TEDx Talks - Creative practice & environmental politics - Arts and political ecology | Laetitia Manach | TEDxUSVT
Finland has developed the Onkalo repository, the world's first permanent nuclear waste storage facility, as a response to a 1987 law requiring the country to manage its own nuclear waste. This initiative ensures environmental justice by preventing the export of waste and intergenerational justice by not leaving the problem for future generations. The repository is located in a geologically stable area of Finland, utilizing granite bedrock that hasn't moved for a billion years, making it ideal for long-term storage. The facility is designed to safely contain nuclear waste for 100,000 years, addressing the challenge of communicating danger to future civilizations. The video also explores the philosophical implications of nuclear waste as a legacy of modern civilization, highlighting the need to rethink our relationship with nature and time.
Key Points:
- Finland's Onkalo repository is the first permanent nuclear waste storage facility, ensuring waste is managed domestically.
- The repository is located in a stable granite bedrock, ideal for long-term storage, and aims to contain waste for 100,000 years.
- The initiative promotes environmental and intergenerational justice by preventing waste export and future burden.
- Communicating danger to future civilizations is a challenge, requiring innovative approaches like art and myths.
- The project invites reflection on humanity's legacy and relationship with nature, urging a shift towards sustainable practices.
Details:
1. 🌍 Finland's Nuclear Waste Management Legacy
- Finland has developed the world's first final repository for nuclear waste, located in Onkalo, an island in southern Finland.
- This initiative was a response to legislation passed in 1987 requiring Finland to manage and dispose of its nuclear waste within the country.
- By ensuring nuclear waste is handled domestically, Finland promotes environmental justice and prevents the export of waste to other regions.
- The strategy also ensures intergenerational justice, as it addresses nuclear waste management for the present and future generations.
- Finland is leading globally in nuclear waste management, setting a precedent that other countries are beginning to follow.
- The Onkalo repository is designed to safely contain nuclear waste for up to 100,000 years, using a multi-barrier system to prevent leakage.
- Finland's approach contrasts with other countries that still struggle with long-term nuclear waste solutions, showcasing the effectiveness of their legislative framework and technological implementation.
2. ⚛️ The Challenges of Storing Nuclear Waste
- Nuclear waste takes 100,000 years to decay, remaining highly toxic and requiring safe, long-term storage.
- There are currently 265,000 tons of nuclear waste stored in temporary facilities worldwide.
- Finland is promoting nuclear energy as a sustainable solution, contingent on safe and sustainable waste disposal.
- Interim storage often involves above-ground facilities, usually at nuclear power plants, requiring significant management and power to maintain.
- Such facilities are vulnerable to leaks and neglect due to their dependence on stable conditions over centuries or millennia.
- Current storage methods include dry cask storage and deep geological repositories, each with its own technological and political challenges.
- Dry cask storage is a temporary solution involving sealed metal containers placed above ground.
- Deep geological repositories are designed for permanent storage, involving burial deep underground to isolate waste from the environment.
- Political challenges include public opposition and regulatory hurdles, affecting the implementation of storage solutions.
- Technological challenges involve ensuring containers and facilities can withstand natural disasters and remain secure over millennia.
3. 🏗️ Onkalo: Engineering a Safe Repository
- The Onkalo nuclear waste repository is located in a geologically stable area of Finland, characterized by a granite bedrock that hasn't moved for a billion years, making it resistant to earthquakes.
- The repository is designed as a massive underground complex, akin to a city, with a succession of corridors and chambers deep in the bedrock.
- As of 2024, the repository has started collecting nuclear waste, ahead of schedule, with plans to progressively fill it with all of Finland's nuclear waste.
- Proper management and installation are crucial for the repository to remain sustainable and secure over hundreds of thousands of years, preventing intrusion and ensuring safety from future civilizations' curiosity.
- The construction faced significant engineering challenges, such as ensuring the structural integrity of the corridors and chambers over millennia.
- Advanced sealing techniques and materials are employed to prevent radiation leakage and preserve environmental safety.
- Safety protocols include monitoring systems that track environmental conditions and structural changes to preemptively address potential risks.
4. 🖼️ Communicating Danger Across Millennia
- In the 19th century, a Japanese table was inscribed to warn future generations of tsunami risks after two deadly events resulted in 22,000 deaths.
- Despite the warnings, the region continued to develop, leading to further devastation from tsunamis.
- Art and expressive imagery, such as Edvard Munch's 'The Scream,' can transcend time and effectively communicate danger across generations.
- Myths and legends, conveyed through co-creation, sharing, and both written and oral traditions, have historically succeeded in transmitting a sense of danger over long periods.
- The film 'Dune,' based on Frank Herbert's book, serves as a modern example of using storytelling to convey the dangers associated with desert exploitation, nuclear testing, and resource exploitation.
5. 🏛️ Cultural Interpretations of Ancient Structures
- Göbekli Tepe in South Turkey, the oldest human-built infrastructure dating back 10,000 years, exemplifies early human spiritual practices and community gatherings.
- Ancient structures like Göbekli Tepe and Stonehenge are interpreted through their cultural and religious significance, beyond mere functional uses.
- Ontology provides a framework to understand the cultural, philosophical, and metaphysical beliefs of civilizations, reflected in their structures and worldview.
- Modern ontology contrasts with ancient ontologies by emphasizing nature's exploitation and manipulation through science, with nuclear waste repositories as a potential legacy.
- The last remnants of modern civilization, such as nuclear waste repositories, may symbolize energy as a critical currency and nature's exploitation, reflecting a modern belief system focused on control and domination.
6. ⏳ Rethinking Time and Sustainability
- The 'long now clock' at the Science Museum in London, designed by the Long Now Foundation, encourages contemplation of time on a geological scale, contrasting with the rapid pace of modern life. This concept urges a rethinking of sustainability through a geological lens, highlighting the human impact as part of a larger geological transformation.
- The clock serves as a philosophical and ethical tool, reframing our understanding of time to foster a respectful relationship with nature. It positions humans as a small part of the geological clock, urging a shift in perspective that can be both intimidating and reassuring, as it promises continuity beyond human existence.
- Implementing this broader perspective in sustainability involves integrating geological time scales into environmental strategies, encouraging long-term thinking in policy-making and individual actions to address climate change and ecological impact.
- Real-world examples include policies that incorporate long-term environmental goals, such as carbon neutrality targets set for decades into the future, and educational programs that teach geological time to foster a deeper understanding of human impact and sustainability.