Nuclear Waste: Knowledge Waste?

Nuclear Waste: Knowledge Waste?

Authors:

Eugene A. Rosa1, 13, Seth Tuler2, Baruch Fischhoff3, Thomas Webler2, Sharon M. Friedman4, Richard E. Sclove5, Kristin Shrader-Frechette6, Mary R. English7, Roger E. Kasperson8, Robert L. Goble8, Tom Leschine9, Bill Fruedenburg10, Caron Chess11, Charles Perrow12, Kai Erikson12, James F. Short1

Department of Sociology, Washington State University, Pullman, WA

Social and Environmental Research Institute, Inc., Greenfield, MA

Department of Engineering and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA

Department of Journalism & Communication, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA

The Loka Institute, Claremont, CA

Department of Philosophy and Department of Biological Sciences, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN

Institute for a Secure and Sustainable Environment, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN

The George Perkins Marsh Institute, Clark University, Worcester, MA

School of Marine Affairs, University of Washington, Seattle, WA

Environmental Studies Program, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA

Department of Human Ecology, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ

Department of Sociology, Yale University, New Haven, CT

Address correspondence to: Department of Sociology, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164

After decades of inattention nuclear power is re-emerging as part of the national energy portfolio of the United States. The industry, proclaiming a “nuclear renaissance,” has taken advantage of a new one-step licensing process for commercial nuclear plants, submitting twenty-two applications to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for thirty-three new reactors (1,2). President Obama confirmed the administration’s nuclear commitment by making an $8.3 billion pledge in federal loan guarantees for two new nuclear plants in Georgia (3) and a FY 2011 budget request to triple loan guarantees to $54.5 billion.

But expanding reliance on nuclear power raises perennial questions, includinghow to dispose of dangerous nuclear wastes. This is a question whether a nuclear renaissance occurs or we are left only to manage the legacy of existing reactors and weapons production. Wastes accumulate at all stages of the fuel and weapons development cycle: mining, enrichment, fabrication, and reactor operation. The most dangerous of these wastes accumulate at the “back end” of the fuel cycle, particularly in the form of spent fuel, which may remain highly radioactive for a million years (4). Reprocessing technologies can change the form and amount of these wastes, but sizeable problems still remain.

The key issue here, as with other science policy questions, is not only to get the science right, but also to get the right science (5). Getting the right science means getting the right questions. Given the history of nuclear waste management, in this country and elsewhere, those questions must focus on the social and political obstacles to nuclear waste disposal. The right science to produce those answers is social science; examining the conditions for social and political acceptability within the constraints identified by physical science and engineering. Unfortunately, the Department of Energy has chosen to ignore that knowledge, either relying on its own hunches about public acceptance or believing that the public can be muscled aside. Ignoring social science means ignoring the public, whose concerns social scientists know how to study systematically. As a consequence, the nation appears poised to waste a body of knowledge crucial to solving the waste problem.

A successful waste disposal program has eluded ten presidential administrations. The global scientific and policy consensus for disposing of wastes in the long term is via deep geological sequestration (6). There is less agreement about short- and mid-term approaches, which include hardened onsite or regional storage. The 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act, amended by Congress in 1987, designated a single deep geologic repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Authorized to store 77,000 metric tons of spent fuel, this site was projected to begin accepting wastes by January 31, 1998. As a result of the failure to meet this deadline, the Department of Energy has been found in breach of contract and forced to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in fines. It is currently being sued by sixteen nuclear utilities to stop collecting nuclear waste disposal fees. Some of these delays reflect surprises arising from technical analyses of the site, such as the discovery that water flows more rapidly at the site than expected (7) thus increasing the chances of human exposure (8).

The impact of these or any other analytical results will depend, of course, on what the public chooses to make of them, either directly or through its elected representatives. The basic tenets of these responses are well understood by social science (9, 10). People do not like projects that pose highly uncertain risks, unless they see great compensating benefits and have deep trust in the institutions managing them (9, 11). Many studies have shown that these conditions for public acceptance are lacking with nuclear waste (12). In one public opinion poll after another, citizens have expressed great concern about siting a repository in their vicinity, even while supporting nuclear power in the abstract. (9,13,14). That opposition is particularly strong and persistent among Nevada residents regarding the proposed Yucca Mountain repository (9,11).

Early in 2009 the Obama administration withdrew funding for Yucca Mountain in its 2010 budget and directed the Energy Department to withdraw its licensing application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. This resulted in an impasse over the long-term future of the most dangerous wastes. To move beyond this impasse President Obama directed the Secretary of Energy to appoint a Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future, which “should include recognized representatives and experts from a range of disciplines and with a wide range of perspectives…” (15). The resulting 15-member commission formed in January 2010 is charged with conducting “a comprehensive review of policies for managing the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle, including all alternatives for the storage, processing, and disposal of civilian and defense used nuclear fuel and nuclear waste” (15). The White House further instructed that: “Such a solution must be based upon sound science and capable of securing broad support, including support from those who live in areas that might be affected by the solution” (15).

The Commission offers an historic opportunity to tackle this persistent and controversial problem. The way that the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle is managed will have profound societal implications. Its success will depend on the relevance and credibility of the science underlying its conclusions. However sound its analyses are technically, they will not and arguably should not, carry the day unless they address the issues that concern the public, both substantively and procedurally. Some communities will be asked to host the processing, storage, and disposal of used nuclear fuel and high-level waste. Other communities will be asked to allow the transport of these materials. Through taxes and utility bills, all Americans will pay for the infrastructure needed to handle these materials. All will benefit, to varying degrees, if the process is successful. All will suffer, some perhaps egregiously, if the engineering promises of safety are not fulfilled.Unfortunately, the scientists and officials seeking to craft an acceptable waste management strategy are starting from the weak position created by the legacy of past actions, which have generated significant controversy and loss of social trust and confidence in the integrity of the siting and facility development program (16, 17). The Department of Energy, the federal agency responsible for building a repository, is especially mistrusted (18) and it has been ineffective in finding the means for addressing this mistrust (19).

The Commission could choose to make the rebuilding of social trust and credibility central to both its own operations andproposed strategies for waste management, then draw on the social science needed to do so. The Commission has taken some steps to listen to public voices and to be transparent in its meetings by fulfilling the formal requirements of the Federal Advisory Committee Act. There is little scientific reason to expect such a formalistic approach to succeed where its predecessors have failed. Rather, it is likely exacerbate mistrust and resistance (20).

The alternative is a process that gets the “right participation” and the “participation right” (5, 21). National Academies of Sciences studies (and many others) have demonstrated and elaborated the importance of engaging impacted publics at the beginning of projects—in large part to get the right questions to frame the analyses and to ensure legitimacy of decisions. A variety of frameworks, such as the staged approach developed in a National Academies study (22), have been developed for “analytic-deliberative” (5) processes to ensure a technically competent but publically engaged solution. A staging approach is an adaptive approach that “emphasizes continuous, adaptive learning in both technical and societal areas,” as well as continuous public engagement and transparency of how input is used (21). Moreover, continuous public engagement and transparent deliberations are “communication acts” that build confidence and legitimacy, whatever their content. The social science needed to create such communications is well understood (10, 21, 23). It is, indeed, central to the Food and Drug Administration’s recent initiatives for strengthening bonds with its publics (24). They will be particularly important for strategies that rest on concepts of voluntary consent and right to know (25, 26).

The Commission should make the public and the sciences of the public central to its mission, in fulfilling its presidential mandate to “include experts from a range of disciplines and perspectives” (15, 27, 28). It can do so by adding such expertise to the Commission’s membership, subcommittees, and professional staff, and by adding scientifically sound consultations to its agenda. The science needed for such consultations is remarkably inexpensive, compared to the stakes riding on its deliberations and small even relative to its operating budget. Treating the public in a respectful, evidence-based way during the Committee’s deliberations is likely to affect its recommendations for how the public should be involved in the management of nuclear waste.

Addressing the relevant social issues does not guarantee success, but by ignoring them we may repeat the Yucca Mountain experience. The social science base of knowledge available offers the Commission an effective means for asking the right questions to craft a viable path forward for addressing the nuclear waste problem.

References

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