A review of benefits offered to volunteer communities for siting nuclear waste facilities

It is the purpose of this review to examine the types of benefits which have been and are being offered in facility siting processes in a selection of countries, mainly in Europe and North America, and short background descriptions of these national programmes are presented to acquaint the reader with progress to date. A simple classification of the possible benefits and payments has been developed to help describe the different approaches that have been followed, and this is outlined together with relevant details from the different countries. The review has been carried out to assist the Co-ordinator in provision of advice on these matters, if required, in the future. It should be pointed out, of course, that to date few, if any, nuclear waste facilities have actually been finally sited and developed using either of these voluntary approaches. Several of the programmes described have moved significant distances towards that end, but, as shown, problems have arisen in many cases, and in some cases the process has since been abandoned. The review has been carried out using only currently available information, either from papers, conference proceedings etc. or through a network of contacts within the various national programmes, as well as from newspaper articles, newsletters and other publicity material. Consequently, some national programme information is more detailed than others