KEY CHARACTERISTICS OF RK&M PRESERVATION APPROACHES AND MECHANISMS

Chapter 4. Key characteristics of RK&M preservation approaches and mechanisms

4.1. Introducing the idea of a “systemic strategy” for RK&M preservation

While the previous chapters were notably aimed at developing a theoretically founded, broadbased understanding of the issue at stake (records, knowledge and memory [RK&M] preservation’s historical evolutions, fundamental reasons, and challenges and opportunities), we now start to make the transition towards turning this understanding into more practical insights and recommendations. These are hinged upon the notion of what the RK&M initiative refers to as a “systemic RK&M preservation strategy”. Summarised, this refers to the finding that there is no single approach or mechanism that would achieve, on its own, the preservation of RK&M over centuries and millennia. To state it bluntly, simply putting up a marker or dumping records in an archive will not do much. Rather, a systemic RK&M preservation strategy is needed that comprehends a variety of RK&M transmission approaches, with multiple mechanisms with different key characteristics, that are integrated with one another or that are complementary, act as indexes to each other, and provide for diversity and redundancy, with a view to maximising information accessibility, understandability and survivability over the various timescales considered.

While Chapter 5 describes the different RK&M preservation approaches identified by the RK&M initiative, linked to Annex 2.2 with a variety of mechanisms within each approach39 (the “toolbox” or “building blocks” of a systemic RK&M preservation strategy), this chapter first explains their diversity in terms of various key characteristics (the “composition of the building blocks”, pointing out and promoting diversity related to time frames, media, contents, transmission modes, actors and locations). Chapter 6 contains suggestions on how to combine the different approaches and mechanisms into a systemic RK&M preservation strategy (the “building instructions”).

4.2. Multiple time frames

The RK&M initiative focused on RK&M preservation for the post-closure phase of radioactive waste disposal facilities. Two remarks already indicated earlier are important in this regard.

Firstly, we can only speculate about what future generations will make of our repositories. Natural scientists are used to thinking in terms of long-term scenarios to address potential developments of materials and geology when modelling the long-term safety of a repository. But such an approach cannot be applied to society. Since all references to societies in the distant future remain elusive, detailed forward modelling is impossible. “Nothing ages faster than the future” (C. Holtorf and A. Högberg in NEA, 2012: p. 85). Societal variety and discontinuities of the kind that are present around the world today can and should be taken into account when developing RK&M preservation strategies. However, the RK&M initiative recommends to refrain from science fiction and futurology, and to pragmatically presume a future society more or less like ours (even when knowing that it will undoubtedly look very different) (see also Section 4.4 on contents).

39.To illustrate the terminology of “approaches” and “mechanisms”: within the overarching marker approach, one finds for instance the concrete mechanisms of surface markers and sub-surface markers.

KEY CHARACTERISTICS OF RK&M PRESERVATION APPROACHES AND MECHANISMS

The success of RK&M preservation thus cannot be judged by whether RK&M will last for one thousand or ten thousand years. This remains impossible to predict or demonstrate. The success can only be judged in an ongoing manner by assessing whether it establishes the relevance and responsibility in the minds and attitudes of waste producers, regulators, implementing agencies, other stakeholders and the general public today, and whether that need and responsibility is understood and passed on to the next generation (NEA, 2013a: p. 108). A second remark, connected to the first, is that while the focus is on preserving RK&M for the post-closure repository phase, the RK&M initiative emphasises that RK&M preservation starts today and needs to be acted upon in the decades leading up to repository closure. It highlights the importance of applying life cycle thinking in RK&M preservation by interconnecting the pre-operational, operational and post-operational phases of repository projects. From a pragmatic point of view, this highlights that the RK&M preservation processes are as important as its products. Furthermore, from a more ethical point of view, it recommends to see the long term as an extension of the responsibility we feel for the next generations (E. Van Hove in NEA, 2012: p. 33).

The focus of RK&M preservation is on the future, but concurrently on the practical present (What can we do today?). To explain this better, three time-related questions have been developed (see the respective section in the RK&M preservation mechanism description sheets in Annex 2.2), that relate to the three life cycle sub-processes of RK&M preservation elaborated earlier (memorisation/producer; preservation/curator; and access/receiver, see Section 3.1):

•When should the mechanism be developed (development timescale)?

•When should the mechanism be implemented (implementation timescale)?

•Which timescale(s) is the mechanism mainly aimed at (target timescale)?

Similar to the RK&M life cycle sub-processes, these timescales are interconnected as well. Staged structuring is theoretically and pragmatically instructive, but in practice phases of development (RK&M production) and implementation (RK&M application) overlap (approaches and mechanisms being continuously developed during their implementation). Moreover, extrapolating research results to real life conditions is never static (see also Schröder, 2015: p. 689), and thus RK&M preservation strategies that are contextually attuned and in line with “learning by doing”, flexible and adaptable over time are recommended (see also Section 4.5 on transmission modes).

With regard to the target timescales of RK&M preservation, the overall consensus is “as long as possible”. Nevertheless, the RK&M initiative found that different waste disposal project time frames entail different RK&M structures and that it is useful to make a differentiation between various phases. A timeline first developed within the NEA Reversibility and Retrievability project (NEA, 2011a: p. 31) was found useful and further developed by the RK&M initiative and the ICRP (ICRP, 2013) to indicate the relationship between disposal project implementation, oversight (see Chapter 2), and RK&M preservation time frames (see Figure 4.1).

Figure 4.1. Relationship between disposal project implementation (in red and green), oversight (in black) and RK&M preservation (in blue) time frames

KEY CHARACTERISTICS OF RK&M PRESERVATION APPROACHES AND MECHANISMS

The “short term” refers to the period of time that ends with repository closure. This period includes both the pre-operational and the operational phases of the repository. The “medium term” refers to the period of time with oversight activities that would follow repository closure. The “long term” refers to the period of time with no repository oversight.

The short term

In the scenario of final disposal followed by the RK&M initiative, the “short term” involves the actions of the construction, operation and closure of the repository facility. In this phase, the waste is still accessible (without major effort – depending on system design, this could be equivalent to the galleries not yet being backfilled) and “direct oversight” is possible. In the case of geological disposal, the galleries and shaft(s) are gradually sealed until there no longer is ready access to the underground facilities and the waste. The generations living in the short term are thus expected to complement and gradually replace “direct oversight” with “indirect oversight”, which is exerted by more remote means (see Section 5.8 on the oversight provisions approach and the respective mechanisms in Annex 2.2). The short term thus includes both the pre-operational phase and the operational phase of the repository, up until its closure. In Figure 4.1, the short term is indicated to start with the siting decision. But from an RK&M preservation point of view, one could say it starts from the earliest radioactive waste management (RWM) discussions, or even from the earliest decisions to develop applications that produce radioactive waste (in light of contextual information).

For comparison, the “very short term”, which the RK&M initiative defines as a period of time consistent with staff stability, foreseeable cycles of organisational change and explicit regulatory expectations of periodic safety reviews, is of the order of 10 to 20 years. Our definition of the short term thus firstly reveals that this period is in fact not that “short”. In our daily life, “forever” is generally translated into the period of a lifetime or two or three generations, but in RWM and RK&M preservation, such a period is “short term”. Secondly, the short term represents a dynamic phase in RWM, in which various actors play a role, important decisions are taken (e.g. how the repository is designed and finally constructed), various actions take place and enormous amounts of information (explicit and implicit, physical and tacit, structured and nonstructured, theoretical and practical) are produced. Thus, it is a time in which a lot of RK&M is developed, but also rapidly lost if its preservation is not acted upon in a conscious, anticipatory and ongoing manner. The fact that this risk is real has been pointed out in the previous sections on RK&M loss (Section 3.2) and regulation (Section 3.3). The current focus for the short term is on archiving records in the immediate context of licensing requirements. Explicit recognition of the fact that some records are or should be produced not only to demonstrate compliance, but also to more generally inform both current and future generations, is still rather rare.

In summary, a challenge seems to consist in connecting the preservation of records with that of knowledge and memory across time, and the operational with the post-operational phase. Short-term RK&M preservation should be concerned both with supporting ongoing operational activities (the focus of the RepMet initiative)40 and with preparing the future (the focus of the RK&M initiative) (NEA, 2014b; see also Section 6.3).41 It is not only about creating information in an ad hoc manner, but also about proactively working on preserving it and sustaining its accessibility, comprehensibility and relevance (see also the description of the “memorisation” life cycle sub-process in Section 3.1). An approach with examples of mechanism mainly aimed at the short term (referring to Chapter 5) is knowledge management.

40.See the Vision Document of the Radioactive Waste Repository Metadata Management (RepMet) Initiative: www.oecd-nea.org/rwm/docs/2014/rwm2014-2.pdf.

41.The RK&M initiative exchanged thoughts with the Long Now Foundation on this issue, which critically addresses our societies’ current short-term thinking (A. Rose in NEA, 2013: pp. 79-80). The Foundation aims to embody the idea of the “long now” among others by developing a clock designed to run for ten thousand years, symbolising engagement in each present. See: http://longnow.org/clock.

KEY CHARACTERISTICS OF RK&M PRESERVATION APPROACHES AND MECHANISMS

The medium term

The “medium term” refers to the period of time that starts after the closure of the disposal facility. In relation to Figure 4.1, this is the “post-operational” phase (in which the repository is designed to function without human intervention) for as long as oversight over the repository is carried out.

As “one might expect that society will maintain forms of indirect oversight … [for] as long as possible” (ICRP, 2013: p. 35), the medium term should be aimed to last. This is the key objective of RK&M preservation, to enable the continued prevention of uninformed actions related to the repository and the continued facilitation of informed action, should this be desired. Therefore, preparing RK&M preservation for the medium term in the short term and continuing RK&M preservation in the medium term is crucial. Nevertheless, the review of the RK&M bibliography (see Section 1.2) indicated that this period has often not been addressed as such. Most of the literature has dealt either with the present and operational period (i.e. the short term) or with an indefinite “long term”. Yet, it may not be fruitful to talk about the larger timescales if the intermediate ones have not been addressed. A lack of success over decades or centuries is likely to imply a lack of success over millennia. This is also the reason for highlighting earlier in this volume the importance of planning responsibilities early over time (Section 3.3; see also Section 5.8 on the oversight provisions approach and the respective mechanisms in Annex 2.2).

While the notion of oversight may or may not involve subsequent action, it needs to be noted that oversight is an active concept. Oversight, both in its direct and indirect form, is more than sheer awareness of the repository’s existence. It entails doing something with the records and the memories by means of knowledgeable actions. Oversight thus requires RK&M preservation, but it also generates it, as oversight actions will produce information that is likely to become part of and shape updated or new records, knowledge and memories.

An approach with examples of mechanism mainly aimed at the medium term (referring to Chapter 5) is culture, education and art.

The long term

In line with the recommendations of the ICRP, the RK&M initiative emphasises that loss of oversight is not planned. This is exactly what RK&M preservation is aimed at, but it is recognised that loss of oversight may happen at some time in the future after closure when society no longer keeps a watchful, caring eye on the facility (ICRP, 2013: pp. 31-32). This would be the phase referred to as the “long term” in the RK&M initiative.

In this phase, there may still be some awareness of radioactive waste repositories, but it is no longer acted upon by means of oversight, or there may be no more awareness at all. There may still be records, there may still be knowledge, or there may still be memory in society, but it could be fragmented. Its existence is no longer known, understood, or put to use. This implies that in order to allow any transmission of information in the long term, at least some RK&M must have the potential to be rediscovered in a timely manner to form the basis for RK&M reconstruction (see Section 4.5 on transmission modes). Although the facility is designed to be safe by itself, this reconstruction of RK&M and of oversight in its wake is desirable to continue to reduce the probability of inadvertent intrusion and enhance informed decisions about the facility.

Insights from archaeology, the study of the remains of the ancient past, are relevant for RK&M preservation for the long term, because it works to recover RK&M that has been lost. Archaeology also studies how the past is understood in the present, potentially yielding insights on how future societies could make sense of the remains of the past. Case studies such as an examination of megalithic tombs, show that the understanding of the past varies across time. It needs to be taken into account that archaeological interpretation (and historical interpretation in general) always reflects contemporary perceptions, which are socially and culturally embedded and mutable over time. Thus, it cannot be assumed that information, knowledge and meaning of the past can be fully and reliably transmitted into the long term. Based on this understanding, various specialists invited to the RK&M project made a case for trying to keep RK&M alive across time, continuously engaging each present and highlighting the importance