Abstract
What is meant by “clean” when talking about nuclear energy? Cleanliness in the context of environmental crisis presumably means less pollution to the environment. And yet, the chapter argues that a different sense of cleanliness is applied in the sentence “nuclear energy is clean.” By analyzing how the expression is used in scientific and media portrayal of nuclear energy as clean energy, the chapter addresses the ways in which cleanliness in regards to energy is suggested as renewable, harmless, less carbon footprint, to scientific, and futuristic. As opposed to coal mining as a labor-intensive process of extracting, converting and producing energy, nuclear energy is seen as a scientifically researched modern energy that promises the future of energy production and consumption.
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Notes
- 1.
Glenn Seaborg. “Nuclear Power: its Past and Future” in his Adventures in The Atomic Age (2001), 241.
- 2.
Hecht, Gabrielle. Being Nuclear: Africans and the Global Uranium Trade (Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2012), 237.
- 3.
Ibid., 238.
- 4.
Ibid.
- 5.
Ibid., 232.
- 6.
Ibid., 243.
- 7.
Virginia A. Sharpe. “Clean Nuclear Energy? Global Warming, Public Health, and Justice.” Hastings Center Report, The Hastings Center 38(4) (July–August 2008): 16–18, 17. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1353/hcr.0.0040 (Accessed 8 November 2020).
- 8.
Ibid.; EPA stands for Environment Protection Agency in the United States of America.
- 9.
Sovacool and Valentine, The National Politics of Nuclear Power: Economics, Security and Governance (Routledge, 2012), 54–56.
- 10.
Rob Nixon. Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor (London: Harvard University Press, 2013), 155.
- 11.
Mary Douglas and Aaron Wildavsky, Risk and Culture: An Essay on the Selection of Technological and Environmental Dangers. London: University of California Press, 1983), 47.
- 12.
Ibid., 149.
- 13.
Zachary Evan Davis, “The Need for a New, Clear Option: An In-Depth Analysis of Nuclear Energy.” Consilience, no. 13 (2015): 217–245 (Accessed 1 April 2020), 2. www.jstor.org/stable/26427280.
- 14.
Sofiah Jamil, Jochen Prantl, and Mely Caballero-Anthony. Report. S. “The Hidden Costs and Risks of Nuclear Energy: The Way Forward.” Rajaratnam School of International Studies, 2011 (Accessed 1 April 2020), 2. www.jstor.org/stable/resrep05830.
- 15.
Olson cited in Zachary Evan Davis, “The Need for a New, Clear Option: An In-Depth Analysis of Nuclear Energy,” 4.
- 16.
More detailed discussion is held in Zachary Evan Davis’ article, “The Need for a New, Clear Option: An In-Depth Analysis of Nuclear Energy,” 13.
- 17.
Benjamin K. Sovacool, “Valuing the Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Nuclear Power: A Critical Survey.” Energy Policy 36 (2008): 2950. The International Journal of the Political, Economic, Planning, Environmental and Social Aspects of Energy (Accessed 8 November 2020). https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421508001997.
.
- 18.
Ibid., 2951.
- 19.
Ibid., 2960.
- 20.
Ibid., 2950.
- 21.
Benjamin K. Sovacool and Scott V. Valentine. The National Politics of Nuclear Power: Economics, Security, and Governance (Routledge Global Security Studies, 1st Edition. London: Routledge, 2012), 796.
- 22.
Ibid., 865.
- 23.
Benjamin K. Sovacool and Scott V. Valentine, The National Politics of Nuclear Power: Economics, Security, and Governance (Routledge Global Security Studies, 1st Edition. London: Routledge, 2012), 746–747. Also see Sofiah Jamil, Jochen Prantl, and Mely Caballero-Anthony. Report. S. “The Hidden Costs and Risks of Nuclear Energy: The Way Forward.” Rajaratnam School of International Studies, 2011, 3 (Accessed 1 April 2020) www.jstor.org/stable/resrep05830.
- 24.
Eric Laferriere and Peter J. Stoett, International Relations Theory and Ecological Thought: Towards a Synthesis (Environmental politics) (London New York: Routledge, 1999), 40.
- 25.
Ibid., 41.
- 26.
Ibid., 42.
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Ito, A. (2022). Semantics of Cleanliness. In: Shabliy, E.V., Crawford, M.J., Kurochkin, D. (eds) Energy Justice. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93068-4_4
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