Nuclear Waste Management, Nuclear Power, and Energy Choices: Public Preferences, Perceptions, and Trust

165 Pages·2013·2.331 MB·English

by  Michael Greenberg (auth.)

Lecture Notes in Energy 2
For furthervolumes:
http://www.springer.com/series/8874
.
Michael R. Greenberg
Nuclear Waste Management,
Nuclear Power, and
Energy Choices
Public Preferences, Perceptions, and Trust
MichaelR.Greenberg
RutgersUniversity
NewBrunswick,
NJ,USA
ISBN978-1-4471-4230-0 ISBN978-1-4471-4231-7(eBook)
DOI10.1007/978-1-4471-4231-7
SpringerLondonHeidelbergNewYorkDordrecht
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To my wife Gwendolyn Greenberg who has been listening to me talk
about nuclear power plants, nuclear waste management, and chemi-
cal weapons stockpile sites for almost 40 years. Thanks for your
patience and encouragement.
.
Foreword
For nearly 25 years the author of this book, Michael Greenberg, has devoted a
significant portion of his prodigious research work to questions related to how
publicperceptions(particularlyperceptionsofrisk)shapethepolicies,economics,
andtechnologyevolution/deploymentofthenation’seffortstoaddressprotectively
the wastes and other residuals of the nation’s nuclear activities, both those
associated with nuclear power and national defense. He has linked his work on
nuclear issues to his own frameworks for also understanding how to assess and
conduct other types of activity about which locally and nationwide US citizens
oftenhavediverseviews rangingfromambivalenttostrident—chemicalweapons
disposition, homeland security policies, and all manner of locally unwanted land
uses(LULU’s).
For 17 of those years, Greenberg’s work on nuclear waste questions has been
conducted within the context of a unique multi-university organization, the Con-
sortiumforRiskEvaluationwithStakeholderParticipation(CRESP).CRESPwas
forged to respond to a 1994 National Academy of Sciences study that suggested
auniversity-basedindependentorganizationwasneededtohelpthenewlyformed
Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management (DOE-EM) more
effectively link its waste management, remediation, and compliance activities to
both risk-informed priorities and risk-informed outcomes. CRESP won the initial
competition to “be” that independent institution working to advise DOE-EM and
hascontinuedunderseveral differentformsandformatswithessentiallythesame
mission—althoughitsworkisnolongerlimitedonlytoenvironmentalmanagement
challenges from the nuclear defense legacy since it now formally also addresses
waste management’s parallel problems associated with residuals from civilian
nuclear power. The organization has evolved from being primarily the merged
activities of two research universities to being an organization, now led by
Vanderbilt University’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering that
drawsuponpremierresearchersandtheirlaboratoriesatsevenothermajorresearch
universities. And it is always poised formally or temporarily to add types and
areas of research capability to address whatever skill set is needed to allow the
vii
viii Foreword
organization to provide the review, research, strategic assessment, or educational
activitiesmostneededbyDOE-EM.
WithinCRESP,Greenberg’sownskilleffectivelytodevelopandcarryoutboth
public surveys and economic analyses has been performed in the closest possible
proximitytoandcollaborationwithappliedacademicresearchskillsandworkfar
different from his own: research, review, and strategic work in environmental
engineering, chemical engineering, hydrology, ecology, nuclear engineering,
materialsscience,communityandoccupationalmedicineandepidemiology,proj-
ect management, biostatistics, soil chemistry, etc. Greenberg has made the most
of the opportunities afforded by the fact that CRESP’s unique agglomeration of
academic people are able to give long-term attention to the complex changing
social and technological phenomena that have evolved in the nation’s struggle to
achieve protective nuclear waste management.As both ananalyst ofthose efforts
and a commentator proposing different ways of performing them, Greenberg has
pursuedbothhisownsetofresearchagendaandcontinuouslycollaboratedwithall
oftheotherCRESPpeopleinadiversesetofmultiauthoredCRESPworkproducts.
Probablynobetterexampleofthislatterphenomenonexiststhanwhatisseeninthe
collaborative process which emerged under Greenberg’s leadership the CRESP-
organized and supported Vanderbilt University Press 2009 Handbook on Nuclear
Materials, Energy and Waste Management. Furthermore, through CRESP,
Greenberg has educated a cadre of diverse senior scientists and engineers in the
practical implementation of stakeholder engagement and risk communication to
have a more effective dialogue with the full range of interested and responsible
stakeholders,fromlocalcommunitiestoDOEmanagers,regulators,andoversight
organizations.
Asanycarefulreaderofthisbookwillsoonrecognize,Greenberghasseenhis
owndistinctiveworkasprovidingauniquelycoordinatedbutyetevolvingpicture
of where the nation as a whole, and the several clearly distinct geographical and
ideationalpartsofit,hasbeenandistoday.Hecontinuestoclarifythis,inthemidst
of what he so artfully describes as the persistently “mixed policy messages” (see,
e.g.,Chap.1)sentbyallmannerofnuclearadvocatesanddetractors,aswellasthe
ever evolving and sometimes rapidly changing directions of the federal govern-
ment. He wants to understand the diverse commitments and attitudes toward
nuclear waste, how they evolve, and whether the materials to be managed were
theproductsofweaponsproduction,electricalpower,medicalapplications,etc.
Hence, for example, as many CRESP people were carrying out research into
projects seeking major shifts in technological or scientific assumptions and
applications or discovering that the fundamental physics, chemistry, or biology
associatedwithnuclearwastesanditsproperplacementintheenvironmentopened-
orclosed-proposedremedialalternatives,Greenbergwasfocusedonaparallelbut
different task. He was documenting the implications of precisely those same
changes for the economic regions near nuclear facilities and how those activities
createdpatternsofbotheconomicgrowthand/ordependence.
Similarly his survey work was revealing parallel developments in how those
projectshiftswerebeingperceived.Andhemadeanexceedinglyimportantfinding
Foreword ix
about those who livenear nuclear facilities—that familiarity with nuclear activity
and the people and organizations who conducted it typically lead those nearby to
perceive, in terms of safety, that nuclear facility activity at the neighboring site
has been competently performed and is, with qualifications, acceptable to them.
These neighbors simply have higher levels of trust in nuclear waste management
and all things nuclear than does the general population. And Greenberg through
thoselongitudinalstudiestrackedovertimetheriseandsometimethedeterioration
oftrustindefinableaspectsofdiversewastemanagementactivities.On-siteworkis
moretrustedthantransportationofwaste,forexample.
Overthose17years,andparticularlysince2004,theactualachievementsofthe
projects intended to bring nuclear waste under effective management and control
have rarely matched the expectations of their implementers, regulators, or those
who provided funds to them. Acrimony has been persistent. Success in clarifying
and implementing either new locations for or approved physical–chemical forms
andgeologicsettingsforthefinaldispositionofwastewasexceedinglyrare.Some
smallerDOEsiteshavesenttheirwastetothebigones—butalwayswithdifficulty
andagainstsomeresistance.
Yet while the nation was fruitlessly trying to overcome having constructed
a “Fuel cycle to Nowhere,”1 relative calm has existed between those charged
with the ongoing conduct or regulation of the very long-term efforts to complete
themajorwastemanagementtheycouldactuallyimplementevenwhentheydidnot
know where the waste was ultimately going. And correspondingly, the unique
social structures (site specific advisory boards) established by the Department of
Energy both nationally and locally to mediate and communicate between the site
professionalsandthelaypopulationsintheplaceswherenuclearfacilitieshadbeen
constructedhasworkedsurprisinglyeffectively.
Indeed, Greenberg’s work has helped inspire and focus CRESP’s own very
successfuleffortstomakeinformedconsentachievedthroughactivepublicpartic-
ipationincompletelytransparentprocessesthehallmarkofitsowneffortsactually
to resolve seemingly intractable controversies into which the Department and its
stakeholdershavegottenthemselves.Notably,whenDOEandthepeopleandstate
of Alaska could agree on almost nothing about how to “close” Amchitka, the
AleutianIslandsitewheretheUSAhadconductedthreemajorundergroundnuclear
tests, CRESP actually carried out an expedition and a major testing program to
clarify whether radionuclides from those test sites had leaked into the maritime
environmentwherebothnativesubsistenceandcommercialfishingmightbeatrisk.
Resolution of the Amchitka closure challenge was accomplished through stake-
holder engagement by CRESP throughout the program—from initial definition
of the needed science plan, to Aleut participants on the sampling expedition, to
extensive dialogue about the results of our findings through a series of public
1FromthetitleFuelCycletoNowhere:U.S.LawandPolicyonNuclearWasteoftheVanderbilt
UniversityPressbookauthoredbyCRESPresearchersRichardBurlesonStewartandJaneBloom
Stewart(Nashville,2011).