Speaker
Description
Since the beginnings of commercial nuclear power production, and especially over the past 25 years, there have been numerous initiatives assessing the potential role of multinational repositories (MNRs) in enhancing global safety, security and environmental protection. Increasingly, it has also been increasingly realised that an MNR would also enormously benefit countries with no nuclear power but with nuclear technology applications in research medicine and industry also generate radioactive wastes for which geological disposal is the only safe solution. This paper looks back over these studies highlighting the key issues they brought forward and commenting on the reception these received in the nuclear community. It identifies milestones in the international legislation related to multinational disposal and in radioactive waste management policy decisions taken by individual States. Important issues that have proven contentious are discussed. These include ethical debates regarding MNR’s, impacts of MNR’s on national geological disposal programmes, economic benefits and risks associated with hosting an MNR, and the big question of siting strategy. The paper also summarises current MNR activities being worked on by organisations such as the IAEA, EC, IFNEC, and the Arius and ERDO Associations. Finally, suggestions are put forward on progress that might be made on MNR’s in the coming one or two decades, during which the vast majority of States requiring access to safe geological disposal will not yet have implemented any national repository.
| Speaker's title | Mr |
|---|---|
| Affiliation | Arius Association |
