Excluding a French Fukushima: Accident Modeling as a Means of Regenerating Promises of Government in the Face of Crises

• In Event: Scenarios Beyond Imagination: What Is Imaginable? and What Is Not?

Abstract

Nuclear safety regulations in the form of scenario planning and accident modelling are based on the technological utopia of an inherently safe technology without accidents. This promise was amended several times in reaction to former large-scale accidents, but still relies on the idea that radioactive contaminations can be excluded. This article investigates how French nuclear experts reaffirmed and adjusted the promise of an accident-free future again after the Fukushima catastrophe, by complementing existing accident models without questioning the institutions of nuclear safety. Based on qualitative data stemming from a three-year ethnography of French and European nuclear safety organizations, the paper retraces in particular the invention of a new, complementary socio-technical model, called the “hardened safety core” that aims to exclude a “Fukushima-type” accident in France. It shows how this new model served as a vehicle in the negotiation process between the French industry and safety authorities. While being progressively filled with content, it reproduces established compromises among all actors and discards alternative ideas and solutions. This case shows how accident modelling allows integrating unforeseen events into existing practices, by controlling model hypotheses and parameters depending on real-world political, techno-economic and organizational constraints. This process in turn restores confidence and regenerates promises of government in the face of crises.

Author

• Valerie Arnhold, Sciences Po