angielski / Miękka / 2014 / 357 str.

Thomas Flueler

Opis

Waste management can be considered as a mirror of society. In its (our) fluctuating definition, besides conserving a supply of valuable materials and resources, it acts as a fascinating expression for our throw-away mentality. Waste is inevitable, but it nevertheless provides an opportunity, a need and an incentive for society to pursue a more careful management of it. If this is successfully carried out, society may well find it possible to manage itself in an overall more careful and universal way. The management, or governance, of radioactive waste particularly is determined by a complex constellation of individuals, social aggregates, and institutions. A wealth of interconnected parts forms a complex and volatile system that is highly technical and explosively political in nature. The problems inherent in this system must be managed so as to reach a safe, acceptable, responsible, feasible, and sustainable solution . It is a system with an objective long-term dimension, with a hazard potential of, in part, hundreds of thousands of years; and it has a long-term institutional dimension insofar as its implementation must last for decades. The very notion of risk extends from the long life of radionuclides, over the perception of dread to the decisional risk of whether, when and how to implement an agreed upon solution ."

Recenzje

From the reviews:

"Flüeler provides one of the most extensive bibliographies, which he conveniently organizes into a number of useful categories for those who are conducting research in this area. His extensive experience with how this issue was dealt with in Switzerland over a 50-y period along with examples from a variety of other countries is well documented. ... This text would be valuable for those specialists who are directly involved in dealing with the issue of radioactive waste ... ." (Stewart, Health Physics, Vol. 93 (2), 2007)

Spis treści

Preface. Summary. Introduction. Part I: Overall Issue and Methodology. 1. Setting And Topics At Issue. 2. Objectives And Aim. 3. Research Political Embedding. 4. Issues Under Investigation, Evidence And Validation. Part II: Perspective 'From Below': Risk Perception of The Public. 5. Insights From Risk Perception Research. 6. Risk Perception In Radioactive Waste Issues. Part III: Perspective 'From Above': Decision Processes. 7. Insights From Decision Science. 8. Development Of Decision Making In Technical Systems. 9. Decisions In Radioactive Waste Management. 10. Siting As An Example Of Sub-Optimum Decision-Making. Part IV: Conclusions and Further Development. 11. Patterns Of Arguments In Radioactive Waste Governance. 12. Fundamentals Of A Comparison Of Disposition Options. 13. Proposal For A Concept Of An Overall System Robustness. References. Index.

O autorze

The long-term governance of radioactive waste continues to be a major complex and contentious socio-technical issue worldwide. Traditionally, it has been considered as mainly a challenge to scientists and engineers to develop technical "solutions" to specific problems. But increasingly these narrow solutions have been enlarged by wider societal considerations such as ethics, public involvement, control and retrievability - needs that have in the meanwhile been recognized by the nuclear community. This book, analyzes motives for a broad discourse as well as suggest prerequisites to launch it. The author attempts to give a novel, empirically based and technically sound treatment of fundamental issues in long-term management and governance. Written to be accessible to a wide selection of the interested public, the study proposes a combination of technical design issues, analysis methods and institutional backup in a dynamic procedure, and with involvement at all levels of political, commercial and social life.

Blurb

The long-term governance of radioactive waste continues to be a major complex and contentious socio-technical issue worldwide. Traditionally, it has been considered as mainly a challenge to scientists and engineers to develop technical "solutions" to specific problems. But increasingly these narrow solutions have been enlarged by wider societal considerations such as ethics, public involvement, control and retrievability – needs that have in the meanwhile been recognised by the nuclear community, at least in a general way. In this book, we analyse motives for a broad discourse as well as suggest prerequisites to launch it. The author attempts to give a novel, empirically based and technically sound treatment of fundamental issues in long-term management and governance. Written to be accessible to a wide selection of the interested public, the study proposes a combination of technical design issues, analysis methods and institutional backup in a dynamic procedure, and with involvement at all levels of political, commercial and social life.