Design and Evaluation of Public Hearings for Swedish Site Selection A Report from the RISCOM II Project

Public hearings were held in the Swedish municipalities of Östhammar, Tierp and Älvkarleby, Hultsfred and Oskarshamn and in Nyköping in February of 2001. The municipalities had taken part in feasibility studies, conducted by the Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Co. (SKB), in the previous years. The hearings were organised by the Swedish regulatory authorities, i.e. the Swedish Nuclear Power Inspectorate (SKI) and the Swedish Radiation Protection Authority (SSI) and aimed at complementing the authorities’ reviews of SKB’s work and plans. Central themes of the hearings were SKB’s choice of municipalities for the next phase of the program to build a spent nuclear fuel repository, and their choice of method for this work.