Energy & Environment

This paper reviews the history of the US effort to dispose of high-level radioactive waste created by operating nuclear fission reactors for military and commercial purposes. The history is considered here in three parts: the period beginning in 1957 and ending with passage of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act in 1982; implementation of that Act over the period 1982 to 2005; and recent plans to promote a nuclear power “renaissance”, including the initiation of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership in 2006. To date, disposal has not been accomplished, and many observers doubt that disposal will occur during the next several decades. The history of the disposal effort features a series of decision-action cycles in which objectives were formulated, decisions were taken, actions were implemented, and outcomes occurred. The decision-action process is examined here with attention to the roles and objectives of major stakeholders, the relation of those objectives to governmental decisions, and the extent to which the actual outcomes have corresponded with the objectives.

This paper reviews briefly the history of Canada's civilian nuclear energy program and the consideration of the problem of long-term disposal of nuclear waste. It shows that, after a period of twenty years of initial official deliberations on this problem, the decision making process foundered in the face of a specific dilemma: how to include, within an integrated assessment framework, both “technical” (expert judgment) and “social” (public acceptability) considerations. It argues that an expanded risk management framework, illustrated below, now provides such a framework:

The remainder of the paper reviews and comments on a decision making exercise, carried out in Canada in the year 2004, and using a method known as multi-attribute utility analysis (MAU), that provided a new approach to the issue of the management of nuclear waste. It argues that the MAU method has some distinctive advantages, over earlier approaches, where intrinsically controversial risk management situations are concerned.

This article explores both the social and political usage of social science research and its effectiveness, as perceived by experts, in the process of planning and decision-making in the context of Finnish nuclear waste management. The argument is that public participation in the process is important, but to reach some kind of public acceptability the actors in charge of “solving” the nuclear waste problem have to govern the societal process and respond to the claims and the needs of the public. This requires the integration of social science research into the process responsible for developing the nuclear waste management model.

In trying to understand the uniquely positive nuclear waste siting decision by the Eurajoki municipal council in January 2000, and the decision-in-principle ratified by the Finnish Parliament in May 2001, one has to pay close attention to the bureaucratic processes underlying those decisions. Some kind of public consent, contentment or acceptability was reached in those long and skilful bureaucratic processes, involving both deliberative techniques and a responsive use of social science.

A more general reflection underpinning the study concerns the deepening relationship between science and politics, including the growing bureaucratic ethos of science, the social responsibility of science, the increasing need to control the quality of different societal processes, and the legitimization of societal and political aims.

Risk perception by local politicians responsible for health and the environment is compared to that of the public in two large, representative samples, and to a group of nuclear waste management experts. Data were collected on many aspects of risk perception with an emphasis on ionizing radiation and nuclear waste issues. It was found that politicians and the public had, on the average, quite similar risk perceptions, which were very different from expert opinion. Politicians had difficulties in estimating what risk perception the public had. Demand for risk mitigation was mostly related to the respondents' ratings of risk, for both politicians and members of the public. Politicians apparently did not consider the public's views to any large degree in forming their policy attitudes. Politicians had less trust in industry than the public did. Both epistemic and social trust were found to be factors in perceived risk, roughly equal in importance. The risk perception models also included Interfering with Nature as an important factor, whereas traditional Psychometric Model factors contributed very little. Frequency of communication with others about a nuclear policy issue was related to attitude; more strongly so if communication was more frequent. The results were interpreted as the outcome of a process of social validation of policy attitudes, a hypothesis which could also explain why experts had so divergent risk assessments as compared to politicians and members of the public. Attitudes to a local high-level nuclear waste repository were quite negative in both groups, positive among the experts.

Over the past ten years there has been an increased awareness of the importance of stakeholder involvement and public participation in policy making. However, despite a general acceptance that stakeholder participation is important within decision-making, it is less clear as to how that participation should be undertaken, who should be involved, and how the various methods for participation should be evaluated. By first reflecting on some of the philosophical assumptions behind the view that stakeholder engagement is important, this paper presents a number of possible evaluation criteria for such involvement. It suggests that the appraisal of processes needs to include consideration of the legitimacy of the procedure, in addition to the more common efficiency evaluation of procedures and outcomes. Using experience from case studies, these criteria are then used to highlight the main promises and pitfalls of the various participation procedures.

The IAEA has laid down nine principles of radioactive waste management [1], the first of which covers the protection of human health and demands that radioactive waste will be managed in such a way as to provide an acceptable level of protection. The fourth principle demands that future generations are protected in terms of the level of predicted impacts at the same level of protection as applies today. Recent developments in the understanding of the effects of ionising radiation, particularly at low doses and especially for some of the radiation qualities that characterise long lived components of radioactive waste, suggest that there may have been an underestimation of the predicted impact on health of future generations should radioactive waste products reach the biosphere. This could undermine the existing management framework upon which radiological protection is based and may lead to violation of the fourth principle.

This paper addresses, from an “in principle” perspective, the issues that new radiobiological evidence and recent developments in biology and genetics have raised in the context of determining radiological risk from internal contamination. Special emphasis is placed on radiation qualities, low energy beta particles, Auger electrons and alpha particles, which characterise the nuclides that are associated with long-lived radioactive decay processes. While absorbed tissue dose remains a guide to one aspect of the risks incurred by exposure (called herein type A risk), evidence is accumulating that other cellular processes may contribute to additional risk (type B risk). These processes are the induction of genomic instability and the bystander effect. Risk assessment in these cases cannot readily and convincingly be based on absorbed tissue dose and require addressing at the levels of the individual cell and the specific track structural features of the different radiation qualities. A potential framework for assessing type B risk is proposed.

It is concluded that there is no basis to assume other than that the linear no threshold (LNT) hypothesis will apply to risks (types A and B) from exposure to environmental radioactivity deriving from leakage of buried radioactive wastes.

The Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM) set up in 2003 was tasked to oversee a review of options for managing UK radioactive waste and to engage the public in choosing a long-term solution with the objective of inspiring public confidence. This paper reviews the Committee's processes against their remit and guidance on public engagement. It shows that CoRWM assumed proof-of-concept for geological disposal, despite the contrary verdict of the Sellafield inquiry, and biased the framing of options against ‘interim storage plus ongoing R&D’ (Netherlands option). CoRWM also failed to propose technical criteria comparable to those used internationally, and to resolve the deep disagreement on timescale between key stakeholders. The paper points out vested interests operated via CoRWM's programme manager (AMEC-NNC) and sees the checking role of Defra's chief scientist as also undermining the proclaimed independence of the Committee.

CoRWM did recognise their need to range much wider than scientific and technical issues, introducing concepts of institutional breakdown, volunteerism, and socio-cultural timescales. However, these concepts were not subjected to stakeholder consultation and public judgement. The audit of public and stakeholder engagement omitted questions of procedural norms, imbalance of power, and lack of consultation on novel judgements. Two late ‘show stoppers' were ignored in a desire to complete the task, resulting in a fudged compromise papering over deep divisions between members.

Their final choice of ‘Phased Deep Geological Disposal’ expressed qualified confidence in the concept, yet favoured keeping the repository open while continuing R&D into other options. The substantial scientific uncertainties associated with this choice, the problematic process by which this decision was reached, and the concerns associated with the modes of public engagement, mean that their ‘solution’ is more rhetorical than real. The technical problems and requirements for public confidence remain obscured and unresolved. The reasons for this problematic outcome are located in the current UK policy push for substantial new nuclear power plants and in a culture tolerant of vested interest in nuclear policy-making and civil service warping of the science process.