Half-lives/Afterlives: Labor, Technology, Nature, and the Nuclear Decommissioning Business

Project Information

NUCLEARDECOM

Grant agreement ID: 101025603

DOI

10.3030/101025603

Project closed

EC signature date 15 April 2021

Start date 1 October 2021

End date 30 November 2023

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 162 806,40

EU contribution

€ 162 806,40

Coordinated by

LUDWIG-MAXIMILIANS-UNIVERSITAET MUENCHEN
Germany

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - NUCLEARDECOM (Half-lives/Afterlives: Labor, Technology, Nature, and the Nuclear Decommissioning Business)

Reporting period: 2021-10-01 to 2023-09-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Half-Lives/Afterlives: Labor, Technology, Nature, and the Nuclear Decommissioning Business (NUCLEARDECOM thereafter) started from an apparently simple question: what happens to nuclear power plants and facilities after they become obsolete and cease operating? According to the World Nuclear Association, more than two hundred nuclear facilities have been retired globally, while the IAEA estimates that of the four hundred and twenty-three active reactors today, around a half will be shut down by 2050. Moving its first steps as an ill-defined field of applied engineering, since the 1970s nuclear decommissioning (the safe maintenance and disposal of obsolete nuclear facilities) has become an integral and fast developing interdisciplinary subfield within the nuclear industry, and across regulatory agencies. Despite the magnitude of the problem, debates about decommissioning nuclear facilities have been almost exclusively shaped by experts and policymakers. A few historical accounts of nuclear decommissioning exist, but they are often written by experts who describe the development of the field as a progression of technical achievements and lessons learned, paying only marginal attention to other controversial aspects, such as the socioecological implications of decommissioning projects. NUCLEARDECOM's first objective is to document and analyze the history of nuclear decommissioning and the socioecological dimensions of past and present nuclear decommissioning projects to stimulate larger public debates that include the perspectives of affected communities and consider the implications for society and the environment more broadly. The project has focused on three specific research objectives: 1) Reconstructing the history of nuclear decommissioning sociotechnical and political debates from the 1970s to the present; 2) Mapping out the emergence of global decommissioning markets and expertise; 3) Conducting fieldwork at nuclear decommissioning sites to understand the impact of decommissioning projects on local communities and the environment.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The first part of the project (October 2021-October 2022) consisted in archival research, with the goal of retrieving documentation about the early history of nuclear decommissioning. Available documents cover mostly the US debate, where decommissioning became one of the most controversial aspects of nuclear power generation during the 1970s and the 1980s. European cases, thus, have been explored more thoroughly through the history of specific sites (in Italy and Germany). The PI relied on various sources, such as the ILL services of the University of Munich and the Bayern State Library, and the archival services of the Minnesota Historical Society. In Italy, municipal archives in the towns of Trino Vercellese, Saluggia, and Latina were consulted. While originally planned to take place only during the first year of the project, archival research has expanded through the entire duration of the fellowship given the voluminous material found.

During the second part of the fellowship (October 2022-October 2023) the PI met (in person and through video conferences) experts and activists involved in decommissioning projects at Saluggia, Trino Vercellese, Latina, Isar 1, Tihange (Belgium), and Diablo Canyon (California) and Pilgrim (Massachusetts). Visits inside decommissioning nuclear plants took place at Trino Vercellese and Latina (Italy), and Mühleberg (Switzerland). The PI gained a better understanding of the number of factors shaping decommissioning projects: unique features and challenges of site environmental characteristics, socioeconomic and political contexts, regulatory context, and reactor technical designs, which demand ad hoc decommissioning strategies. The research has extended into the exploration of expert communities’ approaches and debates on decommissioning. The PI attended several expert conferences and technical workshops. Participating to these events gave the PI the possibility to better understand the decommissioning cultures (plural) that exist across different national contexts, and to gauge the distance that often exist between how experts look at decommissioning and how local communities experience the uncertainties connected to the long socioecological transition involved in decommissioning projects.

The material and the results of the actions have been openly discussed through public outlets, academic conferences and other dissemination activities, for a total of 12 events.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Evidence collected during archival searches, interviews, site visits, and at international expert conferences over the past two years, indicates that decommissioning knowledge and expertise did not progress in a linear fashion. Until the mid 1970s nuclear regulators and industry thought only tangentially about decommissioning as nuclear power plants were not designed having in mind that one day they would shut down and retire.

Today, nuclear decommissioning is an internationally recognized, regulated, and economically remunerative sub-field, but many questions that shaped early debates in the 1970s remain unanswered. One of the most controversial aspects is related to the costs involved in the dismantling operations of nuclear facilities. If nuclear decommissioning and waste disposal costs are not put into the equation, it is difficult to understand whether nuclear power generation is economically competitive with other energy sources, especially renewables.

Especially in the United States and in the UK, community involvement is often organized through Citizens Advisory Panels, and in Italy through so-called tavoli tecnici. A closer look at these organized forms of participation makes one wonder whether citizens advisory panels (which do not have any formal decision-making or deliberative power) are really enhancing and empowering community level involvement or rather are forms of rationalization of the public debate with the intent of preventing more adversarial forms of engagement with state agencies and corporate entities.

NUCLEARDECOM has produced the following outcomes: (1) a history of nuclear decommissioning practices since the 1970s; (2) mapping out the structure and operational challenges of the nuclear decommissioning industry in the US and in several EU countries; (3) exploring the social, economic, and ecological effects of decommissioning projects at specific sites. Three articles, covering each one of the research dimensions mentioned above, will be submitted for publication (open access) by the Spring of 2024. The PI contributed to building a network of researchers working on decommissioning in the UK, in Sweden and Norway, in Belgium, Italy, Germany, and in the US. To bring them together, the PI organized a conference panel which took place at the meeting of the European Society for Environmental History in Bern between 22-26 August 2023.

Given the complexity and the variety of nuclear decommissioning experiences that the PI has started to document and analyze, future actions will be required to include more case studies and explore dimensions that could not be analyzed before closure of the project.

Cooling Tower Nuclear Power Plant ISAR 2, Bayern, Germany. Credit: Davide Orsini (October 2022)