J 2017

How (not) to talk about the uncertain : siting geological disposal for highly radioactive waste in the Czech Republic

SVAČINA, Karel

Basic information

Original name

How (not) to talk about the uncertain : siting geological disposal for highly radioactive waste in the Czech Republic

Authors

SVAČINA, Karel (203 Czech Republic, guarantor, belonging to the institution)

Edition

Journal of Risk Research, Abingdon, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2017, 1366-9877

Other information

Language

English

Type of outcome

Článek v odborném periodiku

Field of Study

50900 5.9 Other social sciences

Country of publisher

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Confidentiality degree

není předmětem státního či obchodního tajemství

Impact factor

Impact factor: 1.376

RIV identification code

RIV/00216224:14230/17:00106614

Organization unit

Faculty of Social Studies

DOI

UT WoS

000407463100007

Keywords in English

siting; geological disposal; radioactive waste; uncertainty; risk; Czech Republic

Tags

Tags

International impact, Reviewed
Změněno: 14/3/2019 13:22, Mgr. Blanka Farkašová

Abstract

V originále

There is an ongoing controversy in the Czech Republic over where to site a deep geological repository for the country's radioactive waste. Recently, the negotiations between municipalities and state authorities responsible for radioactive waste management experienced a sharp turn: after several years of dialogue guaranteed by the promise of the state authorities not to start site investigations at preselected sites without the consent of affected municipalities, the state authorities suddenly decided not to keep this promise, and to start site investigations without the municipalities' consent, saying that time for dialogue will come after the site investigations will have been completed. This article explores the period of the failed dialogue with respect to how risks and uncertainties were treated in the negotiations. Drawing on two strands of scholarship on risk and uncertainty, the risk governance school and the STS perspectives on sociotechnical controversies, two paradigms for dealing with risk and uncertainty are outlined. These are used as a framework to analyse how implementers and local stakeholders articulated possible risk or uncertainty issues in negotiations about the Czech geological disposal between 2009 and 2013. The analysis shows that whereas the implementers adopt (sometimes even an extreme version of) the risk-based paradigm, the positions of the local stakeholders seem to be mixed. These observations lead to two conclusions: first, at the theoretical level, perhaps some of the STS literature was too quick to assume that people want' uncertainty. Second, at the practical level, it is suggested that in the light of the failed dialogue, it might be worth for the implementers to take a lesson from the uncertainty-based paradigm, and consider the possibility that perhaps still more work needs to be done in order to turn uncertainty into risk.