Post-Fukushima Controversy on SPEEDI System: Contested Imaginary of Real-Time Simulation Technology for Emergency Radiation Protection

Sugawara, Shin-etsu; Juraku, Kohta

doi:10.1007/978-981-10-8509-3_9

Cited by 8 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…Regarding these three cases, the authors in their previous studies found that the "already known" problems among the relevant experts have either not been considered, or have been ignored in the post-Fukushima controversies and policy process. 9,10 After the descriptive case studies, we then extract the three common features observed across the cases at the intersection of science, technology, and society: avoiding critical conflicts and dilemmas, proclivity toward automated decision making, and strategic overlooking of "uncomfortable knowledge." Finally, based on these findings, we attempt to conceptualize the mechanism of that phenomenon as "structural ignorance" of expertise, with reference to other works and conceptual frameworks in social scientific scholarship.…”

Section: Scope and Methods Of The Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Structural Ignorance of Expertise in Nuclear Safety Controversies: Case Analysis of Post-Fukushima Japan

Juraku

Sugawara

2021

Nuclear Technology

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This study sheds new light on nuclear risk governance from a sociological perspective by analyzing cases of post-Fukushima controversies on nuclear safety and nuclear emergency preparedness in Japan. By critically analyzing how the three risk-related concepts and methodologies, namely, probabilistic risk assessment, safety goals, and the System for Prediction of Environmental Emergency Dose Information, have been interpreted, implemented, and/or abandoned before and after the Fukushima accident, this study identifies three common features that characterize Japan's nuclear risk governance: avoiding critical conflicts, proclivity toward automated decision making, and strategic overlooking of "uncomfortable knowledge." These features all involve ignorance of the dynamic nature of safety where addressing uncertainties, heterogeneous knowledge, and incommensurable values can be key for continuously reviewing the existing edifice of safety. By elucidating why such ignorance persists in Japan despite the postaccidental drastic reform, the authors both articulate the deep-rooted structure that underlies it and reflects the societal and historical context, and eventually conceptualize this ignorance as "structural ignorance" of expertise in nuclear safety controversies and policy processes. The results also provide direction for further research to solve this structural problem.

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Section: Scope and Methods Of The Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Structural Ignorance of Expertise in Nuclear Safety Controversies: Case Analysis of Post-Fukushima Japan

Juraku

Sugawara

2021

Nuclear Technology

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“…These maps were expected to provide bases for emergency decisions, including stay-at-home and evacuation orders (Misawa and Nagamori 2008). ERSS and SPEEDI were deeply institutionalized into the management framework as if their scientific prediction methods were indisputable ways of developing protective actions against nuclear disasters (Sugawara and Juraku 2018).…”

Section: System For Prediction Of Environmental Emergency Dose Inform...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…If any actual measurement value exceeded preset criteria, the level of emergency was mechanically decided. This would automatically trigger the necessary course of action without requiring estimations and judgments from experts or politicians (Sugawara and Juraku 2018). This shift from dependence on predictive simulations to a reliance on the preset criteria-based approach, or from anticipated potentials to limited actuals , shows a similar trajectory to that in the case of the SIR model.…”

Section: System For Prediction Of Environmental Emergency Dose Inform...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Eliminating Human Agency: Why Does Japan Abandon Predictive Simulations?

Sugawara

2021

Science, Technology, & Human Values

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Prediction plays a vital role in every branch of our contemporary lives. While the credibility of quantitative simulations through mathematical modeling may seem to be universal, how they are perceived and embedded in policy processes may vary by society. Investigating the ecology of quantitative prediction tools, this article articulates the cultural specificity of Japanese society through the concept of Jasanoff’s “civic epistemology.” Taking COVID-19 and nuclear disasters as examples, this article examines how predictive simulations are mobilized, contested, and abandoned. In both cases, current empirical observation eventually replaces predictive future simulations, and mechanical application of preset criteria substitutes political judgment. These analyses suggest that the preferred register of objectivity in Japan—one of the constitutive dimensions of civic epistemology—consists not in producing numerical results, but in precluding human judgment. Such public calls to eliminate human agency both in knowledge and in policy-making can be a distinct character of Japanese civic epistemology, which may explain why Japan repeatedly withdraws from predictive simulations. It implies the possibility that Western societies’ faith in human judgment should not be taken for granted, but explained.

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“…Without reliable data about the magnitude and timing of the releases, predicting plumes and depositions is even more uncertain. SPEEDI was supposed to perform these modeling calculations; however, no data and information from these predictions were made available out of fear that they might be wrong (28). The first systematic and large-area surveillance of radioactive contamination was carried out by AMS, which commenced measurements on Thursday, March 17.…”

Section: Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station Accident and Immediate Impact And Responsementioning

confidence: 99%

The Nuclear Legacy Today of Fukushima

Vetter

2020

Annu. Rev. Nucl. Part. Sci.

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The accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (FDNPS) following the Great East Japan Earthquake and the subsequent tsunami in March 2011 changed people's perceptions regarding nuclear power generation in Japan and worldwide. The failure to prevent the accident and the response to it had an enormous impact specifically on the communities close to the site but also across Japan and globally. In this review, I discuss radiation detection technologies, their use and limits in the immediate assessment and response, and improvements since then. In particular, I examine recent developments in radiation detection and imaging systems that, in combination with the enormous advances in computer vision, provide new means to detect, map, and visualize radiation using manned and unmanned deployment platforms. In addition to smarter and more adaptable technologies to prevent and minimize the impact of such events, an important outcome of this accident is the need for informed and resilient citizens who are empowered by knowledge and technologies to make rational decisions. The accident at FDNPS leaves a legacy concerning the importance of historical information, technologies, and resilience as well as challenges regarding powerful technologies that can provide substantial benefits to human society but that are also associated with risks of which we must be aware. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Nuclear and Particle Science, Volume 70 is October 19, 2020. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

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Post-Fukushima Controversy on SPEEDI System: Contested Imaginary of Real-Time Simulation Technology for Emergency Radiation Protection

Cited by 8 publications

References 2 publications

Structural Ignorance of Expertise in Nuclear Safety Controversies: Case Analysis of Post-Fukushima Japan

Structural Ignorance of Expertise in Nuclear Safety Controversies: Case Analysis of Post-Fukushima Japan

Eliminating Human Agency: Why Does Japan Abandon Predictive Simulations?

The Nuclear Legacy Today of Fukushima

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