scholarly journals Lessons from archaeology and heritage studies for the long-term preservation of records, knowledge and memory concerning deep geological disposal sites for nuclear waste

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 287-288
Author(s):  
Cornelius Holtorf ◽  
Anders Högberg
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Nuclear Waste ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Geological Disposal ◽  
Heritage Studies ◽  
The Future ◽  
Deep Geological Disposal

Abstract. Safe disposal of nuclear waste in deep geological repositories requires secure knowledge transfer or knowledge recovery in time spans of many tens of thousands of years. Never before has any detailed record, knowledge or memory been reliably preserved or recovered over comparable time periods. This challenge has been extensively addressed since the late 1980s, initially during the SANDIA workshops in the USA and more recently in the Nuclear Energy Agency/Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (NEA/OECD) project on Preservation of Records, Knowledge and Memory Across Generations (Schröder, 2019). Experts from many disciplines including engineering, the natural sciences, information technology, social studies of science and technology, semiotics, public management, and design as well as artists have contributed to these discussions. Some scholars from the humanities have been involved in working on these issues, especially in recent decades. At the same time, much of the existing work has drawn on assumptions about human history, archaeological monuments and cultural heritage that have been scrutinized and deemed deeply flawed by Joyce (2020). The authors of the present paper are archaeologists and cultural heritage experts. For the past decade, they have been working with the challenge of preserving records, knowledge and memory concerning deep geological disposal sites for nuclear waste (Holtorf and Högberg, 2021). From the perspective of the human sciences, in particular archaeology and heritage studies, the unique task at hand involves not only the previously recognized challenges that require consideration of long-term material durability, linguistic intelligibility, and appropriate sense-making of any communicated information but also two challenges not previously addressed: Human action as informed by cultural and social processes. In designing of various long-term mechanisms, we risk overlooking that what people will do is not going to be governed by mechanics. How human beings learn, reason, value, decide, and act is informed by specific cultural and social processes creating context and meaning. We must avoid ignoring these complexities governing human thinking and agency. This challenge requires more work on understanding how sentient and intelligent beings like humans act in variable contexts across time and space. Our anticipatory assumptions. A proverb states that “nothing ages faster than the future”. In making assumptions about future generations' understandings, meanings, and significances of our nuclear waste we risk “colonizing” the future, fail to embrace variability over time, and miss realizing multiple futures and emerging conditions. We must therefore not foreclose uncertain futures but instead create circumstances favorable for change and transformation of relevant knowledge and memory. This challenge requires more work with processes of translation between generations. The challenges of assessing our anticipatory assumptions and understanding how humans act will also need to be addressed in transmitting records, knowledge and memory for the benefit of future generations.

Specific outcomes of the research on the spent fuel long-term evolution in interim dry storage and deep geological disposal

2006 ◽  
Vol 352 (1-3) ◽  
pp. 246-253 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Ferry ◽  
C. Poinssot ◽  
C. Cappelaere ◽  
L. Desgranges ◽  
C. Jegou ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Long Term Evolution ◽  
Spent Fuel ◽  
Geological Disposal ◽  
Dry Storage ◽  
Term Evolution ◽  
Deep Geological Disposal

Knowledge, meaning, and the world's great challenges

2004 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 182-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
David F. Ford
Keyword(s):  
Future Generations ◽  
Teaching And Research ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
The Core ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Future ◽  
Value Ethics ◽  
The University ◽  
Critical Questioning

The future of Cambridge University is discussed in the context of the current British and global situation of universities, the main focus being on what the core concerns of a major university should be at this time. After raising issues related to core intellectual values (truth-seeking, rationality in argument, balanced judgement, integrity, linguistic precision and critical questioning) and the sustaining of a long-term social and intellectual ecology, four main challenges are identified: uniting teaching and research fruitfully; interrelating fields of knowledge appropriately across a wide range of disciplines; contributing to society in ways that are responsible towards the long-term flourishing of our world; and sustaining and reinventing collegiality so that the university can be a place where intensive, disciplined conversations within and across generations can flourish. The latter leads into questions of polity, governance and management. Finally, the inseparability of teaching, research and knowledge from questions of meaning, value, ethics, collegiality and transgenerational responsibility leads to proposing ‘wisdom’ as an integrating concept. The relevant sources of wisdom available are both religious and secular, and in a world that is complexly both religious and secular we need universities that can be places where both are done justice. Given the seriousness and long-term nature of the conflicts associated with religious and secular forces in our world, it is especially desirable that universities in their education of future generations contribute to the healing of such divisions.

scholarly journals A Critical Review of the Recent Improvements in Minimizing Nuclear Waste by Innovative Gas-Cooled Reactors

2008 ◽  
Vol 2008 ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Bomboni ◽  
N. Cerullo ◽  
G. Lomonaco ◽  
V. Romanello
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Waste ◽  
Critical Review ◽  
Simplified Models ◽  
Geological Disposal ◽  
Fuel Cycles ◽  
Multiple Recycling ◽  
High Level ◽  
Coupling Current ◽  
The University

This paper presents a critical review of the recent improvements in minimizing nuclear waste in terms of quantities, long-term activities, and radiotoxicities by innovative GCRs, with particular emphasis to the results obtained at the University of Pisa. Regarding these last items, in the frame of some EU projects (GCFR, PUMA, and RAPHAEL), we analyzed symbiotic fuel cycles coupling current LWRs with HTRs, finally closing the cycle by GCFRs. Particularly, we analyzed fertile-free and Pu-Th-based fuel in HTR: we improved plutonium exploitation also by optimizing Pu/Th ratios in the fuel loaded in an HTR. Then, we chose GCFRs to burn residual MA. We have started the calculations on simplified models, but we ended them using more “realistic” models of the reactors. In addition, we have added the GCFR multiple recycling option usingkeffcalculations for all the reactors. As a conclusion, we can state that, coupling HTR with GCFR, the geological disposal issues concerning high-level radiotoxicity of MA can be considerably reduced.

scholarly journals Muuseumid ja pärand: inimesekeskse pärandihalduse poole

2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 145-164
Author(s):  
Kurmo Konsa ◽  
Kaie Jeeser
Keyword(s):  
National Level ◽  
Integrated Treatment ◽  
Living Environment ◽  
Heritage Management ◽  
Heritage Conservation ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Past ◽  
Heritage Studies ◽  
The Future ◽  
Different Levels

Museums are memory institutions. They serve to collect, study, preserve and mediate to the public culturally valuable objects related to human beings and their living environment. They bolster the formation of social, communal and family identities; they function as public memory institutions, supporting education and scientific research and, of course, museums provide entertainment and recreation. In this article, we look at museums from the perspective of heritage studies, and for our analysis, we use the following three dimensions: heritage objects, levels of society and processes of heritage management. Our objective is to present a conceptual framework which would highlight more clearly the connections between heritage and museums and which would lay a foundation for interlinking some theoretical concepts from heritage studies and museology and help to improve practical heritage management. Museums and heritage are closely, if not inextricably, linked. A museum’s connection with heritage has always been one of the important features that defines it. At the same time, the relationships between various heritage institutions and their links with broader heritage paradigms have not been sufficiently researched. Since the second half of the 20th century, the number of objects and phenomena considered to be heritage has dramatically increased. Museums endeavor to keep pace with these changes, and thus more new museums are being established and the range of collection items is expanding. For a long time, discussions of museums encompassed only national-level museums. This is due to the fact that national museums are the oldest of such institutions to have emerged, and on the other hand, it is museums at the national level that have attained the most influential position in the heritage landscape. At the same time museologists have paid rather scant attention to museum institutions at other levels. Private museums and personal collections have not received sufficient museological consideration even though they form a significant amount of social heritage and are the most natural to people, and often the most important for them too. Likewise, community and local government memory institutions have only recently become of interest to museology, which is also the case even in the context of world heritage. All activities connected to heritage may be summed up with the term ’heritage management’. Heritage management incorporates principles and practices connected to the identification, preservation, documentation, interpretation and presentation of objects of historical, natural, scientific or other interest. The processes of heritage management can be grouped according to their focus: object-based, value-based and people-centered. These approaches do not follow a specific chronological order and are not necessarily exclusive of one another. Although they come in a certain chronological sequence, all the approaches are currently used depending on the context and purpose of the inquiry. These approaches reflect an increasingly more comprehensive and integrated treatment of heritage management. People-centered heritage management is a dynamic social process which necessarily includes diverse perspectives on the value of the heritage. Museums have made much better progress in producing multi-perspective views than heritage conservation has by comparison. One of the reasons is that the museum field is not as rigidly defined by law or regulated by bureaucracy as heritage conservation is. Heritage management consists of a continuous re-creation of the heritage, and here again, museums are the places where such re-creations characteristically occur. It is in museums that we continually place objects in new contexts and examine how that impacts people. Each exhibition is a new interpretation of the object, offering a treatment of it from a novel perspective. In fact the exact same process takes place with regard to all other heritage objects and phenomena, but perhaps within less controllable and observable contexts. A key issue for heritage management is the introduction of sustainable and more inclusive management methods. Museological theory and museum practice offer several examples here. People must be involved in the management of heritage at each stage, starting from the definition of what it precisely is and ending with its interpretation. It is important to develop and implement relevant practices. The idea of a participatory museum has made significant gains in this direction. People-centered heritage management entails, above all, the creation of future-oriented values and meanings. In a sense, the perspective must shift from the past to the future. Heritage is not a thing of the past, but of the future. It is a social and cultural resource that forms the basis for our plans for the future. We believe that this is the primary function of the heritage. Heritage management is the reinterpretation of contemporary social and cultural realities by using interpretations of the past selected for this purpose. Its objective is to change the present into a desirable future. Here it is important to take into account different types of heritage as well as different levels of society. Heritage stories must be like a symphony that incorporates all the participants from all of the different levels of society.

scholarly journals Fundamental Research on Radiochemistry of Geological Nuclear Waste Disposal

2020 ◽  
Vol 74 (12) ◽  
pp. 1000-1009
Author(s):  
Sergey V. Churakov ◽  
Wolfgang Hummel ◽  
Maria Marques Fernandes
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Waste ◽  
Waste Disposal ◽  
Nuclear Power ◽  
Background Concentration ◽  
Chemical Thermodynamics ◽  
Deep Geological Disposal ◽  
Fundamental Research ◽  
Intermediate Storage ◽  
Paul Scherrer

Currently, 5 · 1019 Bq of radioactive waste originating from the use of nuclear power for energy production, and medicine, industry and research, is maintained in Switzerland at intermediate storage facilities. Deep geological disposal of nuclear waste is considered as the most reliable and sustainable long-term solution worldwide. Alike the other European countries, the Swiss waste disposal concept embarks on the combination of engineered and geological barriers. The disposal cell is a complex geochemical system. The radionuclide mobility and consequently radiological impact depend not only on their chemical speciation but also on the background concentration of other stable nuclides and their behaviour in the natural environment. The safety assessment of the repository is thus a complex multidisciplinary problem requiring knowledge in chemical thermodynamics, structural chemistry, fluid dynamics, geo- and radiochemistry. Broad aspects of radionuclide thermodynamics and geochemistry are investigated in state-of-the-art radiochemical laboratories at the Paul Scherrer Institute. The research conducted over the last 30 years has resulted in a fundamental understanding of the radionuclides release, retention and transport mechanism in the repository system.

NUMO-RMS: A Practical Requirements Management System for the Long-Term Management of the Deep Geological Disposal Project

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hiroyoshi Ueda ◽  
Satoru Suzuki ◽  
Katsuhiko Ishiguro ◽  
Kiyoshi Oyamada ◽  
Shoko Yashio ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Radioactive Waste ◽  
Waste Disposal ◽  
Management System ◽  
Radioactive Waste Disposal ◽  
Development Work ◽  
Requirements Management ◽  
Geological Disposal ◽  
Case Research ◽  
Deep Geological Disposal

NUMO (Nuclear Waste Management Organization of Japan) has the responsibility for implementing deep geological disposal of high-level (HLW) and transuranic (TRU) radioactive waste from the Japanese nuclear programme. A formal Requirements Management System (RMS) is planned to efficiently and effectively support the computerised implementation of the management strategy and the methodology required to drive the step-wise siting processes, and the following repository operational phase. The RMS will help in the comprehensive management of the decision-making processes in the geological disposal project, in change management as the disposal system is optimised, in driving projects such as the R&D programme efficiently, and in maintaining structured records regarding past decisions, all of which lead to soundness of the project in terms of long-term continuity. The system is planned to have information handling and management functions using a database that includes the decisions/requirements in the programme under consideration, the way in which these are structured in terms of the decision-making process and other associated information. A two-year development programme is underway to develop and enhance an existing trial RMS to a practical system. Functions for change management, history management and association with the external timeline management system are being implemented in the system development work. The database format is being improved to accommodate the requirements management data relating to the facility design and to safety assessment of the deep geological repository. This paper will present an outline of the development work with examples to demonstrate the system’s practicality. In parallel with the system/database developments, a case research of the use of requirements management in radioactive waste disposal projects was undertaken to identify key issues in the development of an RMS for radioactive waste disposal and specify a number of use cases to guide the overall development of the system. The findings of the case research will also be shown in the paper to provide general information on the application of an RMS in a radioactive waste disposal programme, the difficulties of successful implementation and suggestions on how these difficulties can be overcome.

Experience With Technical Advisory Groups in the Japanese HLW Disposal Programme

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hiroyuki Tsuchi ◽  
Kazumi Kitayama ◽  
Akira Deguchi ◽  
Yoshiaki Takahashi ◽  
Toshiaki Ohe ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
International Experience ◽  
Technical Support ◽  
The Other ◽  
Advisory Committees ◽  
Geological Disposal ◽  
Advisory Groups ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Future ◽  
Deep Geological Disposal ◽  
Set Up

Recognising the benefits to be gained by integrating national and international experience into a rapidly growing programme, NUMO already in June 2001 set up both domestic and international technical advisory committees. These groups supported NUMO during the time when many of the basic, often innovative, concepts that characterise the Japanese deep geological disposal programme were developed. Overall experience with those technical advisory committees was very positive: most of the essential programme elements have been put in place and, in some technical areas, NUMO is now up at the front along with other leading programmes. On the other hand, after a decade, NUMO recognized the necessity to revisit their roles and rethink the overall NUMO policy on technical support, advice and review. This paper provides a summary of NUMO’s experience with advisory committees and an outlook on the future use of such bodies.

scholarly journals Assessment of Permian Zubers as the Host Rock for Deep Geological Disposal

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 2239
Author(s):  
Leszek Lankof
Keyword(s):  
Radioactive Waste ◽  
Rock Salt ◽  
Host Rock ◽  
Nuclear Power ◽  
Spent Nuclear Fuel ◽  
Renewable Energy Sources ◽  
Geological Disposal ◽  
Lithostratigraphic Units ◽  
Deep Geological Disposal

Together with renewable energy sources, nuclear power represents an important contribution to a sustainable energy mix in many countries and has an important impact on sustainable development. Nuclear energy production is also a source of high-level radioactive waste (HLW) and spent nuclear fuel (SNF), which require special concern. Disposal in deep geological formations is one of the solutions for the long-term management of HLW and SNF. It requires the development of a concept ensuring long-term safe isolation of waste and its validation applying the safety case methodology, which is a formal compilation of evidence, analyses and arguments that quantify and justify a claim that the repository will be safe. The results of laboratory testing of a potential repository host rock are an important component of the evidence that helps in the safety assessment of the deep geological disposal concept. This paper presents results of research focused on the physical, geomechanical and sorption properties of the Brown and Red Zuber unit rocks from the Kłodawa Salt Mine in Poland, which together with rock salt are an important component of Polish salt domes. The Brown and Red Zubers are typical evaporite lithostratigraphic units for the Polish part of the Zechstein Basin. They consist of halite (15–85%) and water-insoluble minerals, such as anhydrite, clay minerals, carbonates, quartz and feldspar, which occurred in varying proportions in the tested samples. The properties of the zuber rocks have been compared with those of rock salt, which is considered a suitable host rock for deep geological disposal of radioactive waste.

A New Approach

2000 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans Tammemagi
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Surface Water ◽  
Waste Disposal ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
Minimal Risk ◽  
New Approach ◽  
The Future ◽  
Practical Guidelines ◽  
Basic Axiom

We need waste disposal methods that allow the human race to live on this planet in harmony with nature, preserving our resources and habitat and leaving a legacy for our children and grandchildren that does not deprive them of opportunities. These changes will not come easily; they will require resolve and foresight. Just as a mathematician develops the proof to a mathematical theorem, we must start from a basic axiom, and step by step, following a logical progression, we must build a practical framework for waste management. We started this task in chapter 2, where we derived three general principles from the axiom of sustainable development. Can we apply these general principles to develop practical guidelines—first, to overcome the shortcomings of existing landfills, and second, to find other, innovative disposal methods that will conform with sustainable development? Let us look at each of the three principles in turn. Human health and the environment must be protected, both now and in the future. This principle is fundamental and places important constraints on the siting and design of disposal facilities, and also on the form of the waste. In particular, the final four words, “and in the future,” are very important. This principle can be satisfied in two ways: by reducing the toxicity of the wastes so they pose minimal risk, or by containing wastes so that they cannot escape and cause harm. In some cases, the latter method includes controlled leakage at a rate that the environment can assimilate without long-term degradation. Wastes must be managed so that no burden is placed on future generations and they are not deprived of the opportunities we have had. In other words, our grandchildren should not have to spend their valuable resources to solve our waste problems, nor should they be denied resources because our generation has depleted them. Neither should their health and environment be placed at risk because of our actions. The main impacts of landfills on future generations are the requirement to provide ongoing guardianship and maintenance; the loss of valuable land; and impairment of groundwater, surface water, and the atmosphere.

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