Monitoring as a tool for improving nuclear waste safety?

• In Event: Environmental Risks in Transnational Contexts II

Abstract

Geological disposal is today an internationally agreed solution for managing nuclear waste. The Implementing Geological Disposal Technology Platform, initiated by the European Commission in 2009, states that time has come to implement this agreed solution. Part of this ambition is the aim of passive safety, i.e. disposal without intention of maintenance or retrieval. However, the clear distinction between storage and disposal has gradually become blurred due to development of monitoring technologies, opening up for continuous vigilance. Interestingly, we find important differences concerning monitoring among European nuclear nations most close to implement their waste programmes: as a way to improve safety or as a threat to safety. In this paper, it is described how monitoring is assessed by European national nuclear waste programmes in France and Sweden, and the EU ambition to reconcile these differences and establish consensus on the role of monitoring for improving safety. In order to analyse this situation, ideas from STS are utilized, and specifically the understanding of consensus as a political goal. In other words, technical consensus, such as about geological disposal and monitoring, can only be explained as a result of political ambitions, which these technological solutions also reinforce. This analysis tries to improve our understanding of consensus: why it is strongly pushed for by leading nuclear actors, how political and technical consensus are mutually supporting each other, and not least how an alternative view on consensus is needed, which not conceals the political choices involved when trying to establish agreements on technical solutions.

Author

• Göran Sundqvist, Department of Sociology, University of Gothenburg