Who pays for radioactive rubbish

A generic defect in federal nuclear power regulation has been the failure to establish institutional arrangements to fund the fuel cycle's economic externalities caused by the generation of radioactive byproducts that must be managed, stored, and guarded. Case histories involving uranium mill tailings, decommissioning, and low-level waste illustrate the economic problems. Long-term costs from the nuclear fuel cycle will be large and inflationary. A fair versus a lassez-faire economic system would have followed a different route. Consumers must either see that regulatory bodies require escrow funds to meet these costs before the industry goes under, or the funding can be left to chance and future generations. 26 references