Our basic position is that the outcomes of policy-making in radioactive waste management (RWM) should be driven by the will of the people through democratic processes. Achieving this inclusiveness requires good practices to increase local influence on what is essentially a national policy process. However inclusiveness poses significant practical problems; can society afford lengthy and costly consultation processes, often perceived as inefficient and ineffective?

Email from Steven Kraft to Alex Thrower

Map-U.S. Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installations

This paper is a response to a request from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) for CoRWM’s advice on the 2011 review of options for accelerating the geological disposal programme carried out by the Radioactive Waste Management Directorate (RWMD) of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA).

The long-term governance of radioactive waste is complex socio-technical issue. The disposition of radioactive waste is decided on ethical grounds, having to take into account a variety of other dimensions (society, economy, ecology, politics, time, space, and technology). Thereto, a study of variants is required. Decision theory, in principle, takes diverse options as a starting point begin as the basis of a decision.

This document develops further the questions offered to stakeholders in the Berlin Meeting (see Appendix). It describes mechanisms that local stakeholders can use to influence national decision-making processes in radioactive waste management.

The outcomes of policy-making in radioactive waste management (RWM) should be driven by the will of the people through democratic processes. Achieving this inclusiveness requires good practices to increase local influence on what is essentially a national policy process. However inclusiveness poses significant practical problems; can society afford lengthy and costly consultation processes, often perceived as inefficient and ineffective?

Work Package 2 (WP2) focused on the ways in which local stakeholders can influence national decision-making processes on radioactive waste management (RWM). The participants in WP2 were particularly interested in examining how local stakeholders could contribute to national debates. Their interest stemmed from the fact that participants from France, Spain and the United Kingdom — who made up the majority of the WP2 group — were engaged, as stakeholders, in the decision-making processes that were under way in each of those countries.

This report provides - a detailed description of the Austrian policy and the usual practices concerning the management of spent fuel of the Austrian research reactors and the management of radioactive waste (see Section B); - a detailed description of the Austrian legal regime concerning the management of spent fuel of the Austrian research reactors and the management of radioactive waste (see Section E).