ABSTRACT

The modern nation state rarely intervenes in the economy or in technological development as extensively as it did with nuclear energy. In the advanced industrial nations, the state is involved in many forms of supposedly scientific prediction: economic and revenue forecasting, weather predictions, environmental impact assessments, demographic analyses, estimates of the likely course of diseases. The heroic side of civilian nuclear energy demonstrates a faith in the ability of engineers and scientists to do the most outlandish things, to do virtually whatever they wish, to expand the limits of what people can imagine to be possible, and in fact to expand the limits of what is physically possible. Policymakers’ ability to reshape the world continued in the next stage of nuclear history, as the world responded to the oil crisis of 1973–74. Plans and predictions take many forms, for diverse audiences. Predictions, like plans more generally, take many forms, often depending on their rhetorical use with particular audiences.