ScholarWorks@숙명여자대학교

초록

The history of nuclear power production in the United States, the United Kingdoms, France and West Germany contradicts technological determinism. The reactor technology converged on the light water reactor, while their nuclear power regimes diverged quite differently. This historical development evades socio-economical factor analysis, since the historical contingencies and contexts of each nation played critical roles. Even nuclear engineers and scientists’ legitimate domain of expertise were dissimilar. Though the nuclear policy of United States conditioned the nuclear development of the UK, France, West Germany, the influences never were unidirectional. Especially, UK’s nuclear development propelled US to created then non-existent nuclear power plant program. At the end of 1960s, nuclear power production regimes in each nations were established. However, they were confronted with different problems. In the United States, the traditional arguments on “government vs private sector” took a new turn. Safety concern iginited quite a acerbic controversy. Both of the United Kingdoms and West Germany shared the expectations that nuclear power plant industry would be a healthy export industry, but that prospects were not bright, regardless of who controls the nuclear industry, the government(UK) or private sector(West Germany). France had finally caught-up the Anglo-American nuclear capacities, if not quantity. However how to realize France’s strong nationalistic vision remained an open question.

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