Many UK nuclear power stations are reaching the end of their planned lives and seeking extensions. Simultaneously, electricity demand is increasing, older coal-fired stations are required to shut and emission targets restrict like-for-like replacement. The reliability and safety of ageing nuclear stations is of increasing importance, but despite preventative efforts, significant, disruptive events still occur. Nuclear power stations were identified as Complex Socio-Technical Systems with tightly linked, complex interactions and behaviours controlled by feedback. Contemporary theories suggest that the current approach to prevention does not effectively address these characteristics. Instead, it views events as cause-and-effect chains, often focusing on prediction at the expense of developing resilience. Systems Theory, particularly Soft Systems Methodology, was used to understand the complex nature of the problem and assist in the investigation of an event analysis technique which would complement the current tools, addressing their shortfalls. System Dynamics was investigated for learning from events within the nuclear industry. It was applied in three case studies to identify the technical, cultural and organisational causes of events. Quantitative and qualitative models were built, and simulations performed. Uniquely, it was applied in an active event investigation, and Group Model Building techniques were investigated. The conclusions of each case study were compared against those of investigations using the traditional methods, assessing System Dynamics' ability and practicality in this context. In each case System Dynamics allowed for conclusions and recommendations additional to those of the current methods. It highlighted the causal influence of feedback structures within the system, which in some cases had caused a gradual drift towards vulnerability. It led to recommendations that alter interactions within the system, making it less vulnerable to unexpected variation, and therefore more resilient. This study suggests that implementing System Dynamics in event investigation is feasible and advantageous in the nuclear industry and beyond.

Current research has shown that the way that nuclear technology was developed in Italy was marked by two specific trends. First, the adoption of nuclear technology took place in Italy before it was used by other European countries, and second, there was a whole range of initiatives in this sector. In this context this PhD looks in detail at the US technology available at the time and then analyses how and in which specific forms Italy set up a national nuclear programme, before moving on to a discussion of the results of the Italian programme. By concentrating on Italy’s Società elettronucleare nazionale (SENN) (National Nuclear Electricity Company) I have been able to analyse these wider questions. The first chapter looks at the relationship between Italy and the World Bank using the archives of the Banca d’Italia (the Italian national bank), the World Bank archives, and secondary literature. It looks at the context in which a nuclear power plant was built in the Italian South, on the Garigliano river; this investment is also compared with other investments by the World Bank in Italy. The second chapter looks at the forms of nuclear technology available at the time and the characteristics of the US ‘Atoms for Peace’ programme. The aim of this chapter is to draw out the importance of propaganda in promoting technology which was still linked to its possible military use. Chapter 3 looks at the situation in Italy at the time of the building of the nuclear power plant, the research applied at the time, and other public and private investments in Italy in nuclear power. This analysis is based on archival material, interviews with key figures from the time, newspaper articles, secondary literature, and specialised periodicals. Chapter 4 looks at the negotiations between the United States Atomic Energy Commission and the Italian national bank over the creation of a nuclear power station in Garigliano. This research is based on the archives of the World Bank and Italy’s national bank, and private archives. Chapter 5 looks at the loans which were used to build the plant, and at the beginning of its construction. Chapter 6 takes the story on to the construction, activity, and closure of the plant. Finally, Chapter 7 shows how nuclear energy was represented in the Italian newspapers.

For remote, semi-arid areas, brackish groundwater (BW) desalination powered by solar energy may serve as the most technically and economically viable means to alleviate the water stresses. For such systems, high recovery ratio is desired because of the technical and economical difficulties of concentrate management. It has been demonstrated that the current, conventional solar reverse osmosis (RO) desalination can be improved by 40–200 times by eliminating unnecessary energy losses. In this work, a batch-RO system that can be powered by a thermal Rankine cycle has been developed. By directly recycling high pressure concentrates and by using a linkage connection to provide increasing feed pressures, the batch-RO has been shown to achieve a 70% saving in energy consumption compared to a continuous single-stage RO system. Theoretical investigations on the mass transfer phenomena, including dispersion and concentration polarization, have been carried out to complement and to guide experimental efforts. The performance evaluation of the batch-RO system, named DesaLink, has been based on extensive experimental tests performed upon it. Operating DesaLink using compressed air as power supply under laboratory conditions, a freshwater production of approximately 300 litres per day was recorded with a concentration of around 350 ppm, whilst the feed water had a concentration range of 2500–4500 ppm; the corresponding linkage efficiency was around 40%. In the computational aspect, simulation models have been developed and validated for each of the subsystems of DesaLink, upon which an integrated model has been realised for the whole system. The models, both the subsystem ones and the integrated one, have been demonstrated to predict accurately the system performance under specific operational conditions. A simulation case study has been performed using the developed model. Simulation results indicate that the system can be expected to achieve a water production of 200 m3 per year by using a widely available evacuated tube solar collector having an area of only 2 m2. This freshwater production would satisfy the drinking water needs of 163 habitants in the Rajasthan region, the area for which the case study was performed.

India is presently debating different nuclear strategies. However, the correspondence of these public debates to nuclear policy decisions has not been significantly investigated. It has further been claimed that India has no strategic culture or substantive defence discourse. This thesis investigates Indian nuclear strategic discourse from 1997-2009. It utilises a discourse analysis methodology, with opinion articles on Indian nuclear policy published in English-language Indian newspapers as its primary sources. It investigates the relationship of policy options as developed in strategic discourse to the following government policy decision, and the major influences on India’s nuclear policy as recognised by strategic discourse, including the role of India’s emerging nuclear force capabilities, and whether these change over the period of study. It finds that India possesses a nuclear strategic culture, primarily characterised by the organising value of nuclear minimalism. However, this organising value is more pronounced in security crisis discourses and is coming under progressively strong contestation by an alternative organising value of nuclear maximalism in peacetime doctrinal nuclear policy discourses. Strategic culture, which is produced by strategic discourse on specific policy dilemmas, has an input in the policymaking process. The first or second most popular policy option within the discourse, with a strong base of centrist political support, tends to correlate with the policy decision. India’s nuclear force capabilities have a primary, and increasingly maximalist, influence on discourses, as the third most cited influence overall in the study. These findings importantly develop research on Indian defence, discourse analysis, and strategic culture. To most efficiently safeguard India, New Delhi should recognise the resilience of nuclear minimalism as the dominant organising value of strategic culture when a crisis emerges, and apply this value to its nuclear planning in peacetime, when maximalist values obtain greater support.

In the recent years, social issues around renewable energy implementation have been gaining prominence both in developed and developing countries. Though researchers across different disciplines in developed countries have started dealing with this issue, there is a lack of theoretical or empirical research in developing countries. This research from a pluralistic perspective and using the case study of ‘Charanaka Solar Park’ qualitatively analyses the relationship between ‘justice’ and solar energy implementation in India. The justice framework used in this thesis corresponds to the theoretical knowledge on a) procedural justice and b) distributional justice principles based in social, environmental, and energy justice literatures. The application of multiple theories of justice proved to be significant and useful instrument for analysing controversies over implementation of solar (renewable) energy policies. The results of this research have provided new insights into how social justice issues, such as recognition of marginalised communities, equal and democratic participation, and just distribution of project outcomes, are strongly interconnected to implementation of ‘environmentally good’ projects. Following the findings of this research, recommendations for policymakers and practitioners are proposed and pathways for future research are outlined.

Η διπλωματική εργασία ασχολείται με την προσομοίωση και την ενεργειακή μελέτη ενός αυτόνομου οικιακού φωτοβολταϊκού συστήματος ονομαστικής ισχύος 1,8 KW στον νομό Χίου. Αναφέρονται τα ηλεκτρικά στοιχεία που απαρτίζουν ένα τέτοιο σύστημα και η λειτουργία τους. Τέλος εκτελείται οικονομική ανάλυση του παραπάνω συστήματος και γίνεται η συγκρισή του με συμβατικό σύστημα. / The project studies the simulation and the energy behaviour of a stand alone photovoltaic system with rated power of 1,8 ΚW. There is an economic analysis of this system as well.

This research examines the role of framing in the process of decision-making for new capability investments under conditions of policy and technological uncertainty. I argue that framing can explain the decision to exploit current capabilities, but is not sufficient to explain the decision to explore new capabilities. This research discriminates between “frames” and “framing” in the investigation: whereas “framing” is the process of constructing the meaning of the decision problem, “frame” refers to a specific perspective adopted by the decision makers. I develop a three-level research design: the industry-level analysis adopts the approach of eliciting heuristics to identify general patterns. The firm-level examines sources of variation and causal complexity by comparative case analysis. The decision-maker level investigates the influence of senior managers' professional experience using a scenario evaluation approach. Three observations from the case study of Taiwanese solar PV firms: firstly, systematic patterns are found in the process of framing environmental uncertainty and attributing the causes of the decision problem of capability investments. Secondly, whilst differentiated framing exists and corresponds to selective attention; such a difference is not necessarily associated with different choice pattern. Finally, the loosely coupling framing and choices leads to the speculation that the role of deliberate practice, rather than framing has a stronger influence on the decision to explore. This research illustrates that the capabilities investment decision is not a single event but a complex process. While the stylised psychological principles explain the heuristic judgments, the influencing factors of an organisational decision are interdependent and temporally connected in the decision context. I argue that the problem of framing lies in prohibiting the alterative frame. Therefore exploration needs to be deliberately sought by the specially designed practice. This research contributes to understanding the relationship between behavioural view of descriptive analysis and prescriptive view of procedural rationality in the decision- making process.

In a world that is constantly in need of a continuous, reliable and sustainable energy supply, concentrating photovoltaic technologies have the potential to become a cost effective solution for large scale power generation. In this light, important progresses have been made in terms of cell’s design and efficiency, but the concentrating photovoltaic industry sector still struggles to gain market share and to achieve adequate economic returns. The work presented in this thesis is focused on the development of innovative solutions for high concentrating photovoltaics receivers. The design, the fabrication and the characterization of a large cell assembly for high concentrations are described. The assembly is designed to accommodate 144 multijunction cells and is rated to supply energy up to 2.6kWe at 500 suns. The original outline of the conductive copper layer limits the Joule losses to the 0.7% of the global power output, by reducing the number of interconnections. All the challenges and the issues faced in the manufacturing stage are accounted for and the reliability of the fabrication has been proven by quality tests and experimental investigations conducted on the prototype. An indoor characterization shows the receiver’s potential to supply a short-circuit current of 5.77A and an open circuit voltage per cell of 3.08V at 500×, under standard test conditions, only 4.80% and 2.06% respectively lower than those obtained by a commercial single-cell assembly. An electrical efficiency of 29.4% is expected at 500 suns, under standard conditions. A prototype’s cost of $0.91/Wp, in line with the actual price of CPV systems, has been recorded: a cost breakdown is reported and the way to further reduce the cost have been identified and is accounted. In a second approach, the design of a natural convective micro-finned array to be integrated in a single cell receiver has been successfully attempted. Passive cooling systems are usually cheaper, simpler and considered more reliable than active ones. After a detailed review of micro-cooling solutions, an experimental investigation on the thermal behaviour of micro-fins has been conducted and has been combined with a multiphysics software model. A micro-finned heat sink shows the potential to keep the CPV temperature below 100°C under standard conditions and the ability to handle the heat flux when the cell’s efficiency drops to zero. Moreover, a micro-finned heat sink demonstrates the potential to introduce significant benefits in terms of material usage and weight reduction: compared to those commercially available, a micro-finned heat sink has a power-to-weight ratio between 6 and 8 times higher, which results in lower costs and reduced loads for the CPV tracker.

The global energy trilemma has brought attention to the importance of energy access, in particular to the 1.3 billion people worldwide without access to electricity. Vital for addressing poverty, improving people s quality of lives and meeting the Millennium Development Goals, small scale solar energy technologies are espoused as a solution to household energy needs in off-grid areas of the developing world. This thesis contributes to this critical research area through an investigation of energy governance issues in Nicaragua; specifically it focuses on the practices and experiences of off-grid solar energy technologies. The lived realities, voices and aspirations of energy users are largely absent in scholarly accounts of energy poverty, as such this thesis considers the implications of solar energy technologies from the perspective of those ultimately adopting, using, maintaining (and abandoning) them. Contributing to the burgeoning field of geographical and social science studies of energy, this thesis draws on ten months of field research in Nicaragua, which encompassed more than seventy qualitative interviews with stakeholders at multiple spatial scales. This included actors from international development agencies, national government, non-governmental organisations, the private sector, civil society, as well as households participating in three solar energy programmes. This was complemented by a large household survey of participants from one solar energy programme. Incorporating perspectives from the micro, meso and macro scales, this study presents a highly nuanced picture of the Nicaraguan energy landscape. The study concludes that interaction between global energy paradigm shifts and the domestic political economic context produced an electricity sector that was until recently - characterised by low distributional equity, deep consumer mistrust and dominated by fossil fuel-based electricity generation. The recent prioritisation of energy as a key developmental concern is demonstrated not only in strong government intervention, but also through growing international interest in solving Nicaragua s energy problem . A raft of programmes to green the electricity generating matrix, strengthen distribution activities and expand electricity access have emerged. Despite these encouraging developments, this research concludes that issues related to transparency, vested interests and the politicisation of electricity access appear to remain unresolved. The study traces the development of the off-grid solar energy market segment, revealing a complex architecture of institutions and actors working to promote and deploy solar energy technologies at scale. While this market initially developed in response to gaps in remote electrification plans, the research finds that recent grid expansion activities mean that the longer-term scope for small scale solar energy technologies is limited. However, solar energy remains an important feature of energy development assistance in Nicaragua, with further evidence in this study highlighting the amenability of solar energy to multiple institutional objectives and mandates whether climate change-related or poverty focused. The thesis concludes that the positions and expectations of key solar actors are often misaligned with the needs, wants and aspirations of off-grid energy users. Engagement with the narratives of people living in remote, off-grid areas reveals that the implications of solar energy programmes are not guaranteed, static, or necessarily captured by all households or indeed, all members of households. Users perceive that small scale solar energy technologies provide important soft benefits including increased levels of comfort, security, wellbeing and connectivity. However, the benefits are only captured for as long as the technology continues to work whether in organisational, financial, technical or social terms. The research concludes that there are numerous challenges facing solar energy interventions in Nicaragua, with some barriers connected to the situation of the user household, for instance, their continued ability to absorb the financial commitments associated with technology use. Other challenges link to the broader political economic context, where the highly complex, fragmented and politicised nature of (solar) electricity access has the potential to undermine interventions. This thesis argues that it is vital to examine solar energy interventions as embedded within broader political economic frameworks, but also to account for the intricacies of inter and intra-household dynamics. The study contributes new insights and empirical findings to debates on global energy governance, energy poverty, and the practices, politics and experiences of off-grid solar energy technologies in the Global South.

This thesis explores the role of regional powers in the development of regional nuclear regimes. Its central argument is that the devise of regional nuclear regimes through the leadership of regional powers is driven by both functional and strategic reasons. Functionally, regional nuclear institutions serve to provide more tailored solutions to respond to nuclear risks emerging at the local level. Strategically, the formation of sub-global institutions enables regional powers to exercise considerable influence on nuclear governance processes at both regional and global levels. And in situations where regional powers are dissatisfied with the global nuclear-institutional status quo, regional nuclear institution-building provides an incomparable opportunity to question that status quo and challenge, albeit indirectly, the preferences of the United States, their main architect. The type of leadership provided by regional powers in the establishment of regional nuclear regimes is affected dynamically by two relationships: the regional powers' relation with the United States and their relation with secondary regional players. The former relation is defined as 'global nuclear alignment' and refers to the degree of proximity of the regional power towards U.S. nuclear preferences. The latter is defined as 'regional embeddedness' and captures the degree of convergence of regional powers' nuclear preferences with those of its most proxy regional contender, as well as the level of commitment shown by the regional power vis-à-vis regional integration. The thesis argues that when both relations are low, divergence of the regional nuclear regime from global nuclear institutions is most acute. Conversely, when only one of the relations is high, the regional nuclear regime tends to converge with global nuclear institutions, either in goals or in methods. The theoretical framework is applied to investigate three cases of regional leadership as provided by Brazil, Indonesia and France in the establishment of the regional nuclear regimes in their respective regions.