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for the diffusion of the standard.

Nuclear power reactors

Another case of lock-in which one possible inferior technology dominates the market is the history of nuclear power technology (Cowan 1990). Today Most important centrals in the U.S. and all reactors installed in the US Navy for the propulsion use light water technology that is the main tech in the power market. The history of nuclear reactor has characterized by different technologies but all need big investments to be developed and to be competitive and are also subjected to dynamics of increasing returns. So most of the countries collaborate with each other to share the costs. The study of nuclear reactors start from the first years after Second World War, where only in the U.S. there were LWR (light water reactor), until now where 80% of all reactor in the world use the old American technology. The nuclear reactor competition was highly influenced by three events: first in 1946 when Hyman Rickover supplied U.S. naval ships with LWR propulsion , second the introduction in Russian of nuclear in 1949, third the subsides given by US government to move this technology to Europe (1950). These three points gave a huge advantages to LWR on the other technologies (like graphite and heavy water). This events switch the reactor from the military to the civilian world. In 1970 there were a huge step in the adoption of this technology and a reduction of uncertainly about benefits of light water. For example in UK they decided to use light water because this technologies was already studied and cost less than graphite or heavy water reactor. In the three decades after first nuclear reactor, light water was been dominant in the market.

Main characteristic of the case are the barriers for adoption of alternatives technologies: very high costs of R&D and huge irreversible investments already done make impossible the switch to new reactor technologies and so we are locked-in.

结论-Conclusion

In our paper we have discussed about the lock-in effect that influence or have influenced some technologies of our daily life. We have done a panorama on the main causes of lock-in and we have analyzed which were more present in the different cases we have summarized. The lock-in effect, we discovered, is a result of many factors: it starts with dynamics and events that are interdependent and it diffuse thanks to increasing returns and networks externalities. But it is not enough, it remains because alternative and maybe better technologies are maintained out of the market by strong barriers of adoption.
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