Lidsky L M
Department of Nuclear Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge 02139.
Radiat Res. 1988 Feb;113(2):217-26.
The rise and fall of the nuclear power industry in the United States is a well-documented story with enough socio-technological conflict to fill dozens of scholarly, and not so scholarly, books. Whatever the reasons for the situation we are now in, and no matter how we apportion the blame, the ultimate choice of whether to use nuclear power in this country is made by the utilities and by the public. Their choices are, finally, based on some form of risk-benefit analysis. Such analysis is done in well-documented and apparently logical form by the utilities and in a rather more inchoate but not necessarily less accurate form by the public. Nuclear power has failed in the United States because both the real and perceived risks outweigh the potential benefits. The national decision not to rely upon nuclear power in its present form is not an irrational one. A wide ranging public balancing of risk and benefit requires a classification of risk which is clear and believable for the public to be able to assess the risks associated with given technological structures. The qualitative four-level safety ladder provides such a framework. Nuclear reactors have been designed which fit clearly and demonstrably into each of the possible qualitative safety levels. Surprisingly, it appears that safer may also mean cheaper. The intellectual and technical prerequisites are in hand for an important national decision. Deployment of a qualitatively different second generation of nuclear reactors can have important benefits for the United States. Surprisingly, it may well be the "nuclear establishment" itself, with enormous investments of money and pride in the existing nuclear systems, that rejects second generation reactors. It may be that we will not have a second generation of reactors until the first generation of nuclear engineers and nuclear power advocates has retired.
美国核电产业的兴衰是一个有充分文献记载的故事，其中包含了足够多的社会技术冲突，足以写成几十本学术性和非学术性的书籍。无论我们现在所处状况的原因是什么，也无论我们如何归咎责任，在这个国家是否使用核电的最终选择是由公用事业公司和公众做出的。他们的选择最终基于某种形式的风险收益分析。公用事业公司以有充分文献记载且看似合乎逻辑的形式进行这种分析，而公众则以一种较为初步但不一定不准确的形式进行分析。核电在美国失败了，因为实际风险和感知到的风险都超过了潜在收益。国家决定不依赖当前形式的核电并非不合理。广泛的公众风险与收益平衡需要一种对公众来说清晰且可信的风险分类，以便公众能够评估与特定技术结构相关的风险。定性的四级安全阶梯提供了这样一个框架。已经设计出的核反应堆能够清晰且明显地符合每一个可能的定性安全级别。令人惊讶的是，似乎更安全也可能意味着更便宜。做出一项重要的国家决策所需的知识和技术前提已经具备。部署性质上不同的第二代核反应堆可能会给美国带来重要益处。令人惊讶的是，很可能正是“核电机构”自身，因其在现有核系统中投入了大量资金并引以为傲，而拒绝第二代反应堆。也许在第一代核工程师和核电倡导者退休之前，我们都不会有第二代反应堆。
