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Results for “sociotechnical problems”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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DOE OSTI2023

People are like plutonium

An analogy is drawn between the study of human behavior and the study of plutonium to demonstrate that soft and hard sciences are more similar than different, making the distinction moot and unproductive. The studies of human behavior and plutonium follow a common scientific research cycle that aligns with Thomas Kuhn’s views of scientific change. This common research cycle provides evidence that the thought processes and methodologies required for success are congruent in the soft and hard sciences. The primary implication from this analogy is that scientists in all disciplines should eradicate the distinction between soft and hard sciences. Focusing on similarities rather than differences among researchers from different disciplines is necessary to enhance collective intelligence and the type of transdisciplinary collaboration required to tackle difficult sociotechnical problems. CCS Concepts: • Social and professional topics • User characteristics • Cultural characteristics.

96 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND PRESERVATION↗
DOE OSTI2026

Developing a Process for Collaboration-Based Siting of a Federal Consolidated Interim Storage Facility in the United States: Learning from Communities Living with Legacy Waste

In June of 2023, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Nuclear Energy (NE) announced the selection of its Collaboration-Based Siting (CBS) Consortia, a group of 12 awardees, including the Consortium for Risk Evaluation with Stakeholder Participation (CRESP) (led by Vanderbilt University) to assist DOE-NE with the development of its process for siting a federal consolidated interim storage facility (FCISF) for spent nuclear fuel (SNF) storage. At this time, DOE NE is not soliciting interested host communities, rather the CBS Consortia are tasked with in-depth engagement, mutual learning, and capacity building to provide DOE NE with feedback on the CBS process. CRESP’s objective is to engage communities in two regions (the Pacific Northwest and the Southeast) with sites currently storing defense- and research-related SNF to foster learning concerning the best and worst practices in community participation in risk-informed decision making. This includes learning from existing structures for public input in radioactive waste management decision making [e.g. citizen advisory boards (CABs)] and other local parties about how to build and sustain trust among the parties. CRESP has been working to engage stakeholders and Tribes surrounding two DOE sites historically differing in receptiveness to engaging with DOE and trusting in DOE to accomplish its missions. CRESP’s approach to date has consisted of (1) engaging voluntarily members and former members of the DOE Office of Environmental Management’s CABs to develop a mutual understanding of their perspectives, values, and experiences related to risk and participatory decision making; (2) engaging members of those communities that would likely be part of any radioactive waste management discussions and who may provide valuable feedback for the development of the CBS process; and in the longer term, (3) engaging communities to foster knowledge sharing on understanding and definitions of risk and how risk is factored into community decision making. Our emphasis is to identify opportunities for improving risk communication frameworks, strategies, and decision making. The selection of a future FCISF site is likely to result in the creation of a structure similar to a CAB composed of members of the local community. We anticipate that these insights can help DOE NE learn from existing participatory risk communication structures in place at sites storing defenseor research-related SNF to understand best practices for fostering enduring and participatory relationships with future CABs. Within this paper, we (1) describe CRESP’s overall approach to assisting DOE NE with maturing the CBS process; (2) present a summary of preliminary phase 1 project results, including the development of a body of knowledge (describing available resources to support community engagement, risk communica tion, and participatory decision making) and community ecosystem information (leveraging demographic, social, economic, and environmental attribute mapping and advanced sentiment analysis of social media data); and (3) based on these results, provide observations for future research opportunities to support the development of CBS processes for radioactive waste management facilities, generally.

collaboration-based siting↗
DOE OSTI2023

Addressing Human and Organizational Factors in Nuclear Industry Modernization: A Sociotechnically Based Strategic Framework

The modernization of nuclear power plants will require an advanced concept of operations, involving an integrated set of tightly coupled systems in which all stakeholders act in a coordinated manner. For this modernization effort to be enabled, we developed a human and organizational factors approach based on a broad sociotechnical framework. Starting from core human factors principles, we conducted a literature review of the methods and approaches relevant to the modernization problem. These included not only core disciplines such as cognitive systems engineering, systems theoretic accident modeling and processes, human systems integration, resilience engineering, and macroergonomics but also related topics of safety culture and organizational change. From this literature, we developed a conceptual framework centered around the work system with its four interacting components: people, technology, process, and governance. In an effective work system, these four components are jointly optimized according to three systems criteria: efficiency, effectiveness, and safety. System failure may result from excessive emphasis on any one criterion. The actual work of attaining joint optimization in a given work system can be accomplished by utilizing three high-level functions: knowledge elicitation, knowledge representation, and cross-functional integration. Finally, we illustrated the utility of this approach by applying it to practical problems and case studies.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Addressing Human and Organizational Factors In Nuclear Industry Modernization: A Sociotechnically-Based Strategic Framework

The modernization of nuclear power plants will require an advanced concept of operations, involving an integrated set of tightly coupled systems in which all stakeholders act in a coordinated manner. For this modernization effort to be enabled, we developed a human and organizational factors approach, based on a broad sociotechnical framework. Starting from core human factors principles, we conducted a literature review of the methods and approaches relevant to the modernization problem. These included core disciplines such as cognitive systems engineering, systems theoretic accident modeling and processes (STAMP), human systems integration, resilience engineering, and macroergonomics but also related topics of safety culture and organizational change. From this literature, we developed a conceptual framework centered around the work system with its four interacting components: people, technology, process, and governance. In an effective work system, these four components are jointly optimized according to three systems criteria: efficiency, effectiveness, and safety. System failure may result from excessive emphasis on any one criterion. The actual work of attaining joint optimization in a given work system can be accomplished by utilizing three high level functions: knowledge elicitation, knowledge representation, and cross-functional integration. We illustrated the utility of this approach by applying it to practical problems and case studies. The complete report is available in [1]; this paper is a description of our approach and report contents.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Evaluating energy justice metrics in early-stage science and technology research using the JUST-R metrics framework

Embedding principles of energy justice throughout all aspects of clean energy technology research and development (R&D) can facilitate a more just energy transition; yet gaps remain in our understanding of how to best integrate energy justice from the earliest R&D stages. The Justice Underpinning Science and Technology Research (JUST-R) metrics framework has been developed to enable early-stage energy researchers to assess and address justice considerations associated with their research, but the impacts of the framework, and others like it, have yet to be evaluated. This study seeks to evaluate the JUST-R metrics framework in terms of its effectiveness and appeal to researchers engaged in early-stage technical R&D using qualitative analyses of documents and workshop transcripts. We find that the metrics framework helps researchers identify problems and potential solutions surrounding the energy justice implications of their work and spurs a change in perspective for researchers, but, simultaneously, there is no evidence of solution follow-through within the evaluation timeframe. Greater institutional support, specialization to research areas, knowledge of energy justice fundamentals, and earlier incorporation of energy justice considerations in research projects arise as factors needed to aid continued use of the framework and pursuit of identified solutions. This evaluation protocol and these findings can serve as a guide for improving other frameworks with similar goals of encouraging sociotechnical engagement in early-stage energy R&D.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Using Systems Theoretic Process Analysis and Causal Analysis to Map and Manage Organizational Information to Enable Digitalization and Information Automation

The overarching goal of this Light Water Reactor Sustainability Program–supported research and development project is to provide planning tools and comprehensive guidance to utilities considering or undertaking full nuclear plant modernization. The results of this research will provide the nuclear industry with a comprehensive and usable solution, including guidance, lessons learned, methods, and planning tools. This research is currently working to provide guidance on digitalization and information automation to enable the evolution of data to information, insight, and action—thereby allowing utilities to operate safely and cost-competitively with all other electrical generation sources. Light Water Reactor Sustainability Program researchers have also recently started investigating how human and technology integration principles, information automation, and digitalization enable data evolution. These researchers are currently in the process of validating the use of System-Theoretic Process Analysis to define high-level safety constraints in the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s problem identification and resolution process (i.e., a plant compliance information gathering activity). The next step in this research, which is described in the following sections of this report, is to map out data evolution in a use case to identify inefficiencies in another aspect of plant compliance information gathering and communication activities—event investigations and root cause analyses.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗