Socio-technical Imaginations of Nuclear Waste Disposal in the UK and Finland

The European Union (EU) states are in the process of developing longterm management plans for high-level nuclear waste, deciding how and where to dispose of their long-lived nuclear inventory. The EU’s preferred solution is for each nation to build and use a deep underground waste repository, as built into European policy directives (EC 2004, 2011). The topic of waste is important to reflect upon critically; many countries pin hopes on the (re)emergence of nuclear power as part of the energy mix in responding to global climate change. Yet, as Findlay points out, “[a] major constraint on a global expansion of nuclear energy is the abiding controversy over high-level nuclear waste disposal” (2010: 18); a controversy heightened by the Fukushima disaster, which occurred on March 3, 2011.