RD&D-Programme 2004 - SKB

The consultations and decision processes created during the feasibility study period are analyzed
in the project. However, the main focus is on the ongoing site investigations in Oskarshamn
and Östhammar, where interviews are being conducted and participant observations are being
analyzed along with written material.
• Resource or waste? International decision processes relating to spent nuclear fuel.
The project, which is being carried out by the History of Science and Technology Department
at KTH, is aimed at clarifying and analyzing decision processes relating to nuclear waste in an
international and historical perspective. How have decisions been negotiated, and what groups
have participated in the process? In what way does the Swedish decision process differ from the
decision processes in, for example, Finland, France and Germany? By studying several countries
from these two perspectives, the study will contribute to insights regarding which factors
influence these decisions, what role has been played by the political structure and the public’s
attitude towards nuclear waste, and how public attitudes towards spent fuel have changed with
time. The project will last for two years, starting in the autumn of 2005.
It will be carried out by means of interviews with key persons in the selected countries. KTH’s
networks and contacts with historians of technology in other countries will be used in different
ways. Articles and other publications will also be studied.
Public opinion and attitudes – psychosocial aspects
• Identity and security in time and space – cultural perspective on the existential dimensions
of the nuclear waste issue.
The research project will be conducted by the Human Ecology Division at Lund University.
It will start in the autumn of 2004 and last for one year.
Time and space are objectively measurable dimensions but are at the same time experienced
in highly varied and subjective ways by different persons in different contexts. The nuclear
waste issue involves time spans and spatial distances that lie beyond the experiential frames of
reference of individual human beings. This is one of the reasons why the discussion concerning
final disposal of spent nuclear fuel is difficult to conduct in purely technical terms. It inevitably
touches upon existential questions regarding the duration of the world and the survival of
humanity.
In this project, tacit symbolic and experiential aspects of the debate concerning facilities for
management and disposal of nuclear waste will be studied in time and space. The project will
help improve people’s understanding of the terms for the siting of complex infrastructure
projects. The intention is to facilitate communication between experts, stakeholders and the
concerned local population through better knowledge of the cultural dimensions underlying
the different parties’ perspectives and standpoints. The project will attempt to identify specific
communicative problems that deserve special attention in future deliberations. In-depth and
follow-up interviews will be conducted with various parties.
• Nuclear waste – from energy resource to disposal problem.
The purpose of the project, which will be carried out by Theme Technology and Social Change
at Linköping University, is to study how opinion formation by the media in the nuclear waste
issue has changed on the national plane between the 1950s and today. The idea is to examine
how the waste problem has been interpreted and understood at different times by the various
parties who have taken an interest in the issue. The long-term historical shifts in value patterns
on the national level concerning proposed solutions to a common management problem have
never been studied before. Finding a solution to the nuclear waste issue is a project that spans
several generations, and it is therefore important to gain a better understanding of changes in
values over the long term.
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