- Email: [email protected]
The politics of nuclear power and radioactive waste disposal: from state coercion to procedural justice?
POLITICALGEOGRAPHYQUARTERLY.Vol. 7, No. 3. July 1988, 291-298
Review essay T h e politics of nuclear power and radioactive waste disposal: from state coercion to procedural justice? [A. Blowers and D. Pepper (eds) Nuclear Power in Crisis: Politics and Planning for the Nuclear State, 1987; L. J. Carter Nuclear Imperatives and Public Trust: Dealing with Radioactive Waste, 1987.] The environmental damage and fatalities that resulted from the disaster at the Chernobyi nuclear power station in the spring of 1986 are widely known. What is less common knowledge is that the accident has had only minor effects on the Soviets' extremely ambitious nuclear power plant construction program. In Western Europe, where most of the radioactive fallout from Chernobyl took place, pressure groups, citizens and governments have been reassessing their tactics and strategies toward nuclear power development (Solomon, 1988). In general, anti-nuclear sentiment among the public has been increasing, though this has not necessarily resulted in political action against nuclear power. In this essay, recent developments in decision-making on nuclear power development and radioactive waste disposal, as discussed in two recent books and elsewhere, are used to shed light on the prospects for structural reform in the world's nuclear states (ie, nations with nuclear power and/or weapons). Deese (1982: 93) observed that the countries with relatively decentralized decisionmaking and systems which are particularly open (at least for information) in radioactive waste management, also face the worst nuclear power prospects. The nations cited were Sweden, West Germany, the United States and Canada, although the Chernobyl accident has clearly expanded this list. Three nations that are more centralized and closed in decisionmaking, France, the Soviet Union and Britain, have much brighter long-term nuclear prospects. It will be argued that these correlations are more than coincidental, and that the latter states (and probably others such as India, Pakistan, Argentina, and Brazil) need commercial nuclear power to support their nuclear weapons programs (cf. Lovins et al., 1980). While the United States is of course a major nuclear weapons state, it is unique in that it separates its commercial and defense nuclear power programs (eg, with reprocessing plants only for the military). France and the UK in contrast are hastening a 'plutonium economy' in Europe, despite setbacks in the breeder-reactor program, with their advocacy of plutonium use in civilian reactors via mixed oxide fuel. l Nuclear power has been shrouded in secrecy and distrust, owing to its military origins (Cook, 1982). Its early development in the UK, USA and elsewhere consisted of government monopoly and boosterism, with an unchallenged technological optimism. Since the late 1970s there have been increasing demands for accountability and openness with the public. The early optimism was finally shattered with the accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. The result has been, though primarily in Western Europe, an increasing number of societies testing the power of the nuclear state. The decision environment in each nuclear state is somewhat different. Early wastedisposal legislation in California (1976) and a referendum in Sweden (1980) resulted in a nuclear power plant moratorium and phase-out, respectively. Other anti-nuclear referenda 0260-9827/88/03 0297-08 $03.00 © 1988 Butterworth& Co (Publishers)Lid
292
Review essay
have been passed in Austria and Italy (such referenda have failed in Switzerland and have had mixed results elsewhere in the USA). Nuclear power prospects in Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Greece and the Philippines have also been damaged because of Chernobyl, in response to increased public opposition. The approach of each nation to nuclear power and public opinion has depended on its energy resources and policies. The most pro-nuclear Western state, France, has virtually no fossil fuels but ample uranium supplies. The UK in contrast has plenty of petroleum and coal, yet for now is also firmly committed to the nuclear option, and has thus far not allowed the public's growing anti-nuclear sentiment to affect real policy. Blowers and Pepper on nuclear power in crisis Several leading producers of nuclear power, including the US, Sweden, West Germany, Britain and Canada, have seen a historic consensus in favor of this energy source transform into conflict since the late 1970s. This shift was hastened by the accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, as well as the excessive plutonium discharges from the UK's Sellafield (formerly Windscale) reprocessing plant in late 1983. Blowers and Pepper (1987) have edited a volume which attempts to analyze the major events of this transition period, within an overall perspective on the political and policy implications. The book accomplishes this by focusing on the struggle between the nuclear state and its opponents, reactor siting and licensing decisions, radioactive waste disposal and power-plant decommissioning, and local health and safety issues. Blowers and Pepper argue that 'perhaps more than any other environmental controversy, the conflict over nuclear power tends to generate fears about democracy versus state control over people and the environment' (p. 23). In the US at least, this fear has been linked with atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons and radioactive fallout on American soil (Cook, 1982), and the lack of control over the radiation hazard (cf. Hohenemser et al., 1977; Kasperson et al., 1980). Government has clearly been the target of blame and distrust because it has consistently lied about the human health effects of weapons-testing and made its decisions in extreme secremess, and covered up early accidents, such as the Windscale fire of October 1957 and the deaths at the Idaho Falls (US) experimental reactor in 1965. What finally brought the conflict to a head was a crisis over legitimacy, accountability and control, a changing political environment, and the international political dimension, according to Blowers and Pepper. Nuclear reactor siting, in most countries, is done by the utility companies, with only token input from the public. A chapter by Fernie and Openshaw applauds the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for using a more sophisticated and safety-oriented siting methodology, which is also more open to public review and criticism than its UK counterpart. Yet the US anti-nuclear critics are far from satisfied. Shoddy construction practices and bottom-line economics have, more than anything else, led generally to plant cancellations in the US. Moreover, recent licensing 'reforms' by the NRC have been designed to shut the public out of the hearing process (Golding and Kasperson, 1988). On the other hand, media events such as the Sizewell B inquiry in the UK, with its narrow government agenda despite 340 days of exhaustive testimony, have not proved to be any better at incorporating public concerns into the decision-making on nuclear power. Power plant siting procedures for non-nuclear plants are generally similar, and siting is even less open in most other countries. Most nations of Western Europe and Japan have some type of public hearing process, although the most critical decisions have usually been taken beforehand. In theory at least, local governments in Sweden, West Germany and
Review essay
293
Japan have veto authority or its equivalent over nuclear plants and similar projects, though this power is only rarely used. In some countries, most notably Japan and France, financial benefits have been offered by the utility or government to placate local opposition to nuclear power plants (the latter case is discussed in the chapter by Boyle and Robinson). If procedures for siting nuclear power plants seem unclear to many observers and critics, radioactive waste repository siting procedures are even more ambiguous (see Solomon and Shelley, 1988). This is especially so in the US, Britain and Japan, where waste disposal programs have been on political seesaws during the past five years. For example, two dumps that were proposed in Japan met with heavy local protest. In one case the prefectural governor has allowed the project, while in the other case the project was set back. Repository siting in the UK and US is almost always a function of local politics. Most siting proposals meet with serious technical criticism, though there is no such thing as a flawless site. The US Department of Energy (DOE) abr'apfly cancelled its Eastern siting program in May 1986, and then suffered near-fatal political fallout, on procedural grounds, from its critics. The US program was only 'saved' by a December 1987 Congressional amendment to the high-level waste (HLW) law, which directs the DOE to focus its efforts on the Yucca Mountain, Nevada site, in a county with no people! Britain's waste repository siting program has followed a similar political course. Four proposed low-level waste (LLW) sites were cancelled in May 1987, to help assure incumbent Tory victories in surrounding districts during the subsequent elections. Since then, the siting authority has focused its search on the Cumbrian coast near Sellafield, in a region where some welcome nuclear plants. An offshore, subseabed repository is possible, similar to a well-regarded facility that the Swedes are completing under the Baltic Sea. However, these projects are for LLW, and Britain has put off consideration of an even more contentious HLW repository until about 2040. Two chapters in the Blowers and Pepper book focus exclusively on Britain's Sellafield reprocessing plant and its health risks. Macgill and Phipps found that local residents generally downplay the plant's radiation hazards /f they are economically or socially dependent on the plant. (A survey was taken just a few months after the late 1983 radiation leaks and leukemia scare.) Thus, if one trusts the nuclear plant operator, there is virtually no risk of a health hazard! Craft and Openshaw's paper underscores the statistical problems in linking cancer clusters conclusively with Sellafield. Yet inevitably the state must confront the risk of accidents, public perceptions and behavior, and develop emergency plans. The Zeigler and Johnson chapter points to the lack of realism embodied in the evacuation plans of the regulatory authorities in both the US and Britain. The NRC in fact ruled in 1987 that it no longer needs state and local evacuation plans, which had been obstacles to the commissioning of the embattled Seabrook and Shoreham nuclear power stations. Thus, the NRC has effectively decided that radiation health risks are not only negligible, but that the utility company and federal evacuation plans are sufficient. Other analysts have also criticized the NRC for failing to incorporate into its regulations the extensive literature on human behavior in confronting hazards (Golding and Kasperson, 1988). Carter on public trust and radioactive waste disposal While there are several hundred nuclear power plants throughout the world there are less than a dozen active repositories for radioactive wastes. Moreover, all of the existing repositories are for low and intermediate-level wastes, with the possible exception of an unconfirmed HLW site in the USSR. Science journalist and historian Luther Carter has written a book designed largely to help 'solve' the waste disposal problem (Carter, 1987).
294
Review essay
Thus, Carter's volume goes further than Nuclear Power in Crisis; instead of just critiquing the crisis in the nuclear state, Carter has a prescriptive agenda for bandaging the nuclear state's Achilles heel and finally building an HLW repository in the US. Carter's ideas and proposals for HLW disposal have much practical (though not intellectual) appeal, as he makes a very strong case for building an HLW repository at the proposed Nevada site. This is a classic example of a central government following the path of least resistance, as the Congress adopted many of Carter's proposals within a few months after his book was published. Nevada is of course a remote western state with few people and even less political clout in Washington. So has the battle (both scientific and political) over HLW disposal ended? Probably not. Emotions and distrust are the hallmarks of nuclear power, ever since the atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons. Furthermore, there are fundamental flaws in Carter's arguments, which are discussed below. The book identifies two imperatives of the nuclear state: to safeguard potential nuclear explosives, especially plutonium, and to contain radioactivity in nuclear reactors and other fuel cycle operations. When radioactive waste disposal is compared to other nuclear hazards on the basis of these imperatives, the former is arguably a relatively minor problem (my emphasis). The early waste management institutions in the US, however, such as the Atomic Energy Commission and the Congressional Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, took the problem far too lightly, and were beset by leaks and poor siting at most of the early repositories. With the required reforms of the nuclear industry slow in coming, many critics rose in the mid 1970s to oppose nuclear power and radioactive waste disposal. Indeed there was plenty of doubt cast on the ability of the nuclear utilities to contain radioactivity. The 'solution' to the waste problem according to many observers would lie in the spent fuel reprocessing option. Yet the early reprocessing experience in the US was strictly with military reactors, and the diseconomies of commercial reprocessing contributed to the shutdown of the West Valley (NY) plant in 1972, many years before commercial nuclear power plants would experience their infamous cost overruns. Moreover, while reprocessing reduces the volume of HLW, it does not, as once thought, make its disposal any easier (Albright and Feiveson, 1987), and it greatly increases other categories of nuclear wastes. The US government made its first serious attempts to develop a radioactive waste disposal policy in the mid 1970s. Originally, multiple repositories in several regions were planned, with an emphasis on well-studied salt as a disposal medium. Conflicts and potential conflicts in host states quickly arose, leading to several governmental studies, plans and projects. By the end of 1982, when the Nuclear Waste Policy Act passed the Congress. it was generally recognized that the most critical interest groups had to be included in the HLW disposal process for it to ultimately succeed. The Act can be described as a tenuous compromise. leaving many in the environmentalist and pro-nuclear lobbies dissatisfied. The sites that have since been investigated were ones that the DOE was most familiar with before the Act's passage. Part of the deal that led to the Act's approval was the requirement for an eastern as well as a western repository. It was probably the illness of Representative Udall of Arizona, who has been seen usually as a champion of environmental interests, which allowed the lapse of this requirement in the 1987 amendment. France, the second-largest producer of commercial nuclear power after the US, is less far along on HLW disposal policy, despite its highly centralized political structure. France has emphasized commercial (along with military) reprocessing at its La Hague and Marcoule plants, and is the world leader in HLW vitrification. These plants are overcommitted to domestic and foreign reprocessing contracts, and have hastened the movement to the plutonium economy, because of the excess of recycled plutonium and a slowdown in plans for breeder reactors. Britain too has followed a similar course with the expansion of the
Review essay
295
Sellafield reprocessing plant, where all its HLW is stored. With the stoppage of Britain's Atlantic Ocean dumping of LLW in 1983, the UK was forced to join France and other nuclear states in the search for land sites on which to dispose of all levels of radioactive wastes. Britain's LLW is currently disposed of in shallow trenches at Drigg near Sellafield, while HLW disposal was postponed for 50 years. While France is further along on the latter, a final siting decision is not expected until 1999 (Solomon and Shelley, 1988). Sweden and West Germany have made greater progress toward the permanent disposal of radioactive wastes. Sweden's offshore, sub-Baltic Sea repository has been widely praised as a model in meeting the containment imperative. While both nations have faced serious opposition to their nuclear programs, their decision-making systems are among the most open outside the US (Parker et al., 1987). West Germany, while hoping to license an HLW repository at the disused Gorleben salt mine, is trying to build its own reprocessing plant at Wackersdorf in Bavaria. The anti-nuclear critics such as the Greens were invigorated after Chernobyl, and may yet defeat this project and future power plants. Similarly in Sweden, the Chernobyl disaster has quieted talk of overturning the nuclear power phase-out there. Argentina and South Africa, hardly model democracies, are the only nations besides the US and West Germany that have tentative sites for HLW disposal. Outside Europe and North America the largest nuclear power program by far is in Japan, which has tried to develop waste repositories in its remote North. Japan, like France, responds to its antinuclear critics by arguing that nuclear power is necessary to lessen its dependence on foreign oil. But Japan, like the UK, is an island nation, and will have great difficulty in siting permanent, deep geological waste facilities because of its large population density and unstable geology. Japan, West Germany, Sweden and a few other nuclear states have been leaders in the search for trans-national solutions and repositories. Several (usually lessdeveloped) nations have considered taking foreign spent fuel for storage or disposal, with the incentive of foreign currency or perhaps spent fuel for domestic reprocessing plans. These countries have included Iran, Egypt, Sudan, Namibia, China and the USSR. While the idea of a multinational HLW repository may have merit, its realization in the near future is extremely unlikely. Geological realities indicate that only a few world regions, such as parts of Russia, Scandinavia and Canada, are ideal for HLW disposal, and these areas are generally uninterested in disposing foreign wastes. So what is Luther Carter's solution to the problem of radioactive wastes? Clearly, he feels that the US must take the lead and demonstrate to the nuclear-powered world the technical feasibility of deep geological disposal. To get there, we must learn the political lessons of the last few years, i.e. to avoid land-use and environmental conflicts, and to keep the geographical scope and the procedural complexities of the site search within modest limits (pp. 414-415 ). Carter's advocacy of restricting site characterization for an HLW repository to Yucca Mountain, Nevada, fits nicely into this philosophy. He describes the recent process of seeking a distribution of potential sites in the East and West as not promoting fairness, but rather as spreading misery. Finally, Carter proposes dropping the intensely controversial sites from consideration, as well as the technically and politically controversial back-up sites in the West. In their place, he proposes adding new western sites as back-ups to Yucca Mountain, in case the latter proves to be unlicensable. There are several problems with Carter's arguments in favor of the Nevada site and against consideration of the eastern sites for an HLW repository. While Yucca Mountain may indeed be the ' best' of the few western sites that have been given serious consideration by the DOE, the problem is that if it is licensed under the current siting program the question becomes moot. Sites (in any region) that are potentially superior from a geological and engineering stand-point will not be considered because only Yucca Mountain will have
296
Review essay
received detailed site characterization. While this does not seem to matter to Carter, whose main concern is with finding a reasonably good site far away from concentrations of people and controversy, it matters greatly to many of the critics of DOE's siting efforts. Most critics of the US' s HLW disposal program have focused on questions of procedural equity (Solomon and Cameron, 1985), and it was fairness that induced Congress to include the requirement for an eastern repository in the 1982 law, without which the Nuclear Waste Policy Act probably never would have been approved. Clearly, the precarious support that led to the Act's passage in 1982 quickly disappeared after DOE's policy reversal in 1986; by removing other states from consideration in 1987, a 'divide and conquer' strategy led to the HLW law's amendment. Yet if Nevada is the ultimate disposal site, an unduly burdensome national waste shipment network still results (National Research Council, 1984; Kirby and Jacob, 1986), with much regional discordance between the benefits from the use of nuclear power and its non-pecuniary costs (see Kasperson et al., 1983). Carter would put the DOE into a Catch-22 situation and have it only pursue the 'superior' Yucca Mountain site, thereby stopping (at least for the time being) any alternative site investigations that could confirm or disprove the wisdom of this choice. And while he is in favor of more openness and more public and interest group involvement in the HLW siting process, with only one site to choose from it would be understandable if remonstrators once again feel coopted by the nuclear state. Discussion
Both Nuclear Power in Crisis and Nuclear Imperatives and Public Trust have much to offer the readership of Political Geography Quarterly, though their purposes are strikingly different. The Blowers and Pepper volume sets out to analyze the nuclear state's transition to a state of political crisis (if not paralysis), while Carter' s book attempts to help resolve one of the state's (and industry's) major problems, that of radioactive waste disposal. The radioactive waste problem ties these books together, and should preoccupy the nuclear state for some time to come. It is all too apparent that the prospects for institutional change in the nuclear state are generally not good. The nuclear state, after all, would attempt to use the cloak of national security to concentrate political control and decision-making power in the hands of a chosen few even if nuclear power did not exist (Mumford, 1970). Undoubtedly. there will be increased calls for procedural justice for decisions on nuclear power and radioactive wastes (cf. Reynolds and Shelley, 1985), and new referenda and structural reforms will be forthcoming when they do not conflict with the current goals of the state. Increasing evidence has shown that information and power sharing, veto authority, and other political incentives are a critical component in eliciting local support for radioactive waste facilities (Cannes et al., 1983; Bord, 1987). Thus, the prospect for change in countries with major nuclear energy programs will be a function of political culture. The relatively open and decentralized societies of Sweden, Canada, West Germany and the US do not need any more nuclear power because they have ample energy alternatives and, in the case of the US, an independent nuclear weapons program. The decoupling, in the US, of nuclear energy from nuclear weapons production means that damage to the former need not jeopardize the robust growth of the latter. But openness encourages participation, and participation fuels protest. While this greatly disturbs the conservative governments of the US, Canada and West Germany, opposition to nuclear power continues and has some effect. Opposition to nuclear power production in France, Britain and the USSR is much more threatening, and largely unsuccesstul. 2 In these
Review essay
297
states, nuclear power production, coupled with reprocessing, provides a basis for nuclear weapons production and thus prominence in the international arena, something that is unlikely to be surrendered. Barry D. Solomon 3 Energy Information Administration Washington, D.C. Notes i. Mixed oxide fuel (or MOX) is nuclear reactor fuel that is a mixture of plutonium and uranium oxide. 2. Yet there is now evidence that glasnost' in the USSR may extend to nuclear plants. As I write, there has been an apparent and startling reversal of Soviet policy toward nuclear power development and citizen opposition. (See Keller, 1988). 3. The views and opinions expressed herein are totally those of the author, and not of the Energy Information Administration. References ALBRIGHT, D. AND FEIVESON,H. (I987). Why recycle plutonium.) Science 235, 1555-1556. BLOWERS,A. AND PEPPER,D., EDS (1987). Nuclear Po u,er in Crisis: Politics and Planning for the ,X)~clearState. Beckenham: Croom Helm. BORD, R J. (1987). Judgements of policies designed to elicit local cooperation on LLRW disposal siting: comparing the public and decision makers. Nuclear and Chemical Waste Management 7, 99-105. CARNES, S. A., COPENHAVER,E. D.. SORENSEN.J. H., SODERSTROM.E. J.. REED.J. H., BJOIL\'STAD.e. J. AND PEELE, E. (1983). Incentives and nuclear waste siting: prospects and constraints. Energy Systems and Policy 7, 323-351. CARTER, L. J. (1987). Nuclear Imperatives and Public Trust: Dealing u'ith Radioactive Waste. Washington, DC: Resources for the Future. CooK, E. (1982), The role of history in the acceptance of nuclear power. SocialScience Quarter(v 63, 1-15. DEESE, D. A. (1982). A cross-national perspective on the politics of nuclear waste. In The Politics qfl\'uclear Waste (W. Colglazier, ed.) pp. 63-97. New York: Pergamon Press. GOLDING, D. AND KASPERSON, R. E. (1988). Emergency planning and nuclear power: looking to the next accident. Land Use Policy 5, 19-36. HOHENEMSER, C., KASPERSON.R. E. AND KATES, R. W. (1977). The distrust of nuclear power. Science 196, 25-34. KASPERSON,R. E., BERK, G., PIJAWKA,K. D., SHaRAF, A. B. AND WOOD, J. (1980). Public opposition to nuclear energy: retrospect and prospect. Science, Technology, and Hunmn Values 5, 11-23. KASPERSON,R. E., DERR, P. G. AND KATES, R. W. (1983). Confronting equity in radioactive waste management: modest proposals for a socially just and acceptable program. In Equity Issues in Radioactive Waste Management (R. E. Kasperson, ed.)pp. 331-368. Cambridge, MA: Oelgeschlager, Gunn & Hain. KELLER,B. (I 988). Soviet scraps a new atomic plant in face of protest over Chernobyl. The Ne w York Times 28 January, A1, A9. KIRBY, A. ANDJACOB,G. (1986). The politics of transportation and disposal: hazardous and nuclear waste issues in Colorado, US. Policy and Politics 14, 27-42. Lovl.xs. A. B., Lovt?~s, L. H. AND ROSS, L. (1980). Nuclear power and nuclear bombs. Foreign Affairs 58, I137-1177, MU,X1FORD,L. (1970). The Myth of the Machine, VoL 2: the Pentagon of Power. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. NATIOgAL RESEARCHCOUNCIl.(1984). Social and Economic Aspects of Radioactive Waste Disposal: Considerations for Institutional Management. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. PARKER, F. L., KASPERSON,R. E., ANDERSSON,T. L. AND PARKER, S. A. (1987). Technical and Sociopolitical Issues in Radioactive Waste Disposal I986. Stockholm: Beijer Institute of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
298
Review essay
REYNOLDS, D. R. A:'iD SHELLEY, F. IV[. (1985). Procedural justice and local democracy. Political Geography Quarterly 4, 2 6 7 - 2 8 8 . SOLOed*ON,13. D. (1988). Land use and nuclear power: an introduction. Land Use Policy 5, 2 - 6 . SOLO,~ION, B. D. A*D C.~,MERO*, D M. (1985). Nuclear waste repository siting: an alternative approach. Energy Policy 13, 5 6 4 - 6 8 0 . SOLOMON, B. D. AND SHELLEY, F. ,1~. (1988). Siting patterns of nuclear waste repositories around the world. Journal of Geography 87 (in press).
Review essay T h e politics of nuclear power and radioactive waste disposal: from state coercion to procedural justice? [A. Blowers and D. Pepper (eds) Nuclear Power in Crisis: Politics and Planning for the Nuclear State, 1987; L. J. Carter Nuclear Imperatives and Public Trust: Dealing with Radioactive Waste, 1987.] The environmental damage and fatalities that resulted from the disaster at the Chernobyi nuclear power station in the spring of 1986 are widely known. What is less common knowledge is that the accident has had only minor effects on the Soviets' extremely ambitious nuclear power plant construction program. In Western Europe, where most of the radioactive fallout from Chernobyl took place, pressure groups, citizens and governments have been reassessing their tactics and strategies toward nuclear power development (Solomon, 1988). In general, anti-nuclear sentiment among the public has been increasing, though this has not necessarily resulted in political action against nuclear power. In this essay, recent developments in decision-making on nuclear power development and radioactive waste disposal, as discussed in two recent books and elsewhere, are used to shed light on the prospects for structural reform in the world's nuclear states (ie, nations with nuclear power and/or weapons). Deese (1982: 93) observed that the countries with relatively decentralized decisionmaking and systems which are particularly open (at least for information) in radioactive waste management, also face the worst nuclear power prospects. The nations cited were Sweden, West Germany, the United States and Canada, although the Chernobyl accident has clearly expanded this list. Three nations that are more centralized and closed in decisionmaking, France, the Soviet Union and Britain, have much brighter long-term nuclear prospects. It will be argued that these correlations are more than coincidental, and that the latter states (and probably others such as India, Pakistan, Argentina, and Brazil) need commercial nuclear power to support their nuclear weapons programs (cf. Lovins et al., 1980). While the United States is of course a major nuclear weapons state, it is unique in that it separates its commercial and defense nuclear power programs (eg, with reprocessing plants only for the military). France and the UK in contrast are hastening a 'plutonium economy' in Europe, despite setbacks in the breeder-reactor program, with their advocacy of plutonium use in civilian reactors via mixed oxide fuel. l Nuclear power has been shrouded in secrecy and distrust, owing to its military origins (Cook, 1982). Its early development in the UK, USA and elsewhere consisted of government monopoly and boosterism, with an unchallenged technological optimism. Since the late 1970s there have been increasing demands for accountability and openness with the public. The early optimism was finally shattered with the accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. The result has been, though primarily in Western Europe, an increasing number of societies testing the power of the nuclear state. The decision environment in each nuclear state is somewhat different. Early wastedisposal legislation in California (1976) and a referendum in Sweden (1980) resulted in a nuclear power plant moratorium and phase-out, respectively. Other anti-nuclear referenda 0260-9827/88/03 0297-08 $03.00 © 1988 Butterworth& Co (Publishers)Lid
292
Review essay
have been passed in Austria and Italy (such referenda have failed in Switzerland and have had mixed results elsewhere in the USA). Nuclear power prospects in Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Greece and the Philippines have also been damaged because of Chernobyl, in response to increased public opposition. The approach of each nation to nuclear power and public opinion has depended on its energy resources and policies. The most pro-nuclear Western state, France, has virtually no fossil fuels but ample uranium supplies. The UK in contrast has plenty of petroleum and coal, yet for now is also firmly committed to the nuclear option, and has thus far not allowed the public's growing anti-nuclear sentiment to affect real policy. Blowers and Pepper on nuclear power in crisis Several leading producers of nuclear power, including the US, Sweden, West Germany, Britain and Canada, have seen a historic consensus in favor of this energy source transform into conflict since the late 1970s. This shift was hastened by the accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, as well as the excessive plutonium discharges from the UK's Sellafield (formerly Windscale) reprocessing plant in late 1983. Blowers and Pepper (1987) have edited a volume which attempts to analyze the major events of this transition period, within an overall perspective on the political and policy implications. The book accomplishes this by focusing on the struggle between the nuclear state and its opponents, reactor siting and licensing decisions, radioactive waste disposal and power-plant decommissioning, and local health and safety issues. Blowers and Pepper argue that 'perhaps more than any other environmental controversy, the conflict over nuclear power tends to generate fears about democracy versus state control over people and the environment' (p. 23). In the US at least, this fear has been linked with atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons and radioactive fallout on American soil (Cook, 1982), and the lack of control over the radiation hazard (cf. Hohenemser et al., 1977; Kasperson et al., 1980). Government has clearly been the target of blame and distrust because it has consistently lied about the human health effects of weapons-testing and made its decisions in extreme secremess, and covered up early accidents, such as the Windscale fire of October 1957 and the deaths at the Idaho Falls (US) experimental reactor in 1965. What finally brought the conflict to a head was a crisis over legitimacy, accountability and control, a changing political environment, and the international political dimension, according to Blowers and Pepper. Nuclear reactor siting, in most countries, is done by the utility companies, with only token input from the public. A chapter by Fernie and Openshaw applauds the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for using a more sophisticated and safety-oriented siting methodology, which is also more open to public review and criticism than its UK counterpart. Yet the US anti-nuclear critics are far from satisfied. Shoddy construction practices and bottom-line economics have, more than anything else, led generally to plant cancellations in the US. Moreover, recent licensing 'reforms' by the NRC have been designed to shut the public out of the hearing process (Golding and Kasperson, 1988). On the other hand, media events such as the Sizewell B inquiry in the UK, with its narrow government agenda despite 340 days of exhaustive testimony, have not proved to be any better at incorporating public concerns into the decision-making on nuclear power. Power plant siting procedures for non-nuclear plants are generally similar, and siting is even less open in most other countries. Most nations of Western Europe and Japan have some type of public hearing process, although the most critical decisions have usually been taken beforehand. In theory at least, local governments in Sweden, West Germany and
Review essay
293
Japan have veto authority or its equivalent over nuclear plants and similar projects, though this power is only rarely used. In some countries, most notably Japan and France, financial benefits have been offered by the utility or government to placate local opposition to nuclear power plants (the latter case is discussed in the chapter by Boyle and Robinson). If procedures for siting nuclear power plants seem unclear to many observers and critics, radioactive waste repository siting procedures are even more ambiguous (see Solomon and Shelley, 1988). This is especially so in the US, Britain and Japan, where waste disposal programs have been on political seesaws during the past five years. For example, two dumps that were proposed in Japan met with heavy local protest. In one case the prefectural governor has allowed the project, while in the other case the project was set back. Repository siting in the UK and US is almost always a function of local politics. Most siting proposals meet with serious technical criticism, though there is no such thing as a flawless site. The US Department of Energy (DOE) abr'apfly cancelled its Eastern siting program in May 1986, and then suffered near-fatal political fallout, on procedural grounds, from its critics. The US program was only 'saved' by a December 1987 Congressional amendment to the high-level waste (HLW) law, which directs the DOE to focus its efforts on the Yucca Mountain, Nevada site, in a county with no people! Britain's waste repository siting program has followed a similar political course. Four proposed low-level waste (LLW) sites were cancelled in May 1987, to help assure incumbent Tory victories in surrounding districts during the subsequent elections. Since then, the siting authority has focused its search on the Cumbrian coast near Sellafield, in a region where some welcome nuclear plants. An offshore, subseabed repository is possible, similar to a well-regarded facility that the Swedes are completing under the Baltic Sea. However, these projects are for LLW, and Britain has put off consideration of an even more contentious HLW repository until about 2040. Two chapters in the Blowers and Pepper book focus exclusively on Britain's Sellafield reprocessing plant and its health risks. Macgill and Phipps found that local residents generally downplay the plant's radiation hazards /f they are economically or socially dependent on the plant. (A survey was taken just a few months after the late 1983 radiation leaks and leukemia scare.) Thus, if one trusts the nuclear plant operator, there is virtually no risk of a health hazard! Craft and Openshaw's paper underscores the statistical problems in linking cancer clusters conclusively with Sellafield. Yet inevitably the state must confront the risk of accidents, public perceptions and behavior, and develop emergency plans. The Zeigler and Johnson chapter points to the lack of realism embodied in the evacuation plans of the regulatory authorities in both the US and Britain. The NRC in fact ruled in 1987 that it no longer needs state and local evacuation plans, which had been obstacles to the commissioning of the embattled Seabrook and Shoreham nuclear power stations. Thus, the NRC has effectively decided that radiation health risks are not only negligible, but that the utility company and federal evacuation plans are sufficient. Other analysts have also criticized the NRC for failing to incorporate into its regulations the extensive literature on human behavior in confronting hazards (Golding and Kasperson, 1988). Carter on public trust and radioactive waste disposal While there are several hundred nuclear power plants throughout the world there are less than a dozen active repositories for radioactive wastes. Moreover, all of the existing repositories are for low and intermediate-level wastes, with the possible exception of an unconfirmed HLW site in the USSR. Science journalist and historian Luther Carter has written a book designed largely to help 'solve' the waste disposal problem (Carter, 1987).
294
Review essay
Thus, Carter's volume goes further than Nuclear Power in Crisis; instead of just critiquing the crisis in the nuclear state, Carter has a prescriptive agenda for bandaging the nuclear state's Achilles heel and finally building an HLW repository in the US. Carter's ideas and proposals for HLW disposal have much practical (though not intellectual) appeal, as he makes a very strong case for building an HLW repository at the proposed Nevada site. This is a classic example of a central government following the path of least resistance, as the Congress adopted many of Carter's proposals within a few months after his book was published. Nevada is of course a remote western state with few people and even less political clout in Washington. So has the battle (both scientific and political) over HLW disposal ended? Probably not. Emotions and distrust are the hallmarks of nuclear power, ever since the atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons. Furthermore, there are fundamental flaws in Carter's arguments, which are discussed below. The book identifies two imperatives of the nuclear state: to safeguard potential nuclear explosives, especially plutonium, and to contain radioactivity in nuclear reactors and other fuel cycle operations. When radioactive waste disposal is compared to other nuclear hazards on the basis of these imperatives, the former is arguably a relatively minor problem (my emphasis). The early waste management institutions in the US, however, such as the Atomic Energy Commission and the Congressional Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, took the problem far too lightly, and were beset by leaks and poor siting at most of the early repositories. With the required reforms of the nuclear industry slow in coming, many critics rose in the mid 1970s to oppose nuclear power and radioactive waste disposal. Indeed there was plenty of doubt cast on the ability of the nuclear utilities to contain radioactivity. The 'solution' to the waste problem according to many observers would lie in the spent fuel reprocessing option. Yet the early reprocessing experience in the US was strictly with military reactors, and the diseconomies of commercial reprocessing contributed to the shutdown of the West Valley (NY) plant in 1972, many years before commercial nuclear power plants would experience their infamous cost overruns. Moreover, while reprocessing reduces the volume of HLW, it does not, as once thought, make its disposal any easier (Albright and Feiveson, 1987), and it greatly increases other categories of nuclear wastes. The US government made its first serious attempts to develop a radioactive waste disposal policy in the mid 1970s. Originally, multiple repositories in several regions were planned, with an emphasis on well-studied salt as a disposal medium. Conflicts and potential conflicts in host states quickly arose, leading to several governmental studies, plans and projects. By the end of 1982, when the Nuclear Waste Policy Act passed the Congress. it was generally recognized that the most critical interest groups had to be included in the HLW disposal process for it to ultimately succeed. The Act can be described as a tenuous compromise. leaving many in the environmentalist and pro-nuclear lobbies dissatisfied. The sites that have since been investigated were ones that the DOE was most familiar with before the Act's passage. Part of the deal that led to the Act's approval was the requirement for an eastern as well as a western repository. It was probably the illness of Representative Udall of Arizona, who has been seen usually as a champion of environmental interests, which allowed the lapse of this requirement in the 1987 amendment. France, the second-largest producer of commercial nuclear power after the US, is less far along on HLW disposal policy, despite its highly centralized political structure. France has emphasized commercial (along with military) reprocessing at its La Hague and Marcoule plants, and is the world leader in HLW vitrification. These plants are overcommitted to domestic and foreign reprocessing contracts, and have hastened the movement to the plutonium economy, because of the excess of recycled plutonium and a slowdown in plans for breeder reactors. Britain too has followed a similar course with the expansion of the
Review essay
295
Sellafield reprocessing plant, where all its HLW is stored. With the stoppage of Britain's Atlantic Ocean dumping of LLW in 1983, the UK was forced to join France and other nuclear states in the search for land sites on which to dispose of all levels of radioactive wastes. Britain's LLW is currently disposed of in shallow trenches at Drigg near Sellafield, while HLW disposal was postponed for 50 years. While France is further along on the latter, a final siting decision is not expected until 1999 (Solomon and Shelley, 1988). Sweden and West Germany have made greater progress toward the permanent disposal of radioactive wastes. Sweden's offshore, sub-Baltic Sea repository has been widely praised as a model in meeting the containment imperative. While both nations have faced serious opposition to their nuclear programs, their decision-making systems are among the most open outside the US (Parker et al., 1987). West Germany, while hoping to license an HLW repository at the disused Gorleben salt mine, is trying to build its own reprocessing plant at Wackersdorf in Bavaria. The anti-nuclear critics such as the Greens were invigorated after Chernobyl, and may yet defeat this project and future power plants. Similarly in Sweden, the Chernobyl disaster has quieted talk of overturning the nuclear power phase-out there. Argentina and South Africa, hardly model democracies, are the only nations besides the US and West Germany that have tentative sites for HLW disposal. Outside Europe and North America the largest nuclear power program by far is in Japan, which has tried to develop waste repositories in its remote North. Japan, like France, responds to its antinuclear critics by arguing that nuclear power is necessary to lessen its dependence on foreign oil. But Japan, like the UK, is an island nation, and will have great difficulty in siting permanent, deep geological waste facilities because of its large population density and unstable geology. Japan, West Germany, Sweden and a few other nuclear states have been leaders in the search for trans-national solutions and repositories. Several (usually lessdeveloped) nations have considered taking foreign spent fuel for storage or disposal, with the incentive of foreign currency or perhaps spent fuel for domestic reprocessing plans. These countries have included Iran, Egypt, Sudan, Namibia, China and the USSR. While the idea of a multinational HLW repository may have merit, its realization in the near future is extremely unlikely. Geological realities indicate that only a few world regions, such as parts of Russia, Scandinavia and Canada, are ideal for HLW disposal, and these areas are generally uninterested in disposing foreign wastes. So what is Luther Carter's solution to the problem of radioactive wastes? Clearly, he feels that the US must take the lead and demonstrate to the nuclear-powered world the technical feasibility of deep geological disposal. To get there, we must learn the political lessons of the last few years, i.e. to avoid land-use and environmental conflicts, and to keep the geographical scope and the procedural complexities of the site search within modest limits (pp. 414-415 ). Carter's advocacy of restricting site characterization for an HLW repository to Yucca Mountain, Nevada, fits nicely into this philosophy. He describes the recent process of seeking a distribution of potential sites in the East and West as not promoting fairness, but rather as spreading misery. Finally, Carter proposes dropping the intensely controversial sites from consideration, as well as the technically and politically controversial back-up sites in the West. In their place, he proposes adding new western sites as back-ups to Yucca Mountain, in case the latter proves to be unlicensable. There are several problems with Carter's arguments in favor of the Nevada site and against consideration of the eastern sites for an HLW repository. While Yucca Mountain may indeed be the ' best' of the few western sites that have been given serious consideration by the DOE, the problem is that if it is licensed under the current siting program the question becomes moot. Sites (in any region) that are potentially superior from a geological and engineering stand-point will not be considered because only Yucca Mountain will have
296
Review essay
received detailed site characterization. While this does not seem to matter to Carter, whose main concern is with finding a reasonably good site far away from concentrations of people and controversy, it matters greatly to many of the critics of DOE's siting efforts. Most critics of the US' s HLW disposal program have focused on questions of procedural equity (Solomon and Cameron, 1985), and it was fairness that induced Congress to include the requirement for an eastern repository in the 1982 law, without which the Nuclear Waste Policy Act probably never would have been approved. Clearly, the precarious support that led to the Act's passage in 1982 quickly disappeared after DOE's policy reversal in 1986; by removing other states from consideration in 1987, a 'divide and conquer' strategy led to the HLW law's amendment. Yet if Nevada is the ultimate disposal site, an unduly burdensome national waste shipment network still results (National Research Council, 1984; Kirby and Jacob, 1986), with much regional discordance between the benefits from the use of nuclear power and its non-pecuniary costs (see Kasperson et al., 1983). Carter would put the DOE into a Catch-22 situation and have it only pursue the 'superior' Yucca Mountain site, thereby stopping (at least for the time being) any alternative site investigations that could confirm or disprove the wisdom of this choice. And while he is in favor of more openness and more public and interest group involvement in the HLW siting process, with only one site to choose from it would be understandable if remonstrators once again feel coopted by the nuclear state. Discussion
Both Nuclear Power in Crisis and Nuclear Imperatives and Public Trust have much to offer the readership of Political Geography Quarterly, though their purposes are strikingly different. The Blowers and Pepper volume sets out to analyze the nuclear state's transition to a state of political crisis (if not paralysis), while Carter' s book attempts to help resolve one of the state's (and industry's) major problems, that of radioactive waste disposal. The radioactive waste problem ties these books together, and should preoccupy the nuclear state for some time to come. It is all too apparent that the prospects for institutional change in the nuclear state are generally not good. The nuclear state, after all, would attempt to use the cloak of national security to concentrate political control and decision-making power in the hands of a chosen few even if nuclear power did not exist (Mumford, 1970). Undoubtedly. there will be increased calls for procedural justice for decisions on nuclear power and radioactive wastes (cf. Reynolds and Shelley, 1985), and new referenda and structural reforms will be forthcoming when they do not conflict with the current goals of the state. Increasing evidence has shown that information and power sharing, veto authority, and other political incentives are a critical component in eliciting local support for radioactive waste facilities (Cannes et al., 1983; Bord, 1987). Thus, the prospect for change in countries with major nuclear energy programs will be a function of political culture. The relatively open and decentralized societies of Sweden, Canada, West Germany and the US do not need any more nuclear power because they have ample energy alternatives and, in the case of the US, an independent nuclear weapons program. The decoupling, in the US, of nuclear energy from nuclear weapons production means that damage to the former need not jeopardize the robust growth of the latter. But openness encourages participation, and participation fuels protest. While this greatly disturbs the conservative governments of the US, Canada and West Germany, opposition to nuclear power continues and has some effect. Opposition to nuclear power production in France, Britain and the USSR is much more threatening, and largely unsuccesstul. 2 In these
Review essay
297
states, nuclear power production, coupled with reprocessing, provides a basis for nuclear weapons production and thus prominence in the international arena, something that is unlikely to be surrendered. Barry D. Solomon 3 Energy Information Administration Washington, D.C. Notes i. Mixed oxide fuel (or MOX) is nuclear reactor fuel that is a mixture of plutonium and uranium oxide. 2. Yet there is now evidence that glasnost' in the USSR may extend to nuclear plants. As I write, there has been an apparent and startling reversal of Soviet policy toward nuclear power development and citizen opposition. (See Keller, 1988). 3. The views and opinions expressed herein are totally those of the author, and not of the Energy Information Administration. References ALBRIGHT, D. AND FEIVESON,H. (I987). Why recycle plutonium.) Science 235, 1555-1556. BLOWERS,A. AND PEPPER,D., EDS (1987). Nuclear Po u,er in Crisis: Politics and Planning for the ,X)~clearState. Beckenham: Croom Helm. BORD, R J. (1987). Judgements of policies designed to elicit local cooperation on LLRW disposal siting: comparing the public and decision makers. Nuclear and Chemical Waste Management 7, 99-105. CARNES, S. A., COPENHAVER,E. D.. SORENSEN.J. H., SODERSTROM.E. J.. REED.J. H., BJOIL\'STAD.e. J. AND PEELE, E. (1983). Incentives and nuclear waste siting: prospects and constraints. Energy Systems and Policy 7, 323-351. CARTER, L. J. (1987). Nuclear Imperatives and Public Trust: Dealing u'ith Radioactive Waste. Washington, DC: Resources for the Future. CooK, E. (1982), The role of history in the acceptance of nuclear power. SocialScience Quarter(v 63, 1-15. DEESE, D. A. (1982). A cross-national perspective on the politics of nuclear waste. In The Politics qfl\'uclear Waste (W. Colglazier, ed.) pp. 63-97. New York: Pergamon Press. GOLDING, D. AND KASPERSON, R. E. (1988). Emergency planning and nuclear power: looking to the next accident. Land Use Policy 5, 19-36. HOHENEMSER, C., KASPERSON.R. E. AND KATES, R. W. (1977). The distrust of nuclear power. Science 196, 25-34. KASPERSON,R. E., BERK, G., PIJAWKA,K. D., SHaRAF, A. B. AND WOOD, J. (1980). Public opposition to nuclear energy: retrospect and prospect. Science, Technology, and Hunmn Values 5, 11-23. KASPERSON,R. E., DERR, P. G. AND KATES, R. W. (1983). Confronting equity in radioactive waste management: modest proposals for a socially just and acceptable program. In Equity Issues in Radioactive Waste Management (R. E. Kasperson, ed.)pp. 331-368. Cambridge, MA: Oelgeschlager, Gunn & Hain. KELLER,B. (I 988). Soviet scraps a new atomic plant in face of protest over Chernobyl. The Ne w York Times 28 January, A1, A9. KIRBY, A. ANDJACOB,G. (1986). The politics of transportation and disposal: hazardous and nuclear waste issues in Colorado, US. Policy and Politics 14, 27-42. Lovl.xs. A. B., Lovt?~s, L. H. AND ROSS, L. (1980). Nuclear power and nuclear bombs. Foreign Affairs 58, I137-1177, MU,X1FORD,L. (1970). The Myth of the Machine, VoL 2: the Pentagon of Power. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. NATIOgAL RESEARCHCOUNCIl.(1984). Social and Economic Aspects of Radioactive Waste Disposal: Considerations for Institutional Management. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. PARKER, F. L., KASPERSON,R. E., ANDERSSON,T. L. AND PARKER, S. A. (1987). Technical and Sociopolitical Issues in Radioactive Waste Disposal I986. Stockholm: Beijer Institute of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
298
Review essay
REYNOLDS, D. R. A:'iD SHELLEY, F. IV[. (1985). Procedural justice and local democracy. Political Geography Quarterly 4, 2 6 7 - 2 8 8 . SOLOed*ON,13. D. (1988). Land use and nuclear power: an introduction. Land Use Policy 5, 2 - 6 . SOLO,~ION, B. D. A*D C.~,MERO*, D M. (1985). Nuclear waste repository siting: an alternative approach. Energy Policy 13, 5 6 4 - 6 8 0 . SOLOMON, B. D. AND SHELLEY, F. ,1~. (1988). Siting patterns of nuclear waste repositories around the world. Journal of Geography 87 (in press).