Standard Research Grant: Socio-Technical Aspects of Nuclear Waste and its Long Term Storage

这个研究项目将分析和交流与核废料处理有关的重要社会问题。与绝大多数以期刊文章或一本书的形式结束的学术研究不同，这次调查将产生一部专题纪录片，内容涉及与社会负责任的核废料处置问题相关的科学、政治和伦理问题。虽然这部电影的范围将超出任何特定的地点，但研究的重点是世界上唯一一个获得完全许可的、正在运行的核废料地质处置库：新墨西哥州卡尔斯巴德以东26英里的废物隔离试验工厂。该项目将追踪涉及试点工厂的当前和计划中的清理行动的有争议的历史。它将为专家、市民、政治家、矿工、活动家、工业工程师和未来主义者等不同（通常是敌对的）利益相关者描绘一个有争议的、时而成功时而失败的贸易区。贸易区研究是科学和技术研究（STS）研究领域内的一种方法论方法，研究相互对抗的亚文化，并在往往缺乏全球协议的情况下制定协调的地方行动。在这个贸易区的研究中，研究者在道德上、视觉上和方法上都致力于描绘这场冲突，因为各方都在努力塑造一个有争议的核未来。使用电影作为展示贸易区研究结果的媒介是创新的，可能具有变革性；它可以为STS以可视化的方式调查科学和技术政策的制定开辟一条道路。潜在的广泛影响该项目将通过与外展组织（Film Sprout和Working Films）合作，接触到广泛的观众，将电影带给其核心观众：政策制定者、环保主义者，以及传统上不参与科学政策的团体和公民。目标地点和团体包括科学博物馆，如布拉德伯里科学博物馆（洛斯阿拉莫斯）、原子试验博物馆（拉斯维加斯）、科学与工业博物馆（阿尔伯克基）、核设施、周围的城镇和环境组织。

IntroductionThis research project will analyze and communicate important societal issues having to do with the disposal of nuclear waste. Unlike the vast majority of scholarly inquiries, which culminate in journal articles or a book, this inquiry will result in a feature length documentary about the scientific, political, and ethical issues adjacent to the problem of the socially responsible disposal of nuclear waste. Though the reach of the film will extend beyond any particular site, the focal point of the study is the only fully-licensed, operating geological repository for nuclear waste in the world: the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant twenty-six miles east of Carlsbad, New Mexico.Intellectual MeritThe project will track the contentious history of current and planned clean-up operations involving the Pilot Plant. It will depict a disputed, sometimes successful and sometimes failed, trading zone for very different (often antagonistic) stakeholders from experts, to townspeople, politicians, miners, activists, industrial engineers, and futurists. Trading-zone studies, a methodological approach within the research area known as Science and Technology Studies (STS), interrogate subcultures confronting one another and developing coordinated local action where global agreement is often absent. In this trading-zone study, the investigator is ethically, visually, and methodologically committed to depicting that collision as all sides struggle to shape an contested nuclear future. The use of film as a medium for presenting the results of the trading-zone study is innovative and potentially transformative; it could open a way for STS to investigate in a visual way the making of science and technology policy.Potential Broader ImpactThis project will reach a broad audience by partnering with outreach organizations, Film Sprout and Working Films, to bring the film to its core audience: policy makers, environmentalists, along with groups and citizens traditionally not positioned to participate in science policy. Target locales and groups include science museums such as the Bradbury Science Museum (Los Alamos), the Atomic Testing Museum (Las Vegas), The Museum of Science and Industry (Albuquerque), nuclear facilities, towns surrounding them, and environmental groups.