Nuclear Decommissioning and Society

Public Links to a New Technology

Martin J. Pasqualetti

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780367231545
• eBook ISBN: 9781000007497
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Originally published in 1990. This book argues that a better understanding of the social impact of decommissioning - in areas such as jobs, waste, economics, opinion, law, public policy, land-use and legacies - is vital to the successful application of any technical solution. The issues raised are divided into three areas which deal with those problems that have already been recognized, the questions that decommissioning itself will raise and those that may result from likely future developments. The book aims to initiate a process of appraisal by examining several of the more obvious social ties to decommissioning.

Part I

Introducing the decommissioning links

Chapter one

Public links to a new technology

Martin J. Pasqualetti

The use of nuclear energy to generate our electricity is a marvel of technical ingenuity. Ironically, while we were rushing to bring its benefits to society, we did not anticipate its full societal implications. We failed to perceive fully the public links to this technical task.

This oversight has plagued nuclear power development almost from the beginning of its civilian use, starting with worries about operational safety, continuing with concerns about waste disposal, and reaching most recently to the shortcomings of emergency preparedness and operator training.

All these unnoticed connections surfaced during the experience of operating nuclear power plants over the past three decades, but things are beginning to take on a new dimension; the implications of these original oversights have now reached the last phase in the life of a nuclear power plant – decommissioning. As decommissionng attracts more public attention, the troubling reality is apparent that we are repeating the established pattern; trust in technology is dominating research and preparations. This time, however, with the experience of the recent past fresh in our minds, we may be better able to identify and anticipate what this new step could mean to all of us. Ideally, this would facilitate more meaningful public contribution to planning already under way, something which would appear to be a useful goal as we approach the new territory of decommissioning.

The decommissioning territory

Decommissioning is the new territory of nuclear power, a territory of unexplored complexity which possesses multiple links to the rest of the world. Although the territory has been scouted by explorers for several years, their numbers and effort have been small because there seemed no great need for detailed knowledge about the area. Things have changed now, and public curiosity is intensifying quickly. Despite the fact that the earlier visitors to the decommissioning territory confidently reported that everything was much like the terrain back home, a second group – the general public – has decided to take a look for itself.

This second group is now poised on the frontier of the decommissioning territory. Even a cursory inspection of its makeup shows it to be a much larger group than the first, but it is less homogeneous, lacks consolidated leadership, and is not as well financed. However, the new visitors constitute a dedicated assemblage which, by its nature and numbers, is more broadly inquisitive than the first, and as it crosses the frontier it is asking a much wider range of questions, particularly about what life, day to day and long term, will be like in the new land. Significantly, it is not finding the region as familiar as did the first group.

Despite the general unfamiliarity of the new group with the decommissioning landscape, it is entering the territory bolstered by two decades of self-confidence that it can influence and improve the accuracy of exploration and public reportage. One of the pillars of the group’s approach is an understanding that nuclear power involves an ever-changing mix of geographical and societal influences and decisions. As it begins to look into the details of decommissioning, it will encounter levels of complexity that its predecessors never imagined, a sort of ‘ecology’ of sociotechnical interaction.

The group’s motivation reflects a developing determination to counter the René Dubos sentiment with which this book began. The group’s impression will be an unfolding one, part of the modern sequence of discovery and investigation which tends to defer dealing with social questions because they are more fluid and harder to isolate for study.

Decommissioning is the fourth phase of nuclear power, and after passing through planning, construction, and operation, one could easily believe that all problems have been encountered and all contingencies predicted. But decommissioning is an unexplored territory and there are new conditions there, and these conditions are part of a complex new nuclear web.

Public links and the decommissioning web

The second group entering the new territory will discover that decommissioning – like nuclear power itself – is a territory with an endless horizon, born of long-lasting radioactivity which constitutes its primary and not fully appreciated link with the public. Along with other technical information, knowledge about radioactivity spread slowly to the public as nuclear power was being transformed from a military discovery into a civilian bonanza, from the language of the technician to the language of the people. Critical mass, chain reaction, moderator, capture cross-section, neutron, enrichment, and many other terms were simply not part of most people’s working vocabulary. Without the vocabulary much of the rest remained a mystery, and the nuclear mystery long prevailed in the public mind.

And there was no stimulus to change the situation. Public understanding of nuclear power remained minimal for several years. There was little perception among the general population that greater familiarity was important; there were always other people taking care of the details. The public’s principal interest in nuclear power lay in the electricity, jobs, and taxes it provided. Hazards, in any and all forms, were considered minor or, at worst, spatially coincident with the plant location. In contrast with coal stations, nuclear power plants produced little evidence of their existence away from their local impacts. During the ‘honeymoon’ period of nuclear power, the emphasis was on how to get the plants operating as quickly as possible so that they could provide the electricity needed by an expanding economy.

This situation was to change – slowly at first, but then public attention to nuclear energy started expanding in unpredicted directions. One line of questioning dealt with exactly where nuclear power plants should be sited and how safely they would operate. Steadily many factors (such as the instabilities in the Middle East) increased widespread interest and knowledge about energy, and this rising cognizance encompassed nuclear power. As the public became more familiar with the harder more technical side of the nuclear option, it started to occur to many that nuclear power could affect them in ways that were not obvious when its promise first blushed. An important source for these new perceptions was the public advocacy groups, advised and bolstered as they were by the misgivings of a growing cadre of nuclear expatriots.

With the increasing knowledge and importance of nuclear power, debates on its advisability and acceptability began in earnest in the mid-1970s. Energy sophistication continued to increase during this period, and nuclear power was one of the catalysts. The most notable characteristic of these years was an emerging appreciation for the social component of energy, and, as the discussion about nuclear power expanded, the thrust gradually turned away from blind acceptance of its promises and more and more toward the social baggage it brought with it. People began asking questions about land use, operator training, proliferation, sabotage, aesthetics, health, and the ‘6 Es’ – ethics, environment, economics, emissions, emergencies, and evacuation. There seemed no limit to the size, the reach, or the complexity of the nuclear web.

As disagreement about nuclear power took on larger dimensions, entrenchment followed, and it seemed that every person and every organization had an opinion. The nuclear promoters wheeled out their big guns of rising demand and energy independence, while the naysayers urged a more complete appraisal of the price we and our descendants were being asked to pay. Nobel laureates emerged on both sides to debate with one another. Most people did not know what to believe.

Then came the accident at Three Mile Island in 1979, and many people thought this event would resolve the debate against a nuclear future. However, both sides used the accident to show that their own particular assertions were correct. The small size of the discharge and the lack of a full meltdown was seen by the pro-nuclear advocates as a demonstration of how various fail-safe systems successfully protect the public. The anti-nuclear proponents pointed to operator errors and a host of social oversights on such topics as evacuation behaviour and the psychological amplification of risk. Far from any resolution on energy supply, Three Mile Island added to the complexities of the nuclear debate.

Although Three Mile Island has necessitated an enormous decontamination effort, it was the April 1986 explosion and fire at Chernobyl unit no. 4 that finally pushed the matter of decommissioning over the threshold of public attention. The sarcophagus at Chernobyl is a constant reminder that we have to consider what happens when a reactor stops operating, even when the cause is ageing and economics rather than accidents. Like waste disposal, it was a ‘back-end’ problem, but in this case the problem was the waste producer rather than the waste product. Nevertheless, many of the questions were the same. In the event of dismantlement, what was to be done with the waste? Where would it be taken? How would it get there? What populace would accept it along with its risks? Could it be retrieved if need be? Could the waste sites be rendered secure and safe for long periods? Who would pay for it all?

Preparing for decommissioning

Coming from the Navy lexicon, the term ‘decommissioning’ means ‘taking out of service’. It can mean either the termination of the operating licence, as in the USA, or even the demolition of the facilities and the restoration of the site. In both the USA and the UK it is usually discussed in terms of three stages. Stage 1 will be dominated by a 5–7 year period of defuelling, a task which is linked to the ability to transport, store, and reprocess the fuel. Stage 2 will involve the removal of...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Part I Introducing the decommissioning links
• Part II The recognized links
• Part III The emerging links
• Part IV The policy links
• Notes
• Index