Is it fair that future generations should bear a large part of the burden of radioactive waste management?
Whilst it is regrettable that future generations should bear a large part of the burden of radioactive waste management it is somewhat unavoidable given the inherent properties of such materials. However, all efforts should be made to minimise this future burden. How important is it that wastes are retrievable? Some radioactive wastes will remain hazardous for extremely long periods and as such there is an option to ensure that they can be retrieved from storage in future. It is important that wastes are retrievable because better technology for dealing with their harmful effects may be developed in the future enabling further treatment. It may be possible to re-use some of the wastes in the future thereby recovering value. Also it cannot be guaranteed that storage technology will not fail and the wastes may need to be recovered and moved to a more secure storage facility. What part should financial cost pay? It is considered that cost should not be a consideration in the safe handling
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