Nuclear power and nuclear waste

Abstract

Generations of geographers attuned themselves to the view that a very large part of their subject was inevitably concerned with the distribution of the energy sources which had been influential in determining the location of manufacturing industry. As a consequence, innumerable historical and contemporary research topics focused upon energy as a locational factor and this became a basic and recurrent theme in courses on 'economic' and 'regional' geography. The relevance and validity of such an emphasis were inescapable provided one was concerned with patterns arising from earlier stages of the industrial revolution when, for obvious reasons, industry was overwhelmingly dependent on coal and water wheels for its power. But these obvious relationships were rapidly diminished as the extraction of petroleum and the generation of electricity, with their associated pipe lines and transmission cables, loosened the shackles. It began to seem as though, over large areas of the earth, political considerations and capital availability were rapidly becoming the only really important locational factors.The advent of electricity from nuclear power stations in 1954 seemed finally to set the seal on industrial dispersal; henceforth it was going to be possible to site an economically viable generating device almost anywhere -even in a submarine. Relatively tiny quantities of nuclear fuel can produce vast quantities of energy, so that sophisticated study of the relative costs of the different ways of bringing together the energy and the material for fabrication is rendered virtually academic.Proliferation of nuclear installations seems to suggest that this era of potentially foot-loose industry has already arrived. By the beginning of 1973, 22 countries (USA,

From hazard to habitat (or hazardous habitat)

“…A further aim of this essay is to cast light from beyond the sciences on a subject area often treated as the preserve of a specialist scientific literature. Nuclear contamination is a subject that has only occasionally featured in this journal – some time ago, and with reference to nuclear energy generation and the emergence of a plutonium-based economy rather than weapons manufacture (Eyre, 1978; O’Riordan, 1979). 10 As O’Riordan (1979) pointed out in his review of the incident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, the body of work by geographers on human responses to natural hazards and perceptions of risk, especially the public acceptability of involuntary risk, though already substantial, did not extend to nuclear matters.…”

Unsiting Nuclear Power Plants: Decommissioning Risks and Their Land Use Context*

“…From the 1950s through the 1970s, nuclear power was pushed from the laboratories into the neighborhoods. Geographers witnessed the move and began explaining its impacts on siting and location (Jones 1951;Hart 1956;Hoffman 1957;Mow11 1958;Mason 1971;Mason 1972;Soumagne 1973;Semple et al 1976;Hohenemser et al 1977;Eyre 1978;Hare 1978;Luten 1979). As the spatial emphasis grew, geography's natural role increased in importance, focusing in particular on various land use themes such as power plant siting, waste transport and disposal, emergency planning, evacuation behavior, and risk perceptions (Cutter et al 1982;Cutter 1984;Johnson et al 'Thanks are due to Stanley Brunn, Candle Earl, David Feldman, Russell Lee, Timochy Laugh, Kevin McHugh, John Sorensen, and several anonymous reviewers.…”