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Building confidence in the safe disposal of radioactive waste

Julia M. Westa, Linda E. McKinleyb

aBritish Geological Survey, Nottingham, UK

bVilligen, Switzerland

9.1. Introduction – why build confidence?

Many countries around the world continue to face difficulties with implementing programmes for geological disposal of radioactive waste. Technically speaking, geological disposal (described in Chapter 3) is well understood; there is a wide range of qualified knowledge in the radioactive waste management technical community worldwide that provides a firm scientific basis on which the long-term performance and safety of geological disposal can be discussed with confidence and informed judgments made. Most experts are sufficiently confident to move ahead now with implementation of deep repositories. However, progress in constructing repositories and disposing of waste continually stalls because of the concerns and fears of the various stakeholders; a significant proportion of the public still asks whether geological disposal is safe and whether it should be implemented now, later or never. Clearly, without the confidence and acceptance of decision-makers, policy-makers and, most importantly, the general public, the implementation of waste disposal programmes will continue to flounder. However, this fact was not fully recognised for a long time by the nuclear industry; it is only in the last decade or so that significant engagement with non-technical groups has been considered essential by the radioactive waste community, with the aim of engaging the full spectrum of stakeholders in discussion.

It should be noted that the concept of building confidence has different aspects and it should be clear whose confidence is under discussion. The implementing organisation has to be confident that its work meets established criteria, the regulator has to be confident in the work being carried out by the implementer and the public has to be confident that both are doing their job properly and thus ensuring that waste can be disposed of safely. The topic of this chapter is the confidence of the public in the work being performed towards safe waste disposal – for other areas, reference should be made to the discussion in McCombie and Chapman (2003).

The chapter considers the background to the diverse concerns voiced about radioactive waste disposal and the history of attempts to implement programmes in a variety of countries. It will draw lessons from past experience and make recommendations and suggestions about future confidence-building initiatives.

9.2. Growing nuclear concerns

In the decades following the discovery of radioactivity, public perception of the phenomenon was generally positive. Radioactive sources were handled casually and medical applications were generally seen as beneficial (e.g., ‘‘radium’’ ointments, radon treatment). Even nuclear weapons were simply regarded as more powerful explosives. As a result, wide civil engineering use of such explosives was foreseen (and trials were, in fact, carried out in the USA and the former USSR), in parallel with the development of nuclear power as a clean and cheap energy source.

However, in the 1960s and 1970s the growing ‘‘green movement’’ began to bring environmental pollution to the public’s attention. International concern regarding radioactive fallout resulting from atmospheric nuclear weapons tests led to the limited Test Ban Treaty in 1963. The growing nuclear weapons stockpiles in the USA and the former USSR and the stated policy of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) added to environmental concerns and, additionally, strengthened the negative associations between anything nuclear or radioactive and images of destruction.

The original concerns about the direct effects of nuclear weapons have also been augmented by growing worries about the long-term effects of exposure to radiation. These effects cause particular fear because of their long latency and their potential to affect future generations. As such, they are inevitably linked to images of deformity associated with environmental tragedies. Additionally, much information on the longterm effects of radiation exposure is based on studies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bomb survivors.

Despite a general trend towards opposition to all major industrial developments, overall acceptance of nuclear power allowed many countries to establish nuclear as a significant part of their electricity generation capacity. This development proceeded despite early accidents such as that at Windscale in 1957. The changing environment with respect to public acceptance of anything nuclear can be seen particularly when considering the later accidents at Three Mile Island (1979) and Chernobyl (1986). The former caused a major slow-down in the US nuclear power programme, while the latter contributed significantly towards moves to phase out nuclear power in some European countries (e.g., Germany).

9.3. The unholy alliance of radiation and waste – radioactive waste

Despite assurances to the contrary, most people remain unconvinced that living next to a deep repository for radioactive waste (especially high-level waste) is safe. The waste is seen as dangerous, polluting and unpredictable, largely because of the perceptions generated by all things nuclear, as described above. There is also a feeling amongst antinuclear groups in many countries that ‘‘solving’’ the disposal problem only encourages

the nuclear industry to continue its ‘‘dangerous’’ activities (indeed, many opposition groups now use this link to block any new nuclear power stations until the waste ‘‘problem’’ is solved). More specifically, the complex mathematical models used to assess repository behaviour over very long timescales cannot be understood easily by the general public and, as a consequence, results from such models are treated with suspicion.

Part of the problem undoubtedly lies in the unusual nature of radioactive waste disposal. As noted by Alexander et al. (1998), in most major engineering projects, such as bridge construction, aerospace engineering or even nuclear power plant operation, the designs are tested against a range of laboratory experiments backed up by expert judgment, based on experience with the same or similar systems. The designed lifetime of such engineered structures is also years, decades or, at the most, centuries. Designing a repository to isolate radioactive waste for many thousands of years deviates from standard engineering practice in that no high-level waste (and only a few lowand intermediate-level waste) repositories exist as yet and, even where they do, testing their compliance with design limits is difficult due to the long timescales involved. For most people, such complexities are too difficult to grasp, further engendering suspicion and fear. Some will be put off at this stage and will be alienated from any further communication attempts. Others will require some additional and practical proof – above and beyond that normally required for other engineered systems – that a repository is safe, if their unease is to be answered. This being the case, significant efforts must be expended by those responsible for radioactive waste disposal to make it clear to the general public that it is possible to assess and demonstrate the long-term safety of a repository.

Such a comprehensive public demonstration effort has not been made in most programmes and, as a result, in many countries geological waste disposal programmes have encountered fierce resistance, effectively stopping progress towards constructing and operating a repository. Secrecy – or at least a failure to openly provide relevant and sufficient information – has too often resulted in a feeling that ‘‘they’’ (the authorities and the experts) are not telling the whole truth. Additionally, many scientists lack communications skills and are poorly equipped to present their work clearly to nonspecialists – particularly when attempting to provide clear and unambiguous answers to difficult questions conveying, e.g., the idea of risk.

This book presents some of the technical information on geological disposal that is already available internationally. However, in terms of confidence-building, it is important to consider how this information is communicated by experts to non-experts and to evaluate success as a function of progress within any given waste management programme. By way of example, the following sections consider in more detail how such communication has been approached in two programmes, namely Switzerland and Japan, and then compares overall waste management communication approaches in four European countries (Finland, France, Sweden and the United Kingdom).

Given current recognition of the importance of ‘‘confidence-building’’ in waste management programmes, it would be possible to write an entire book on the subject. Treatment of the approaches in individual countries is therefore necessarily somewhat simplistic and brief, focusing on approach, experience and lessons learned. As communication ultimately comes down to a local level as part of the siting process (see also comments in Chapter 4), the focus will be on this aspect.