“Generation IV” Nuclear Reactor Design Project As a Controversial Innovation Process: A Qualitative Study of the French Case

This communication aims to qualify the socio-material and organizational processes that affect local and institutional decisions related to the design of future nuclear reactors in France. In the post-Fukushima context, nuclear risk is less and less tolerated by society. Yet, France, along with thirteen other countries, is currently engaged in the design of new generation nuclear reactors, known as “GenerationIV”. The “GenIV” concept and the renewal of interest for these technologies are linked to the launch in 2000 by the USA of the “GenIV International Forum” to coordinate researches’ efforts on a global scale. It led to the identification of four “GenIV” objectives: highly economical, minimal waste, proliferation resistant and safer. Six concepts are currently being researched. Even if these designs are not expected to be available for construction before 2020, they arouse oppositions and remain highly controversial.

Our proposition builds on an on-going empirical study of the ‘new reactors’ design process in France, where one concept appears dominant: the sodium-cooled fast reactor, supported by the CEA. However, this choice is disputed, especially by academic scientists who try to re-open the choice. Based on qualitative data, we analyze this innovation process as an “interactive chain” (Callon et al, 2002) that involves distinct actants (Latour, 1987), both humans and non-humans, from university labs to industrial production unit, through industrial research centers and political organizations. By observing innovation “in action”, we aim at showing how the “uncertainty/irreversibility” dilemma is collectively managed through the construction of scenarios relying on explicit and implicit hypotheses. We want to demonstrate how the positioning, the power and the level of knowledge of the different actors guide the hypotheses’ formulation and can support technological “lock-in” phenomena, finally affecting the innovation process far from being of a pure rational choice based on the four “GenIV” criteria.