Governing Nuclear Waste in the Long Term: On the Role of Place

In: Historical social research: HSR-Retrospective (HSR-Retro) = Historische Sozialforschung, Band 49, Heft 1, S. 193-226

Abstract

A major challenge in building and securing a repository for high-level waste is the long-time spans needed for site selection, construction, storage, and closure. Depending on the type of site selection procedure and the chosen repository concept, this can take decades or even more than a century. Even today, this applies to many places in all countries that have or are operating nuclear power plants. These include the sites for interim or final storage or reprocessing. Over time, other places will also be affected during the site selection procedure and afterwards during construction and disposal. The processes will cause landscape transformations to a greater or lesser extent, to allow for activities including transportation and excavation. Nuclear waste governance is an extremely challenging and contested issue, starting with site selection, because nobody wants nuclear waste close by. Technologies and societies can change considerably over time. How this influences a repository may vary from place to place depending on context factors. Thus, we argue that realizing a nuclear waste governance that is oriented toward public welfare in the long term requires con-sideration of place. Based on empirical material collected in three regional workshops and nine qualitative interviews on the meaning of place and transformations caused by infrastructure projects, we discuss the relevance of those findings for a place-sensitive longterm governance framework.