WE WONT KNOW THE TRUE CONSEQUENCES FOR YEARS TO COME Allison Macfarlane 2003 (Associate Professor of International Affairs and Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, "Underlying Yucca Mountain The Interplay of Geology and Policy in Nuclear Waste Disposal" Social Studies of Science October 2003) 783–807) The situation of nuclear waste disposal is unique in some respects. Because of the longtime- span (tens of thousands to millions of years) of geologic processes that would deliver radioactivity to human beings and the environment, it is highly likely that we will never know if the repository worked. The processes to be analyzed and evaluated in a geologic repository are complex and comprise a combination of scientific understanding of geologic processes and engineering design. They fit Perrowʼs definition of a normal accident waiting to happen, that is, tightly coupled events interacting in incomprehensible ways to produce an accident (Perrow, 1999). Because of the lack of predictability in the disposal of nuclear waste and the consequences of an accident or failure of the system, any proposed solution deserves serious consideration, not only from the technical and policy community, but from the science studies community as well.
