Lively Doings

Nuclear actors often describe long-term nuclear waste management as a social problem, characterised by a lack of public acceptance and political will to implement waste management solutions. In public and social scientific discussions, waste itself tends to be sidelined. Analysing IAEA and NEA documents, we seek to shift attention to nuclear waste, with a focus on spent nuclear fuel (SNF). We trace some of the ways in which nuclear actors differently enact SNF through management practices, but also how SNF, as an agentic entity, informs to those enactments. We also explore how SNF, as a composite material, inspires and enables different kinds of futures. We propose that starting nuclear waste debates from SNF as an active entity shaping and engaging with systems designed to contain it, rather than from technologically fixed solutions, provides a better platform to deliberate what kind of nuclear future(s) and waste management solutions are societally desirable.