EDRAM Principles and Views
- The burdens and responsibility for taking care of radioactive waste should not be passed on to future generations.
- Radioactive waste management is a social and technical issue.
- There is a need for flexibility and open and ethical involvement of stakeholders in decision making.
- Development of long-term management solutions should proceed irrespective of the future of nuclear power generation.
- Volumes of spent nuclear fuel and high level waste produced are small and manageable.
- Spent
fuel and HLW is being safely stored on an interim basis and can be
continued to be safely stored using current practices for many decades.
- Spent Fuel and HLW is highly regulated and subject to multiple oversight authority of governments.
- Many
countries have R&D programs on long-term spent fuel management to
develop improved methods and techniques. Over 10B$ US has already been
spent engaging over 20,000 scientists worldwide.
- Several
countries have concluded that geological disposal is technically safe
and feasible. Some countries are implementing geological disposal and
have identified potential disposal repository sites.
- Alternative
management strategies are being studied in a number of countries, often
within a framework of environmental impact assessment.
- A step-wise approach in decision-making is being used to address long-term management of spent nuclear fuel and HLW.
- Financial
provisions are being made for radioactive waste management. Long-term
costs are recovered from current electricity consumers and not passed
on to taxpayers or future generations.
last update: 02.4.2008