1,721,262 research outputs found
The Missing Decision. Nuclear Decommissioning and the Issue of the Waste Repository in Late Twentieth-Century Italy
No full textThis study – which employs the methodology of archive-based historiography – focuses on
the awkward elaboration of an Italian «roadmap» to deal with nuclear waste and, notably, the
crucial role of a national repository. Drawing on a number of unpublished archival sources,
but crucially on uncatalogued original documents of ENEA – then the Italian nuclear authority
– the study investigates the specific contribution of experts and scientists, and their relationship
with political decision-makers. Preliminary conclusions: in the Seventies, the basic
assumption was that nuclear waste would be reprocessed in a single national facility, but
against the ever-decreasing perspective for nuclear power in Italy, an open-cycle approach
was adopted. By 1984 ENEA had prepared definite proposals on the possible repository sites,
considering the issue of low- and medium-activity waste urgent. However, it received no
acknowledgment of any kind by the Ministry of Industry in spite of repeated urgings. After
Chernobyl the issue was buried, and eventually resurrected only in mid-Nineties. After 2001
political elections, the «roadmap» devised with great difficulty was turned upside down by
favouring a top-down approach to the siting issue which would eventually backfire
Le attività nucleari pakistane nelle carte della Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (1964-1973) [Pakistani Nuclear Activities According to the Records of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (1964-1973)]
No full textBy drawing for the first time on papers produced by the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC), this paper aims at throwing a fresh look at Pakistani nuclear activities in the long 1960s and reconsidering the role played by two major actors such as Prof. Abdus Salam and Dr. Ishrat Husmani. These unpublished documents corroborate the idea that – far from being a mere preamble to ensuing proliferation – PAEC activities had a distinctive rationale in the period considered. Salam and Usmani expected that nuclear energy could be both the harbinger and an instrument of a top-down modernization of Pakistan, which in turn would have engendered economic development and political consolidation for the country. The comprehensive, document-based picture of PAEC’s manifold activities suggests a possible different approach to the issue of proliferation at the beginning of 1970s: not so much of a more or less sudden turn after a decade of hesitations, but rather the defeat of the original modernization project
Sûreté nucléaire et sécurité européenne: la place des réacteurs ukrainiens dans la stratégie extérieure de l’Union européenne (années 1990)
No full textCette contribution a pour but d’étudier le rôle crucial joué par l’Union européenne (UE) dans une dimension importante de la sécurité, à savoir la sûreté nucléaire, en prenant en considération l’étude de cas de l’Ukraine indépendante dans les années 1990. Grâce au programme TACIS, l’UE était déjà en 1993 le plus grand contributeur international à l’amélioration de la sûreté nucléaire en Ukraine. En outre, la Commission européenne a joué un rôle central dans la conclusion d’un accord global sur la fermeture définitive de Tchernobyl lors de la réunion du G7 de Naples en 1994. Donc, l’Union en a fait l’axe de promotion d’une diplomatie scientifique, capable de produire des retours positifs dans les enjeux internationaux, mais elle n’a pas été en mesure d’en consolider les résultats
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