Editorial: Learning from Finland could help Japan deal with nuclear waste disposal

Nuclear power is often compared to an “apartment building without a toilet,” because the issue of how to deal with high-level radioactive waste produced during power generation has been continuously shelved.

Finland has started a test operation at the Onkalo spent nuclear fuel repository, the world’s first final disposal facility for nuclear waste. The plan is to bury the spent fuel in a geological layer over 400 meters deep, where no crustal movement has been confirmed for more than a billion years, and store it until the radioactivity decays after 100,000 years. In a trial run, simulated fuel will be used, and authorities will spend several months checking the processes, including burial.

The Finnish government settled on the geological disposal plan back in 1983 and set a target for operation from 2020. Based on this decision, the disposal company picked 102 candidate regions using factors such as geological characteristics and population density, narrowing it down to several municipalities that expressed a willingness to participate in the surveys.

While there was opposition to accepting the project, the operating company actively held town hall meetings and met with local government officials starting in the mid-1990s. With local consent, the government made a formal decision in 2001.

For the local government, there were economic benefits, such as increased property tax revenue and job creation. Additionally, there have been no serious accidents or scandals involving nuclear power plants in Finland, which has fostered high public trust in the operators and regulatory authorities.

In Japan, the first nuclear power plant went online in 1966, but legislation for geological disposal wasn’t established until 2000. Although the process to publicly invite candidate sites began in 2002, only three municipalities have since agreed to participate in surveys to determine if their locations are suitable for disposal.

Behind this lies a general distrust of Japan’s nuclear power policies. Japanese operators had explained that serious nuclear accidents would not happen, but the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station meltdowns following the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011 shattered this “safety myth.”

The Nuclear Waste Management Organization of Japan, which is responsible for selecting and constructing disposal sites, has been holding briefing sessions across the country. In 2017, it came to light that students had been recruited with monetary incentives to attend these meetings, raising questions about the fairness of the process.

In earthquake-prone Japan, there are few suitable locations for disposal sites, and the selection process is expected to be difficult. We hope that the Japanese government learns from the experience of Finland, which has been discussing the issue for over 40 years, and explores ways to gain public understanding.