Re-engineering high risk, high complexity industries through multiple level technological learning - A case study of the world nuclear power industry

Applying lessons learned at the national, the utility, and the plant level, from selected segments of the world-wide nuclear power industry, might facilitate an environmentally acceptable renaissance of the U.S. nuclear power industry through re-engineering it. Elements of this learning from experience process can be found: (a) at the national level in Europe, Japan, and the U.S., (b) at the utility level in two New York State nuclear power utilities, Niagara Mohawk and New York Power Authority, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and Duke Power and Light in the U.S., in Ontario Hydro in Canada, and in the Electricite de France (EdF) in France, and (c) at the plant level in several of these utilities. At the core of all the continuous quality improvement and re-engineering programs, lies this twofold mission: (a) to insulate society from foreseeable and unacceptably high environmental risks, and (b) to continuously improve the design and management of nuclear technology (including nuclear waste management and environmental risk management systems) by learning, learning how to learn, and learning to learn-how-to-learn, both explicitly and tacitly, through feedback from individual and organizational experience.