ABSTRACT
Serious effort was made within the scope of the study to compare energy-related with other societal risks. The "societal interest" in assessment and management of technological risk extends across all levels and between all sectors of society, just as the social impacts, for example of nuclear development, are broadly distributed throughout the structures of society. Coupling the risk assessment and environmental impact assessment processes would seem to be a natural institutional development. One substantial benefit was the involvement of colleagues from many social science disciplines and professions in active pursuit of these challenging tasks. If there is to be integrated impact assessment, there must be something there from the social side to integrate. The terms "risk" and "impact" were used conjunctively in Committee on Nuclear and Alternative Energy Systems (CONAES), and often they were used inter-changeably. To some extent the organizational history of CONAES parallels its intellectual history.
