Les temporalités d’un grand projet technologique: Énergie atomique du Canada limitée et la trajectoire du réacteur MAPLE-X

Through the history of the MAPLE-X reactor, a nuclear project conducted by the public company Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, this article looks at the temporalities that punctuate the trajectories of Large Technological Projects (LTPs). Long, complex, with multiple stakes and uncertain results, LTPs are subject to various constraints emanating from the internal and external environment of the organizations responsible for their implementation. As a result, their unfolding cannot be reduced to the course of a linear and homogeneous time, since it is rather characterized by the intertwining of different temporalities, four of which are identified in the case of the MAPLE-X project: technical, managerial, regulatory and political. This paper argues that is through the articulation of these temporalities and the tensions they exert on each other that the sinuous trajectories of the LTPs should be analyzed.

This content has been updated on January 12th, 2022 at 11 h 33 min.