y by independent French experts suggests that staying the nuclear course would be more expensive and less environmentally beneficial than authorities make it out to be. The difficult financial situation of two state-controlled firms involved in nuclear energy, EDF and Areva SA, will seriously affect the government’s operating margins. Those financial difficulties, the aging reactor fleet, and public opinion—which is largely in favor of a nuclear phase-out—will force the government to make fundamental choices in the near future about its energy strategy.

28:T548,

The current political consensus favors continued reliance on civilian nuclear power in France, but a reduction in that reliance was discussed during the 2012 presidential election, and debate on that score continues. If the political consensus ever shifts toward a nuclear phase-out, the French government has several options through which it can reduce or abandon civilian nuclear power generation. The parliament can pass a law to discontinue nuclear power. The people can do the same, through referendum. Or the executive branch of government can simply not authorize the construction of new nuclear plants. If the parliament, the executive branch, or citizens acted to eliminate nuclear power, EDF, the operator of France’s 58 nuclear power plants, could seek compensation for lost revenue. The legal considerations involved in such an effort vary, depending on whether the nuclear shutdown were enacted into law or instituted through executive-branch regulation. Currently, it is unclear what chances of success a compensation claim might have. Over time, though, France will retire at least part of its aging fleet of nuclear reactors. The executive branch and parliament should pay careful attention to the structure of laws and regulations related to nuclear shutdowns, to reduce the likelihood that successful legal action will ensue.

29:T4b9,

One of the problems with assessing the emerging threats from advances in biotechnology and the life sciences is that there are two competing narratives for understanding biotechnology development: one based on the notion of a biotech revolution and the other based on biotech evolution. The biotech revolution is a dystopian tale in which scientific advances lead to rapid changes in biotechnology, its applications, and its potential threats. The biotech evolution, however, describes slower and more complex trajectories for biotechnology development and threats. These two narratives are based on different assumptions and analytic methods, which lead to fundamentally different conclusions. The US intelligence and policy communities use the biotech revolution story line to make sense of today’s bioweapons threats, but this approach fails to reflect the complex social, economic, scientific, and technical factors that shape biotechnology and life science developments. The author argues that more critical perspectives on biotechnology are needed in order to improve intelligence assessments of present and future bioweapons threats and policy regarding them.

2a:T525,

Three US national laboratories, which were established at the dawn of the Cold War, have long outlived their original mission of engaging in coordinated nuclear weapons research to combat the Soviet threat. But as the nature of the threats has changed, institutional ownership and investments in national security science and technology have failed to keep pace. This overarching misalignment between priorities and investments undercuts the relevance of Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore, and Sandia National Laboratories in the 21st century. Born in the days of the nuclear arms race, these national labs and the governmental infrastructure above them have clung too tightly to their original nuclear weapons mandate and have failed to reconstitute their efforts to reflect the more diffuse challenges, nuclear and otherwise, facing the country today. Though blame for this lapse could be placed at the feet of policy makers, bureaucrats, a