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Specifying the Concept of Future Generations for Addressing Issues Related to High-Level Radioactive Waste

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Abstract

The nuclear community frequently refers to the concept of “future generations” when discussing the management of high-level radioactive waste. However, this notion is generally not defined. In this context, we have to assume a wide definition of the concept of future generations, conceived as people who will live after the contemporary people are dead. This definition embraces thus each generation following ours, without any restriction in time. The aim of this paper is to show that, in the debate about nuclear waste, this broad notion should be further specified and to clarify the related implications for nuclear waste management policies. Therefore, we provide an ethical analysis of different management strategies for high-level waste in the light of two principles, protection of future generations—based on safety and security—and respect for their choice. This analysis shows that high-level waste management options have different ethical impacts across future generations, depending on whether the memory of the waste and its location is lost, or not. We suggest taking this distinction into account by introducing the notions of “close future generations” and “remote future generations”, which has important implications on nuclear waste management policies insofar as it stresses that a retrievable disposal has fewer benefits than usually assumed.

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Notes

  1. For a clear presentation of discounting applied to radiation protection, see (Hansson 2007).

  2. For example, the project “Memory for future generations” (Andra), the project “Preservation of records, knowledge and memory (RK&M) across generations” (NEA 2013b), etc.

  3. We have to remind that, “even without special provisions and design enhancements to facilitate waste retrieval, it would be possible, at least in principle, to recover waste from closed geological repositories (e.g. using specific mining techniques)” (IAEA 2009, p. 11). The question of retrievability is thus always a question of means, as we will see it further on. Hence, strictly speaking a disposal is never completely “non-retrievable”. However, for clarity purposes, we are adopting this terminology to designate a disposal where special provisions to ease retrievability have not been added, in order to oppose it to a “retrievable disposal” defined in section “Retrievable Geological Disposal”.

  4. It is important to note here that if a geological disposal with retrievability provisions is sealed, it is perfectly plausible that the barriers are in fact enhanced compared to a non-retrievable geological disposal because of the necessity to enhance the confinement of the waste in case people would be retrieving the waste. However, as a reminder, we are not considering this case here, as we are focusing only on geological disposal with retrievability provisions, which would still be kept/left open.

  5. We have to bear in mind that the advantadges at the safety level for close future generations can of course lead to indirect advantages for remote future generations.

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Acknowledgments

This work has been supported by the Organisme National des Déchets RAdioactifs et des matières Fissiles enrichies (ONDRAF, Belgium) and the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB). The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and they do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the ONDRAF or the ULB. The author wishes to express special thanks to Christophe Depaus (ONDRAF) for the fruitful discussions on the subject and Pierre-Etienne Labeau (ULB) for his useful comments on an earlier draft. She is also grateful to the participants of the Biennial Conference of the Society for Philosophy and Technology where a draft of this paper was presented (Shenyang, China, July 2015), as well as to two anonymous reviewers, who provided very thoughtful comments.

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  1. Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), 50 Avenue F. D. Roosevelt CP 165/84, 1050, Brussels, Belgium

    Celine Kermisch

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Kermisch, C. Specifying the Concept of Future Generations for Addressing Issues Related to High-Level Radioactive Waste. Sci Eng Ethics 22, 1797–1811 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-015-9741-2

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