THE TECHNICAL STABILITY OF THE SWEDISH NUCLEAR FUEL SAFETY PROGRAM

摘要

The objective of this study is to analyze the similarities between the system for management and deposition of spent nuclear fuel as outlined in The Nuclear Fuel Safety Program, Report 3 (abbreviated KBS-3) presented by the Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Corp. in May 1983 and the corresponding system described in the company's application in March 2011 for permission to build an encapsulation station in Oskarshamn and a final repository for high-level nuclear waste in Forsmark. Between these two descriptions, almost 28 years have passed with continuous efforts to improve the KBS-3 design as well as analyses of different alternative systems for nuclear waste management. During the close to three decades, the research efforts made in the Swedish program for nuclear waste alone have accumulated a total cost of approximately 8.7 billion Swedish crowns corresponding to about 1.4 billion US dollars. In addition, a number important organizational and social as well as political processes such as the siting of the final repository; the internationalization of the ownership of the Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Corp and the successive depolitization of nuclear energy problems in Swedish political life seem to have left only small marks on the system described in the 2011 application. In addition, the rather drastic developments in different relevant fields of knowledge such as material science, geology and earth sciences as well as surveillance and monitoring technologies have only led to slight changes of KBS-3 of 1983 when compared to the 2011 application. It is this unconformity, between on one hand the similarities of KBS-3 and the 2011 application and on the other hand the dynamic processes that have paved the road towards a method for nuclear management in Sweden, that is the point of departure here. There are a number of ways to understand it. One important clue is given by the observation that the Swedish KBS Program mirrors an engineering culture relying on advanced technologies in comparison to some other relevant countries. In such an environment, there is of course a risk of path-dependency and lock-in effects, something that has been observed regarding alternatives to KBS-3 such as Very Deep Holes. Furthermore, the stability of the solutions outlined in KBS-3 has been an important political statement in itself, assuring the reliance and firmness of the Swedish radioactive waste management program, a statement that had been less trustworthy had the solutions been the subject of constant adjustment and transformation. Such a statement of reliance and firmness has been even more efficient considering the general ideology of development and progress that has been connected to the concept of technology ever since its formation in American culture during the first decades of the twentieth century. Relying on stability of technological solutions is especially important in the Swedish case compared to other national contexts since Sweden's KBS Program has stressed a number of technological barriers in a final repository built in (crystalline) bedrock while some other countries, such as Germany, France, Belgium and Switzerland, instead have relied on deposition in repositories built in more homogenous bedrock such as clay shale in which technological barriers are less important.