The Nuclear Energy Debate and the Importance of Radioactive Waste Management

The preparation of this special issue dedicated to the topic of radioactive waste management coincides with some notable milestones. The year 2004 marks the 50th anniversary of the world's first nuclear power plant in the town of Obnisk, near Moscow, which initiated the use of nuclear energy for civilian applications by providing power to residences and businesses. This year also marks the 25th anniversary of the Three Mile Island accident, which occurred at a nuclear power plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and effectively halted any new nuclear power plant considerations in the United States. A clean and sustainable energy source is nearly universally accepted as a necessity for our future, and the issues of radioactive waste management and permanent disposal solutions are inextricably linked to the exploration of nuclear power as a viable energy option. The actual and perceived risks associated with nuclear energy as well as radioactive waste—its generation, transportation, and disposal—pervade every aspect of the nuclear debate.

Nearly all debate participants can concur with the commonly referenced mission of radioactive waste management programs: protection of the environment and human health and safety. However, structuring such programs and successfully executing them is a complex and lengthy process generally spanning several decades. For example, in the U.S., achieving operational status for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), a deep geologic repository for the permanent disposal of transuranic wastes, involved more than four decades from concept to completion. The regulations governing the permanent disposal of radioactive waste at WIPP require demonstration of safe repository performance for a period of $\mathrm{10,000}\text{years}$ .

A defining characteristic of the complexity associated with radioactive waste management programs is the wide spectrum of participants involved, each with strongly anchored and unique perspectives. Technical debate and discussion alone cannot resolve the divergent viewpoints and convictions of the various stakeholders, which may be grounded in technical, social, political, economic, or cultural backgrounds and interests. As an example, with respect to the disposition of radioactive waste, scientific and technical communities generally agree that radioactive waste can be disposed of by deep burial in suitable geologic formations that safely isolate the waste for time-frames of tens of thousands of years. An obvious challenge to scientists and engineers is defining the logic by which long-term predictions of geologic and weather conditions, groundwater behavior, and human activity covering these time-frames can be made and evaluated for repository performance. The inherent uncertainty associated with such predictive science complicates the public acceptance of scientific confidence in the concept of deep geologic disposal. Although demonstrating technical soundness of a given radioactive waste management program and determining and quantifying associated risks is absolutely essential, public perception of risks to human health and safety, whether real or perceived, must also be addressed in a successful program. Key to the success of any radioactive waste management program is achievement of a comfort level among stakeholders such that the process is perceived as legitimate, even if complete agreement between all entities involved is not realized.

In this special issue, the challenges and issues associated with radioactive waste management are discussed by authors from several countries. As compellingly presented by Cohen, while the long-term effects of radioactive waste disposal, for which performance evaluations are typically required for time periods on the order of $\mathrm{10,000}\text{years}$ , should not be ignored, efforts are more appropriately focused within the first $\mathrm{1,000}\text{years}$ . In addition, Cohen challenges the logic of the “Not-in-My-Backyard” (NIMBY) syndrome by pointing out that it is not the people living near a waste repository now who will experience the impacts, but rather people who will be living there $\mathrm{1,000}\text{years}$ or more in the future. The paper by Taylor discusses the results of public opinion surveys conducted by the European Commission showing that while the public is ill-informed regarding radioactive waste, there is great concern about it and little trust in the nuclear industry. This paper includes a description of European legislation designed to promote the development of common standards for spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste management in the European Union along with a discussion of its status and criticisms, many of which derive from the unique member state structure of the European Union. As elucidated by Mathieson et al., based on the experience of United Kingdom Nirex, Ltd., in order for an emerging policy for radioactive waste management to be seen as legitimate, all decisions must be dealt with in an open and accountable way. Garrick discusses the activities of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste, highlighting a clear need in the U.S., and internationally, to make the decision-making processes of radioactive waste programs more transparent and more clearly risk-informed. The importance of stakeholder interactions in dictating the final result of a national radioactive waste repository program is presented by Biedscheid and Devarakonda, using WIPP in the U.S. as a case study. The need for objectiveness, or “truth-seeking,” in the radioactive waste management process is highlighted by Lawless in his discussion of the role of citizens’ advisory boards in decision making within the U.S. Department of Energy complex. Lawless argues that consensus among parties to the debate does not necessarily equate to useful decision making. McCombie discusses the evolution of the geologic disposal concept and the status of its implementation in various nations around the world. Finally, given the decades-long timeline associated with the implementation of deep geologic disposal, Chapman and Sakuma emphasize the need to maintain a level of technical competence in the area and preserve the knowledge for future generations.