Between Flexibility and Control: Managing the Soviet Nuclear Industry

Time: 12:00 - 1:00 p.m.

Place: 6th Floor Conference Room, Chemical Heritage Foundation

Information: 215-873-8289 or bbl@chemheritage.org

This talk highlights the inherent tensions between standardization and improvisation that shaped the Soviet civilian nuclear program from its outset and informed reactor-design choices, personnel training, and the organization of the entire sector. Based on primary sources from Russian archives and interviews with nuclear-industry veterans, I show how the technologies and practices that both formed and grew out of the development of the nuclear industry shaped the ways in which the Soviet state reacted to the Chernobyl catastrophe. With the ongoing nuclear disaster at Fukushima in mind, I will raise a few questions that relate these fundamental tensions to nuclear emergency response in general and in the future.

Sonja Schmid is an assistant professor in the Department of Science and Technology Studies at Virginia Tech. She teaches history and social studies of technology, science and technology policy, as well as qualitative studies of risk. Her publications include articles in Social Studies of Science, Osiris, and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists; her book manuscript is under contract with MIT Press.