Långtidsförvaring av kärnavfall. Från samtidsarkeologi till framtidsarkeologi

Abstract

All countries that manage nuclear waste will need to store it for a long time. When all the reactors in Sweden have been taken out of use there will be around 12,000 tonnes of highly radioactive waste. For the future safety of humans and nature, the plan is to store the waste for 100,000 years in tunnels drilled 500 metres under ground. Once the waste is in place and the final repositories are closed, society will be faced with the task of finding ways to keep knowledge of these places alive for a very long time to come. The task is unique. Never before has anyone created information and knowledge intended for someone thousands of years into the future. Between 2012 and 2015 we have worked with the project “One hundred thousand years back and forth – archaeology meets radioactive waste”. We have studied how one can think about past, present and future and about the resources that are needed if we are to be able to envisage a future extending over thousands of years. From a theoretical discussion on the concept of future consciousness, we argue that final repositories for nuclear waste must be built in a flexible manner to be able to work in different ways in relation to many different futures. Storage of radioactive waste embraces noticeable aspects of materiality, and relevant planning and decision-making processes can benefit from archaeological expertise. Long-time final repositories of nuclear waste also pose challenges to contemporary archaeology. Various ways to conceptualize futures are part of our contemporary society. This has not been studied to any great extent within the field archaeology of the contemporary world. It is likely that we will hear more in time to come about future consciousness in contemporary archaeology, then in the form of future archaeology.

Keywords

• Framtidsmedvetande, slutförvaring av kärnavfall, samtidsarkeologi, framtidsarkeologi