Nuclear Waste and the Site of Intergenerational Responsibility

This chapter provides an outline of current practices surrounding the production and disposal of nuclear energy in the context of conceptions of responsibility premised on continuity and resemblance. We argue that the use of nuclear fission as a viable alternative to fossil fuels depends on the responsible disposal of nuclear wastes and that, therefore, the maintenance of intergenerational infrastructures is central to the project of responsible nuclear energy use. We argue that there are technical and conceptual limitations on the viability of such a project. These limitations have to do with the capacity of scientists in the present to ground the predictions necessary to pursue effective intergenerational policy as well as with the conceptual shortfalls of such a view of responsibility in general.