The Power and Limits of Classification: Radioactive Waste Categories as Reshaped by Disposal Options

Abstract

How does naming an object affect the way it is or could be managed? This paper examines and compares classification systems for radioactive waste applied by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and in France, Canada, and Belgium. I analyze how the relevant actors classify radioactive objects, and in so doing, prescribe their management. By comparing and describing four established classification systems, I highlight how the IAEA and national classification systems for radioactive waste systematically associate the “high-level radioactive waste” category with the “deep geological disposal” option. Building on Science and Technology Studies, I argue that creating categories of high-level radioactive waste does more than just describe different types of wastes: It also prescribes certain management options (e.g., deep geological disposal), thereby opening up certain options for action and closing down others. I underline how uncertainties remain about what to do with radioactive wastes in blurred, unstabilized categories that are classified and named differently by different actors. Examples of “blurred” categories include spent nuclear fuel from uranium oxide and spent nuclear fuel from mixed-oxide fuel. Should these categories be managed as a waste or as a resource? Should their common fate be the deep geological disposal? Revealing the power and limits of a top-down classification system to manage radioactive waste, I maintain that remaining uncertainties could reverse the dynamics of imagining a final long-term repository option for a given category. In the absence of stabilized categories, the deep geological disposal option becomes the primary mode of classifying objects as either waste or a resource. This analysis flips the conventional notion of high-level radioactive waste on its head: Instead of asking what management option should be preferred to deal with nuclear waste, the chosen disposal option has a decisive influence on what counts as radioactive waste in the first place. Nuclear engineers and top nuclear managers are invited to take a fresh look at the limits of their radioactive waste classification systems. They could potentially consider a new focus (the disposal option) and new allies (such as geological disposal designers, nongovernmental organizations, and civil society) to overcome them.

Keywords:

• Radioactive waste classification system
• blurred category
• high-level radioactive waste
• deep geological disposal
• comparative analysis

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Denia Djokic from the Belfer Center from Science and International Affairs (Harvard University) for our exciting talks about the consequences of the classification of nuclear waste in the United States and elsewhere in the world and for her valuable and constructive comments on this paper. Many thanks also to Jean-Baptiste Fanouillère (University of Liege) and the three constructive reviewers for their very useful proofreading and their challenging comments. This work was supported by the Liege University [CDE/AV/2012/1732]; ONDRAF/NIRAS Project 2012-2016 [CDE/AV/2012/1732].

Notes

^a This paper builds on and extends some of the author’s previous reflections published in French on this topic in 2018.

^b The concept of blurred category should not be confused with the residual category, which is a category per se in the current national radioactive waste classification system (mostly called “other”).

^c For example, Canada is one of the largest suppliers of uranium in the world, supplying 22% of the world’s natural uranium in 2017 (behind Kazakhstan 39%) (Ref. 15). Canada therefore has to manage waste from mines and uranium extraction and concentration plants (that are a category of waste in their own right), which is not the case in France and Belgium.

^d Even in an inspection of the form of waste classification, the IAEA suggests that its member states change the terminologies of the categories of radioactive waste already accepted “as little as possible.”¹³

^e The IAEA safety standards distinguish two classification systems: the categorization of radioactive sources and the categorization of radioactive waste. Here, I focus on the second categorization system.

^f The French and the Canadian governments have already validated deep geological disposal as the long-term option. The site selection process launched in 2010 by the Canadian waste management agency is still ongoing. Two communities are still in the running to host the final repository. In France, the process of siting deep geological disposal (called the Cigeo project) is the most advanced European programs after those of Finland and Sweden. An area has already been identified, and the first industrial operations are planned for 2025 (Ref. 20). Belgium is a special case in this respect because the successive governments have not yet reached a decision in favor of one or other long-term management options for this type of waste. However, since 2011, the Belgian RWM organization (ONDRAF) has clearly shown its preference for deep geological disposal in clay for this type of waste.

^g As ANDRA mentions on its website, “waste without a waste stream filière (DSF) is intended to integrate one of the six categories possibly after treatment or characterization” [in the ANDRA “inventory” at https://www.andra.fr/les-dechets-radioactifs/tout-comprendre-sur-la-radioactivite/inventaire (accessed March 10, 2020)].

^h There are two hypotheses that it might be interesting to confirm in future research to explain the absence of blurred categories in Canada. The first relates to their energy policy choices. Canada does not reprocess its spent fuel (therefore it has no MOX spent fuel) and its policy is to classify its spent fuel as the HLW category. The second could be related to the greater inclusion of the two categories “LLW and Mining waste related to uranium treatment.”

ⁱ Spent fuel was first reprocessed before the government decided on a moratorium on this subject in 1993 (Ref. 26). There is therefore both spent fuel and HLW from spent fuel in Belgium.