Conflicts, Participation and Acceptability in Nuclear Waste Governance

Disposing of nuclear waste remains one of the most complicated problems to solve; it is a wicked problem. Finding and gaining public acceptance solutions for a high level radioactive waste (HLW) repository is cumbersome even in the case of the most resilient democratic political system. Handling radioactive waste is a permanent reminder of the historical paths and legacies connected with the civilian and military development of nuclear power. Despite the many attempts made in the last forty years, there is no civilian permanent repository for spent fuel and HLW in operation in any nation state. Long-lasting and thorny social conflicts and distrust continue to play an inhibiting role in actual siting procedures of nuclear waste repositories. However, in the last decade, these issues have stopped being regarded as a mere technical problem. Against the background of conflicts and deadlocks, the nuclear waste issue has broadened in scope to consider societal, political, psychological and ethical factors. This has led to the use of deliberative procedures enhancing the integration of community and stakeholder values into decision-making. The chapter briefly introduces the major issues dealt with in this volume and discusses the role of inclusive participatory procedures and stakeholder involvement, as well as of consent-based siting and compensation to enhance acceptability of contested socio-technical solutions.

Nuclear waste has some difficult properties and the growing stockpiles of nuclear waste are hazardous to human health for hundreds of thousands of years. While engineers and scientists have posited various methods, in particular geological repositories, to deal with this long-lived hazard, none of these offer credible assurance that future generations will not be exposed to radioactive materials. This chapter describes the technical aspects of nuclear waste and the methods used to manage these wastes in many countries, and the uncertainties involved in projecting how these radioactive materials will behave in repositories over hundreds of thousands of years. The chapter also offers an overview of public opposition to such repositories and other nuclear facilities, and its underlying causes. Finally, it emphasizes the relationship between the technical and the social dimensions of the nuclear waste problem, and why these make the problem so hard to resolve.

Factual truth is a contested idea nowadays in politics and it is potentially even more conflictual when discussed regarding past conflicts. The German anti-nuclear movement was very successful in promoting a nuclear phase out, even by international comparison. Hence, a lot can be learned from the interactions of the movement and state institutions. In the newly started procedure for the site selection for a final repository, the old conflicts and the interpretation of facts in the past may play an unnecessarily important role. However, there are reasons for overcoming past conflicts through a broad societal process: First, it is simply rational to learn from past mistakes conducted in political or technological procedures, and secondly it is also necessary to address perceived injustice conducted by state institutions in order to heal wounds and build trust for upcoming processes. Soon, the time of peaceful coexistence of state institutions and the antinuclear movement will end, when in 2019 regions for a possible site of a final repository will be announced. Thus, the window of opportunity to address, and maybe overcome, old conflicts (and concentrating on new ones) is closing. An overall societal view on the past conflicts and the era of nuclear energy could help to avoid reproducing old arguments and start an era of new (productive) conflicts. Still, there are some opportunities left, as will be sketched out in the following article.

Nuclear’s legacy from its civil and military programmes is concentrated in ‘nuclear oases’, places of nuclear risk that are peripheral, in terms of their remoteness, economic marginality and political powerlessness. By a process of ‘peripheralisation’ whereby nuclear activities are pulled towards existing locations and repelled elsewhere, these places are reproduced and reinforced as landscapes of risk extending over space and time. Geological disposal is the accepted method of managing the legacy of nuclear wastes but it is proving difficult to find sites that are scientifically or socially acceptable. So, for the foreseeable future, clean up and safe storage are the pressing and pragmatic solutions.

The problem of dealing with the nuclear legacy in its peripheral locations is complex and will take time but the size of the inventory is known and its management is unavoidable. But it would be premature to claim that a permanent solution for legacy wastes has been found, let alone for wastes arising from nuclear new build. Creating more wastes is avoidable, its legacy unknowable and it would impose unmanageable burdens on peripheral communities far into the future. For the present and foreseeable future the practical and ethical approach is to take a continuing responsibility by managing the legacy through clean up and storage, keeping it accessible and taking remedial action when necessary.

This article gives an overview of nuclear waste policy in Germany concerning Gorleben and compares various temporal approaches to site selection from the mid-1970s to today. After outlining basic decisions related to nuclear waste disposal in Germany, the chapter focuses on the Gorleben site selection. In doing so, this article examines the rise of the anti-Gorleben movement as well as the dispute about the suitability of Gorleben and the political and judicial quarrel that unfolded in a “stop and go” manner. The new selection process began by the Repository Site Selection Act did not eliminate the Gorleben “problem” and Gorleben is now subject to the same criteria of the siting process as every other potential site in Germany. However, its status remains ambiguous and its future uncertain.

Nuclear power and waste have consistently been historically conflict-laden political issues. In seeking collective solutions the city of Geesthacht is an example of the possibilities of participatory and consensus-oriented dialogue. In 2012 in a political climate of mistrust, the HZG decided to involve neighbors, politicians and environmental groups in a dialogue seeking sought to dismantle the nuclearresearch- reactor. Whoever wanted to take part in the dialogue was welcome. When some environmental groups rejected participating due to previous negative experiences, the HZG endeavoured to understand their reasons and respected their concerns by asking the question: “What would need to be in place for you to participate?”. Based on the answers the HZG decided to ask a facilitator, who is known to be involved in the anti-nuclear-power movement. The process started with a pre-dialogue-period and with every meeting more people joined the process. The dialogue-group took the time needed until November 2013 when they published a guideline for “HZG in dialogue”. This framework includes agreements on inviting experts, agenda-setting and media - in essence making collective decisions. The dialogue-group has been discussing many topics and considered alternative options and possible solutions. Experts were only invited to provide information if a consensus was reached on their trustworthiness. Transparency is important – as well as confidentiality. The press is not invited during dialogue- meetings although press-releases are published as well as every expert’s report.

The aim of this chapter is to shed some light on the conversation exploring how different types of dialogue were implemented in Spain and in the Czech Republic to involve stakeholders in setting policy regarding the siting of a radioactive waste management facility. Both the Communities Waste Management Spain project (COWAM Spain) and the Working Group for Dialogue on Deep Geological Repository in the Czech Republic were the follow up of two European research projects and as such, they were useful to build a safe space for establishing a dialogue between stakeholders regarding acceptable methods and criteria for selecting a suitable site for a radioactive waste management facility. However, the extent to which the results of such dialogues have been taken up in the decision making process is dubious.

The Working Group for Dialogue was established in 2010 and ran until 2017, whereas COWAM Spain operated for a year and a half, from August 2004 until February 2006. One could argue that in neither Spain nor the Czech Republic is there a sustained commitment to dialogue in policy-making. The initiatives undertaken seem to have arisen for instrumental reasons. They hypothetically guarantee a higher degree of legitimacy to decisions made since a wider range of concerned actors influence the process instead of having decisions imposed upon them.

This chapter analyses the issue of siting deep geological disposal (DGD) facilities for high level nuclear waste and questions whether voluntarism can ease siting procedures. I sketch the salient characteristics of siting experiences in four European countries (Sweden, Finland, France and the United Kingdom) and discuss various modes of consent-based siting approaches classified in relation to the characteristics of the host communities.

Voluntary approaches depend on a large number of factors, including also the public’s trust in institutions, experts and in the nuclear industry. Indeed, voluntarism and trust go hand in hand, but are economic incentives a determining factor? This chapter discusses also the role of compensation as a means to reward volunteering communities for their “propensity to accept” the construction of a waste disposal facility in the public interest. The analysis of consent-based siting in connection with the type of host community indicates that voluntarism exists in diverse forms with eminent differences. The varieties of voluntary approaches range from an incentives-based approach to a partnership approach and from trust-based voluntarism to competitive voluntarism, precarious voluntarism and passive voluntarism. The conclusion summarises the preconditions for acceptability of siting procedures, discusses whether voluntarism should be enshrined in the siting process and puts forward some open questions for the pending site search process in Germany.

Various types of community benefit schemes have been implemented in order to mitigate potential harmful effects and facilitate the construction of nuclear installations, to compensate for real or potential damage (e.g. harmful distributive effects), and to incite communities to volunteer in planning and construction. This chapter draws on examples from Finland and France in order to illustrate the challenges associated with community benefit schemes in nuclear waste disposal policy. Drawing on interview and documentary material, and earlier literature concerning typologies of benefit measures, the chapter explores the role of benefit schemes in the relatively smoothly advancing Finnish waste disposal project and the more conflict-ridden French project. The mitigation and compensation functions of benefit schemes have primarily served the overarching objective of obtaining local acceptance for the repository projects. In France, the benefit schemes have occupied more space in public debate and have arguably played a greater role in winning local support for the project than in Finland. The schemes also differ in their success of minimising the accusation that the schemes would constitute illegitimate bribery. The reasons include the differences between the host regions – a nuclear community in Finland and a ‘nuclear-virgin’ region in France; a single municipality in Finland and a patchwork of small communities in the French host area – and in the approaches to nuclear and nuclear waste policy (the state-led approach in France and industry-led approach in Finland).

It is now common for nuclear waste facility siting programmes to include various social and economic benefits for the potential host community, such as financial compensation and local empowerment, frequently referred to as an ‘added value approach’. Despite being an increasingly common element in many site selection strategies, this has not received as much attention in recent literature as the study of public participation approaches.

This paper reports on a study of stakeholders’ opinions of the use of an added value approach in siting a radioactive waste facility in the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovenia, undertaken as part of the EC-supported IPPA (Implementing Public Participation Approaches in Radioactive Waste Disposal) project in 2011–2012. Those involved were members of national stakeholder groups established as part of the project for a number of different purposes related to site selection. The overall response rate of the survey was 41%.

The paper concludes by arguing that an added value approach should be adapted to the interests and needs of stakeholders during different stages of a siting process. Moreover, negotiations on the overall approach is needed, not solely on community benefits.

This chapter provides a comparative analysis of the work of selected commissions appointed in Germany over the last 40 years to advise the Parliament or ministries in matters concerning nuclear waste disposal. Our analysis focuses on the science policy interfaces; it questions the role of science in society and politics by scrutinising the composition of these committees with regard to distance, plurality and neutrality as well as the evolution of disposal concepts and strategies within these advisory bodies. Five exemplary institutions are considered: the Enquete-Commission “Future Nuclear Energy Policy”, the Working Group on the Selection Process for a Nuclear Disposal Location (AkEnd), the Nuclear Waste Management Commission (ESK) (2008-present), the Commission on the Storage of High-Level Radioactive Waste (EndKo) and the National Civil Society Board (NBG). By reviewing the work of these bodies, we also explore the role played by scientific advisors and advisory bodies in policymaking. Finally, we discuss the scope of their mandate and their influence with regard to political and policy outcomes.

In an effort to overcome the stalemate in nuclear waste governance (NWG) in Germany, a “Commission on the Storage of High-Level Radioactive Waste” was established in 2014 and tasked with providing detailed, in-depth recommendations on the selection process. The Commission aimed to open up the debate on NWG to actors that had previously been excluded from the process and tried to initiate a “deliberative turn” by orienting its work to the ideal of deliberative democracy. This paper investigates whether the participation process conducted by the Commission really captured deliberative democratic ideals. To this end, the deliberative model of democracy is operationalized to make it applicable to reallife conditions. Applying the criteria distilled from the theory to the Commission’s participation formats, I identify a deliberative deficit regarding the inclusiveness, fairness, and transparency of the Commission’s procedure as well as concerning the feedback-mechanisms for how the results of deliberation have been integrated into policy making. Even though this paper focuses primarily on a single case (i.e. the public participation process conducted by the Commission), I conclude with a discussion on whether the results can be transferred to deliberative events in other fields of politics.

The search for a repository for high-level radioactive waste (HLW) has begun anew in Germany: The new Repository Site Selection Act stipulates a transparent restart based on scientific criteria in which the best suitable site is to be determined. A completely new actor in this process is the National Civil Society Board (Nationales Begleitgremium – NBG), a group of people who have the task of mediating and independently monitoring the process in the public interest. The NBG is still in its early stages of operation and it will mature with time. In a short two-year period of time, the NBG has covered many issues. This has required setting priorities and reevaluating past decisions.

This chapter illustrates the results of the joint interdisciplinary research project ENTRIA, short for “Disposal Options for Radioactive Residues: Interdisciplinary Analyses and Development of Evaluation Principles”. The project was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research from January 1^st 2013 to June 30^th 2018. It involved twelve institutes at German universities and research facilities as well as one Swiss partner, all working in the areas of natural sciences, engineering, humanities, law, social and political science as well as technology assessment. The overarching research topic was the interdisciplinary development of evaluation principles for three important management options: final disposal in deep geological formations without any arrangements for retrieval, disposal in deep geological formations with arrangements for monitoring and retrieval and long-term surface storage.

In the course of the project, several methods and forms of interdisciplinary collaboration, including collaboration between disciplines far away from each other (e.g. from natural sciences on one hand and from social and political sciences on the other) were successfully tested and applied. Scientific ethos and interdisciplinarity provided the approach for developing evaluation principles. The acceptability of management options was assessed in terms of safety / security and fairness. Within the project, disciplinary and interdisciplinary education and training of junior scientists took place to a degree by far exceeding the extent usual for research projects (e.g. by means of doctorate projects). ENTRIA scientists were involved with a multitude of education and training events for externals as well as with outreach activities.

The Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM) was set up in late 2003 by the UK Government as an ‘independent’ committee. It was charged with developing a new policy for the management of the UK’s higher-activity radioactive wastes (CoRWM 2006, p. 2) and was required to make its recommendations by July 2006. CoRWM’s terms of reference gave it two major objectives in developing a new policy: ‘to protect people and the environment’, and ‘to inspire public confidence’ (CoRWM 2006, Annex 1). For this latter objective, CoRWM was explicitly required to engage extensively with both the public and stakeholders (see discussion below on the distinction between these two categories). In practice, a larger share of both CoRWM’s time and money was spent on engagement activity than on the ‘scientific’ objective of ensuring protection for people and the environment. This chapter reflects on the experience of that engagement, which has been widely regarded as a relatively successful process (Simmons and Bickerstaff 2006).

The disposal of high-level radioactive waste deals with new challenges that can be classified as wicked problems. In the following, the article presents ten central characteristics of wicked problems linking them to political, economic and social challenges associated with siting and the disposal of radioactive waste. The ten characteristics are:

The national context (1), as wicked problems are determined by the political, social and cultural background of a country; the changing narratives (2), as a wicked problem can never be explained solely by objective facts; the socio-technical challenge (3), as a blueprint for solving a wicked problem does not exist; the double jeopardy situation (4), as a repository poses dangers to the protection of people and the environment; the systemic risk (5), as inherent, technical, institutional and human factors intertwine; the vast time scales (6), as the wicked problem of siting is only understood once the search process is completed; the linked layers (7), as wicked problems can be attributed to different levels of actions; the landscape of conflicting actors (8), as differences in ideologies and interests provoke conflicts; the boundaries of science (9), as a wicked problem must be interand transdisciplinarily managed; the challenged democracy (10), as transparency and participatory procedures go beyond classical representative forms of democracy. In the end, the ten characteristics are structured into three core dimensions; physical, technical and social problems.

Within the framework of its sectoral plan procedure for deep geological repositories, Switzerland has been searching for disposal sites for its radioactive waste since 2008. Regional conferences as central elements of a regional participatory process have accompanied the national site search since 2011. The exploration and narrowing down of the number of potential geological sites has been proceeding step-by-step in 3 stages and will continue to do so over a time of two decades at the least. In the meantime, the selected site areas lie, without exception, on the border to Germany. In order to let the public participate in the selection process, site regions were defined and negotiated upon prior to the outset of the participatory process. Within these, the participation areas for the envisioned individual regional waste disposal projects were circumscribed in accordance with potential geological storage areas. The lines were drawn along township boundaries; indeed, the Swiss site search has placed the affected townships in the center of public participation. From the start, Switzerland has included those German townships lying in immediate proximity to its designated site areas in the participatory process. The small size of the site regions, the exclusion of additional affected neighbours and conflicting interests amongst the participants have proven over the years to be stumbling blocks which have again and again placed a strain on communication and cooperation across regional borders and the German-Swiss frontier as well. When trying to solve the national quandary of radioactive waste disposal, it is of decisive importance that the people affected are involved fairly, justly, and on equal footing. This is an aspiration difficult to achieve once a border to a neighbouring country is brought into the equation.

The long-time interim storage and the search for a nuclear disposal site are entwined in a complex multi-level governance (MLG) system of different interests and values. In this chapter, we try to explain why the political multi-level system made up of the German Federal Government (Bund), the federal state governments (Bundesländer), regional governments, local authorities and municipalities is characterised by contradictions and is not yet well prepared to deal with this challenge. We argue that involving the general public, municipalities and the regions of potential sites at an early stage must be an integral part of the siting process in order to avoid NIMBY (not in my backyard) and conflicts in the affected or potentially affected regions.