for long-term management of SF and HLW are to be recovered from the producers, there will be a question of the allocation of these costs. The objective is to find a mechanism that ensures all costs are covered, is simple to operate and is fair to all participants. Various approaches have been proposed ranging from simple dependence on energy produced, through mechanisms depending on volumes or masses of spent fuel, to complex proposals accounting for specific radionuclide contents. These are all solvable problems, however, and the main points to be stressed with respect to the costs of disposal is that they do not make nuclear power uneconomic and that they are already internalised in most major nuclear countries. For small nuclear programmes, however, the costs of national deep geological repositories could be prohibitive and joint solutions are economically attractive.

7.7. Conclusions

This overview of the challenges of repository implementation and on the status of repository projects worldwide allows some key conclusions to be drawn. These are summarised in the following bullet points:

Effective repository implementation programmes can be undertaken only when clear organisational structures have been established – in particular when responsibilities for all aspects of implementing and regulating have been allocated.

The science and technology needed to implement geological repositories is available today (as noted in Chapter 8). This does not imply that refinement of engineering practices and of safety analyses will not continue; it does mean that repositories could be implemented immediately.

The repositories that are being designed today and the siting requirements that are recognised as essential would also ensure a high level of public safety now and at all times into the future. Thus there are – at least for the scientific and technical communities – no credible safety arguments preventing implementation.

Despite the arguments to the contrary that are often put by nuclear opponents, the costs of deep repositories, although high, are also not an insuperable obstacle to early implementation by large nuclear programmes.

The real stumbling block on the way to repository implementation has been the inability of the technical community to win sufficient trust from the general public (see also comments in Chapters 9 and 10). This becomes most obvious at the siting stage and projects without sites are truly only ‘‘castles in the air’’. This implies that waste disposal experts must continue to work on improving public communication and consultation.

A look at the situation in national programmes reveals that there are hopeful signs. In Finland, Sweden, Canada and South Korea, local communities have agreed to host repositories. It is the belief of many that once some national deep disposal facilities are implemented and operating safely, the resistance to further developments will lessen. Unfortunately, the example of LLW surface disposal sites illustrates that this need not be the case. Countries without such a site (e.g., Switzerland, Australia, Slovenia, Austria, etc.) have not found that the existence of decades-old sites in other countries has eased their own siting problems. Therefore, continuing efforts to develop demonstrably safe deep repositories and to transparently explain the safety of these are essential if progress towards a solution is to be made.

7.8. Acknowledgements

Some of the material used in this overview was developed together with Bengt Tveiten in a project financed by NWMO of Canada; other sections lean heavily on work done together with Barbara Pastina and the BRWM Committee on staged repository development.

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