Avatars des déchets nucléaires japonais

La catastrophe du tsunami qui a frappé le Japon en 2011 a occasionné un vaste champ d’expérimentation – non désiré – dans le domaine de la gestion des déchets. Le phénomène sismique et l’accident nucléaire de Fukushima Daiichi qu’il a entraîné ont créé une rupture hélas imprévue en matière de politique nucléaire, rupture qui a révélé la gestion laxiste et problématique des déchets nucléaires du pays, ainsi que des anomalies apparaissant dès le début. Cet article s’intéresse à l’ensemble des déchets nucléaires dans le Japon post-tsunami, des barres de combustible irradié à l’enceinte de confinement déformée du réacteur, et à la manière dont ces déchets nucléaires reflètent ou se distinguent des pratiques en matière de déchets du quotidien au sein de la culture japonaise. Le site de Fukushima Daiichi et ses alentours jadis banals ont eux-mêmes été considérablement transformés en des espèces d’énormes déchets nucléaires. Les défis titanesques auxquels est confronté le site de Fukushima Daiichi ont favorisé l’émergence d’une série d’innovations impromptues qui offrent un regard sur les pratiques en matière de déchets nucléaires plus courants dans cette industrie.Tandis que les HAVL (déchets de haute activité et à vie longue) peuvent être retraités pour un usage limité dans les réacteurs actuels, on ne peut pas ignorer qu’une grande partie des déchets nucléaires japonais est simplement convertie en d’autres types de déchets. Dans une société qui a longtemps mis un point d’honneur à tenir la saleté à l’écart, à maintenir une pureté (fantasmée) et à gérer la proximité des sources de pollution, le spectre des déchets nucléaires plane sur le Japon contemporain et ses débats en cours sur les ressources, les risques et l’identité même du nucléaire japonais.Japan’s cataclysmic 2011 tsunami has become a vast, unwanted experiment in waste management. The the seismic event and ‪resulting Fukushima Daiichi radiation crisis created an awkwardly fortuitous rupture in Japanese nuclear practice that exposed the lax and problematic management of nuclear waste in this country to broader scrutiny, as well as distortions in its very conception. This article looks at the full spectrum of nuclear waste in post-tsunami Japan, from spent fuel rods to contorted reactor containment, and the ways that nuclear waste mirrors or diverges from more quotidian waste practices in Japanese culture. Significantly, the Fukushima Daiichi plant itself and its erstwhile banal surroundings have themselves transmuted into an unwieldy form of nuclear waste. The immense challenges of the Fukushima Daiichi site have stimulated a series of on-the-fly innovations that furnish perspective on more everyday nuclear waste practices in the industry.‬‬While some HLW can be reprocessed for limited use in today’s reactors, it cannot be ignored that much of Japan’s nuclear waste is simply converted into other forms of waste. In a society that has long been fixated on segregating filth, maintaining (imagined) purity, and managing proximity to pollution, the specter of nuclear waste looms over contemporary Japan and its ongoing debates over resources, risk, and Japanese nuclear identity itself

Policy mixes for incumbency: the destructive recreation of renewable energy, shale gas 'fracking,' and nuclear power in the United Kingdom

The notion of a ‘policy mix’ can describe interactions across a wide range of innovation policies, including ‘motors for creation’ as well as for ‘destruction’. This paper focuses on the United Kingdom’s (UK) ‘new policy direction’ that has weakened support for renewables and energy efficiency schemes while strengthening promotion of nuclear power and hydraulic fracturing for natural gas (‘fracking’). The paper argues that a ‘policy apparatus for incumbency’ is emerging which strengthens key regimebased technologies while arguably damaging emerging niche innovations. Basing the discussion around the three technology-based cases of renewable energy and efficiency, fracking, and nuclear power, this paper refers to this process as “destructive recreation”. Our study raises questions over the extent to which policymaking in the energy field is not so much driven by stated aims around sustainability transitions, as by other policy drivers. It investigates different ‘strategies of incumbency’ including ‘securitization’, ‘masking’, ‘reinvention’, and ‘capture.’ It suggests that analytical frameworks should extend beyond the particular sectors in focus, with notions of what counts as a relevant ‘policy maker’ correspondingly also expanded, in order to explore a wider range of nodes and critical junctures as entry points for understanding how relations of incumbency are forged and reproduced

Clinical Sequencing Exploratory Research Consortium: Accelerating Evidence-Based Practice of Genomic Medicine

Despite rapid technical progress and demonstrable effectiveness for some types of diagnosis and therapy, much remains to be learned about clinical genome and exome sequencing (CGES) and its role within the practice of medicine. The Clinical Sequencing Exploratory Research (CSER) consortium includes 18 extramural research projects, one National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) intramural project, and a coordinating center funded by the NHGRI and National Cancer Institute. The consortium is exploring analytic and clinical validity and utility, as well as the ethical, legal, and social implications of sequencing via multidisciplinary approaches; it has thus far recruited 5,577 participants across a spectrum of symptomatic and healthy children and adults by utilizing both germline and cancer sequencing. The CSER consortium is analyzing data and creating publically available procedures and tools related to participant preferences and consent, variant classification, disclosure and management of primary and secondary findings, health outcomes, and integration with electronic health records. Future research directions will refine measures of clinical utility of CGES in both germline and somatic testing, evaluate the use of CGES for screening in healthy individuals, explore the penetrance of pathogenic variants through extensive phenotyping, reduce discordances in public databases of genes and variants, examine social and ethnic disparities in the provision of genomics services, explore regulatory issues, and estimate the value and downstream costs of sequencing. The CSER consortium has established a shared community of research sites by using diverse approaches to pursue the evidence-based development of best practices in genomic medicine

Water-quality assessment of South-Central Texas : occurrence and distribution of volatile organic compounds in surface water and ground water, 1983-94, and implications for furture monitoring /

Shipping list no.: 97-0286-P."South-Central Texas NAWQA study unit"--Cover."A contribution of the Natinal Water-Quality Assessment Program."Includes bibliographical references (p. 20).Mode of access: Internet