Abstract
Denmark was once at the forefront of nuclear research, operating three experimental nuclear reactors at the research facility at Risø, close to Copenhagen. However, the 1985 resolution of the Danish Parliament excluded nuclear power from the national energy mix. In 2003, the Parliament passed a resolution on the decommissioning of the nuclear facility at Risø, including plans for establishing a permanent solution for radioactive waste management. To understand the ensuing socio-technical controversy, we employ the “hybrid forum” framework that emphasizes the entangled political-epistemological role of the municipalities and protest groups. They mobilized political resistance while also performing “research in the wild.” In 2016, the protest groups became part of an institutionalized “hybrid forum” where they could negotiate directly with experts and government representatives. We conclude that municipalities and protest groups were instrumental in changing the Danish position on radioactive waste management from final repository to long-term storage at Risø.
Most aspects relating to nuclear energy in Denmark have been “troublesome” (Nielsen & Knudsen. 2010). With great expectations for the peaceful use of nuclear power, the Danish Government established in 1955 a nuclear research facility at Risø, a small peninsula in the Roskilde Fjord, located 7 km north of the historic city of Roskilde and just 30 km from central Copenhagen. However, by the early 1960s the Danish utilities announced that, for economic reasons, they were reluctant to introduce nuclear power into the Danish power supply system, effectively halting the development of nuclear power in Denmark. Later, in the 1970s and early 1980s, public opinion became increasingly opposed to nuclear power (Danielsen, 2006). Consequently, in 1985 the Danish Parliament passed a resolution against nuclear power. Fifteen years later, in 2000, the decommissioning of the final two of three existing nuclear test reactors began at Risø (Knudsen, 2006).
In 2003, when the Parliament passed the first actual resolution on decommissioning, the government, based on technical and juridical reports, took initial steps to secure a permanent solution for storing Denmark’s radioactive waste in a final repository (Folketinget, 2003). The reports estimated the waste to consist of 233 kg of spent fuel with long-lived isotopes requiring special storage facilities for the final repository, around 5,000 drums or 2,000 m2 of low- and intermediate-level waste, and around 4,700 tons of very low-level uranium ore from Greenland. If everything went smoothly, the planning and construction of a final repository could commence as soon as possible, but the report also predicted that the selection of potential repository sites could turn into a political issue as in Germany and Belgium, and that the decision might have to be postponed and the whole process may become unpredictable. The government, therefore, made it clear from the beginning that the identification and assessment of potential repository sites would be based on safety and environmental experts’ assessments, and also involved local authorities and the public (Folketinget, 2003).
Overall, the entire process took 15 years. Local authorities and the public were involved after the geological experts established the knowledge needed to make a decision on the final repository. However, this involvement did not go as planned. Protest groups emerged and were successful in bringing counterexperts to propound the new socioeconomic aspects of the final repository into the debate. Local authorities also challenged the government to pursue options other than the final repository. The government established a so-called “contact forum” with representatives of the protest groups, experts, and civil servants from the government and relevant local authorities. In this forum, the protesters, however, persisted in their critique against a final repository and in favor of a temporary solution. Meanwhile, parliamentary support for the final repository waned. On 15 May 2018, the Parliament unanimously agreed that the waste should remain at Risø, until no later than 2073. The Minister of Science Søren Pind stated that the decision was made with “due care,” while the mayor of Roskilde, Joy Mogensen, unsurprisingly, did not agree (Kristensen, 2018; Østbjerg, 2018).
This article aims to engage conceptually and empirically with the sociotechnical controversy over radioactive waste storage in Denmark. We find the controversy interesting for a number of reasons. Denmark has never had nuclear reactors as part of the national power supply, and the amount of radioactive waste in Denmark is relatively small compared with many other neighboring countries. However, public participation in nuclear issues has been and is still relatively high (Danielsen, 2006; Nielsen et al., 1998). Moreover, Denmark has a long tradition of public participation in technology assessment and democratic, deliberative processes related to science and technology (Callon et al., 2009; Horst & Irwin, 2010; Mejlgaard, 2009). Studying the decision processes with respect to nuclear waste storage and final disposal in Denmark provides insights into the challenges of participatory radioactive waste management (Bergmans et al., 2015). Following Callon et al. (2009), we argue that public participation in radioactive waste management involves not only political struggles over representation and decision making but also epistemic struggles over what counts as legitimate and sufficient knowledge.
Hybrid Forums and the Dialogical Space
In their book Acting in an Uncertain World: An Essay on Technical Democracy, Callon et al. (2009) provide a theoretical framework for understanding the role of sociotechnical controversies in democratic societies. They see sociotechnical controversies as part of public participation in science and technology, with aspects of democratic deliberation around science and technology, and aspects of learning about social groups that are and should be concerned about specific technological and scientific developments. Sociotechnical controversies, therefore, are challenging yet useful. According to Callon et al. (2009), scientific experts, policy makers and others should refrain from neglecting or restraining sociotechnical controversies such as the above, concerning nuclear waste disposal. Rather, controversies should “be welcomed and recognized as participating in the democratization of democracy, [and] they should be encouraged, stimulated, and organized” (Callon et al., 2009, p. 257).
Callon et al. (2009) propose the concept of “hybrid forums” to stress that sociotechnical controversies comprise heterogeneous actors from established scientific and public authorities to form “emergent concerned groups” (Callon & Rabeharisoa, 2008). Hybrid forums may comprise organized activities designed to include many different voices in the deliberation, but they may also involve unanticipated events, often confrontations, where different perspectives clash and new identities emerge. Hybrid forums provide the opportunity to learn more about the issues at stake and the full range of actors involved, some of which emerge, and some of which change identities in the course of a controversy. For example, winemakers living in the south of France close to areas designated for radioactive waste repositories may find themselves entangled in issues pertaining to deep geology and global markets, which forge new links between wine quality, safety and nuclear containers in the ground. Consequently, their identity as winemakers has to change, if only slightly, which means that “radioactive waste has become socio-active” (Callon et al., 2009, p. 109).
Hybrid forums disturb the existing structures of power and responsibility in society. Normally, a high degree of functional differentiation dominates modern society (Luhmann, 1995). Social systems such as science and politics take responsibility for knowledge production and policy making, respectively, and in most situations have exclusive and undisturbed power to do so. Hybrid forums, however, bring uncertainties to the fore, not only allowing actors outside but also inside traditional institutional settings to make alternative knowledge claims and policy recommendations. Consequently, hybrid forums operate in what Callon et al. (2009) call the dialogical space spanned by political and epistemological axes (see Figure 1).
The dialogical space.
Along the political axis, we move from normal policy making, where well-established authorities and organizations with clearly defined identities propose and decide on new policies, to the consideration and inclusion of new actors or stakeholders in the policy-making process. Along the epistemological axis, we move from normal science, defined as disciplinary problem solving to transdisciplinary, transient, and collaborative modes of inquiry that have a high degree of public participation when it comes to articulating relevant problems, as well as finding good solutions through exploration and inquiry using more or less scientific methods.
Combining politics and epistemology in one diagram implies similarity. Both axes describe the degree to which larger segments of society become involved in scientific and political affairs, respectively. As the degree of participation increases, the nature of science and politics changes. Moving from normal science with a low degree of public participation to fully “collaborative research” with a high degree of public participation means opening up the research agenda and allowing for new kinds of research methods to be applied (Callon et al., 2009, p. 135). In fact, “collaborative research,” meaning collaboration between established research actors and actors from other realms of society, challenges what it means to conduct proper scientific research, which is why the knowledge claims based on collaborative research are often highly disputed. Similarly, “collaborative policy-making”—a term not used by Callon et al. (2009)—is a challenge to the established structures and processes of policy making, as many and different new procedures are necessary to explore all options for policy formulation and decision.
Callon and Rabeharisoa (2003) coined the term “research in the wild” to designate collaborative research, controlled and/or carried out by stakeholders outside established research institutions. In particular, they studied the involvement of the French Muscular Dystrophy Association in research activities pertaining to documenting and understanding muscular dystrophy, which is a group of diseases that cause progressive weakness and loss of muscle mass. The Association not only supported laboratory research but also engaged its members in the collection and analysis of information regarding muscular dystrophy. This information gathering typically took place in patients’ homes by means of “proto-instruments,” such as cameras and notebooks. In addition, the Association conducted regular surveys, building a valuable database of systematic patient information and know-how. Thus, the Association was able to establish itself as an important partner organization for research institutions and to claim a stake in defining epistemological issues related to muscular dystrophy. The patients’ involvement as researchers in the wild meant that they gained a stronger identity as equal partners in the debate about muscular dystrophy, while also opening up new ways of understanding the group of diseases.
In this article, we explore the dialogical space as a tool for understanding the controversy over radioactive waste management in Denmark. Following the controversy as it unfolded in time and space, we aim to answer the following research questions:
Methods and Materials
The starting point for our investigation is the extensive webpage on radioactive waste management maintained by the Ministry of Higher Education and Science (Uddannelses- og Forskningsministeriet, 2019). The webpage features a timeline and provides access to many relevant documents, such as technical reports, hearing statements, minutes, slides, and parliament decisions. It contains documents pertaining not only to the technical and political process but also to the national contact forum, established in 2016 to allow main stakeholders to provide direct input to the process. The most recent addition to the webpage is information regarding the Roskilde contact forum, established after the Parliament’s 2018 decision to establish intermediate storage facilities at Risø, which is located in the Roskilde Municipality. Our study, however, only covers the material up until the parliamentary decision on 15 May 2018.
We searched for newspaper articles on the Danish media database Infomedia. We searched for “radioactive waste” (in Danish, “radioaktivt affald”) OR “nuclear waste” (in Danish, “atomaffald”) in the heading, lead paragraph or first section of articles, and “Risø” in the entire article. We limited our search to the period from 1 January 2003 to 31 March 2018. We searched the largest national newspapers (Berlingske, BT, Børsen, Ekstra Bladet, Information, Jyllands-Posten, Kristeligt Dagblad, Politiken and Weekendavisen), and local newspapers in the areas where final repositories were being discussed (Bornholms Tidende, Dagbladet Holstebro-Struer, Dagbladet Roskilde, Dagbladet Struer, Kjerteminde Avis, Lolland Falsters Folketidende, and Skive Folkeblad). We manually removed all articles that did not pertain to the issue of radioactive waste management in Denmark and all doublets. Excluded articles dealt with topics such as high-radon concentrations in homes, shale gas exploration in Denmark, and uranium mining in Greenland. We obtained 211 articles from national newspapers and 904 articles from the relevant local newspapers (see Figure 2). We used the articles not only to provide an estimate of media coverage over time but also to identify the most salient issues and relevant actors.
Extent of media coverage in local/regional and national newspapers.
Our main approach, however, is qualitative and not quantitative. We persist with the “follow the actors” dictum of actor-network theory (Elder-Vass, in press; Latour, 1987). As Elder-Vass (in press) points out in his critical introduction to actor-network theory as a research method, “follow the actors” mostly finds use in a pragmatic sense to remind the analyst to pay close attention to how a wide variety of actors shapes individual events in particular contexts. Accordingly, we are not overly concerned with the ontological aspirations of actor-network theory, attempting to break with modernist dualism. We are much more modestly interested in trying to identify and characterize the actors and issues that have interacted in the course of the controversy over radioactive waste management in Denmark from 2003 to 2018. In doing so, we pay particular attention to both the political and epistemological dimensions of the dialogic space.
We analyzed our selection of newspaper articles in two steps. First, we focused our attention on the peaks in media coverage (see Figure 2). These peaks allow for periodization of the entire process. The appearance of peaks in media coverage indicated a new turn in the case of radioactive waste management in Denmark. The peaks also allowed us to carefully scrutinize the relevant articles to identify new issues that arose. In other words, the peaks determined our periodization and the list of potential issues and actors that we chose to include in our analysis. We also payed particular attention to different story angles used by regional/local and national newspapers in order to understand how perceptions varied from the community to the national (Copenhagen) level.
We then used a set of articles to identify the most pertinent issues as well as important actors and their role in the controversy. We chose to focus on the one to two topics that were most mentioned in our selected articles. We studied quotations from different actors and noted their reported activities and contributions. We supplemented the information regarding actors provided by the newspapers with information from the Ministry’s homepage (see above). One researcher performed the initial analysis and then discussed the results with the other researcher involved in this study. We discussed any inconsistencies in how we identified issues and actors by looking at the material together. All inconsistencies were eventually resolved in this manner.
Results
Establishing a Technical Basis for Decision, 2003-2008
The 2003 Parliament resolution to decommission the nuclear reactors at Risø, known simply as the B 48 resolution, authorized the government to establish a final repository for Denmark’s radioactive waste within a reasonable period. The resolution and its enclosed reports referred to two fundamental principles of radioactive waste management, adopted by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and included in the 1997 Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management (hereafter, the Convention). First, the Convention stated that radioactive waste should be disposed of in the state that has generated it. The resolution therefore committed the government to take steps to site the final repository on Danish territory. The enclosed reports also mentioned that preliminary surveys indicated that it would not be “realistic” to dispose of low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste outside of Denmark. Second, the Convention aimed to avoid imposing undue health and environmental burdens on future generations, which meant that the process leading to the establishment of the repository had to begin immediately. In accordance with the Convention’s principles, this would require establishing a document often known as the technical basis for decision, which would specify the fundamental safety and environmental principles for the proposed repository (Folketinget, 2003).
The government put an interministerial working group in charge of producing the technical basis for decision. The working group included representatives of relevant ministries, government agencies, and scientific experts from the State Institute for Radiation Hygiene (Statens Institut for Strålehygienje, SIS), the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (Danmarks og Grønlands Geologiske Undersøgelse, GEUS), and Danish Decommissioning (Dansk Dekommissionering, DD). The working group presented its preliminary report at the mini-hearing held on 14 June 2005 in Copenhagen.
Before the mini-hearing, all groups and organizations received a pamphlet written by the working group regarding the proposed final repository in Denmark. The pamphlet referred to the IAEA’s recommendations for establishing and implementing procedures necessary for siting the facility. The pamphlet described this process as a technical and inclusive process that would first lead to the identification of around a dozen potential siting areas, based on geological, hydrological, and topological criteria. More specific criteria, such as land use, environment, nature, transportation, and social and cultural conditions would then be taken into account in order to narrow down the number of potential sites. At this stage, environmental impact assessments and hazard analyses would be performed. Finally, the pamphlet mentioned that local authorities and concerned citizens would have to be included at all stages of the selection process but did not specify how this was to be done (Indenrigs- og Sundhedsministeriet, 2005).
Interest groups and professional organizations such as KL (Kommunernes Landsforening, the association of all Danish municipalities 1 ), Greenpeace, the Outdoor Council (Friluftsrådet, an umbrella organization for national organizations promoting recreational interests and nature conversation), the Confederation of Danish Industry (Dansk Industri, DI), and many more, were invited to the mini-hearing. Most, however, did not attend. At the mini-hearing, members of the working group presented different aspects, including various designs of a final repository. According to the minutes of the mini-hearing, it was generally agreed to rule out a deep geological repository and to investigate only shallow or medium-depth repositories, as the deep repository solution would be too expensive considering the nature of the Danish radioactive waste (low- and intermediate level; Anonymous, 2005).
The interministerial working group published the technical basis for decision more than 3 years later in November 2008. It was recommended to pursue further studies of three concepts for final disposal: (a) a surface or near-surface repository (0-30 m below ground), (b) a surface or near-surface repository (0-30 m below ground) combined with borehole facilities (30-300 m) designed for smaller amounts of long-lived, intermediate-level radioactive waste, and (c) a medium-depth repository (30-100m below ground). Since the Danish radioactive waste was considered to be low- and intermediate-level (a definition that was later challenged), the repository would need to have a 300-year lifetime and an additional archive explaining the nature of the waste for future generations. Moreover, the working group presented significant geological, geochemical, and hydrological criteria for the specification of the site. The site should be located within stable geological layers of clay, and in a place where the risk of corrosion and eventual leakage of radioactive substances into the groundwater would be minimal (almost all drinking water in Denmark comes from groundwater). The working group concluded that the next step would involve three feasibility studies detailing the three final repository concepts, assessing transportation issues involved in relocating the waste from Risø, and proposing potential sites. These studies would then form the basis for public hearings. The working group also suggested establishing a contact forum with the purpose of consulting citizens, municipalities, and various nongovernmental organizations in the whole process (Arbejdsgruppe under Ministeriet for Sundhed og Forebyggelse, 2008).
The Feasibility Study Designates Six Potential Areas for a Final Repository, 2008-2011
For reasons unknown to us, the ministry did not establish the contact forum until 2016. With assistance from COWI, an international consulting group headquartered in Denmark and specializing in engineering, environmental science, and economics, the interministerial working group designed and performed the feasibility study, the results of which became available in May 2011 (COWI, 2011). The publication of the feasibility study caused the first peak in media coverage (see Figure 2). This corresponds to when the public debate on radioactive waste management began in earnest. This debate centered on the six areas in Denmark that researchers from GEUS and members of the interministerial working group identified as candidates for the proposed final repository. These areas were spread across five different Danish municipalities: Bornholm Municipality (area: Østermarie-Paradisbakkerne), Lolland Municipality (area: Rødbyhavn), Kerteminde Municipality (area: Kertinge Mark), Struer Municipality (area: Thyholm), and Skive Municipality (two areas: Thise and Skive Vest; see Figure 3). The interministerial working group concluded that the next phase would involve more extensive surveys of these six areas, the so-called “area studies” (Dansk Dekommissionering, De Nationale Geologiske Undersøgelser for Danmark og Grønland, Sundhedsstyrelsen, & Statens Institut for Strålebeskyttelse, 2011).
Map of Denmark with the six locations identified by GEUS and the interministerial working group.
In addition, the international context has played an important role. The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster began on 11 March 2011, just 2 months prior to the release of the feasibility studies. Soon after this, environmental organizations in Denmark began to draw implications for the upcoming discussion concerning the siting of the proposed final repository. The chair of the Danish Society for Nature Conservation, Ella Maria Bisschop-Larsen, stated: “In light of the runaway nuclear power plant in Japan, I think it is going to be very difficult to site a repository in Denmark. There is going to be huge public opposition.” Tarjei Haaland, a representative of Greenpeace Nordic Copenhagen, who already at the 2005 mini-hearing in Copenhagen made the same point, argued for a repository at Risø where the radioactive waste was located: “People in the local area are used to Risø’s nuclear activities. Close to the repository, a mausoleum could be built to tell the story of nuclear power in Denmark” (Aagaard, 2011). 2
As many people had expected, including Bisschop-Larsen and Haaland, there was a fierce reaction to the feasibility study. Protest groups assembled in the five municipalities that the feasibility study had designated as potential areas for a final repository, and local politicians joined the protests, arguing against the siting of a final repository in their municipality. The debate also raised new and previously unexplored issues. At a meeting with the Minister for Health and Prevention, Astrid Krag, and members of the interministerial working group, the mayors of the five municipalities unanimously agreed that the proposed repository would harm local businesses, mostly due to failing tourism and the public attention given to the repository, and would pose risks to the groundwater. Although the first of these two issues had not been included in the feasibility study, the effect on groundwater had. Consequently, the mayors pointed out that the geological surveys had not been sufficiently extensive. They wanted the radioactive waste to remain at Risø in a long-term storage facility, adding that this solution would be more just, as the Roskilde Municipality had benefited from the nuclear facilities at Risø through increased employment rates and tax revenues. They asked why other municipalities should accept the radioactive waste, and thus ultimately bear the costs of nuclear activities in Denmark (Ministeriet for Sundhed og Forebyggelse, 2012).
The technical support department of the Skive Municipality produced a new report on the geology and hydrology of the two Skive locations identified in the feasibility study, Thise and Skive Vest. The report concluded that the geologists of the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) had not taken into account the fact that Thise had important groundwater reservoirs already used for drinking water, and that Skive Vest was a potential groundwater area. The mayor of Skive, Flemming Eskildsen, stated that the GEUS geologists had been mistaken in designating Thise as a “safe” site for a final repository in the feasibility study. Thise also comprised a well-known organic dairy, which would struggle to maintain its reputation as one of the leading organic dairies in Denmark if a nuclear repository was sited in the area. Eskildsen concluded that a leak from a nuclear waste repository at Thise might pollute the Thise Waterworks supplying water for the organic Thise Dairy (Skive Kommune, 2012). As a sign of his commitment to the cause, Eskildsen became a chair of the Steering Group Against Nuclear Waste at Skive, a joint group for all political parties represented in the council of Skive and the local citizen protest group against nuclear waste in Skive known as MORADS (a pun on the Danish word “morads” meaning morass).
Public Hearings and the Proliferation of Issues, 2012-2014
“What is it you still need to know?” asked the Minister for Health and Prevention, Astrid Krag, with perhaps a hint of exasperation in her voice (Toft, 2012). She spoke at the public hearing regarding the final repository, organized by the five municipalities on 22 October 2012 in Copenhagen. The minister was under political pressure not only from local politicians of the five municipalities but also from the Parliament where a majority just 2 weeks earlier asked her to commission a memorandum from GEUS concerning Risø as a potential repository site. In public, the researchers at GEUS declared that they did not intend the memorandum to present new knowledge but simply summarize facts from the 2011 feasibility study assessing Risø as one of the least suitable sites out of the 22 sites surveyed at the time. A professor of environmental justice, Peter Pagh, countered that the new memorandum could very well indicate that the parliamentary majority preferred to keep the radioactive waste at Risø even if it was a less-than-optimal solution from health and environmental standpoints (Rothenborg, 2012).
Political pressure mounted, with new issues arising and actors exploring new ideas. In October 2012, representatives of the protest groups visited the Dutch plant for processing and storing radioactive waste, the Centrale Organisatie Voor Radioactief Afval (COVRA). COVRA is not a final repository but an intermediate storage facility that treats and stores low-, medium-, and high-level radioactive waste onsite. COVRA currently has a license to operate for 100 years. After the visit, Anders Rask, head of the Skive protest group (MORADS), stated that they would not wait passively for the politicians and experts to act, and had therefore sought information about alternatives to the proposed final repository. He referred to the minutes of the 2005 mini-hearing in Copenhagen, where the representative of Danish Decommissioning commented on the idea of intermediate storage at Risø being “problematic.” According to the minutes, the representative then concluded: “Not from a health point of view and not within a 100-year timeframe.” Anders Rask used this 2005 statement from the Danish expert, together with experiences at COVRA, to argue that intermediate storage at Risø was indeed a viable option on a par with the final repository (Kristensen, 2012).
As 2012 ended, the minister announced that a large majority of the parliament was in favor of continuing the ongoing area studies of the proposed six final repository sites in the five municipalities. However, two new options would also be pursued in the years to come: (a) a long-term, intermediate storage at Risø and (b) the export of radioactive waste for disposal in another country (Ministeriet for Sundhed og Forebyggelse, 2012). GEUS published six area studies in late 2012 and presented the results to the interministerial working group in early 2013 (Gravesen et al., 2012a, 2012b, 2012c, 2012d, 2012e, 2012f). Shortly following this, the ministry put the strategic environmental assessment of the six identified areas out to tender. The tender stated that the municipalities and citizens in the affected areas should be involved, “more than required by law” (Ministeriet for Sundhed og Forebyggelse, 2013).
The Rambøll Group, an engineering consultancy, won the contract, initiating public hearings in the spring of 2014. Public hearings took place prior to the actual environmental assessment. At the hearings, citizens learned about the planned assessment process. They were also able to inform the interministerial working group and Rambøll about issues that they (the citizens) would like the engineering consultants to investigate in the course of the initial strategic environmental assessment (the strategic environmental assessment was to be followed by a proper in-depth environmental impact assessment of the identified sites). The hearings, a total of six, took place from March to May 2014 in the five municipalities and in Roskilde. The hearings all included a poster session where experts presented five posters concerning the final repository, as well as the geological setting, regulatory requirements for health and safety, the coming environmental impact assessment, and local involvement. After the poster session, a general discussion was held. Subsequently, detailed minutes from the six hearings were made available on the Ministry’s homepage. The minutes include many different issues put forward by the citizens attending the hearings, most (but not all) of which were concerned with the socioeconomic impact of a final repository on the local communities. Some of the recurring issues not only include the impact on local trade and industry (financial losses) and concerns about tourism but also safety, health, and the environment; losses on the real estate market; risks posed by earthquakes and climate change; and the overall question of a final repository versus long-term storage at Risø (Uddannelses- og Forskningsministeriet, 2014).
As public hearings were taking place, the newly appointed Minister for Health and Prevention (as of February 2014), Nick Hækkerup, held a meeting with the mayors of the five municipalities, the mayor of Roskilde, and representatives of the interministerial working group on 22 May 2014 (Ministeriet for Sundhed og Forebyggelse, 2014). The mayors of the five municipalities clearly stated that they would not accept the final repository, arguing in favor of an intermediate storage solution. The mayor of Roskilde, Joy Mogensen, disagreed and stated that, from a technical point of view, intermediate storage would be just as problematic as a final repository. In her view, the safety issues and socioeconomic consequences would be the same. Referring to the December 2013 storm known as Bodil, Mogensen added that Risø would probably be the least suitable location for intermediate storage. During the storm, the water level in Roskilde Fjord rose to about 2m above average and some of the facilities at Risø were flooded, although the flooding was not close to the radioactive waste storage location. Danish Decommissioning later estimated that an increased water level of 3m in the Roskilde Fjord would result in flooding of the storehouse for low-level radioactive waste (Dahlin, 2014).
Following the public hearings, the next step in the consultative process was the scoping exercise aimed at defining the breadth of the strategic environmental assessment. The scoping exercise allowed all stakeholders not only national but also international to identify and prioritize what they saw as critical issues related to the final repository. In total, citizens and other stakeholders made 731 statements, all of which indicated “a need for greater knowledge” about the final repository and possible alternatives (Ministeriet for Sundhed og Forebyggelse, & Rambøll, 2015, p. 19). Obviously, it was not feasible for the consultants of Rambøll to address all of these concerns in their environmental assessment. The consultants concluded that most of these issues lay outside of the scope of the strategic environmental assessment. In other words, most of the issues that the citizens and other stakeholders identified as the most important would need to be assessed in relation to specific sites, whereas only larger areas were the focus of the strategic environmental assessment at this stage, rather than specific sites.
Burying the Final Repository Solution, 2015-2016
The strategic environmental assessment completed by Rambøll in early 2015 concluded that, based only on environmental factors, it was not possible to single out one or more preferred sites for a final repository. At all potential sites, a significant environmental impact associated with the final repository would be “likely.” If socioeconomic factors were to be included in the assessment, the result would probably be similar. The alternative proposal, that is, keeping the waste in the existing facilities at Risø, was also not favorable due to Risø’s coastal location and the risk of seepage (Ministeriet for Sundhed og Forebyggelse, & Rambøll, 2015, pp. 40-41).
Around the same time that the Rambøll report came out, GEUS and Danish Decommissioning published their report on the intermediate storage solution. This second report emphasized that intermediate storage was indeed a viable long-term solution, up to 100 years, although not a final solution. The report did not propose a specific site for intermediate storage, stating that all relevant site-related factors would have to be assessed and all relevant parties in the vicinity of the proposed sites would have to be consulted. The estimated time-frame for the planning and assessment process was another 5 years, which meant that the facility would be ready around 2022-2023 at the earliest (GEUS & Dansk Dekommissionering, 2015).
At this point, the final repository solution seemed to have lost all momentum. In December 2014, the Parliament’s Health and Prevention Committee had visited COVRA, where they were told that it did not make sense to build a national final repository for a small country like Denmark, with limited amounts of low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste. Rather, Denmark should encourage the EU to coordinate radioactive waste storage (Kristensen, 2015). The final repository also met with criticism from three international experts summoned to a Copenhagen conference in March 2015 by six environmental NGOs. Johan Swahn, the director of the Swedish NGO Office for Nuclear Waste Review, stated that the criticism of the Danish final repository scheme had to be taken seriously, and that the Danish Government would be wise to reconsider the original decision to build a national final repository and instead seek international collaboration, such as with Sweden. Two experts from the Öko-Institut (the German Institute for Applied Ecology), Beate Kallenbach-Herbert and Gerhard Schmidt, argued that the Danish radioactive waste would still be active after the 300-year period of the planned final repository, which meant that the final repository would not be a viable solution after all (Anonymous, 2015).
In March 2015, the political majority in the Parliament decided to investigate the intermediate storage option in more detail and put all final repository studies on hold. Following the parliamentary election in June 2015, the Ministry of Education and Research took over the responsibility for radioactive waste management from the Ministry of Health and Prevention. The agency acting on behalf of the Ministry of Education and Research hired COWI to perform an assessment of the safety, operation, and economics of intermediate storage in collaboration with Danish Decommissioning. GEUS analyzed the geological criteria for selecting the best site, and the Danish Center for Environmental Assessment (Dansk Center for Miljøvurdering, DCEA) offered a proposal on how to include socioeconomic factors in the selection of proposed sites. As early as 2013, the DCEA criticized the Government for failing to include citizens and their concerns in identifying and assessing the best possible solution (Ritzau, 2013). The three reports were completed by the end of 2016 (Uddannelses- og Forskningsministeriet, 2017).
The Citizen Groups Take Center Stage, 2016-2017
Earlier in 2016, the Ministry had established three new groups to monitor and engage in the decision process:
The contact forum with representatives from the concerned citizens’ (protest) groups, environmental NGOs, municipalities, and the interministerial working group (see Table 1)
A panel of independent experts selected by the Danish Council for Independent Research, which provides scientific counseling to the government
An international advisory panel with representatives from international bodies with expertise in radioactive waste storage and from other countries with experience in disposing of radioactive waste in different ways (Sweden, the Netherlands, Norway, Germany).
The contact forum.
Note. NGO = nongovernment organization.
The contact forum was conceived as a forum for dialogue. Its purpose was to involve and hear all relevant stakeholders who had expressed concerns about this issue. From the beginning, the discussion in the contact forum centered on the question of intermediate storage at Risø versus a final repository in one of the six proposed areas. Representatives of the citizen groups were persistent in their critique of the expert knowledge that had so far dominated the entire process, in their view. They argued repeatedly that there were many unknown risks associated with the construction of a final repository designed to last indefinitely (or at least 300 years). For example, what about the socioeconomic consequences for people living in proximity to the site? What would happen if there was a leak from the repository? Did the 223 kg of spent fuel from the reactors at Risø really constitute intermediate-level radioactive waste, or should it be classified as high-level radioactive waste, as stated by the three international experts at the March 2015 conference in Copenhagen? What was really the best way to handle radioactive waste in a safe and responsible way in order not to burden future generations, as stated in the IAEA principles?
The answers given by the experts from the interministerial working group to these questions did not silence the critical voices in the contact forum. To the contrary, faced with the experts’ arguments, the representatives of the citizen groups became even more persistent in their own arguments in favor of the intermediate storage solution and against the final repository solution. At the request of the citizen groups, the contact forum discussed the intermediate storage versus final repository solutions at their fourth meeting, held on 14 December 2016. The interministerial working group had produced an introduction for the discussion, a two-page article summarizing pros and cons for both solutions. However, the citizen groups represented in the forum found the introduction to be insufficient and submitted their own, which included no pros for a final repository, only cons. At the following meeting on 19 January 2017, Bodil Waagesen, of the group Lolland against Nuclear Waste (Lolland imod Atomaffald) stated that the citizen groups all agreed that the final repository solution in its present form presented too many risks, and it would therefore be irresponsible in terms of future generations to decide in favor of a final repository at this stage. The citizen groups argued that a final repository would not be congruent with the intentions behind the original B 48 decision from 2003. The contact forum then agreed that the citizen groups should produce their own document summarizing pros and cons for the two solutions and submit it as a separate document to the interministerial working group (Borgergrupperne, 2017; Uddannelses- og Forskningsministeriet, 2016-2018).
The citizen groups criticized the experts’ reports on a final repository on two accounts. First, they questioned one of the early decisions, made at the June 2005 mini-hearing in Copenhagen and subsequently adopted in the “basis for decision” from 2008, namely to leave out the deep final repository concept from the negotiations about radioactive waste management in Denmark. Backed by Johan Swahn, who attended the 14 December 2016 meeting of the contact forum, the citizen groups argued that the deep final repository had to be explored in more depth. Second, supported by Swahn, the citizen groups maintained that the 223 kg of spent fuel was wrongly classified as intermediate-level when it should have been classified as high-level waste. For such high-level radioactive waste, a near-surface or medium-depth repository was not considered sufficiently safe (Borgergrupperne, 2017).
The Decision to Postpone the Final Decision, 2017-2018
The citizen groups’ severe criticism appeared at a point in time when there was no longer any political support in favor of a final repository for Denmark’s radioactive waste. In September 2017, the Ministry of Education and Research published a press release under the telling (and somewhat ironic) heading: “Long-term repository of nuclear waste takes more time” (Uddannelses- og Forskningsministeriet, 2017). The interministerial working group had submitted its final report months earlier in April 2017, and concluded that, according to the evidence at hand, there was no one best radioactive waste solution in Denmark (Den tværministerielle arbejdsgruppe vedrørende deponering af radioaktivt affald, 2017).
The report stated that both the final repository and long-term intermediate storage could be constructed and operated according to the fundamental principles of radiation protection for humans, environmental protection, and physical facilities safety, but the intermediate storage model would be far costlier—DKK 340 million (roughly, €45 million) more than the final repository. Nevertheless, in its press release the Ministry recommended intermediate storage. Minister Søren Pind concluded: “This is an issue that calls for care and thoroughness. We owe it to future generations not to rush something through but rather use the time necessary to find a safe, long-term solution” (Uddannelses- og Forskningsministeriet, 2017).
On 15 May 2018, the Danish Parliament unanimously adopted the motion for resolution on a long-term solution for the Danish radioactive waste, B 90. The resolution simply stated that the Parliament consented to the government’s plan for a long-term solution for the radioactive waste of Denmark. The plan, which is currently being implemented, involves upgrading the existing storage facilities at Risø to ensure protection from tidal flooding. The storage will include the waste from Risø’s decommissioned nuclear facilities, as well radioactive medical waste from hospitals, uranium extraction, uranium ore, and naturally occurring radioactive materials waste from the mining industry and other sources. In addition, B 90 expands the authority of Danish Decommissioning to also include the responsibility for siting the final deep repository that should be put into service no later than 2073 (Folketinget, 2018).
Discussion
We have presented the controversy over radioactive waste management in Denmark, identifying periods, key actors, and the most pertinent issues that appeared in our sources. At the very beginning of the controversy, the actors involved predicted that it was going to be a tough, even unpredictable, decision-making process, which clearly turned out to be correct. In our discussion, we aim to make sense of this “predicted unpredictability” by revisiting the narrative along the lines of the two axes in the dialogical space presented in Figure 1. The starting point of the discussion is our attempt to place some of the main concerns and events inside the dialogical space, thus addressing the third research question (see Figure 4). We will also address our two other research questions in the following discussion.
The dialogical space of the political-epistemological processes leading up to the B 90 Parliament resolution.
Two parliamentary resolutions span the historical narrative: B 48 (13 March 2003), on the decommissioning of experimental nuclear reactors at Risø and planning for a long-term solution for radioactive waste management in Denmark; and B 90 (15 May 2018), on the intermediate storage at Risø and the extended deadline for the final repository. Although conceived from the outset as a dialogic process involving citizens and stakeholders, the narrative for the main part of the period of interest, from 2003 to the publication of the feasibility study in May 2011, took place more or less as a process of delegation and secluded research. In 2003, the Parliament delegated the responsibility for providing the “basis for decision” to the Ministry of Health and Prevention. The Ministry then delegated responsibility to the interministerial working group, which delegated the actual work to three public institutions engaged in scientific research and science-based consultancy with respect to geology (the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, GEUS), decommissioning nuclear facilities (Danish Decommissioning), and radiation health (The State Institute for Radiation Hygiene). Experts from these institutions defined the epistemological issues covered in the “basis for decision,” which, unsurprisingly, were related to the geology of Denmark, radiation safety, and the nature of the radioactive waste at Risø (defined as low- and intermediate-level with some long-lived isotopes). Most of this work consisted of deskwork summarizing known information about these issues, and this was also the main methodology for the feasibility study designating six areas as potential sites for the final repository.
One event, however, eludes our characterization of the process up until 2011 as being mainly delegative and secluded, namely the 2005 mini-hearing or mini-seminar in Copenhagen. This was an important event in both political and epistemological terms. As many different stakeholders were invited to this mini-hearing, it may be seen as the first dialogic event in the entire process. However, many invited parties did not attend. Perhaps the timing was bad, or perhaps it was simply too early for many stakeholders to have formed an informed opinion about the subject, in other words there was not enough information to identify who were really the concerned groups at this point in time. Besides being the first attempt to bring stakeholders together and have an early political dialogue about radioactive waste management in Denmark, the mini-hearing had consequences for the subsequent knowledge production. At the mini-hearing, all the actors agreed that the basis for decision should only concern near-surface final repositories and technical knowledge provided by experts in the interministerial working group. It was not until after the intervention of the municipalities, the intense media coverage, and the public hearings in 2012 that other types of knowledge about the final repository solution and new knowledge about other solutions appeared.
The municipalities became more powerful after the public sector reform in 2007 (see Footnote 1). The Danish municipalities were involved at an early stage—that is, in the 2005 mini-hearing in Copenhagen—through KL, the common interest body of all Danish municipalities. It was not until the feasibility studies were published in 2011 that the municipalities really became involved, simply because no municipality had been affected in the process until then. After this point in time, the government involved municipalities and their citizens in the decision-making process. This resulted in more collaborative processes with regard to policy making and the procurement of knowledge, as new forms of expertise pertaining to citizen participatory exercises and local, more site-specific conditions were being included. Up until 2011, the events can be viewed as a carefully staged process of participation and collaboration in which the delegative authorities prepared the material that would form the technical basis for wider deliberation and participation. Although the contact forum was envisaged from the beginning as part of the planned process, the actual contact forum was not established until after the process had become unpredictable and “wild” due to its collaborative nature, as predicted, and partly due to the voluntary involvement of citizen protest groups.
The five municipalities identified as potential areas for the final repository site not only played a double role as critical political opponents of the government but also as providers of new knowledge. In particular, the Skive municipality tried to fight the final repository on both political and epistemological grounds. The mayor of Skive, Flemming Eskildsen, represented the Danish Liberal Party (Venstre), which became the leading opposition party after the national election in October 2011. This may have enhanced Eskildsen’s opposition to the proposed area for a final repository in the Skive Municipality, as the Social Democratic government chose to proceed with the planned area studies in the course of 2012. However, the controversy seemed to have transgressed rather than reinforced existing party lines, as the Social Democratic municipality of Lolland also opposed the final repository. The Parliament mostly agreed on resolutions and decisions in relation to the final repository, whereas the five municipalities sided with local protest groups, thus enabling a more collaborative form of policy making. The Roskilde Municipality was caught in the middle of the five municipalities that were all strongly opposed to the final repository and in favor of intermediate storage, and the government tried to balance expert advice with public opinion and political pressure. The position of the Roskilde Municipality was therefore weak. Although the mayor of Roskilde tried to include the issue of rising water levels in the Roskilde Fjord and the exposed location of Risø in the debate, she was unsuccessful.
The five municipalities also engaged in research in the wild, independently producing knowledge concerning local issues that had not been included in the authorities’ reports. Again, Skive Municipality took center stage. After the feasibility study became public, Flemming Eskildsen asked his technical office to check if anything had been left out. They found that it had, and the technical office of Skive Municipality challenged the feasibility study. They noted that the knowledge contained in the report was insufficient with regard to the local geology and hydrology at Thise and Skive Vest, the two areas designated in the feasibility study as potential sites for the final repository. Although Skive Municipality’s technical office remained within the disciplinary boundaries defined by the interministerial working group in 2003 and confirmed at the 2005 minihearing, the research was conducted by actors outside the organizational structures defined by the government, and thus opened up the controversy in terms of new active knowledge producers.
The main contribution of the five municipalities, however, was to insist that socioeconomic concerns were included as a pertinent issue. This was a special kind of research in the wild, which was aimed at defining research topics, and not particularly at performing the research required. Socioeconomic research was not easily incorporated into the disciplinary framework provided by the interministerial working group. This opened up the research process by necessitating other forms of expertise, for example that of the Danish Centre for Environmental Assessment (DCEA). The inclusion of DCEA in the decision-making process showed that the government accepted the municipalities’ demands, making the research process more collaborative. Dealing properly with the socioeconomic consequences of the final repository would require collecting and processing very specific data about the local areas. In other words, going into “the wild” to perform the research required.
The citizen groups also took it on themselves to collect new knowledge “in the wild.” They went on a field trip to COVRA, the Dutch intermediate storage facility and reported their observations in the Danish media. They sought and made good use of counterexpertise, such as that offered by Johan Swahn from Sweden and the two German experts from the Öko-Institut, to make their case against the final repository. In the contact forum, they refused to accept the interministerial working group’s list of pros and cons of a final repository vs. intermediate storage. We argue that their contributions made knowledge-building and decision-making processes more collaborative and open-ended. Although the citizen groups did not collaborate with the Danish experts appointed to the interministerial working group, they collaborated with other experts and their research-in-the-wild contributions had a significant impact on the final decision.
We would like to draw attention at this point to the fact that the citizen groups are not representative of the local residents or citizens in terms of numbers and in terms of delegation. In fact, the citizen groups should properly be called “groups of most concerned citizens,” as the DCEA researchers who were involved in the controversy in 2015 as the socioeconomic experts have pointed out (Lyhne et al., 2018). The DCEA researchers found that out of 320 respondents, all of whom were recruited from the citizen groups’ social networks in the affected areas, the majority (79%) reported having spent less than 20 hours per month on the controversy. A minority (11%) had spent 21 to 60 hours, and a small minority (3%) more than 80 hours per month (the “do not know” category amounted to 8%). This indicates that the self-mobilization of citizens in this case was due to a small group of highly engaged and highly concerned citizens. Lyhne et al. (2018) also studied motivational factors driving self-mobilization. They found that the most engaged citizens were more likely to perceive the decision-making process as unfair, more likely to feel included in the community of like-minded citizens, and more likely to be knowledgeable about the decision-making process and its perceived flaws than less engaged citizens (Lyhne et al., 2018, p. 441).
Even if the citizen groups lacked local representativeness, they were able to affect the decision-making process in its final stages up until the 2018 decision to establish intermediate storage at Risø. However, we would caution not to attribute the citizen groups too much agency. In 2016, when the contact forum was established and the citizen groups gained formal representation in the decision-making process, the dominant opinion among the political parties was already turning against the final repository. The contact forum was a hybrid forum to manage collaborative research and collaborative policy making, but as it appeared rather late in the controversy, the main viewpoints with respect to the intermediate storage versus final repository solutions were already in place. It is an ironic twist in the dialogical space that the controversy moved from a delegative to a more collaborative position, while attitudes toward the management of Denmark’s radioactive waste seemed to become more and more immovable.
Conclusion
We began by proposing the dialogical space as a theoretical framework and tool for mapping the political and epistemological dimensions of the controversy. We found that the dialogical space allowed us to simultaneously trace political and epistemological dimensions, while also taking into account the composition of the collectives involved in the procedures of knowledge production and decision making. We were able to identify different stages corresponding to different degrees of delegative democracy (normal science and normal policy making) and/or dialogical democracy (collaborative research/research in the wild and collaborative policy making). An important finding, we believe, is that specific configurations of decisions and knowledge moved from one quadrant of the dialogical space to another. Consequently, the role of actors and the knowledge that they were able to mobilize for policy making changed during the process.
In this conclusion, we would like to outline the implications of our study on how the Danish controversy over storage and disposal options for radioactive waste unfolded in terms of a wider discussion of the participatory turn in radioactive waste management. In their analysis of the participatory turn, Bergmans et al. (2015) identified different approaches to radioactive waste management, and found that countries tend to either separate or integrate social and technical factors. The Swedish approach, for example, is famous for the voluntary participation of the municipalities in the procedures for the proposed repository or storage facilities. However, this also entails that it is entirely up to SKB, the Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company, to evaluate technical facts and make the final decision, whereas the municipalities take on social issues, such as possible socioeconomic benefits and risks (Bergmans et al., 2015). In contrast, the British government’s Radioactive Waste Management organization recently announced its new integrative or holistic approach to evaluating sites for a geological disposal facility in which the welfare and visions of local communities are part of the assessment procedure, which also includes safety, security, environmental, and engineering feasibility (Radioactive Waste Management, 2020).
Bergmans et al. (2015) concluded that the engagement of citizens in participatory or consultative processes, often resulting in controversy and conflict, has not led to stable configurations of public participation, where authorities and citizens find ways to agree around radioactive waste management. Their conclusion aligns with what we found in the Danish case. We agree that public participation in radioactive waste management should not be seen as a simple recipe for making procedures to evaluate all relevant site-specific factors in a more dialogic and inclusive manner. Rather, public participation in radioactive waste management involves unstable and shifting configurations of policy making and knowledge production. In other words, it is fundamentally unpredictable. Indeed, the Danish case showed that citizens were able to mobilize more than dialogue and simple resistance. They connected to local politicians in strong Danish municipalities and searched for new knowledge to support their standpoints. At a time when the proposal for a final repository had become impossible to sustain from a political as well as a scientific point of view, the citizen groups in the contact forum confronted decision makers and experts directly and were able to affect the conclusion to postpone the decision.
Thus, radioactive waste management in Denmark appears to continue as a sustained hybrid forum that will probably move again through different dimensions in the dialogical space. The B 90 resolution placed the responsibility for radioactive waste management with Danish Decommissioning, which so far has acted exclusively as part of the Danish delegative democracy. The resolution not only aims to expand Danish Decommissioning’s activities “for the development and maintenance of Danish competences regarding the processing and safe storage of radioactive waste,” but also to establish “a thorough dialogue with the municipalities concerned” (Folketinget, 2018). The dialogue going forward is intended to involve a partnership between Danish Decommissioning and the municipalities for the study of technical, environmental, and socioeconomic factors in relation to the proposed sites for the final repository. Only time will tell if this dialogue will enable dialogical democracy regarding policy-making and knowledge as planned, or if again, in a predictably unpredictable manner, the process of long-term radioactive waste management will involve many different parts of the dialogical space.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.