What’s really driving the UK’s nuclear strategy? Unmasking how military and civilian interests shape the nuclear industry

This lecture will apply key approaches from science and technology studies to illuminate hidden drivers of energy policy in the UK and other countries. These methods will be used to examine how powerful interests are (in their own words) “masking” costs of expensive military nuclear activities behind flows of funding for a ‘civil’ “nuclear industrial base”. Strong evidence emerges from official sources and government-funded research that both public and expert imaginaries are being actively warped. As a result, electricity is made less affordable, energy less secure, electricity infrastructures more vulnerable and climate action slower, more costly and less effective than is otherwise possible. Extending far beyond energy and climate politics alone, grave implications arise for wider governance of science and technology and general democratic practice.