Suchergebnisse

The decade ahead is likely to witness a diminished capacity by the protagonist powers to control the universalization of that nuclear technology most suited to eventual military purposes. The fast-breeder reactor and centrifuge-enrichment, two nuclear developments on the threshold of commercial feasibility, are the most foreboding. They would provide, as by-products of the generation of electricity, two fissionable materials used in making nuclear weapons: plutonium and enriched uranium. This technology will be developed by industrial countries, like Germany and Japan, but it could be exported to countries in the Third World, where it is fervently believed to be the key to economic development. The prospects that the Soviet Union and the United States will effectively curb the spread of this technology seem poor because mutually reinforcing economic, status, and security incentives will undermine the diplomatic leverage of the superpowers and lead to relaxed safeguards. Thus, even a Nonproliferation Treaty ratified by most threshold and Third World countries would not prevent the eventual formation of a base for nuclear technology amounting to a real military option in many developing countries.

Public inquiries into controversial development proposals have themselves become increasingly controversial in recent years. Despite their increasing length and cost, such proceedings remain part of the administrative process – the Inspector's report serving to'inform the minister's mind. This paper examines certain features of the Sizewell B Inquiry and draws attention to the ability of the applicants to respond to criticisms raised at the hearings through various forms of institutional adaptation. Changes to the Central Electricity Generating Boards case on the organization of project management, to the management of the nuclear site licencing process, and to provisions for future nuclear reactor choice are highlighted. Significantly, each of these areas had been the subject of particular investigations undertaken at the behest of the inquiry Inspector. The paper concludes by raising a number of questions concerning the implications of this singularly interactive process.