Addressing issues raised by stakeholders: impacts on process, content, and behaviour in waste organisations, the Finnish case

Over the years, when the site selection for final disposal of spent nuclear fuel in Finland was prepared, stakeholders frequently influenced the process. These inputs are shortly described in the following review. Import and export of nuclear waste was prohibited by the Parliament in 1994. Although in the beginning of 1990's it was expected that Finland would join EU and consequently the prohibition was needed to prevent potential waste import from EU and also for the sake of balance, the export as well, there was also requests by the green party to stop spent fuel transports from Loviisa power plant to Russia. Issue of prohibition of waste transports was, however, first taken up by Bellona in Nordic council in the beginning of 1990's strongly arguing the banning on transports. Later on the minister that represented Finland in Nordic Council brought up the issue in Finnish Government. When compiling the Environmental Impact Assessment program report, Posiva organised public interaction meetings in each of the site investigation municipalities. In these occasions local people brought up their concerns about the final disposal project. For instance, impact of final disposal to the image of municipality and to consumption of local farm products was discussed. Subsequently, these issues were introduced to social studies covered in the Environmental Impact Assessment report. Concept of retrievability was not originally a part of final disposal concept. When the Regulator (STUK) introduced the safety requirements, the Green minister in the Government insisted retrievability to be included in the requirements. In the final version of safety requirements, retrievability was a precondition for final disposal. When Posiva compiled the Environmental Assessment Program report for final disposal project, long-term storage of spent fuel was not assessed as a zero alternative for final disposal. This deficiency was noticed in a statement given by Finnish Environment Institute and later on when the actual EIA final report was compiled, zero alternative was introduced in the report. When Posiva filed the application for the Decision in Principle with the Government, the amount of spent fuel to be disposed of according to the application was 9000 uranium tons. This estimation was based on an assumed operating time of 60 years for the four existing units and, in addition, two new units with the operation time of 60 years. In the Government, the green minister criticised the application where the estimation took also account non -existing units. Before the actual decision in principle was taken in the Government, Posiva amended its application by extracting the additional spent fuel from the application, the final amount of fuel being then 4000 uranium tons, estimated to be produced by existing four power plants in 60 years of operation. Later on, a new separate decision in principle was made on the additional amount of 2500 tons of spent fuel taking into account the decision made on the fifth reactor