A nuclear real-world experiment: Exploring the experimental mindsets of radioactive waste management organisations in France, Belgium and Canada

Abstract

Following the theoretical approach of Herbold (1995), Gross and Krohn (2005), and Van de Poel et al. (2017), this article argues that nuclear waste management is a real-world experiment. Based on this first assumption, we examine how radioactive waste management (RWM) organizations conceive or organize their experiments. Through three illustrative case studies in France, Belgium and Canada, we highlight how the RWM organizations obliged to participate in complex networks and unable to completely control the experimental process, adopt two different attitudes: an “open” or “closed” experimental mindset. We argue that these mindsets provide different answers to the questions: which main variables to focus on, how and who should design them, how to deal with conflicts and unexpected events, what are the justifications for participation and expert analysis, and what are the expected outputs and outcomes. The findings underline that although some RWM organizations have -at least since the participatory turn- had some ‘open’ mindset moments in some cases, they quickly revert to a closed mindset. We conclude by emphasizing the need for practitioners and scholars to further examine and evaluate the virtues of the open mindset when the experimenter assumes the program has a real-world experimental status. This status recognizes the limits of control over experimental conditions, allows for more substantial moral considerations when making technical choices before wider audiences and allows for collective sharing of responsibility, knowledge production and trade-offs over such a long-term and controversial program.

Do You Care About High-Level Radioactive Waste and Spent Nuclear Fuel? Opportunities for Co-Constructing an Appropriate Governance-Ecosystem in Belgium

“…Both passed as low key, inner-circle events, to settle formal EU obligations, and no public connection was made to the Waste Plan debate initiated by ONDRAF-NIRAS in 2011 (Parotte & Delvenne, 2015;Schröder et al, 2015). Although the SEA public enquiry in Spring 2020 appears to have attracted record numbers of responses (ONDRAF-NIRAS, personal communication, September 29, 2021), one could question the appropriateness of such outreach in the unprecedented time of the full lockdown during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic (Parotte, 2020b).…”

The Power and Limits of Classification: Radioactive Waste Categories as Reshaped by Disposal Options

“…reprocessing of spent fuel) as the main option to manage HLW, (2) the repository projects all face strong public opposition, and (3) the RWM organizations in these countries adapt their management practices to include the public and experts in different ways. 7 The added value of the descriptive comparison of the three national radioactive waste classifications systems is that it provides contrasts and reveals patterns that might otherwise remain unperceived. 8 When designing the methodology, I decided to combine different qualitative methods to ensure in-depth analysis and the triangulation of primary and secondary data collection 9 (see Table I for an exhaustive summary).…”

Exploring Frictions of Participatory Innovation between Sites and Scales

“…This theoretical concept came from analysing technoscientific innovation: in such an experiment, a technology, innovation or method passes from laboratory-controlled conditions for testing in real-life settings. What counts as 'real-life' can be ambiguous or contested (Levidow and Carr 2007;Gross 2016;Engels et al, 2019;Parotte 2020). Much remains to be done to understand how innovation is made available for experimentation, and what experimenting in real-world settings means.…”