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Nuclear accidents have prompted the creation of numerous cultural objects such as novels, films, cartoons, or posters. Here we show what these objects can teach us about the social representations of nuclear power. The object is both a product and a representation. It can influence attitudes and partially contributes to the cognitive context of controversy about atomic power. Consequently, it leads to diverse practices defined by the interests and goals of the groups that own it. French documentaries on Fukushima Daiichi constitute a coherent corpus that makes it possible to identify both ruptures and continuity in the story that is told. These films borrow from the symbols, myths, and analogies provoked by Chernobyl to evoke Fukushima. They also show that the accident ends the myth of ‘Soviet neglect’ and creates a form of social resilience that has changed the way the Japanese population is seen in France.

After the Fukushima nuclear accident, the whole Japanese society swiftly achieved a consensus to have comprehensive accident investigations to identify the root cause of the disaster. The Government and other major actors established several accident investigation commissions to meet this public will. However, the author has to say the lessons have not been learned and absorbed well so far, with deep regret. Because the issues centering on responsibility and social justice have not been dealt with well, the outputs of the investigations transformed into alternative sanction on nuclear industry and poorly articulated regulatory reformation, for example. This trajectory has been considered as a result of the particular and common culture of East Asian societies, but the author would argue that it should become more and more important global problem in the future world with high-reliability and complicated technological systems and their failures. The integration of the concept of risk governance to build prescribed consensus of responsibility distribution is strongly suggested as a key idea of remedy to this problem.

The Fukushima Daiichi accident raises questions about current decision-making models. Faced with an overwhelming situation, which threatened both their own lives and that of the entire population, the plant’s operators were obliged to take action, despite the lack of resources. In these conditions, decision making cannot be reduced to an optimization exercise based on a range of possibilities, or the application of planned operational responses to an emergency situation. The inevitable catastrophe, the social pressure it generates, the moral dilemmas it creates and the psychological drivers for action are characteristic of an extreme situation. The action plan must therefore be reinvented and individuals mobilised to these ends. It is therefore in a broader context of ‘action’ that decision making takes shape, and finds its logical foundations, meaning and temporality. Understanding decision making in extreme situations first requires a grasp of the development of a specific value system (that is mediated by the physical experience of the situation) in which the individual and social representations play a central role.

Extreme situations lead to the collapse of systems together with all existing rules, including symbolic ones. Therefore there are no longer any procedures to comply with, nor any outside guidance to help in making the complex decisions imposed by such situations. The decision-maker has to look elsewhere to find the resources to guide their actions, all the more since they are likely to be held responsible when the situation returns to normal. We argue that ethics, based on practical reason, offer a way out of the dead-end. Practical reason is anchored in individual motivation, as opposed to external rules, and is ultimately guided by solicitude towards other human beings. As it rises from the inner desires, feelings and reasoning of a person it offers a guide for action, even when artefacts collapse. Furthermore ethics could provide common ground on which to build an interdisciplinary approach to resilience in extreme situations, as ethical questions run through all disciplines. Building on Paul Ricoeur’s practical philosophy, we describe what an ethical approach to decision-making in extreme situations could look like, as well as its implications for organizations. We show that such an approach requires that organizations allow their members to use their practical reason and act autonomously not only when accidents occur, but also in normal situations. Such a transformation could lead to building “safe institutions”, i.e. organizations within which people would preserve safety, rather than organizations that manage safety through people.

Two recent insights regarding social imaginaries are of particular relevance in thinking about the Fukushima disaster and its aftermath. First, social imaginaries are consequential for social resilience. Second, imaginaries play a significant role in the way a society addresses science and technology. In light of these insights, the chapter explores nuclear imaginaries in Japan before and after Fukushima, and presents several key historical factors that shaped such imaginaries in the lasting manner. It presents how Japan’s nuclear imaginaries have persistently embraced certain ideals of science and technology, and excluded people subject to radiation risks. The chapter concludes by calling for explicit engagement with our nuclear imaginaries, in terms of social resilience, and also as an arena where we can explore more democratic approaches to science and technology. Such engagement is also consequential to larger visions of society.

Resilience is the key to a prosperous global and modern society; Efforts to mitigate physical damage, economic loss, and to protect social and political infrastructures in response to catastrophic events, such as a nuclear accident or a natural disaster, are essential for communities to survive and thrive in the aftermath of such incidents. The 2011 Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant accident serves as an example of the risks associated with advanced technologies and the need to minimize physical as well as psychological effects on local and global communities. Other examples can be found reflecting the misperception of risks including concerns associated with vaccination or genetically modified organisms. While we have to recognize the risks associated with the development, implementation, and utilization of advanced technologies, we also have to recognize that the impact of not adopting them can have much more detrimental effects to individuals, communities, and even societies. We have established the Institute for Resilient Communities in Berkeley, CA in collaboration with Japanese partners to address the needs for better scientific and technological capabilities to assess, predict, and minimize the impact of disruptive events in the future and to enhance the understanding of associated risks to the public. While the initial focus resides in radiological resilience and is closely related to the events in Fukushima more than 5 years ago, the goal is to establish a broader framework for researchers, educators, and communities to enhance resilience locally and globally together.

Ground motion simulation is one of techniques used to analyze seismic risk due to damage of structure and its effects on society. In this paper, the ground motion simulation using fault plane is used. Recently, ground motion simulation using fault model have been widely applied. Characterized fault model is conveniently used to model the heterogeneous slip distribution on fault plane, which divide the fault into two areas (asperity area and background area). More detailed model is needed to conduct probabilistic seismic risk assessment, which incorporate uncertainty in ground motion prediction. The model, however, is too simplified to model the complex characteristics of slip. In this paper, a stochastic model to simulate the slip distribution of fault plane is proposed for that purpose.

Components, surrounding the core of a magnetic confinement based fusion reactor, will be exposed to significant particle and heat fluxes that will cause severe (in many cases irreversible) damage of the components. In the D-T fusion reaction 80% of the energy is carried away by the 14 MeV neutrons and the rest by the emitted alpha particles. Motion of neutrons is not restricted by the present magnetic field, which is why the damage they cause by interacting with surrounding materials is to a large extent inevitable. The greater the neutron flux to the material the larger the damage, and shorter the lifespan of the reactor component taking the flux. In order to make fusion economically viable it is important to increase the lifespan of the components since they are costly to produce, replace and dispose of. It is the premise of this work that neutron inelastic scattering plays an important role in neutron transport in MCF systems. This reaction mechanism has been overlooked in neutron transport calculations. Planned work entails modeling of inelastic scattering using reaction codes and results compared with experiment where possible. Data obtained will be further used in neutron transport calculations and in damage analysis of various materials in order to establish how significant inelastic scattering is for the viability of fusion energy production.

The concept of “engineering thinking in extreme situations” has been defined to make up for an epistemological lack in the field of Safety Studies. After the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, official reports did not take an interest in analysing the conditions in which the recovery efforts had to be carried out. The description of the accident and its representation in the accident investigation reports convey these shortcomings. The Fukushima Daiichi plant manager Masao Yoshida testimony may allow us address them partly. Actually, the transcription of his hearings contains essential details and information to understand the sequence of events which took place after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. This article intends to show the importance of studying this narrative, in order to highlight the relations between the Fukushima accident management and the concept of “engineering thinking in extreme situations”.

This paper aims to introduce two main concepts regarding safety management which are injunction and order. In a first section, those two kinds of communication for action will be defined and distinguished through responsibility repartition criterion. Indeed, while injunction device involves addressee’s commitment regarding action design, order device is a less complex one in which a specific authority is responsible of order content in a specific frame while the addressee is generally only responsible of the order content execution. To illustrate those concepts potential, injunction and order contribution to face an emergency situation will be demonstrated through local field management and Headquarter relationship analysis during a crisis exercise of major magnitude in a nuclear fuel cycle industry. As a general conclusion regarding safety management, one would note that injunction use ensures decision-making robustness by subjectivity mobilization, as challenging voices multiplication participates to solid evidence emergence thanks to cross-checking practices. Secondly, the specific result of this demonstration remembers one of the Fukushima-Daiichi management lessons, meaning that in a resilient system, Headquarter tends to communicate with Local Management Team through injunction.