Year
1982
Abstract
Waste management continues to be at the center of the public debate about the acceptability to nuclear power. For about the last three years, a major public forum for this debate has been provided by a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (the Commission or NRC) ruleoaking proceeding. Since 1979, the NRC has been conducting a rulemaking to review: (1) its degree of confidence in what will be the disposition of spent nuclear fuel stored at the sites of operating commercial power reactors, and, (2) how questions about such disposition should be addressed in individual NRC licensing proceedings. __!/ The proceeding, which still is underway, has come to be known as the \"Waste Confidence Rulemaking.\" It has given both proponents and opponents of the nuclear option an opportunity to present their views on the adequacy of our country's highlevel nuclear waste policy. An enormous record already has been amassed. This was outlined for the NRC Commissioners at a hearing last January. Their decisions about it, which also may be affected by recent Congressional actions, could have an important impact on the contribution nuclear power will make to our future energy needs and on the public's perception of its relative costs and benefits to society.