Acronym Mania:

Of PESTs and STEEPLEs

Several yars ago, I did a blogpost on NIMBY and other related acronyms. I was actually surprised I found as many as I did, and I never expected to find enough new terms to do another post on acronyms again.

Then, I started discovering that there were whole new worlds of acronyms out there.  My first clue was an excellent blogpost by Margaret Harding on "PEST(EL)," a term that was totally new to me.  This was some time ago, and I must confess, I put it aside at the time, thinking that perhaps there was just that one term I'd missed.

However, much more recently, I had a discussion with a colleague during a recent trip to Korea.  He was busy compiling a really comprehensive list of acronyms, both familiar and unfamiliar, for a class he was teaching.  Looking over his list made me think that there might be more interest in acronyms than I had imagined.

Therefore, when I returned from that trip, I unearthed Margaret's blog again. Maybe I'm behind the times, but I had never heard of the acronym PEST(EL), so my first action was to do a little digging.

What I found was a whole new and different set of related acronyms that I'd never heard of before. Like the NIMBY series, these are not specifically nuclear-related, but also like NIMBY, they are applicable to the analysis of nuclear issues--as well as to numerous other socio-technical issues.

So herewith is my newest contribution to acronym compilation (with the highlighted words emphasizing the new additions from one acronym to the next):

PEST: Political, Economic, Social and Technological

SLEPT: Social, Legal, Economic, Political and Technological

PESTEL or PESTLE: Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental and Legal
(the second version is apparently the British version)

STEEPLE: Social, Technological, Economic, Ethics, Political, Legal and Environmental

STEEPLED: Social, Technological, Economic, Ethics, Political, Legal, Environmental and Demographic

STEER: Social, Technological, Economic, Ecological, and Regulatory

LoNGPESTEL: Local, National and Global Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental and Legal

TANSTAAFL or TINSTAAFL: There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch, or There Is No Such Thing As A Free Lunch (depending on your grammatical proclivities)

A number of sources, including Wikipedia, offer further definitions of what's usually included in each of these factors.

I know we have all dealt with every one of these factors in analyzing nuclear issues. I just never knew there was a name for it!

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