Principal speaker
Richard Hindmarsh
Presented by: Dr Richard Hindmarsh, Associate Professor, Griffith School of Environment and Centre for Governance and Public Policy.
This presentation overviews the author’s recently published volume Nuclear Disaster at Fukushima Daiichi: Social, Political and Environmental Issues (Routledge Studies in Science, Technology and Society, 2013, NY). A policy-in-action approach reveals a disturbing political and policy landscape of nuclear power development in Japan, which significantly contributed to the disaster; the flawed disaster management options taken; and the political, technical and social reactions as the accident unfolded; and the social, political and environmental implications thereafter. It also finds Fukushima represents a new type of nuclear disaster found at the intersection of a chronic technological disaster and a natural disaster. This type of disaster in the case of Fukushima was further conditioned by the involvement of the key megatechnology of nuclear energy situated in a highly unstable and volatile seismic landscape. In certain circumstances, megatechnologies feature uncertain and unpredictable and multiple complex interactions and consequences that cannot be adequately tested in laboratories or by way of computer simulations beforehand. Instead, their unanticipated consequences can only be discovered after they are implemented. This presentation overviews the book’s approach, the social, political and environmental issues informing the action terrain of the siting of the Fukushima Daiichi power plant and presents the implications found for managing future nuclear disasters, for effective and responsible regulation and good governance of controversial science and technology, and for the future of nuclear power itself, both in Japan and internationally.
Dr Richard Hindmarsh is Associate Professor, Griffith School of Environment, and Centre for Governance and Public Policy (Griffith University). He was the co-founder and inaugural convenor (2009-12) of the Asia-Pacific Science, Technology and Society Network, with a key area focussed on important issues raised by new scientific innovation and technological change, especially regarding environmental sustainability and social implications. He has produced seven books in the field of environmental politics and policy and science, technology and society studies. Research topics include the environmental release of genetically modified organisms, DNA forensic technologies, water management, and renewable and nuclear energy; more broadly, enhanced environmental and S&T governance.
- Thursday 23 May 2013
- N72, Meeting Room -1.18
- Nathan campus
- 12.30 – 1:50pm
Event categories
RSVP
RSVP on or before Monday 20 May 2013 , by email n.vary@griffith.edu.au , or by phone 37354252
Event contact details
- Natasha Vary
- http://
- (07) 3735 5322