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Radioactive Waste and Responsibility toward Future Generations

par Kermisch, Céline ;Depaus, Christophe
Référence Risk and Responsibility in Context, Taylor and Francis, page (214-228)
Publication Publié, 2023-01

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Résumé :

The risks of radioactive waste extend over an extremely long time - up to one million years. This unparalleled time frame raises the issue of responsibility toward future generations in a brand-new way and requires innovative policy and technical responses to address it. The aim of this chapter is to analyze these strategies. Therefore, institutional responses are studied, notably those from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Nuclear Energy Agency, the International Commission on Radiological Protection and the European Union. Then, deep geological disposal - the technical solution for which there is an international consensus - is considered. This option is expected to provide an equal level of protection for both future generations and current ones. Moreover, being passively safe, it does not require active human intervention to guarantee its safety in the long term. It thereby addresses the issue of our responsibility toward future generations as required institutionally. After considering this solution, this chapter scrutinizes the implementation of retrievability in the light of our responsibility toward future generations. The analysis shows that, from an ethical perspective, a retrievable geological disposal constitutes a strategy that does not impact all future generations in a similar way, and that implementing an unconstrained retrievable geological disposal is not the obvious choice in that respect.