A Companion to the Philosophy of Technology

6. Nuclear Waste

Civil nuclear power has an important place in the history of energy as the first technology to internalize fully and to manage its wastes. In the early days, wastes were discarded using methods which included sea dumping, but these days the level of harm associated with civil nuclear power emissions is remarkably low when compared to issues such as greenhouse gas emissions, acid rain or particulates in urban air.

At the back end of the civil nuclear fuel cycle is a key choice: one possibility is the direct disposal of spent fuel, with the majority of its embedded energy untapped, and recycling, known as reprocessing, with its greater number of technical challenges and, conventionally, the separation of plutonium.

Nuclear waste is frequently described as the Achilles heel of commercial nuclear power. In 1976 in the UK the Royal Commission for Environmental Pollution, chaired by Lord Flowers, recommended in its sixth report that a resolution of the waste question should be found before the UK could embark on a renewed program of nuclear build. Although the recommendation had limited direct impact – Sizewell B PWR was constructed in the 1990s – it put in place the idea that nuclear renaissance requires a resolution of the waste question.

Britain’s approach to nuclear waste in the 1970s to 1990s has been characterized as one of Decide, Announce, Defend (Grimston and Beck 2002). This approach derailed in 1997 with the blocking of plans for an underground laboratory ...