Ethics and the storage of long-life radioactive wastes

This article deals with the ethical aspects of nuclear waste storage. The different solutions: transmutation, sub-surface storage and deep geological storage are reviewed from this point of view. Reversibility means for future generations the possibility to recover stored waste packages, this recovery could be motivated by various reasons based on: scientific progress, the valorization of some nuclides, the recovery of energy in spent fuels or the underestimation of a risk in the safety analysis. Reversibility could also be a political argument to convince population repelled by the solution of a definitive choice. It appears that our technological choices do not have to assure both reversibility and definitive storage, this possibility would give to future generations the possibility to do something or to do nothing, it is beyond our moral obligations. (A.C.)