ER 251

The problem of transmutation and the liberation of atomic energy to carry on the labour of the world is no longer surrounded by mystery and ignorance, but is daily being reduced to a form capable of exact quantitative reasoning. It may be that it will remain forever unsolved. But we are advancing along the road likely to bring success at a rate which makes it probable that one day will see its achievement. Should that day ever arrive, let no one be blind to the magnitude of the issues at stake, or suppose that such an acquisition of the physical resources of humanity can be safely entrusted to those who in the past have converted the blessings already conferred by science into a curse.

ERG 251, Fall 1997

Advanced Topics in the Politics of Energy

Nuclear Power/Nuclear Weapons

Professor Gene I. Rochlin

Tu-Th, 3:30-5:00 -- 225 Wheeler

Course control # 25517

Descriptive Syllabus

This fall, ERG 251 will be taking on an old problem from a new perspective. Last year, several students asked if we could revive the nuclear power - nuclear weapons course that John Holdren and I co-taught some years ago. That course covered the history, politics, basic physics, and engineering of fission and fusion weapons, present fission power reactors, and a variety of possible future reactors including plutonium breeders and hybrids. A number of students also inquired last year about the teaching of analytical methods, particularly those most useful for studying science and technology.

ERG 251 for the Fall term, 1997, will do both. We will cover enough of the basic scientific and technical detail to familiarize students with the basis for political concerns, e.g., over whether the spread of nuclear power also means spreading the capability to build nuclear weapons, the possible consequences of accidents (weapons as well as reactor) and how demanding it might be to dispose of nuclear wastes and shut-down nuclear reactors and sites. We will also cover the co-evolutionary history of nuclear energy from the Manhattan project until the present, setting a variety of decisions, and agencies, into their social and political as well as industrial and technical context.

What is new about ERG 251 this fall is that we will be going a step further, using some of the newer tools of social science, such as frame, narrative, and discourse analysis to "deconstruct" both the history and the politics in search of social context and meaning. In order to do so effectively, we will therefore be reading some social science theory and method, with a particular focus to the application of post-positivist analysis to the nuclear controversies. Because this will take us through such a wide range of issues (such as the governance of technology, public perceptions of risk, the social context of technology, moving from the laboratory to deployment at full industrial and technical scale, international negotiations, the role of scientists in public policy and public debate), the course will provide students with analytic and methodological material that can later be applied to a wide range of problems at the interface of science, technology, society, and public policy.

Because this is a graduate seminar course, it will be a bricolage of technique. There will be lectures and handouts, division of labor assignments for reading with intense discussion, and the viewing of at least five or six excellent videos to explore the narrative and discursive elements that create the social and cultural representations through which nuclear weapons, and nuclear power, have been and are being interpreted. I expect that it will be great fun.

Energy and Resources 251 -- FALL 1997: Syllabus and Reading List

Professor Rochlin

Tu-Th 3:30-5:00, Room 225, Wheeler Hall

Syllabus as of 8/31/97 (Continually upgraded, keep checking!!!)

NOTA: Most of the course info and a great deal of material will be on the ERG 251 page of Prof. Rochlin's web site: http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~rochlin/251.html

Prof. Rochlin's e-mail for course stuff is rochlin@socrates.berkeley.edu

NEW!

The "required" text for the course is Robert Pool, Beyond Engineering: How Society Shapes Technology, New York, Oxford University Press, 1997.

I 8/26-28 Introduction to the course and the material

A brief introduction, and some technical stuff. Please go to the web site and look around.

II 9/2-4 The Bomb, Dread and EternityTues 9/2: Video: The Day After Trinity: Thurs 9/4: DiscussionReading: Michael Mandelbaum, "The Bomb, Dread, and Eternity," International Security 5, No. 2 (Fall 1980), 3-23.

III 9/9-11 The Dawn of Nuclear Power. U.S.Reactors and Civil/Military relationsAtoms for Peace, the Power Reactor Demo Program, submarine reactors...Readings: Pool, Beyond Engineering, 17-44, 53-84.Dwight D. Eisenhower, speech before the United Nations General Assembly, 8 December 1953 (the "Atoms for Peace" speech).John D. Hogerton, "The Arrival of Nuclear Power," Scientific American, February 1968.In the ERG Reading Room: Anthony V. Nero, A Guidebook to Nuclear Reactors. Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1979.

IV 9/16-18 Nuclear Power .. The Great Bandwagon Market and BeyondThe expansion and "social construction" of nuclear power in the U.S.Readings: Pool, Beyond Engineering, Chapter 3 (pp. 85-118).Richard F. Hirsch Technology and Transformation in the American Electric Utility Industry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989, pp. xx-yy?In the ERG Reading Room: The best book on the subject is Irvin C. Bupp and Jean-Claude Derian. Light Water: How the Nuclear Dream Dissolved. New York: Basic Books, 1978.

V 9/23-25 Video Week (Prof. Rochlin away .. To be chosen)Videos: The Atomic Café (US, 19xx), plus ????? (to be determined)

VI 9/30-10/2 Socializing Nuclear Power: Europe and The Weapons ConnectionDiscussion of the videos on Tuesday, then into Russian, French, and British programs as well as Canada and Sweden.Readings: Pool, Beyond Engineering, pp. 140-176.

VII 10/7-9 "Born Secret." Fusion and The "Super" .. From the Hydrogen Bomb to ???Fusion: weapons, secrets, and the promise of unlimited energy....Video: A is for Atom, B is for Bomb (If I can get it).Readings: Exchange of letters in March and April 1977 Physics Today about fusion power.John P. Holdren, "Fusion Energy in Context: Its Fitness for the Long Term," Science, 200 (14 April 1978), 168-180.Report of the General Advisory Committee of the Atomic Energy Commission, 30 Oct. 1949.Hans A. Bethe, "Comments on the History of the H-Bomb" Los Alamos Science, Fall 1982, 43-53.De Volpi et. al., Born Secret, 82-109.

VIII 10/14-16 Governance, Regulation and RepresentationReadings (more to come!):Pool, Beyond Engineering, reprise... of the history.James R. Temples, "The Politics of Nuclear Power: A Subgovernment in Transition," Political Science Quarterly, 95, No. 2 (Summer 1980), pp. 239-260.In the ERG Reading Room: David Howard Davis, Energy Politics, nuclear power chapter.Possibly one or two other "nuclear history" books .. To be chosen

IX 10/21-23 Nonproliferation and the NPT (the Social Construction of Nuclear Peace?)Readings: Kenneth N. Waltz, "Nuclear Myths and Political Realities," American Political Science Review, 84, No. 3 (Sep 1990), 731-745.Scott D. Sagan, "Why Do States Build Nuclear Weapons? Three Models in Search of a Bomb, International Security, 21, No. 3 (Winter 1996/97), 54-86.David J. Karl, "Proliferation Pessimism and Emerging Nuclear Powers," International Security, 21, No. 3 (Winter 1996/97), 87-119.In the ERG reading room: Nuclear Proliferation stuff (a box full)Possible evening session of videos about the effects of nuclear war??

XI 10/28-30 Plutonium, Fair or Foul? An Exercise in Discursive Policy AnalysisGuest speakers: (Alexandra von Meier, Jennifer Miller ?) readings to be supplied!Readings:Glenn T. Seaborg and Justin L. Bloom, "Fast Breeder Reactors," Scientific American, Nov. 1979.William Paulson, "Chance, Complexity, and Narrative Explanation." Sub-Stance 74, no. 2 (1994): 5-21.In the ERG Reading Room:Marten A. Hajer, "Discourse Coalitions and the Institutionalization of Practice: The Case of Acid Rain in Great Britain." In The Argumentative Turn in Policy Analysis and Planning, edited by Frank Fischer and John Forester, 43-76 Durham NC: Duke University Press, 1993.Meyer, John W. and Brian Rowan. "Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony." American Journal of Sociology 83, no. 2 (September, 1977): 340-363.

XII 11/4-6 The Rise and Fall and Rise and Fall (??) of Nuclear Power.Readings: Pool, Beyond Engineering, Chapter 7 (215-248).Gene I. Rochlin, "Broken Plowshare: System Failure and the Nuclear Power Industry," from Jane Summerton, ed., Changing Large Technical Systems (Boulder CO: Westview, 1994), 231-264.Exchange between Golay and Socolow and discussions on "What Role Should Nuclear Power Play and What Would Life Be Without It," Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on the Next Generation of Nuclear Technoloy, MIT report MIT-ANP-CP-002 (October 1993), pp. 1-1 to 1-28.

XII 11/11-13 Risk and Policy I: Hazards - Radiation and Nuclear WasteReadings: Pool, Beyond Engineering, Chapter 6 (177-214)W. Freudenberg, "Risky Thinking - Irrational Fears About Risk, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 545 (May 1996), 44-53.(More to come)

XIII 11/18-20 Risk and Policy II: Operations - TMI, Chernobyl and Nuclear AccidentsVideo: The China Syndrome and/or a Chernobyl video (??) (Evening session??)Readings: Pool, Beyond Engineering, Chapter 8 (249-278)."Chernobyl: Ten Years After." Set of articles from the May/June 1996 issue of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

XIV 11/25 and ThanksgivingTues 11/25: Social Construction and Safety: Nuclear OperationsReadings: Pool, Beyond Engineering, Chapter 9.Gene I. Rochlin and Alexandra von Meier. "Nuclear Power Operations: A Cross-Cultural Perspective." Annual Review of Energy and the Environment, 19 (1994): 153-187.Paul R. Schulman, "Heroes, Organizations, and High Reliability." Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, 4, No. 2 (June, 1996): 72-82.Karl E. Weick, "Organizational Culture as a Source of High Reliability." California Management Review, 29, No. 2 (Winter, 1987): 112-127.

XV Wrap up and class presentations (if any)