The Nuclear Age: Social and Political Issues

Nuclear waste management seems to exist in a perpetual state of crises. For 50 years the nuclear states of the world have fought, and generally lost, the battle to deal with the nuclear waste problem. Worldwide, there is a growing acknowledgement within industry and government that social and ethical issues are just as important as technical issues when developing safe programs for nuclear waste management. This paper is a review of some of the outstanding social and ethical issues that are influencing discussions on nuclear waste management around the world.

A critical examination of the prospect of a nuclear renaissance worldwide.

Because national nuclear waste management schemes have proven to be unsuccessful, an international nuclear waste scheme has been seriously entertained by numerous individuals and agencies. In this article I bring into question the range of motivating forces have been offered by such proponents. I conclude that the motivations for international repositories are so inflected with social, ethical and political problems that they hardly serve to contribute to a sound solution to the nuclear waste management. Copyright (c) 2005 Massachusetts Institute of Technology.