Peter Hocke

Concerned public and the paralysis of decision‐making: nuclear waste management policy in Germany

Efforts to site a high level nuclear waste repository in Germany date back to the 1960s. Ten years later the site Gorleben was officially selected and designated as a host for nuclear waste. However, public opposition and maneuvering by the major political actors prevented the completion of the site selection process, resulting in decades of political paralysis. The main reasons for this failure were the polarization in advocates and opponents of nuclear energy, the neglect for due process and participatory procedures, the inability to integrate technical, political, and social rationales in designing a viable nuclear waste policy, and the confusing mix of responsibilities between and among political actors. In spite of the apparent failure to find a solution for high level waste, the German government succeeded in designating a site for radioactive waste with negligible heat generation (Konrad mine). It is assumed that further progress in waste management can be accomplished only if more deliberative elements are introduced into the policy arena.

Nuclear Waste Repositories and Ethical Challenges

The analysis of the concrete management of radioactive waste and the ethical discussion on this topic show specifically that the reflection on side effects of human action in most cases is not as clear in its differentiations as it would be possible and necessary. Collective actors calculating the “costs” and “risks” of side effects in relation to future generations misunderstand that the testing of “claims”—isolated from contexts—does not lead to processes of societal deliberation. A discussion of central positions in German philosophical ethics in the field of radioactive waste management, which are connected with the research team of Chr. Streffer, C.F. Gethmann and colleagues, and with R. Spaemann, shows fundamental differences in their lines of argumentation. As contexts, especially expressed in technological numbers, also play an important role in the debate, the limited amount of waste in countries with phase-out decisions concerning nuclear power makes it easier for all stakeholders to develop modes of civil governance and societal deliberation. These modes of governance and deliberation are important for open assessments of ethical and nontechnical knowledge in the same way as knowledge from natural science and engineering, in cases where a decision for underground repositories for nuclear waste has been made.

The role of long-term planning in nuclear waste governance

Abstract A central challenge in nuclear waste governance is the long time frame over which institutional control of the waste is needed. Most countries favour some kind of underground storage of the high-level wastes, but have not proceeded far with the implementation, yet. Even in Finland, the first country in which an operating licence for a specific disposal site has been issued, closure of the repository is foreseen for the 2120s. This means that several generations of professionals and citizens will have to deal with the waste and related risks. Scientific knowledge as well as preferences will change over time. Thus, a central question for responsible nuclear waste management is to think about how political decision-makers, public administration, industry and the interested public can co-design a governance process over such a long period of time. With this paper we intend to open the debate on those questions by providing a first problem description.