There are many more groups which claim technical authority. The battle for technical authority is manifested in the perception of risks by the public. The nuclear industry would like to exercise this authority to convince the public that the risks of a waste facility is minimal while the environmental groups would render as experts scientists who would testify that such risks are extremely high. With all the different groups claiming technical authority, it is difficult for the public to find out who is right and in turn to determine what the real risks are. Part of this problem can be attributed to the inherent complexities of our society and this age of ten second sound bites.
Most people have very little time to place truth meters on every statement they encounter.
Surveys show that the majority of the public feel that we should site storage facilities for radioactive wastes, but only a small minority are willing to site such facilities in their geographic area. It is impossible to fairly distribute all the radioactive waste among all communities which have benefited from the production of the waste. We would need to build a site in almost every town in this country. This would be quite inefficient since a certain degree of centralization is required in the development of any system of waste storage sites. So far we have discussed some of the obstacle that face the process of siting of storage facilities for radioactive wastes.