James Flynn, Paul Slovic, Roger E. Kasperson, and Howard Kunreuther

About the author: James Flynn is senior research associate at Decision Research, a nonprofit, independent social science research institute in Eugene, Oregon. Paul Slovic is president of Decision Research. Roger E. Kasperson is professor of government and geography at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. Howard Kunreuther is Cecilia Yen Koo professor of decision sciences and public policy and co-director of the Wharton Risk Management and Decision Processes Center at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

For the past 40 years, nuclear waste has been accumulating at the nation's nuclear energy plants and nuclear weapons manufacturing sites. Soon the United States will have to make a crucial decision on how to deal with this waste—a decision that will affect nuclear policy for a long...