Nuclear fission can provide a major share of our energy needs over the next several decades. But to fulfill this promise, we must learn to manage the radioactive wastes that arise in a multiplicity of chemical and physical forms at every stage of the nuclear fuel cycle, and to manage them by technically, politically and socially acceptable means. The problem of containing the so‐called “high‐level” wastes from fuel reprocessing is particularly difficult, for they remain biologically hazardous for thousands of centuries.

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