Euradwaste '08 - EU Bookshop - Europa

PANEL DISCUSSION
Summary of the Panel Discussion Concluding
Session IV: Communication of risk and uncertainty
Panel members:
Claudio Pescatore (Chair), OECD/NEA
Mario Dionisi (Rapporteur), APAT, Italy
Daniel Galson, Galson Sciences Ltd, United Kingdom
Kaj Nilsson, Oskarshamn Municipalità, Sweden
Klaus-Jürgen Röhlig, Technische Univ. Clausthal, Germany
Nadia Zeleznik, ARAO, Slovenia
This report summarizes the outcome of session IV on communication of risk and uncertainty. The
session included a keynote speech by Dr Piet Zuidema, NAGRA, Switzerland, on "Communicating
safety of radioactive waste disposal – the perspective of a person responsible for science and technology".
This was followed by a panel discussion based on a set of questions.
The questions put forward for discussion were:
� How to communicate risk and uncertainties to a non-technical audience?
� What are the needs and expectations of citizens in this respect?.
� What role can natural and man-made analogues play?
� What level of technical detail is required?
� What is the role of and experiences with Peer Reviews?
� Is harmonisation necessary to reach public acceptance? What has to be harmonised (safety criteria,
dose limits, PA methodologies, timescale for deterministic calculations)?
� What is the key to enable the public to accept residual risks and uncertainties?
� Do we need better communication on geological disposal at the national/EU level?
Future development and implementation of geological repositories is strongly affected by the general
consensus and public acceptance.
The objective of the Session IV was to explore and debate means and approaches to manage the different
aspect of communicating the safety of geological repositories.
After a short address given by the Chairman, the session began with the keynote speech. The presentation
focussed on the different aspects of communication and particularly on the role and responsibilities
of the different actors involved, such as policy makers, regulators, industry and public
in the process of achieving trust and confidence. Besides the challenges that geological disposal
presents, such as for instance the demonstration of safety over the involved long timeframes, there
are also some opportunities in this kind of concept, such as: inherently favourable phenomena (decay,
geochemical behaviour, geological stability, natural analogues ….).
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