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

介绍本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书籍为高潮的学术调查不同，这次调查将产生一部关于科学，政治和伦理问题的专题纪录片，这些问题与对社会负责的核废料处置问题有关。 虽然影片的影响范围将超出任何特定的网站，研究的焦点是唯一的完全许可，在世界上运行的核废料地质处置库：废物隔离试验厂26英里以东的卡尔斯巴德，新墨西哥州。智力优点该项目将跟踪当前和计划的清理操作涉及试验厂的争议历史。它将描绘一个有争议的，有时成功有时失败的贸易区，为非常不同的（通常是敌对的）利益相关者，从专家到市民，政治家，矿工，活动家，工业工程师和未来学家。贸易区研究是科学和技术研究（STS）领域内的一种方法论方法，它询问了相互面对的亚文化，并在全球协议往往缺乏的情况下制定协调的地方行动。在这个交易区的研究中，研究人员在道德上，视觉上和方法上致力于描绘这种碰撞，因为各方都在努力塑造一个有争议的核未来。利用电影作为展示贸易区研究结果的媒介是一种创新，具有潜在的变革性;它可以为STS开辟一条途径，以视觉方式调查科学和技术政策的制定。潜在的更广泛的影响本项目将通过与外展组织，电影服务公司和工作电影公司合作，将电影带给其核心观众，从而接触到广泛的观众：政策制定者、环保主义者、沿着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），科学和工业博物馆（阿尔伯克基），核设施，周围的城镇和环保团体。

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.