Nuclear Communities
Understanding the Creation and Reaction to Nuclear Development at the Local Level Through Ethnographic and Social Network Analysis
Dissertation Research
Expected Completion: Spring 2022
Nuclear Communities: Understanding the Creation and Reaction to Nuclear Development at the Local Level Through Ethnographic and Social Network Analysis
Abstract:
The global energy supply generated by nuclear reactors is expected to increase approximately 45% over the next twenty years; however, in the United States, nuclear energy creation is expected to drop dramatically due to a lack of new development and the recent high-profile closures of nuclear generating stations around the country. Despite these factors, Texas, primarily known for its rich history of oil and gas development, has become a linchpin of the country’s nuclear energy mix due to the private interests. This research seeks to question the continuing and emerging multibillion-dollar investments in nuclear power, and its constituent components, in the State of Texas by documenting how the mining, enrichment, use, and disposal of uranium in the Texas-New Mexico border create a policy culture, political structure, and energy profile that mark Texas’s residents, minerals, flora, and fauna, as fundamentally nuclear actors. Through this research, decisionmakers will be better able to understand the communities that are currently part of the uranium production cycle, including their various ideologies, socioeconomic statuses, and previously successful and unsuccessful interactions between the local, state, federal governments, and/or private enterprises to identify best practices for relevant actors.
RQ 1: How does the mining, enrichment, use, and disposal of uranium in Texas and along the Texas-New Mexico border-region build, transform, and/or maintain relationships between nuclear technology, local communities, states, the US government, international corporations and regulatory bodies?
RQ 2: How is the implementation of uranium policy along the Texas-New Mexico border-region produced, interpreted, and understood by the state, the US government, international corporations, and regulatory bodies build?
RQ 3: What are the commonalities and differences in these communities in regard to their perceptions and understanding of nuclear energy and risk? Are there generalizable traits that identify a community as being amenable to an increased presence of the uranium fuel cycle, and if so, what are they?