Other Countries Provide Lessons for US in Managing Used Nuclear Fuel
Other Countries Provide Lessons for US in Managing Used Nuclear Fuel
News item from NEI summarizing siting process for nuclear waste repositories in Sweden, Finland and France.
News item from NEI summarizing siting process for nuclear waste repositories in Sweden, Finland and France.
The aim of the Forum’s first workshop was to establish contacts amongst Forum participants and
to lay the basis of its future programme and methods of work. In order to give guidance to the FSC
and, at the same time, to give this initiative high-level input and visibility, the workshop was preceded
by a half-day inaugural event. Members of the NEA Radioactive Waste Management Committee and
invited speakers provided their perspectives in the area of stakeholder confidence. Over the following
The context of long-term radioactive waste management is being shaped
by changes in modern society. Values such as health, environmental protection
and safety are increasingly important, as are trends towards improved forms of
participatory democracy that demand new forms of risk governance in dealing
with hazardous activities. These changes in turn necessitate new forms of
dialogue and decision-making processes that include a large number of
stakeholders. The new dynamic of dialogue and decision-making process has
History shows that the search for sites for radioactive waste management facilities has been marred by conflicts and delays. Affected communities have often objected that their concerns and interests were not addressed. In response, institutions have progressively turned away from the traditional “decide, announce and defend” model, and are learning to “engage, interact and co-operate”. This shift has fostered the emergence of partnerships between the proponent of the facility and the potential host community, as shown in a recent NEA study.
The first worldwide review of geological problems in radioactive waste isolation was published by the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) in 1991 (Witherspoon, 1991). This review was a compilation of reports that had been submitted to a workshop held in conjunction with the 28th International Geological Congress that took place July 9Ð19, 1989, in Washington, D.C.
During the 1990s, nuclear waste programmes in nearly every concerned country met many difficulties. Nuclear waste management was seen as a technical issue, and the local communities were only involved in the last stage of the decision-making process when almost all components of the decision were already fixed. The management of high level radioactive waste is now recognised as a complex decision-making process entailing technical, ethical, social, political and economic dimensions where no solution can be reached solely on the basis of technical considerations.
After 15 years of investigations conducted in France pursuant to the first research law on radioactive waste voted in 1991, reversible deep geological disposal has been recognised by the Planning Act No. 2006-739 Concerning the Sustainable Development of Radioactive Materials and Waste of 28 June 2006 as the reference solution for the longterm management of high-level and intermediate-level long-lived radioactive waste.
Long-term radioactive waste management (RWM) involves large and long-term research and development programmes in essentially all countries with civil nuclear programmes. Such programmes develop through different phases from basic research to more focussed applied research and development (R&D) and finally to the design and siting of proposed solutions. Internationally basic principles for the conduct of these programmes, basic safety principles and guidance on how to comply with them have largely been agreed upon.
The first world wide review of the geological problems in radioactive waste isolation was published by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in 1991. This review was a compilation of reports that had been submitted to a workshop held in conjunction with the 28th International Geological Congress that took place July 9-19,1989 in Washington, D.C.
The first world wide review of the geological problems in radioactive waste isolation was published by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in 1991. This review was a compilation of reports that had been submitted to a workshop held in conjunction with the 28th International Geological Congress that took place July 9-19,1989 in Washington, D.C.
Frances Planning Act for Radioactive Materials and Waste
Report prepared by ANDRA, the French National Radioactive Waste Management Agency, for preparing for public debate in 2013.