(Re-)constructing Nuclear Waste Management in Sweden : The Involvement of ConcernedGroups, 1970–2010

Sweden constitutes a leading nation concerning developing technological solutions for final disposal of spent nuclear fuel. The KBS-3 solution that is now to be implemented in Östhammar, northeast of Stockholm, has become a reference concept for the program for sustainable nuclear power within the EU. A common understanding is that the Swedish solution is the outcome of a political culture characterized by consensus making and cooperation. In this paper, we argue that such an understanding is misleading. On the contrary, we show that the Swedish solution is a product of severe conflicts between concerned groups (the antinuclear movement, environmental organizations, local resistance groups, oppositional scientists, journalists, and intellectuals) and the nuclear energy industry. In this paper, we investigate the efforts performed by concerned groups in Sweden and their effects on the KBS-3. The concept of concerned groups describes a dynamic process by which different types of groups transform depending on their negotiability and their participation (or not) in the configuration of technoscientific phenomena. Thus, we also analyze how the critique, actions and research of concerned groups underwent a qualitative transition related to the degree to which they participated in the scientific, technological and political configuration of the final depository for spent nuclear fuel: from radical deconstruction of technoscientific initiatives coming from the nuclear energy industry, to co-construction of the technical solution KBS-3, to a reconstructivist agenda, that is, the production of knowledge and technical solutions potentially usable by nuclear engineers and politicians beyond the research efforts of the nuclear energy industry