Dear Colleagues,
I'm glad to announce (and to invite) you to my PhD defense in Science and
Technology Studies entitled "Taming the Black Swan. Construction and
circulation of knowledge and ignorance for the major nuclear accident
governmentality" prepared under the supervision of Pr. Soraya Boudia at the
Université de Paris (before Université Paris Descartes) in the Cermes3 lab.
The defense will be held publicly, mainly in French, in a hybrid format (in
site and remotely):
Monday 27 September 2021 at 9:30 amAt the University of Paris, Campus
Saint-Germain-des-Prés45 Rue des Saints Pères - 75006 Paris
To a jury composed of:
- Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent, Emeritus Professor, University of Paris 1
Panthéon Sorbonne,
- Olivier Borraz, Director of Research, CNRS/Sciences Po,Soraya Boudia,
University Professor, University of Paris, (thesis director)
- Olivier Chanton, Researcher, Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté
Nucléaire,
- Sylvie Ollitrault, Director of Research, CNRS / Ecole des Hautes
Etudes en Santé Publique,
- Carsten Reinhardt, Professor, Universität Bielefeld (rapporteur),
- Paul-André Rosental, Professor, Sciences Po (rapporteur).
This thesis was financially supported by IRSN, IFRIS and the Comité
d'Histoire de l'Électricité et de l'Énergie of the EDF Foundation.
RSVP: For attending in person or remotely, please confirm your presence
by replying to this email, or emailing me at mael.goumri@cnrs.fr not later
than September 24th. Due to covid-19 university's regulations, in person
attendance will only be possible with a vaccination certificate, a proof of
recovery or a recent negative test.
Kind regards,
Maël Goumri
Abstract : Severe nuclear accidents have, in over one way, a paradigmatic
status in the world of risk and crisis management and the social sciences
that study them. The accidents at Three Mile Island in the United States
(1979) and at Chernobyl in Ukraine (1986) have led to the production of
many works which show the emergence of new risks (Lagadec 1981, Beck 1986,
Godard et al. 2002). They also symbolize the "major industrial accident" as
one can imagine it, because of their unpredictability and the
incommensurable damages they cause over time and space. However, contrary
to several cases and scandals that have appeared along technological
developments (Callon & Lascoumes 2001, Blic & Lemieux 2005), nuclear energy
stands out by its high scientifical and technical control. The question of
accidents gets dealt with by experts since the beginning of its development
and has been widely addressed by the actors through many research studies
and prudent choices made by an international community of experts. But how
can one explain, despite an unprecedented accumulation of knowledge and a
significant investment in the issue by experts, that severe nuclear
accidents remain so uncertain? The thesis aims to answer to this question.
It argues that despite the attempts of engineers and experts to prevent the
accident, their activities come up against the radical uncertainty that
characterizes nuclear energy operation. It makes the prediction of the
accident particularly difficult. To achieve this, the thesis retraces the
expertise activities of the French Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté
Nucléaire (IRSN), both in France and internationally, around the risk of
nuclear "core meltdown" accident. It occurs when the technical devices no
longer allow the core to cool. In the event of an accident, the increase in
temperature of the core beyond 1200°C and then 2000°C melts the nuclear
fuel, which forms a highly radioactive magma called "corium" that melts
everything in its path. It also makes up a major risk that the nuclear
industry is trying to avoid at all costs because of its unpredictable and
difficult-to-control nature. In order to understand the way this risk has
been treated over time, the thesis highlights three ontologies of the
accident that lead to different responses from the actors. These three
ontologies compose the three parts of the thesis. The hypothetical accident
(1) is the result of an active process carried out by the actors who have
imagined the possible accidents and proposed devices to make it
non-credible if not physically impossible. The contained accident (2),
which appeared in the 1970s, is a conception of the actors aiming to show
that if a core meltdown occurs, it can get contained within the reactor
thanks to robust technical devices, thus preventing the catastrophe to
occur. The major accident (3) symbolized by the Chernobyl and Fukushima
accidents is a state in which the nuclear actors assumed the plausibility
of a catastrophe and put in place measures to limit the consequences of the
accident, despite the radical uncertainty which (paradoxically) is
reinforced by the progress of knowledge.
Keywords: Nuclear Energy, transnationalisation of risks, knowledge
circulation, expertise, major risks, severe accidents, radical uncertainty,
industrial accident ignorance, nuclear diplomacy.
__
Maël Goumri
Doctorant en Sciences Techniques et Sociétés / Science and Technology
Studies Doctoral Candidate
Université de Paris / Centre de recherche médecine, sciences, santé,
santé
mentale, société
CERMES3 UMR 8211 CNRS-INSERM-EHESS-Université de Paris
mael.goumri@cnrs.fr
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