The strange case of Swiss attitudes to nuclear waste, and its implications for fracking

Swiss public acceptance for hosting a nuclear waste facility declined when local people were offered cash payments in compensation, and increased when community public benefits, such as parks or libraries were suggested. The research by Bruno Frey and Felix Oberholzer-Gee (described neatly here), surveyed attitudes in a proposed location for such a facility, also found that higher cash offers did not increase support, but further reduced it.

There are several important things going on here:

First, the survey participants understood the demand to host a nuclear waste facility as a service to the wider Swiss public. This holds even if people oppose new nuclear power: the need to safely manage existing waste (whether through indefinite storage or some form of safe disposal) is clear [1].

Second, the idea of cash payments made people feel as though they were being bribed to do their public duty. It was an inappropriate inducement, and thus reduced support.

Third the prospect of communal benefits (such as public facilities and services) was commensurate to the sort of disbenefit expected from hosting a waste facility. It was seen as appropriate compensation, and thus increased acceptance.

Fourth, the public presumably perceived another key distinction between monetary and public benefit compensation: concrete public facilities are locked into the locality (as well as universally accessible); whereas money rapidly leaks out of the local economy, and indeed can be squirreled away where it does no benefit to the community. This last point would not be missed in the home of Swiss banks!

Fifth, the whole proposal is couched in a situation in which the public have a credible democratic role in deciding whether such a facility should be located in their metaphorical backyard.

So, in the UK, when Ineos offers to double the ‘community benefits’ paid to local councils, and add twice as much on top in payments to landowners, is this likely to win support for fracking?

I doubt it. There are serious differences to the Swiss case:

First, and dramatically more so than with nuclear waste management, there is wide public scepticism that shale gas fracking offers any public benefit in the UK. The UK government frames its arguments for fracking in terms of public benefit. Yet the majority of the UK public oppose fracking, not only because of potential local impacts, but because they do not trust claims of lower energy prices, or reduced carbon emissions.

Second, despite remaining opportunities for public participation in planning, there is also widespread scepticism over the system’s bias towards development interests. In this context, ‘community benefit’ payments to councils are widely interpreted as ‘bribes for planning permission’, rather than as compensation for the public disbenefits of otherwise desirable development. The Government’s decision to permit fracking under homes without the permission of householders is only likely to deepen scepticism about democracy in the planning system.

Third, payments to landowners will almost certainly prove divisive in two ways. Firstly, between those landowners that receive them, and others outside the immediate fracked area, but potentially still vulnerable to water contamination, or other externalities of fracking. Secondly, such payments will also be divisive between freeholders and other householders who are leaseholders or rent their homes. These effects will be most severe in the potentially frequent cases where landowners are not actually locally resident.

So, if a ‘community benefits’ approach was to be made to work, the Government would need to have a convincing case about wider public benefits from fracking; change planning laws and practice to give communities a much more participatory, democratic role in decision making (for instance providing for a third party right of appeal); and ensure that local councils spent community benefit payments on additional local public facilities. Fracking companies would need to pay all community benefits through democratic public channels, and not to individuals.

It sounds a bit utopian. So is the current approach just a ‘cock-up’ or a conspiracy? I suspect the former is more likely. Both the Government and Ineos are trying to emulate the US approach on another continent with a different culture. For instance Ineos’ Jim Ratcliffe says “We’re trying to emulate the US model because it has been very successful … People encourage shale gas because every month they get a cheque.”

But even if there is no conspiracy, there is a big reason to worry here. Cultures are not fixed, but influenced by changed practices and politics. While the UK Conservative Government and the fracking industry might be doing exactly the wrong things if they want to convince British people to accept fracking in their localities, I fear they are doing just the right things if they want to further atomise society, and turn our environment into a monetised commodity that can be bought and sold just like any other.

The effects of changed planning rules, divisive landowner bribes and further weakened trust in politics and politicians will all work together to diminish public belief in collective politics, undermine public capacity to collectively manage environmental commons, and leave – in the words of arch neoliberal Margaret Thatcher - ‘no alternative’ to market based solutions. Worse, when a society changes practices in such ways, public values and norms actually follow, as people seek to maintain coherent identities and avoid cognitive dissonance. So the ‘cock-up’ of fracking policy will make it easier to drive through the next neoliberal, market-based response to social and environmental problems, be it privatising the NHS or geo-engineering the skies.

In this way, fracking (regardless of whether its environmental credentials stand up – which I doubt deeply) is a microcosm of the ongoing battle between neoliberalism and just and sustainable societies.

On second thoughts, maybe it is a conspiracy?

[1] CORWM made a creditable effort to apply this distinction in their consideration of the UK nuclear waste strategy, although the UK Government rejected it.