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Nuclear waste must be managed for thousands of years. What has heritage to learn and share on long term preservation?

Spent nuclear fuel will be strongly radioactive as much as 100 000 years from now. It will persist for this time, no matter how we manage it. Organisations managing nuclear waste have a responsibility not just to ourselves, but to people who may be in contact with this material as long as it is still radioactive. The engineering challenge of creating storage that will last for this time, is dwarfed by the communication challenge of explaining what it is to people in the distant future. This combination of preservation and communication makes partnership between heritage management and nuclear waste management fruitful. Our partner in this domain was SKB.

Interventions

Exhibition

Los ecos del Proyecto Huemul

10/07/2017

An exhibition, part of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)-Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) Restricted Access Pilot Project, awarded to Rodney Harrison (Professor of Heritage Studies, UCL Institute of Archaeology) and Trinidad Rico (Director of Cultural Heritage and Preservation Studies at Rutgers University and Honorary Senior Lecturer, UCL Institute of Archaeology), will be hosted from this week at the Balseiro Institute in San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina.

Rodney Harrison

Uncertainty
Transformation

Nuclear Waste Management
Natural Heritage Management
Built Heritage Management

Interventions

Talk

Afterlives Salon

02/03/2017

This salon to accompany the current Octagon exhibition Cabinets of Consequence will explore how heritage and other related forms of conservation practices (including nuclear waste management) make futures.  How do we use material culture to stitch futures from pasts? What do we conserve? What do we get rid of? What do we allow to change? This Salon will be staged as a series of conversations across various themes currently being explored within the Heritage Futures research programme,Event held at Haldane Room, Wilkins Building , Gower Street WC1

Rodney Harrison
Cornelius Holtorf
Caitlin DeSilvey
Sefryn Penrose
Sarah May
Jennie Morgan
Nadia Bartolini
Antony Lyons
Kyle Lee Crossett

Uncertainty
Transformation
Profusion
Diversity

Nuclear Waste Management
Deep Space Messaging
World Heritage Site Management
Natural Heritage Management
Built Heritage Management
Homes
Museums
Biodiversity
Cultural Diversity