Nuclear knowledge management: a crucial bridge to the global nuclear renaissance

Abstract

By 1980 the American nuclear industry, along with its nuclear knowledge infrastructure, was in decline due to growing public concerns for nuclear safety, nuclear weapons proliferation, economic uncertainty, mediocre early reactor performance and waste disposal. Recent renewed interest in expansion of nuclear power production is now being accompanied by rising market demand for nuclear professionals and increasing awareness among policymakers of the need to improve the nuclear knowledge infrastructure to support industry growth. Expanding deployment of nuclear power in the USA will necessarily require reversal of the declines in all the elements of the nuclear knowledge base.