Sustainability of Nuclear Power Plants — A Socio-Technical View 

Political Scientist, Ljubljana, Slovenija 

 Abstract: Nuclear power plants are often characterized and criticized as non-sustainable entities. To explore this characterization and criticism, we move beyond common environmentalist perspectives and study nuclear power plants within the framework of broader sociotechnical system theory. This approach incorporates two distinct interpretations of sustainability: political and economic. We focus on organizational culture, participation, and communication strategies to examine how nuclear power plants perceive sustainability at both the political and business levels. To support our conclusions, we conduct a case study analyzing the initiatives undertaken by the Krško Nuclear Power Plant to implement new sustainability standards. 

 Key words: nuclear power plant, sustainability, socio-technical theories, environmental discourses, organizational culture, participation, communication