Making the accident hypothetical: how can one deal with the potential nuclear disaster?

This chapter examines the concept of “hypothetical accidents” as part of strategies used by nuclear engineers and other experts to develop an inherently complex and dangerous energy in the face of much uncertainty, potential consequences of an accident and actual accidents that took place. Using the US and French cases from the 1950s to the 1980s, he shows how these experts framed severe accidents as highly improbable and “theoretical,” and relegated the risk of accidents to a “residual” domain, instead of tackling the possibilities head-on or learning from the actual accidents. He argues that such strategies required both technical and social work and became embedded in material and institutional infrastructures of nuclear governance.