issipated. Thus, the risk is lessened, and the consequences are likely to be small in terms of environmental degradation or increased health risk. However, there are also worse case scenarios in which high level nuclear waste is somehow exposed to the air, leading to widespread health effects.
The task of creating an effective radioactive waste disposal program has proved to be a daunting one. Alvin Weinberg, long term director of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, noted that scientists had not initially been interested in the waste problem, assuming that it would be easy to resolve, a trivial, technical problem. This had not proven to be the case, however, and Weinberg indicated that that if he had to do it over again, he would place nuclear waste disposal at the very top of the agenda for Oak Ridge National Laborator
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