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WIPP: Lessons in transportation safety
As part of a future consent-based approach by the federal government to site new deep geologic repositories for nuclear waste, local communities and states that are considering hosting such facilities are sure to have many questions. Currently, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico is the only example of such a repository in operation, and it offers the opportunity for state and local officials to visit and judge for themselves the risks and benefits of hosting a similar facility. But its history can also provide lessons for these officials, particularly the political process leading up to the opening of WIPP, the safety of WIPP operations and transportation of waste from generator facilities to the site, and the economic impacts the project has had on the local area of Carlsbad, as well as the rest of the state of New Mexico.
Lisa Marshall
Nuclear Technology | Volume 207 | Number 9 | September 2021 | Pages 1483-1490
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2021.1895408
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Energy plays an increasingly vital role in society where questions around technologies, economics, quality of life, and policies are debated. The link of nuclear energy with the social sciences allows for a fuller examination of human-environment decision making. This paper comes out of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) International Workshop on the Nuclear Social Science Nexus. The development and teaching of a Geographies of Energy course is provided as an example of a pedagogical method to understand the interconnectedness of science and social science. Students in the North Carolina State University China Study Abroad Program in Engineering, Science, Technology & Society (STS) and International Relations unpack the sociotechnical dimensions of resource extraction, energy production, consumption, and byproduct management. A complex network of resources, actors, implications, and outcomes arise, allowing for the study of place uniqueness as well as the connections and interactions between places—China, neighboring states, and international systems—and power technologies.