12.1 Introduction

The authors would like to thank all other authors who have contributed to this volume for their very helpful comments on earlier versions of this chapter.

In the introductory Chap. 1, we indicated that in many European countries radioactive waste management (RWM) governance has been confronted with great social resistance since the 1970s, especially when it came to the siting of storage facilities. During recent decades these events have led to a reassessment and a search for new, more inclusive forms of knowledge production and decision-making, new institutional arrangements and common policy principles. This paradigm shift is sometimes characterised as the ‘participatory turn’ in RWM governance (Bergmans et al., 2014).

To gain insight into the practical implementation of this new, more inclusive governance approach, this book has presented how ten countries in Europe organise and plan decision-making regarding long-term RWM. Taken together, these country studies provide practical examples of policy principles, policy instruments and institutional arrangements. This chapter therefore addresses the book’s central question: What lessons do the European country studies teach us about the governance of long-term radioactive waste management?

To draw lessons from the country studies, we make use of the multi-level governance ecosystem framework, as outlined in Chap. 1. This framework assumes that decision-making takes place within a complex field of political, social, scientific, technological, economic and legal actors and institutions. More specifically, the framework distinguishes four interacting social domains: politics and administration, laws and regulation, science and technology, and civil society. By applying this framework we aim to gain insights into how the decision-making process concerning long-term management of radioactive waste can be organised in such a way that it leads to effective and democratic solutions.

The structure of this concluding chapter takes a cue from the governance ecosystem framework. Section 12.2 discusses the participatory turn in RWM governance, and describes how the thinking of various actors about organising democratic and effective decision-making around RWM has changed drastically in recent decades. All ten country case studies show that RWM governance is strongly influenced by developments in the field of nuclear energy. Section 12.3 therefore discusses important characteristics of this relationship. Section 12.4 argues that all ten country case studies show that the governance of radioactive waste is a multi-level governance issue. We reflect on the interactions between both international and national governmental levels as well as national, regional and local levels. The subsequent four sections each focus on one of the four domains of the governance ecosystem framework: politics and administration (Sect. 12.5), law and regulation (Sect. 12.6), science and technology (Sect. 12.7), and civil society (Sect. 12.8).

Each section identifies a number of generic lessons that follow from the ten European country studies on RWM governance. The lessons are briefly described under the bold headings in each section and illustrated with examples from the country chapters. Finally, we provide an overview of 17 main lessons drawn from this book. The lessons are intended for policymakers, stakeholders and concerned citizens, and provide insight into ways in which RWM governance can be organised more inclusively, so that civil society and local authorities can play a suitable role. This often requires strengthening the governance ecosystem from a democratic participatory perspective.

12.2 The Participatory Turn in RWM Governance

The contributions to this volume show that in determining suitable locations for long-term radioactive waste disposal facilities, national governments in Europe initially opted for an expert-dominated top-down policy implementation strategy, in combination with a decide-announce-defend (DAD) communication strategy. In Finland this strategy was only to a limited extend challenged by civil society. Its consensus-seeking political culture, in combination with trust in science and experts, facilitated effective decision-making featuring final disposal. In contrast, in most other European countries studied here, societal resistance developed against siting processes. Faced with social resistance most countries have started to look for a more open, inclusive, transparent and participatory way of interacting with civil society. Within this new approach, the relationship between state and civil society is no longer described in terms of power-over, but more in terms of co-creation and power-with. And the same applies to the relationship between the science and technology domain and civil society.

Lesson 1: RWM governance currently tries to experimentally shape the participatory turn

We thus see a paradigm shift in the relationship between civil society and the scientific and technological and political-administrative domains. This shift illustrates a transition from a DAD strategy towards an engage-deliberate-decide (EDD) strategy. This significant change in the governance of RWM is also being referred to as the ‘participatory turn’ (Bergmans et al., 2014) or the ‘experimental turn’ (Parotte, 2020), in which RWM is seen as a ‘real-world experiment’; an ongoing process of sociotechnical innovation, where the ‘living laboratory’ is the country in which the radioactive waste is to be stored. Numerous lessons are drawn below that fit within the participatory turn and can give further substance to it. From the perspective of the governance ecosystem framework, this may involve strengthening interactions between different layers of government and between civil society and governmental and scientific authorities.

12.3 RWM Governance in the Context of Nuclear Energy

The task of dealing with long-lived high-level radioactive waste (HLW) is related to the use of nuclear technology, in particular nuclear energy (see Box 12.1). It therefore seems obvious that all ten country chapters show that RWM governance is influenced in various ways by nuclear energy developments. The intertwined debates about RWM and nuclear energy can provide both opportunities and barriers for RWM governance.

Lesson 2: RWM governance is affected by planned and unplanned nuclear energy developments

The broad public and political support for nuclear energy, or the lack of it, can form opportunities and barriers for RWM governance. In Finland, the long-standing broad support for nuclear energy creates a favourable social and political climate for RWM governance (see Chap. 11). In Germany, the Fukushima disaster in 2011 led the Christian Democratic/liberal government to reverse its plan for a 12-year extension of the phase-out period, and decree the ‘definitive’ phase-out by 2022 (see Chap. 5). This political decision paved the way to develop a new, more open and inclusive way of dealing with RWM governance. A political decision not to expand or phase out nuclear energy can be important with regard to the strategic involvement of opponents of nuclear energy in the field of RWM governance. This is because a solution for long-term RWM also has potential to increase the chances of expanding nuclear energy. For example, in Spain, environmental groups are opposed to any type of nuclear waste policy, as long as nuclear power plants remain in operation (see Chap. 6). Opponents of nuclear energy can thus demand a change of policy with regard to nuclear energy, before they start engaging with RWM governance.

History shows that the political and social climate surrounding nuclear energy can change over time. For example, in various European countries, national or international nuclear accidents have had a strong negative impact on public and political support for nuclear energy. For example in Sweden, the 1979 Three Mile Island (Harrisburg) accident in the USA provoked a change in the position of the Social Democratic party and led to a national referendum on nuclear power in 1980, of which the outcome was politically interpreted to mean that nuclear power was to be phased out by 2010 (see Chap. 10). In Italy, the outcomes of the 1987 and 2011 referenda on nuclear power generation were strongly influenced by the nuclear accidents in Chernobyl (Ukraine) in 1986 and Fukushima (Japan) in 2011 (see Chap. 3). In the Netherlands, political support for investments in two new nuclear power stations faded away after the Chernobyl accident, and although the idea of new nuclear investments emerged again in the early 2000s, these then disappeared after the Fukushima accident, only to reappear in the 2020s due to the climate crisis (see Chap. 2).

But there may also be historical developments that seem to promote political and social support for nuclear energy. For example, in 2022 the energy transition in combination with geopolitical tensions in Europe, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, brought nuclear energy back into the debate on the future of the European energy system. Mid-2022, the Dutch government announced a feasibility study of two new nuclear power plants in the country. The gas crisis made the Belgian and German governments reconsider the question whether a complete nuclear phase out is timely. At the time of writing (August 2022), in Belgium this has already led to an extension of the lifespan of some nuclear power plants, and Germany is considering to keep two out of three NPPs (the ones located in Southern Germany) that are planned to be phased out at the end of 2022, as a reserve in order to stabilise the grid.

Box 12.1 Nuclear energy as the major source of HLW

In all ten countries the vast majority of radioactive waste originates from nuclear power stations. Despite reprocessing and upgrading of spent nuclear fuels (SNF) in the nuclear cycle, in the end, all current operational nuclear energy reactors produce HLW. A country’s nuclear energy position is thus a good indicator of the HLW challenges it faces.

Considering the 56 operational reactor units and 69% share of electricity generated in the country originating from nuclear power, France is a clear outlier in the group of countries included in this book (see Table 12.1). The United Kingdom (UK) has 12 reactor units and all other countries have 7 or less. The UK and Sweden have similar amounts of installed capacity, but with a different number of reactors (12 vs. 6) and nuclear share in national electricity generation (14.8% vs. 30.8%). Finland and Switzerland each have 4 reactor units and around 30% share in national electricity generation. Spain and Belgium each have 7 reactor units, but are quite different in share in electricity generation (20.8% vs. 50.8%). Germany progressively disconnected reactors from the grid, with only 6 left in 2020, and 3 at the end of 2021 producing 4055 MWe. Italy has no operational nuclear capacity, and the Netherlands has 1 reactor with 482 MWe installed capacity.

Table 12.1 Overview of nuclear power reactors and nuclear share on 31 December 2021, in the ten countries described in this book (based on IAEA, 2022, pp. 7–8)
Full size table

New reactors are under construction in Finland (whose fifth reactor unit Olkiluoto 3 was connected to the national grid in March 2022), France, and the UK. Some countries, such as the Netherlands, are considering more nuclear energy in the context of climate change mitigation. These initiatives and considerations also impact the production of radioactive waste in Europe. In 2019, before Brexit, the European Commission forecasted an increase of radioactive waste in all classes of radioactive waste (see Table 12.2). The UK case shows that the dynamics of the public and political debate about the management of existing and committed—and, therefore, unavoidable—waste, may differ from the discussion about radioactive waste from nuclear power plants which are yet to be built (see Chap. 8).

Table 12.2 Estimated future amounts of radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel (SNF) (m3) in the EU
Full size table

12.4 RWM as a Multi-Level Governance Phenomenon

The ten country studies show that RWM is characterised by different forms of multi-level governance. Vertical interactions take place between the public authorities of different administrative layers, as well as horizontal and diagonal interactions between public and private actors, within a particular tier of government and across different tiers of government. In Sect. 12.8 we reflect on the role civil society plays within RWM (the so-called horizontal interactions). Here, we mainly focus on the interactions between different tiers of government (the vertical interactions). We first draw lessons about the interaction between the international, European, and national levels. Subsequently we discuss the interactions between national, regional and local levels of government.

Lesson 3: The interaction between international and national levels with regard to nuclear safety and radiological protection is well-coordinated and institutionally embedded

With regard to nuclear safety and radiological protection, the interactions between international, European and national layers are well-coordinated. The guidelines, rules, and regulations developed by international organisations, like the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), OECD’s Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA), and the European Union Directives, are transmitted into national rules and regulations in all countries included in this book. This also shows that the division in responsibility for nuclear development and nuclear safety, advocated at international level, has been implemented in almost all countries studied. In some countries this took more time than in others. Separating responsibilities turned out to be a trust-strengthening factor in national debates, whereas diffused responsibilities encourage mistrust and complicates decision-making processes.

Lesson 4: The option of a multinational geological waste disposal facility is seriously considered and explored

Several countries, such as the Netherlands, Italy, Denmark, and Belgium, are interested in jointly exploring the option of a multinational geological disposal facility, partly for financial reasons, opportunities to share knowledge, and limited availability of space and suitable geology. To further explore this route, RWM operators have institutionalised their collaboration in the European Repository Development Organization (ERDO), which was established in 2021 after ten years of preparation (cf. Di Nucci & Isidoro Losada, 2015). RWM organisations from several European Member States work within this international association on multinational radioactive waste solutions.

Lesson 5: There is a need to achieve more coordinated interaction between national, regional and local levels

In contrast to the well-established interactions between international, European and national governmental tiers, the coordination between national, regional and local layers is far less mature in most countries. Moreover, these relationships are often specific to a particular country, and its political-administrative structure and culture. The relationships between the national and regional and local tiers of government are particularly tested in siting issues, where local interests clearly play a role.

In most countries studied, the search for geologically suitable and socially acceptable locations for the storage and disposal of radioactive waste has a history of local political protest, with citizens and civil society organisations working together with regional and local authorities. For example, at the end of the 1970s, widespread political and socially-supported regional and local protests in the northeast of the Netherlands ensured that exploratory drilling planned by the national government could not take place. In particular, the feeling that certain developments that are seen as undesirable from a local perspective are imposed from above (from the national level) can lead to strong local protest. In Germany, massive resistance from the anti-nuclear-movement developed against the national government and the planned geological repository at Gorleben. In Italy, the local civic and political protest in Scanzano in 2003 is another strong example. The protest, which lasted for about two weeks and in which some 150,000 people took part, had political effect, and paved the way a decade later for a more participatory national approach. In Switzerland, underground investigations for a repository for low- and intermediate-level waste at the Mount Wellenberg site had to be abandoned due to two Cantonal vetoes against this endeavour (see Chap. 7). That event also eventually led to a new policy approach (see Lesson 6).

Lesson 6: Reliability and validity of research on technological safety and risks play a central role in the siting process for a geological disposal facility

At the local level, a siting process for a geological disposal facility raises various technical and risk questions for political and social actors. Why especially is this location perceived as suitable, based on what criteria? To what extent can a geological disposal facility be regarded as safe for a very long time, and how is the transport of radioactive waste to the facility to be managed? To answer such questions, local actors often rely on scientific and technical expertise. This raises the question to what extent local actors trust such expertise and the (often national) organisations that develop and contribute to that knowledge. Distribution of knowledge across various administrative layers and the institutionalisation of checks and balances in the field of scientific and technical knowledge, therefore, has become an important issue. This topic, as well as the participation of local actors in the decision-making process surrounding the siting of radioactive waste disposal facilities, will be discussed further in Sect. 12.8.

Lesson 7: A siting process for a geological disposal facility raises the question to what extent it fits in with local development visions

Apart from scientific and technical topics, the question to what extent the installation of a radioactive waste disposal facility fits in with the local area development vision is relevant. From that perspective, several countries studied haven chosen to store and dispose of radioactive waste in places where there is already a tradition of nuclear activities. In both Italy and Spain, various regions have highlighted the incompatibility between the national repository and local development strategies based on tourism, agriculture, and the valorisation of local traditions and landscape. Regional visions on the development of the economy, landscape and nature will also jointly determine to what extent local communities can agree with proposed financial rewards and compensations, or be convinced that work related to the construction and operation of the facility benefits the local economy. The Spanish Chap. 6 shows that the ideas and interests of the ruling political coalition at national and regional levels can collide, that this can shift over time, and that HLW management is used by political parties to profile themselves politically, which according to the authors has led to a ‘nuclearization of politics’.

Some countries, such as Finland (since 1987), Spain (since 2006), the UK (since 2008), and Italy (since 2021) follow the principle of local voluntarism, which involves a local informed consent, with right of withdrawal or veto over the creation of a radioactive waste storage facility. In the UK, the relevant principal local authority has this right, or the relevant Community Partnership can use this right, but it is limited to cases where all members agree to withdraw. Switzerland is a federal state in which the cantons retain a high degree of autonomy. At the beginning of the 2000s, however, the Swiss Parliament, the Federal Assembly, abolished the cantonal veto rights on deep geological disposal in favour of an optional national veto right on the general license for such a repository. The idea behind this is that finding a site for a geological disposal facility is a joint federal problem that will likely never be solved if citizens can use their veto right at the level of individual cantons.

Finally, Finland is an exception to the challenges outlined above. The original plan for the construction of a geological disposal facility has been followed closely since the 1980s. The main explanatory factor seems to be the high level of trust throughout the Finnish civil society towards state authorities, experts, technological development, and the electricity sector. While in France, for example, the relationship between local and national actors is often seen as a battle between ‘us and them’ (see Chap. 9), Finnish citizens generally seem to assume that governments act in the common public interest, based on technical and scientific knowledge that can be trusted.

12.5 Politics and Administration: Working on Shared Principles and Separation of Responsibilities

The ten country studies show the importance of, and the general possibility to formulate, widely-supported principles for policy. Such policy principles can strongly guide the implementation of policy. The national cases indicate that a clear division of institutional responsibilities is crucial for the governance of RWM. These two political-administrative lessons are described below.

Lesson 8: There is a need to clearly separate institutional roles and responsibilities for site selection, organising public participation, and managing the radioactive waste disposal facility

For decades, the responsibility for both stimulation of nuclear power, and nuclear safety and radiation protection, supervision and licensing of nuclear activities has rested with the same government organisation. This was for example the case in France, Italy, and the Netherlands. In such a situation, potential conflicts of interest could arise. Assigning conflicting responsibilities within a particular organisation can thus accelerate public mistrust in the related institutions and undermine their public legitimacy. As a result, in 1994, the IAEA Convention on Nuclear Safety stipulated that each Member State had to ensure a separation between organisations in the fields of nuclear safety and radiation protection, and nuclear energy. This task has been followed up by many countries, although sometimes it has been very slow, as in Italy and the Netherlands. In 2006, France granted the safety authority ASN full independence from both the government and industry. The Spanish Nuclear Safety Council (CSN) is another insightful example. This public body, which was established in 1980, is independent from the General State Administration, with a legal personality and its own assets, which is not accountable to the government, but to the Spanish Parliament.

The clear division of potentially conflicting roles and responsibilities is also important in the field of RWM. To avoid any conflict of interest, and create conditions in which societal trust in institutions may grow, it is therefore strongly preferred to have separate organisations for site selection, organising public participation, and managing the radioactive waste disposal facility. In Germany, for example, the ultimate responsibility for the site selection procedure and for public participation currently lies within the same authority, namely the Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management (BASE). BASE itself has raised this issue, since for site selection it must be completely independent, but for its other task, public participation, it must cooperate with many other parties. In Italy, the operator SOGIN has a similar dual role, both as implementer and future operator of the radioactive waste repository, and as the main actor responsible for the whole public participation process. Such a mix of potentially conflicting responsibilities does not inspire confidence among local authorities and citizens.

Lesson 9: It is important to develop widely-supported policy principles

A relevant insight from the ten country studies is the importance of formulating and internalising certain widely-supported policy principles regarding the decision-making process on RWM. Policy principles are important in structuring and guiding the public and political debate and decision-making processes. Because various principles can be fleshed out in various ways, clarification via debate, policy, and possibly legislation and regulations is desirable. The guiding power of policy principles can be strengthened by giving them a legal basis (see Sect. 12.6). Shared policy principles do not arise overnight, but are often the result of decades of social and political learning processes. Public protest was often the reason to start such a learning process.

The Dutch National Programme from 2016 listed four general policy principles for RWM: (1) minimisation of the generation of radioactive waste; (2) safe management of radioactive waste; (3) no unreasonable burdens on the shoulders of future generations; (4) the producers of radioactive waste are responsible for the costs of its management. Interwoven in various ways with the above four principles, the National Programme specifically mentions three requirements with regard to the final disposal of radioactive waste: passive safety, retrievability and reversibility. In the Belgian Chap. 4 a wide range of stakeholders—from concerned citizens, scientists, policymakers, civil society representatives, and public administrators, through to environmental associations—considered the following five principles to be important for HLW governance: (1) a flexible and stepwise approach, (2) practicing transparency, (3) providing clarity about the link between participation and decision-making, (4) ensuring monitoring and control, and (5) robust financing. In this list, public information and participation emerges as a policy principle, coupled with the need for clarification of what this will mean in concrete terms for the decision-making process.

Elements from this partially overlapping and cohesive set of policy principles are reflected in other countries. Similar principles, however, can be implemented in different ways in different countries, as is the case with reversibility and retrievability. In France, reversibility, which includes both reversibility of decision-making and retrievability of waste, forms a cornerstone of HLW management and helps to manage trust and cross-domain interaction. The French criteria for reversibility were legally established in 2016. This law was the result of a decades-long discussion from the early 1990s, surrounding the necessity for and precise meaning of the term ‘reversibility’. The law now defines reversibility as a concept that allows future generations to choose between either continuing the construction and operation of disposal through successive phases, or to re-examine the earlier choices and modify the RWM solutions accordingly. In France, retrievability is also part of the implementation of the reversibility policy principle. It is assumed that when, after an operational time of some 150 years, a geological disposal facility will be closed, the repository and its environment are to remain under monitoring for several centuries. Germany decided by law that such a repository should be sealed with the possibility of retrieval for 500 years after closure. In the UK there is discussion about the usefulness of such a monitoring period. In 2003 there was disagreement within the UK Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM) about whether the facility should be immediately sealed when it was full, or kept open for several hundred years. In 2018 the UK government decided that the waste sites should be irreversibly sealed at the end of their operational time, arguing that permanently closing a geological disposal facility at the earliest possible opportunity provides for greater safety, greater security, and minimises the burden on future generations (see UK Chap. 8).

Reversibility of decision-making and retrievability of waste are thus strongly linked to the policy principle of intergenerational justice. In France, this has been an overarching theme, starting from the observation that current generations benefit from nuclear energy while many future generations will be burdened with HLW. The response to this issue has changed over time. While in 2006, most parliamentarians stressed keeping options open and the need for further research, ten years later the dominant view pointed at the current generation’s responsibility to take care of the concrete construction of a geological disposal facility, since an interim storage would provide only a short-term solution. In the Netherlands, the first-mentioned interpretation of intergenerational justice is still used: keeping options open for future generations. Correspondingly, the Dutch government is still opting for long-term interim above ground storage until 2130, when a geological disposal facility is assumed to be operational, and to keep options for final disposal open.Footnote 1

In almost all countries the ‘polluter pays’ principle undergirds the financing of disposal of radioactive waste. This applies regardless of whether the operator of RWM is owned by private companies (e.g., Finland and Sweden) or by the state (e.g., Germany and the Netherlands). Several countries have established nuclear waste management funds, which are supposed to continue until the far future to guarantee adequate financial resources for current and future RWM. Belgium has articulated reliable financial management for HLW as a core policy principle (see Chap. 4). This also includes the financing of research and development. A fund for the German Nuclear Waste Management was established in 2017 as a foundation (KENFO) under public law. This means that any financial risk associated with a centralised interim and final storage has been taken up by society. The payments for the liabilities of the 25 nuclear power plants in Germany totalling € 24.1 billion were transferred by the NPP operators to the KENFO foundation in July 2017. Finland separated three sections in the State Nuclear Waste Management Fund, established in 1988: the Contingency Fund, the Nuclear Safety Research Fund, and the Nuclear Waste Research Fund. The Contingency Fund is for nuclear waste management in the future. In this way funding for current and future RWM is guaranteed, as well as the continuation of funding for scientific research to cope with scientific uncertainties. Not every country has established such a fund.

12.6 Laws and Regulations: Creating a Legal Basis for Decision-Making Around RWM Options

The ten European countries included in this book are all democratic constitutional states in which the law, as a result of democratic decision-making, functions as a codifying instrument to (temporarily) settle societal debate, including disagreement and conflict. Laws, if seen as fair, can thus counteract societal mistrust, and help to develop codified elementary agreement in societies on RWM. In this section, we distinguish the legal underpinning of, firstly, certain policy principles and technological design requirements for RWM, and secondly, decision-making procedures on RWM and the tasks of the organisations and actors involved in these.

Lesson 10: It is important to anchor policy principles and technological options in law

Above we gave some examples of countries that have established certain policy principles in legislation and regulations: in France, retrievability; in Germany, the retrieval period; and in Belgium and Finland, passive safety. The latter refers to the repository being safe ‘by itself’, i.e. unmediated by human actors and actions. The legal grounding of key principles is often the result of long periods of debate, and often marks the societal and political closure of such a debate. Technological options and requirements can also be laid down through legislation. Already in 2014, Italy legally laid down 15 criteria for excluding locations as potential disposal sites in Technical Guide no. 29. This has been complemented in 2021 by the CNAPI, the National Map of Potentially Suitable Areas for the National Repository, which identifies areas whose characteristics meet the criteria set out in the Technical Guide 29 and by the proposed National Map of Suitable Areas (CNAI) in 2022.

Moreover, the German Repository Site Selection Act (StandAG, 2017) states that all three host rock types (salt, clay and crystalline rocks) can be considered for a geological disposal facility, and that such a facility should be able to guarantee the safe containment of the waste for a period of one million years. In Switzerland, the broad political agreement on a specific model of deep geological repositories for HLW, ILW, and LLW, paved the way for and became part of the nuclear energy legislation that came into force in 2005.

Lesson 11: It is important to legally underpin decision-making procedures

Laws and regulations are major mechanisms to embed decision-making processes in society, by clarifying and legally framing the democratic principles that underpin it. Since in Finland the preparation of legislation within ministries requires the consultation of external experts and stakeholders, interest groups have ample opportunities to participate in the legislative process, e.g. on RWM, at an early stage. In France, the “Bataille law” from 1991 was probably the most fundamental foundation for subsequent advancement towards a repository project (see Chap. 9). The process of elaborating the law was triggered by the conflict and stalemate reached, because of an excessively “technical” approach to siting that had prevailed until the end of the 1980s. As the result of decades of deep societal resistance and conflict, Germany promulgated the StandAG to regulate the siting process, including public participation and norms for transparency. The goal of the German law is that a suitable final disposal site for HLW will be found “through a science-based and transparent procedure and is to be carried out in a participatory, science-based, transparent, self-questioning and learning process” (StandAG, 2017, §1(1)).

Belgian law also aims to strengthen the transparency of procedures and responsibilities. On April 2, 2022 the federal government agreed on a Draft Law requiring the Belgian RWM agency ONDRAF-NIRAS to “draw up a step-by-step plan for the R&D activities for deep disposal in Belgium of high-level and/or long-lived waste”, to “sound out neighbouring countries and other interested countries on the possibility of developing shared disposal facilities”, and “to organise a participatory process and public debate” on this matter (Council of Ministers 2022; see Belgian Chap. 4). The Belgian law makes it clear that there must be participation, and leaves a lot of room for implementing this. The contours of a decision-making process can be laid down in law, but also in policy plans. Switzerland presents a good case-in-point, where the Sectoral Plan for Deep Geological Repositories of 2008 arranges the process of finding locations for the final disposal of LLW, ILW, and HLW. The Sectoral Plan discerns three phases: phase 1 is devoted to the selection of suitable geological areas, in phase 2, at least two potential siting areas for respectively high-level waste and low- and intermediate-level waste, or one site for a combined repository, had to be proposed and public participation had to be realized, especially with regard to the siting of the near surface facilities, in phase 3 the nomination of two disposal sites or the site for a combined repository is planned to be approved by parliament and the electorate in 2031 at the latest. In 2004, the NEA argued for such a step-by-step approach to decision-making, in which the public should be meaningfully involved (OECD, 2004). Such an approach would be in line with the principle of reversibility of decision-making.

12.7 Science and Technology Domain: Towards an Institutionally Diverse Knowledge Landscape

In a deep geological repository, a series of natural, engineered, and social barriers are assumed to work together to contain and isolate long-lived radioactive waste to protect people and the environment for extremely long periods of time. Such a multi-barrier system consists of natural elements (that provide passive safety), namely the geosphere, and human-made technical and social elements (that provide active safety) (cf. OECD, 2003). The function of the selected geosphere is to act as a natural barrier, which is expected to protect the repository from disruptive natural events, water flow, and human intrusion for hundreds of thousands of years. The engineered materials placed within a repository include waste containers or canisters, and buffer boxes that are used to encase the waste containers.

When making choices with regard to, for example, the geological layer, the construction of a storage or disposal facility, and the organisation of RWM, both political decisions and scientific and technological knowledge (and the lack thereof) play a role. The scientific and technological domain thus plays various pivotal roles in the democratic governance of RWM, such as identifying problems and developing solutions, and informing the political and public debate about these, so that actors from the political and administrative domain and civil society can make science-informed decisions. This section examines four aspects: the need to take scientific uncertainties seriously, the way the political debate on retrievability has blurred the technological distinction between passive and active safety, the need for social scientific knowledge, and the need for the institutional distribution of knowledge. A fifth important topic will be covered in the Sect. 12.8, and concerns ways to generate socially robust scientific knowledge, which can provide a credible scientific basis for democratic decision-making.

Lesson 12: It is important to be transparent about and openly debate scientific uncertainties about suitable RWM methods and geological formations, as knowledge development is dynamic

Finland, France, and Sweden are forerunner countries in the process towards final disposal. These three countries have chosen a geological host rock, a repository site, and the disposal technology. In the other seven countries, research into the appropriate geological formation for the final storage of radioactive waste is ongoing, and the final disposal technology is still undecided.

Choosing a geological subsurface is a politically sensitive issue because it helps determine where geological disposal can or cannot take place. For the selection of a suitable geological subsoil, the type of deep geological subsurface and numerous other design criteria may play a role. As noted above, Italy, in the initial siting phase, has already legally defined 15 criteria for excluding locations as potential disposal sites, which include inter alia volcanic and seismic activities, locations within 5 km of the coastline, unsuitable distance from residential areas, hydrology and hydro-resources, and safeguarding biodiversity.

The country studies show that scientific insights about the suitability or unsuitability of certain types of geological host formations can shift over time. For example, in the 1970s, scientists in the Netherlands assumed that geological disposal could best take place in salt rock layers (which are mainly found in the northeast of the Netherlands). Clay layers (which mainly occur in the south of the Netherlands) were considered unsuitable at the time. After retrievability of the waste had become a policy requirement in the early 1990s, the research also came to include Boom Clay, which is mainly found in the southern part of the Netherlands. In Germany the initial focus was also on salt rock formations. The StandAG has widened the search perspective to include salt, clay and crystalline rocks as potentially suitable for a geological disposal facility. In the 1970s, the salt dome Gorleben was regarded by the German government as a suitable place to build a national deep geological repository for radioactive waste. Finally, after decades of conflict, in 2020, the federal company for radioactive waste disposal BGE assessed the overall geological situation in Gorleben as ‘unfavorable’. In Sweden, the KBS concept for disposal of SNF was developed in the early 1980s. The KBS-3 concept from 1983 has various safety barriers: the HLW is encapsulated in cast iron canisters, which are encapsulated in copper capsules that are deposited in a layer of bentonite clay, in a circular hole, eight meters deep and with a diameter of two meters, drilled in a tunnel 500 m down into crystalline rock. At that time, the bedrock was seen as the most important passive safety barrier. But by the late 1990s, the emphasis in the safety case shifted from the importance of a tight bedrock to the ability of the human-made engineered barriers to contain radioactivity in the long term.

In France, geological site investigations turned out to stir controversy and heavily local opposition during the 1990s. Although sceptics are still active, the project has progressed to such an extent that any criticism at this point in time seems to have little chance of stopping it. In the Cigéo nuclear waste project, vitrified HLW would be packaged in steel containers which would be placed in tunnels at about 500 m depth in a 160-million-year-old Callovo-Oxfordian clay formation in Bure (department Meuse), with the entrance to the repository situated in the neighbouring municipality Saudron (department Haute-Marne). By the way, this was a result of negotiations between the departments Meuse and Haute-Marne, which both wanted to benefit from the economic support and expected investments (see Lesson 7). Cementation or asphalting will be applied to the ILW that will be stored at the Cigéo repository. The repository would be constructed and closed down in a stepwise manner, in line with the compromise agreement reached in the societal dispute on reversibility in France.

Based on the Swedish KBS concept, Finland decided on deep geological disposal with the granite bedrock as a passive safety measure, and copper capsules and bentonite clay as human-made safety measures in the early 1980s. In January 2022, the Swedish government allowed the construction of a geological repository for SNF based on the assumption that they had found both a suitable site and method for the final disposal of long-lived HLW. But the decision was controversial and was challenged by various independent scientists because of the corrosion risk of the copper capsules, as part of the KBS-3 system. Interestingly, this scientific dispute has been hardly an issue in Finland. The high trust in the Finnish society in industry experts seems to prevent attention for academic counter expertise. In contrast, in Sweden independent experts and NGOs have brought the issue to the table and pushed proponents of the envisaged geological disposal facility for answers. The RWM company SKB responded to the copper capsule erosion controversy by arguing that long-term safety is not just about the safety of the HLW capsule, but of the entire multi-barrier system.

Lesson 13: The policy principle of retrievability implies a significantly longer period of active safety before moving on to passive safety

HLW will remain hazardous for hundreds of thousands of years. It is however hard to imagine that social institutions will be stable for even thousands of years to actively ensure the safety of HLW. Therefore, for the very long-term, passive safety of a final disposal method is seen as desirable. Long-term aboveground storage is seen as an active safety option, and thus as temporary. In contrast, geological disposal is presented as a passive safety option. However, the policy principle of retrievability means that geological disposal must first be actively managed for a considerable period of time before it is closed-off and considered to be passively safe. The length of the retrievability period is determined politically and can therefore differ from country to country.

As illustrated in this book, several European countries have embraced the policy principle of retrievability since the early 1990s. The political and technological implementation of this means that even when choosing a deep geological disposal facility, the safety of the waste must be actively managed during the period of retrievability. This is exemplified by the way in which retrievability is currently imagined and determined in France and Germany. In France, it is assumed that a geological disposal facility will be closed after an operational period of some 150 years, after which the repository and its environment will be monitored for several centuries. During this period, the waste may still be retrieved. Officially Germany is expected to decide on a site for a geological disposal facility by 2031. After its operational period, the repository should be sealed with the possibility of retrieval for 500 years. If Germany were to take a geological storage facility into operation by 2050, and operate this for 100 years, it would only become a passive active safety option in the year 2650. So if all goes well, in Germany, geological disposal will become a passive safety option only after more than six centuries; by reckoning 25 years per generation, this would mean 24 generations into the future. The principle of retrievability in Germany therefore means active safety of radioactive waste for many centuries to come.

Lesson 14: There is a need for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary knowledge, and social science can play a central role in this

In response to decades of strong social resistance, policymakers and radioactive waste disposal operators in some countries came to realise that RWM is not only a technological challenge, but also requires understanding of the social dynamics accompanying the decision-making process. That is why in 2000 the OECD established the Nuclear Energy Agency’s Forum for Stakeholder Confidence (FSC). The French national radioactive waste management agency (Andra) can be considered a frontrunner in integrating social science expertise in its governance. Andra contracted social scientists to facilitate the interaction with society and administration. It established an advisory committee consisting of social scientists in 2006. Social knowledge is also commissioned in other countries, but is still rather limited, as for example the Dutch case shows (Chap. 2).

In contrast, it has become common social scientific sense that the governance of radioactive waste is a socio-technical issue, which requires multi- and transdisciplinary knowledge, as reflected in all country chapters. An important added value of social scientific research is its ability to address questions regarding RWM options in a broad political and social context. While technical research is often instrumentally focused on a particular solution, social scientists often look at the interactions between problems and solutions, between means and ends. The authors of the Belgian Chap. 4 for example, state that over recent decades research and decision-making has focused on one envisioned solution, namely a geological disposal facility. They propose starting a discussion regarding the high-level and long-lived radioactive materials that are present in society—some declared as waste, others not (yet)—and asking societal actors and stakeholders how to deal with them. This example shows that social science could play a crucial role in critical reflection on RWM policy and engagement with society by clarifying what is going on in civil society, and analysing and reflecting on the outcomes of public participation.

Lesson 15: There is a need for the institutional distribution of knowledge

Knowledge, and thus experts and research institutes, play an important role in decision-making around RWM. In all the countries studied, perhaps with the exception of Finland, RWM (and nuclear energy) are politicised knowledge areas. In such a situation, doubts may be expressed as to whether experts reach an opinion independently of economic, political or social interests, and this can undermine political and public confidence in the independence of science.

Scepticism and critical reflection are central features of science. That is why adequate peer review of scientific research and knowledge is common. In order to hold a social and political discussion about a controversial issue, informed by scientific knowledge, it is important that the actors involved have confidence in the relevant knowledge and experts. In addition to scientific quality, attention is therefore also required for the (different) relationship(s) between the scientific and technological domain and politics, public administration and civil society. This requires, for example, broadening social involvement in research. In Italy, for instance, regions can mobilise ‘Scientific and Technical Committees’ with experts from universities and the research community conducting independent research. There thus is a need for the institutional distribution of knowledge, so that a more level playing field is created in the field of knowledge, in which various actors can speak with each other on a more equal footing. The country studies show that this is not yet the case in most countries.

Switzerland seems to be a positive exception, and therefore it is instructive to further elucidate the contours of its knowledge landscape. Within the Swiss scientific domain, research on RWM is conducted at several universities and related institutions, as well at the Paul Scherer Institute (PSI), the largest research institute for natural and engineering sciences in Switzerland. Within the political-administrative system, knowledge about RWM is spread over various institutions. On the federal level, the Swiss Federal Office of Energy (SFOE) and the safety authority ENSI each conduct their own regulatory research. There is also a Nuclear Safety Commission, with seven nuclear safety experts, which plays an important role as a second-opinion body, which is meant to ensure independent quality control for the supervisory authorities. Moreover, at the level of the cantons there is a Safety Workgroup and an Expert Group on Safety with a budget for research. In addition, Nagra, founded by the nuclear waste producers, is responsible for safe long-term disposal, and carries the main responsibility for R&D on deep geological disposal. Last, but not least, the Technical Safety Forum, chaired by ENSI, gathers representatives of the federal administration, cantons, communes, communities in neighbouring countries, NGOs, the interested public and others. The Technical Safety Forum receives, discusses and answers questions from the public about technical safety aspects, and publicises its answers on the internet. This distribution of knowledge in Switzerland empowers actors within different levels of government, as well as economic and civil society actors, as well-informed participants in the democratic debate on RWM.

12.8 Civil Society: The Challenge of Informing and Engaging Civil Society

Above, we stated that RWM governance currently takes its cue from the EDD (engage-deliberate-decide) strategy (see Lesson 1). This new governance perspective is about ways of informing and engaging with civil society that encourage social learning and may build mutual trust. The chapters in this book show that while some countries are still in a preparatory design phase (such as Belgium and the Netherlands), countries like Germany and Italy are in the early phase of implementation, and Finland, Sweden, France and Switzerland are already in a more advanced phase of implementation. Moreover, degrees and methods of participation can differ greatly by country. Below, we draw a number of lessons in the field of informing and engaging civil society.

Lesson 16. There is a need for joint production of socially robust knowledge

This insight is in line with Lesson 15, although the emphasis here is on the involvement of civil society actors and the crucial role information plays within this. From an inclusive perspective, the development and application of knowledge is seen as an interactive process in which science, politics and policy, and civil society are closely linked, each with its own role, but feeding each other in the process. There is therefore a need for more interactive forms of knowledge development, sharing and use. The country studies show several interesting examples through which socially robust knowledge can be generated in a joint manner in the field of a politically controversial subject, such as RWM.

With the exception of Finland, civil societies in the countries studied here assumed a more critical position vis-à-vis the information about the field of nuclear technology and the related risks which was provided by experts, politicians and governmental authorities over the course of the 1970s and 1980s. This has led to bottom-up social initiatives in various countries for the establishment of documentation centres and counterexpertise organisations, often in collaboration with critical scientists. In the Netherlands, for example, the National (Anti) Nuclear Energy Archive (LAKA) was established in 1988. In France, the 1986 Chernobyl accident spurred the founding of counterexpertise organisations (such as ACRO and CRIIRAD, dedicated to monitoring radioactivity around nuclear installations), as well as the establishment of local information and surveillance committees (CLIs). Civil society actors therefore need reliable information as well as the possibility and capacity to produce, acquire and check knowledge themselves.

The Belgian survey reported in Chap. 4 used the Delphi method—a series of questionnaires that allow participants to develop ideas about potential future developments around an issue. The results showed the need for a high-quality and varied information system, in which current and historical knowledge can be found, as well as knowledge about the actors involved and their positions, and in which contributions from multiple knowledge sources, including counterexpertise, are brought together. Besides collecting and preserving information, the purpose of such a desired “Pluralist Documentation Centre” was to distribute this to diverse audiences: civil society, politicians and subject experts. An important question is how to set up such an information centre. A public body is one option, another is joint management by a broad range of stakeholders as already practiced in Switzerland (Technical Safety Forum). In 2006, France established the multi-stakeholder High Commission for Transparency and Information on Nuclear Security (HCTISN), composed of 40 members representing operators, safety authorities, government, local information and surveillance committees, NGOs, trades unions, parliamentarians, and experts, to foster information, analysis and debate on issues in the nuclear area, including RWM.

Some countries provide examples where the government offers civil society parties the opportunity and resources to gather information, put research on the agenda, and set it up or carry it out themselves. In the UK, on the local level, the so-called engagement funding allows a Community Partnership and its Working Groups to initiate and define their own, completely independent research, on (local) issues of their preference. However, there is no funding for critical groups. Conversely, in Sweden, the Financial Act of 2006 enables environmental NGOs to seek funding from the Nuclear Waste Fund. The NGO funding has allowed the Swedish environmental movement to participate more fully both in the consultation process and the licensing process for the repository for SNF. The funding has allowed the organisations to build up competence and they have raised issues on siting, alternative methods and on the safety case. France has also experimented with research commissioned by or on behalf of civil society actors. For example, the local information and surveillance committees (CLIs) and their national umbrella organisation (ANCCLI), together with the Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN), have jointly co-created risk-related knowledge.

Lesson 17: There is a need to clarify and enhance the role of societal engagement in various steps of the political decision-making process

In recent decades, all ten countries studied in this volume have been arguing for the meaningful involvement of civil society in a step-by-step decision-making process around long-term RWM (cf. OECD, 2004), and thus the institutionalisation of engagement practices. Critical civil society organisations will relate to this differently: some will trust the process while others will mistrust it, and some will participate while others decide to remain outside of the institutionalised engagement processes (cf. German Chap. 5). This means that the public debate on long-term RWM is often more comprehensive than the organised one. From a democratic perspective, decision-makers should therefore always consider both bottom-up as well as top-down participatory initiatives (cf. Belgian Chap. 4).

Before discussing concrete country examples of engagement processes, we would like to mention three more fundamental issues related to societal participation. First, based on the core idea within the EDD-strategy that civic engagement processes should be co-constructed in collaboration with civil society, it follows that defining the function and form of a participatory process already requires a participatory process. In the same vein, it is important that the forms of participation are regularly assessed so that continuous critical reflection and social learning can take place. Secondly, the strong link between the debate about RWM and the role of nuclear energy within the energy transition raises the question of how these debates relate to each other sequentially. For example, in Germany, the discussion on the governance of RWM was preceded by a public debate on national energy policy. The outcome of this, the phasing out of nuclear energy, created a new context for the governance of RWM. Each country must decide how to deal practically with the relationship between the discussion about RWM and nuclear energy. A third fundamental issue concerns how open the debate may be—pragmatically put: Can the debate go beyond the solution of a geological disposal facility and how can that be achieved? The authors of the Belgian Chap. 4 claim that the societal debate can be reactivated by broadening the initial question from “What should be the solution?” to the question “What is the problem that needs to be solved?”.

One of the biggest challenges for politics and policy is to clarify the role of public participation in the different steps of the political decision-making process. This is preceded by clarifying the various steps of the political decision-making process. In Finland a decision-making process was determined in the early 1980s, which gave parliament a central role in decision-making, at a relatively early stage in the process, and vested the involved local municipality with a veto power over the repository siting decision. In practice, the authorities did little to actively spur participation. In Switzerland, it was decided in 2008 to link the decision-making process around finding a geological disposal facility to the methodology of a Sectoral Plan, which is an established spatial planning instrument of the Swiss Confederation. The Sectoral Plan for Deep Geological Repositories has thus guided the decision-making process in Switzerland since 2008, and the role of public participation therein, which formally takes shape by means of regional conferences. In Germany, France and Italy, regulation has been used to formalise the legal base for participation. In Germany, public participation is legally grounded in national law, the StandAG, which states that participation should not be limited to information and consultation modes. Instead, concerned citizens and stakeholders should be empowered to participate in a way that goes beyond previous participation patterns. In the UK, Italy and Spain the idea of volunteered participation in return for compensation of local communities is considered or practised. The UK draws on participation by temptation and reward, through compensating regional communities which volunteer nomination to host a disposal site. It is important to note that none of the forms of public participation currently developing or already practiced in Europe has actually achieved dominance. Therefore, this crucial aspect of decision-making must continue to be closely monitored.

12.9 Overview of European Lessons for Radioactive Waste Governance

In this book, we have looked at the governance of long-term RWM from a multi-level governance ecosystem perspective. We acknowledged that the top-down expert-based RWM governance from the 1970s to the 1990s led to much social resistance and public distrust. The ten country studies show that a new, more inclusive and participatory governance mindset has emerged over the last decennia, in which the involvement of civil society and building better relationships between civil society and the domains of science and technology, and politics and administration, are central. Based on the ten country chapters, this final chapter looked for important elements or puzzle pieces of an effective and democratic governance ecosystem. The 17 lessons from Europe formulated above are intended for policymakers, stakeholders and concerned citizens. We believe they represent important design elements for a type of RWM governance that stimulates public participation, social learning, co-production of knowledge, and confidence-building political and policy action, with the aim of dealing with radioactive waste in a responsible way for a very long time to come (see Table 12.3).

Table 12.3 Overview of European lessons for the governance of RWM
Full size table