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There should be no new nuclear build. We cannot manage the existing nuclear wastes, let alone more

The focus should be on managing it where it is rather than a premature search for new places and possibly new communities for deep disposal. The problem we already have is difficult enough and will only be compounded if new reactors are built extending the time-scales for implementation for very long, unknowable periods in the future. The burden of the existing legacy is unavoidable; we should not entertain having to deal with the avoidable wastes of a new build programme………

The Legacy of Nuclear Power,This fascinating short article on four nuclear communities tellingly demonstrates why radioactive waste is a moral issue and explains what the priorities for its management should be.   Routledge, By Andy Blowers. 7 Oct 16 

Peripheral communities tend also to be politically powerless. Although nuclear industries tend to have a dominant position in their dependent communities, strategic decisions are taken elsewhere by governmental and corporate institutions. Key political decisions affecting peripheral communities are vested in national governments to which local governments, even in federal systems like the USA and Germany, are subordinated in terms of nuclear decision making.

These nuclear peripheral communities also express distinctive cultural characteristics. Although it is difficult to pin down the complex, ambiguous and sometimes contradictory values and attitudes encountered in these places, there does seem to be a particular ‘nuclear culture’, that is both defensive and aggressive. This may be summarised in three distinguishing and complementary cultural features – realism, resignation and pragmatism – which combine to convey a resilience that provides the flexibility and resolution necessary for cultural survival.

Nuclear communities fulfil a fundamental social role in that they take on (or more usually have to accept) the radioactive legacy of nuclear power. They bear the burden of cost, risk and effort necessary to manage the legacy on behalf of the wider society, a responsibility extending into the far future. This social role enables places like Sellafield, La Hague and Hanford to exercise some economic and political leverage. Economically they are relatively secure for, once production ceases, there remain decades of clean up activity often sustaining a large workforce with continuing and open ended commitment from the state. Politically they are able, with varying success, to gain compensation, investment and diversification. By contrast, there are those communities which have mobilised resources of power sufficient to prevent or halt the progress of nuclear power. The story of the Gorleben movement provides a compelling example of the power of resistance. https://www.routledge.com/posts/10360?utm_source=adestra&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=160701303

Finding a Solution

It is in places like Hanford, La Hague and Sellafield that the nuclear legacy has accumulated and which face the problem of managing it now and for generations to come. There is a recognised obligation, stated in principle by the International Atomic Energy Agency, that the legacy shall be managed in ‘such a way that will not impose undue burdens on future generations’ (IAEA, Principle 5). Much of this effort to find a final solution has been focused on deep geological disposal, removing the problem altogether by burying it deep underground. Yet, this solution is controversial since some radionuclides remain harmful for thousands of years and over infinitely long time-scales the uncertainties about safety and security of engineered barriers and geological containment in a repository become incommensurable……….

Seeking and securing disposal sites which is the contemporary approach, has in most countries thus far proved a slow, tedious and unsuccessful process. Successive attempts to secure political or social blessing for a site near Sellafield have failed and in Germany the resistance of Gorleben has been legendary. The history of trying to find sites for a repository for radioactive wastes is littered with examples where, to transcribe a biblical expression, many sites have been called but few chosen. The idea of the accumulating legacy of nuclear wastes from existing nuclear programmes being neatly and routinely packaged and transferred to a welcoming and pristine repository there to be entombed for ever is, with rare exceptions, little more than a distant prospect at this point in time……..

Given the time-scales involved there is no need to hurry towards a disposal solution that may, in terms of proving a concept and finding a site, be difficult to implement. Society can, and should, take its time in dealing with its nuclear legacy. Meanwhile the focus should be on managing it where it is rather than a premature search for new places and possibly new communities for deep disposal. The problem we already have is difficult enough and will only be compounded if new reactors are built extending the time-scales for implementation for very long, unknowable periods in the future. The burden of the existing legacy is unavoidable; we should not entertain having to deal with the avoidable wastes of a new build programme………

This article previews a new book by Andrew Blowers, The Legacy of Nuclear Power, Routledge, 2016, isbn 9780415869997. It is published at a critical time when the future of nuclear energy is high on the political agenda across the world. With the political focus on whether to build new nuclear power stations, this important book is a timely reminder that nuclear energy comes with a legacy of radioactive waste and clean-up that will be a burden on communities and generations far into the future. Written from the author’s perspective of active involvement in nuclear policy making, as academic, politician, government advisor and activist, this is a book that demonstrates the scale of the problem of nuclear’s legacy. https://www.routledge.com/posts/10360?utm_source=adestra&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=160701303

October 8, 2016 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, wastes