Decision-making process on selection of management policy for high-level radioactive waste; As an example of Switzerland and United Kingdom

Osawa, Hideaki  ; Hirose, Yukio*; Onuma, Susumu*; Otomo, Shoji*

We compared decision-making process on selection of management policy for high-level radioactive waste between Switzerland and UK by document review. The decision-making was performed extraction of options, establishment of comparative criteria, assessment and selection of options in turn. As comparative criteria, safety and intergenerational fairness etc. were considered to be important. The position of 'Deal with it now by waste disposal' emphasizing the responsibility of the present generation had a trade-off relation with that of 'Leave it until later by long-term storage' emphasizing the rights of future generations. The sense of values, recusing HLW repository as so-called troublesome facility against future and present generation, appeared to be mitigated through the consideration of trade-off relation described above. As a result, both countries have chosen waste disposal considering reversibility of decisions and retrievability of radioactive waste.