Nuclear Waste Management

Project Overview

The Institute conducts research on nuclear waste management policy, including both commercial spent nuclear fuel and military high level wastes. Recently, we have investigated the concept of informed consent to guide siting of a nuclear waste repository (as well as siting of other energy facilities). Our work has been both conceptual and pragmatic, for example by providing the Department of Energy with suggestions for how to proceed in a context of social distrust and reviews of lessons learned from other countries’ efforts to identify locations for nuclear waste repositories.  We have also studied community involvement in assessment and decision making about the public health impacts from US nuclear weapons testing and contamination at US nuclear weapons facilities.

Publications

  • Tuler, S. and Webler, T. 2016. Understanding consent: Principles and challenges for a consent-based process to site facilities for interim and long-term storage of spent nuclear fuel and high level wastes in the United States. Northampton, MA: Social and Environmental Research Institute.

  • Tuler, S. and Kasperson, R. 2013. Social distrust and its implications for risk communication: An example from high level radioactive waste management. In: Joe Arvai and Louis Rivers (eds.), Recent advances in risk communication theory and practice. Washington: Earthscan.

  • Webler, T., Tuler, S., and Rosa, E. 2012. Improving public and stakeholder engagement in nuclear waste management, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, published online 7 June, 2012. Available at: thebulletin.org/web-edition/op-eds/improving-public-and-stakeholder-engagement-nuclear-waste-management

  • Tuler, S., Webler, T., and Rosa, E. 2012. America's nuclear future: Does the public have a fair say in it?, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, published online 31 January, 2012. Available at: thebulletin.org/2012/01/americas-nuclear-future-does-the-public-have-a-fair-say-in-it/

  • Tuler, S. 2012.  Institutional preferences for justice, avoiding harm, and expertise in public health policy making about the health consequences of iodine-131 nuclear weapons testing fallout.  In D. Quigley, A. Lowman, S. Wing (eds.), Tortured science: Health studies, ethics, and nuclear weapons in the United States. Amitysville, NY: Baywood Publishing Company.

  • Tuler, S. and Kasperson, R. 2011. Social distrust: Implications and recommendation for spent nuclear fuel and high level radioactive waste management. A Technical report prepared for the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future.  Washington, DC:  Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future.  Available online at: www.brc.gov/commissioned_papers.html

  • Webler, T., Tuler, S. and Rosa, E. 2011. Options for Developing Public and Stakeholder Engagement for the Storage and Management of Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF) and High Level Waste (HLW) in the United States. A Technical report prepared for the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future.  Washington, DC:  Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future.  Available online at: www.brc.gov/commissioned_papers.html

  • Rosa, Eugene A., Tuler, S. P., Fischhoff, B., Webler, T., Friedman, S. M., Sclove, R. E., Shrader-Frechette, K., English, M. R., Kasperson, R. E., Goble, R. L., Leschine, T. M., Freudenburg, W., Chess, C., Perrow, C., Erikson, K., and Short, J. F. 2010. Nuclear waste: Knowledge waste?, Science 329(5993):762–763.

  • Tuler, S. and Webler, T. 2006.  Competing perspectives on a process for making remediation and stewardship decisions at the Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site, Research in Social Problems and Public Policy 13: 49-77.