Atommüll und Langzeitkommunikation

Entwürfe und Debatten seit 1984

Abstract

The article presents central debates on nuclear waste and long-term communications originating in the early considerations of the 1980s. After brief remarks on the current state of the final disposal of high-level radioactive waste and after an equally brief overview of the most important stages of the discussions on long-term communications, the paper explores two fundamental questions: Is long-term communication accompanying the prospective repositories desirable at all? And if that's the case, how is it possible? Institutions involved in the planning of final disposal sites, such as the US Department of Energy and the Nuclear Energy Agency of the OECD, have repeatedly answered the first question in the affirmative and turned to a number of scientific disciplines and arts that has grown significantly in recent decades for answers to the second. With particular attention to the observable shifts of theoretical, methodological and disciplinary focal points, the following article considers proposed signs and sign carriers, messages and their expected receptions, designs for institutions that might accompany and secure possible signs, messages and repositories, and finally, ideas for practices of their remembrance designed to be set in motion right now and around the world.