ASTRID, Back to the Future: Bridging Scales in the Development of Nuclear Infrastructures

The Nuclear, Humanities, and Social Science Nexus: Challenges and Opportunities for Speaking Across the Disciplinary Divides

“…10) as well as design research 11,12 (a subfield of mechanical engineering) has consistently emphasized the importance of understanding the design process in all its richness and complexity and making sense of the social factors that shape design outcomes. In their papers in this special issue, Tillement and Garcias 13 and Schmid 14 draw our attention to precisely these determinants of design outcomes.…”

“…x VERMA • THE NUCLEAR, HUMANITIES, AND SOCIAL SCIENCE NEXUS Tillement and Garcias 13 show us how we can, as individual designers or design organizations and collectively as a nuclear engineering community, learn from reactor projects that are not pursued to completion. Juraku and Sugawara 30 and Kanamori 31 show us how the nuclear sector should learn from accidents to build more robust and vigilant organizations and institutions that do not fall into the trap of structural ignorance or the evasion of ethical and moral responsibility.…”

Impact of disruption between options of plutonium multi-recycling in PWRs and in SFRs

“…All these factors result in a decreasing demand for SFR technology. In France, the abortion of the ASTRID project was finally declared, after a series of project modifications as well as several project-and organization-related difficulties [12]. It is clarified in the governmental report [13] that the SFR deployment is not considered for the near-term French fleet, even though necessary researches should be carried on to keep the acquisition of relevant knowledge and techniques; instead, the plutonium multi-recycling in Pressurized Water Reactors (PWRs) is considered for the spent fuel management strategies.…”