Nuclear waste is a governance failure

As Japan takes the final steps toward restarting the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant, the world’s largest nuclear facility, familiar debates are resurfacing: reactor safety, seismic risk, and public trust. These problems certainly matter, especially in light of the Fukushima disaster in 2011, but they are no longer the primary constraint on nuclear energy’s future.

Criticality is not the constraint. Waste is. In the United States, this is not an unsolved technical challenge. It is a failure of governance and institutional design that our nation has not resolved over the course of decades.