This dissertation reports the activities, methods, and key findings of a doctoral research project in applied anthropology and an environmental anthropology fellowship. The research project was conducted through the Department of Anthropology at the University of Michigan, while the fellowship was sponsored jointly by the Society for Applied Anthropology and the United States Environmental Protection Agency and was conducted through the Great Lakes Fellowship Program of the Great Lakes Commission, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Together, these projects demonstrated the utility of an ethnographic approach called Risk Perception Mapping (RPM) to the public consultation and social research interests of the Commission and its associated network of environmental management agencies and organizations. Through consultation with these organizations I identified an environmental management problem to which anthropological perspectives and methods would be particularly well-suited: Can the undesirable social phenomenon of environmental discrimination be minimized by assuring greater equality in access to public participation in environmental management? To address this problem, I conducted an RPM demonstration project in a five county area surrounding the Fermi II nuclear power plant in southeastern Michigan. My research focused on cultural, geographical, and social-contextual factors that influence the nature and distribution of perceived risk among populations that are potentially affected by environmental management projects. Key findings pertain to perceptually-specific communities of environmental risk and have implications for what I call "participatory equity" in environmental management. Potential applications to Great Lakes environmental management center on developing equitable population-specific exchanges of information through which more culturally sensitive indicators of Great Lakes ecosystem integrity may emerge. Anthropological contributions to public participation in environmental management are discussed with particular attention to anthropological perspectives on the multiple publics that comprise locally affected communities of environmental risk.

The Swedish Social Democratic Party (SAP) was in power for decades by successfullyimplementing a “third way” policy based on Marxist ideology. This policy was unique since itsimultaneously spurred economic growth, welfare, and equality between classes. Therefore,this study examined why the party lost the election 1976, despite implementing this “thirdway” policy. By scrutinizing scientific books, articles, and a dissertation on the subject, fourtheories were identified. These four theories were tested against three books that identify whySAP lost the election 1976. The results show that SAP lost primarily by going against theSAP voters’ opinion by supporting the use of nuclear energy. In addition, a weak economyand unemployment hampered the party’s ability to continue implementing welfare reforms.The conclusion is that SAP lost the election 1976 due to supporting nuclear energy use wheneconomic growth declined and voters had little trust in the party’s ability to stimulate welfare.

The diploma thesis examines the effect of decommissioning of nuclear power plants on the energy security of two European countries - Germany and the Czech Republic. First, the author focuses on theoretical anchoring of energy security. The practical part then examines both countries from the perspective of their energy mixes and policies and infrastructure interconnection. This is the starting point for the comparison of the effects of the decommissioning of nuclear power plants. Second, the author presents three scenarios to replace nuclear energy, exploring how German and Czech energy security will change. The first scenario is the use of renewable energy only. The second option is a combination of renewable energy and coal. Finally, the third option is again a certain proportion of renewable energy along with natural gas. Last but not least, the author concludes in the presented paper that, despite the various possible combinations of how to replace nuclear energy, both countries would be worse off within the framework of energy security.

Avstängda kärnkraftverk berövar många människor av elektricitet och det skulle ha en negativ inverkan både på företagets framtoning och mänskliga aktiviteter. På grund av detta behöver tillgängligheten av utrustningen i alla byggnaderna som kärnkraftverken består ses till. HVAC-system (Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning) spelar en viktig roll när det gäller tillgänglighet av utrustning eftersom dessa system ser till pålitligheten är på topp genom att anpassade omgivningsförhållanden till utrustningen. Att designa ventilationssystemet rätt är därför mycket viktigt och måste göras noggrant. Denna rapport introducerar metodologin för att designa och optimera ett ventilationssystem för en av byggnaderna i ett kärnkraftverk. Utöver detta utvecklas och beskrivs en metodologi för att designa ett rökkontrollssystem för en byggnad som ingår i kärnkraftverket. Dessa metodologier har implementerats för en byggnad i en demineraliseringsstation, Hinkley Point C project. / During nuclear power plants shutdown many people could be deprived of electricity and it would have a negative impact both on the company’s image and on people activities. As a consequence, availability of equipments in the different buildings which compose the power plant needs to be assured. HVAC system (Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning) plays an important role on the reliability of these equipments as it makes sure that ambient conditions in the buildings fit the operating temperature range of the equipments. Consequently sizing a ventilation system is really important and it needs to be carried out seriously. This paper introduces the methodology to size and optimize a ventilation system for nuclear power plants’ building. This paper also develops the methodology used to size a smoke control system in a nuclear related building. Direct application of this methodology has been realised for a specific building which is the demineralization station of Hinkley Point C project.

The thesis Temelín Nuclear Power Station and Czech-Austrian Relations deals with the Temelín Nuclear Power Station and nuclear industry and its influence to the Czech-Austrian relations. The study aims to analyse the relations between the Czech Republic and Austria in the context of the power station from 1993 to 2013. Initially, the thesis introduces the theory of constructivism in the International Relations. Afterwards, it aims to explain the differences between the relations to the nuclear energy by Czechs and by Austrians on the basis of the theory of constructivism. Moreover, the thesis introduces the historical, legal and technical circumstances of the Czech-Austrian dispute. The main objective of the thesis is to ascertain, what effect on the Czech-Austrian relations have mediums, which publish articles about the Temelín Nuclear Power Station. There are four Czech relevant newspapers (Blesk, MF DNES, Právo and Lidové noviny) and four Austrian relevant newspapers (Kronen Zeitung, Kurier, Der Standard and Die Presse) inquired in the thesis. Particular articles are evaluated by the stances on the issue (pronuclear, antinuclear or impartial). The thesis identifies, which of the mediums have impact on deterioration/improvement of the Czech-Austrian relations. The study also deals with the process of...

This master thesis examines how the Fukushima accident has affected the French energy policy and the impact on the perception of nuclear energy by policymakers, the public and energy companies. Nuclear energy does comprises three-quarters of the total electricity production in the country and thus forms the backbone of the energy mix in France. The study uses comparative analysis as a main approach, to compare public discourse of state actors (in particular the President, the Ministry of Energy and Nuclear Safety Agency) and the French energy companies before and after the accident from March 11, 2011. At the beginning, the study refers on the position of nuclear energy in the world, historical development of nuclear energy in France and its importance for the energy security of the country. It also describes the Fukushima accident and its immediate consequences on nuclear energy worldwide. In a research section it presents a summary of France's energy policy before the Fukushima accident, in which emphasis was placed on maintaining a high share of nuclear energy in the energy mix of the country. In the next part of the research is described the French energy policy after the accident and subsequently the prospect of possible change of energy strategy of France.

Risk assessment is essential for nuclear power plants (NPPs) due to the complex dynamic nature of such systems-of-systems, as well as the devastating impacts of nuclear accidents on the environment, public health, and economy. Lessons learned from the Fukushima nuclear accident demonstrated the importance of enhancing current risk assessment methodologies and developing efficient early warning decision support tools. Static probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) techniques (e.g., event and fault tree analysis) have been extensively adopted in nuclear applications to ensure NPPs comply with safety regulations. However, numerous studies have highlighted the limitations of static PRA methods such as the lack of considering the dynamic hardware/software/operator interactions inside the NPP and the timing/sequence of events. In response, several dynamic probabilistic risk assessment (DPRA) methodologies have been developed and continuously evolved over the past four decades to overcome the limitations of static PRA methods. DPRA presents a comprehensive approach to assess the risks associated with complex, dynamic systems. However, current DPRA approaches are faced with challenges associated with the intra/interdependence within/between different NPP complex systems and the massive amount of data that needs to be analyzed and rapidly acted upon. In response to these limitations of previous work, the main objective of this dissertation is to develop a physics-based DPRA platform and an intelligent data-driven prediction tool for NPP safety enhancement under normal and abnormal operating conditions. The results of this dissertation demonstrate that the developed DPRA platform is capable of simulating the dynamic interaction between different NPP systems and estimating the temporal probability of core damage under different transients with significant analysis advantages from both the computational time and data storage perspectives. The developed platform can also explicitly account for uncertainties associated with the NPP's physical parameters and operating conditions on the plant's response and probability of its core damage. Furthermore, an intelligent decision support tool, developed based on artificial neural networks (ANN), can significantly improve the safety of NPPs by providing the plant operators with fast and accurate predictions that are specific to such NPP. Such rapid prediction will minimize the need to resort to idealized physics-based simulators to predict the underlying complex physical interactions. Moving forward, the developed ANN model can be trained under plant operational data, plants operating experience database, and data from rare event simulations to consider for example plant ageing with time, operational transients, and rare events in predicting the plant behavior. Such intelligent tool can be key for NPP operators and managers to take rapid and reliable actions under abnormal conditions. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

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In this study, the current use of natural language processing in Swedish and international nuclear power plants has been investigated through semi-structured interviews. Furthermore, natural language processing techniques have been studied to find out how text data can be analyzed and utilized to aid operations and maintenance in the Swedish nuclear power plant industry. The state-of-the-art transformers model BERT was used to analyze text data from operations at a Swedish nuclear power plant.  This study has not managed to find any current implementations of natural language processing techniques for operations and maintenance in Swedish nuclear power plants. Natural language processing does exist in examples such as embedded search functionalities internally or chatbots on the customer side, but it does not relate to the scope of this project. Some international actors have successfully implemented natural language processing for the classification of text data such as corrective action programs. Furthermore, it was observed that the lingo and jargon in the nuclear power plant industry differ between utilities as well as from the native language. To tackle this, models further trained on domain-specific data could be beneficial to better analyze the text data and solve natural language processing tasks. As the data used in this study was unlabeled, expert input from the nuclear domain is required for a proper analysis of the results. Working for a more data-driven industry would be valuable for the implementation of natural language processing. / I denna studie har den nuvarande användningen av Natural language processing (NLP) i svenska och internationella kärnkraftverk undersökts genom semistrukturerade intervjuer. Vidare har NLP studerats för att ta reda på hur textdata kan analyseras och användas för att underlätta drift och underhåll i den svenska kärnkraftsindustrin. Transformersmodellen BERT användes för att analysera textdata från driften vid ett svenskt kärnkraftverk. Denna studie har inte lyckats hitta några aktuella implementeringar av NLP för drift och underhåll i svenska kärnkraftverk. NLP finns som inbäddade sökfunktioner internt eller chatbottar på kundsidan, men dessa omfattas inte av detta projekt. Vissa internationella aktörer har framgångsrikt implementerat NLP för klassificering av textdata som t.ex. avhjälpande underhåll (Corrective action programs). Vidare observerades att språket och jargongen inom kärnkraftsindustrin skiljer sig mellan olika kraftverk och från det vanliga språket. Genom att träna modellerna på domänspecifik data skulle modellerna kunna prestera bättre. Eftersom data som användes i denna studie var omärkt (unlabeled), krävs expertinput från kärnkraftsområdet för en korrekt analys av resultaten. Att arbeta för en mer datadriven industri skulle vara värdefullt för implementeringen av NLP / Feasibility Study on Artificial Intelligence Technologies in Nuclear Applications

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