Apart from actual meltdown, the biggest worry about nuclear power plants has to

do with radioactive waste: how can you dispose of it without risking its radiation getting

into the water supply, or being loosed by an earthquake? Mr. Hollister thinks he has the

answer: sea mud. His verve in describing his idea (actually, an idea worked out in a 15-

year study by scientists from 8 countries) is matched only by his lucidity in explaining it.

CH: "To me the key is predictability. As you correctly point out, the key is going to a

place where nothing has happened for the past 60 or 70 million years; therefore the next

half-million years looks like a pretty safe bet, because the world is a probabilistic world."

... AM: "The Department of Energy has been singularly unsuccessful politically and

scientifically in managing nuclear waste. In 1970 they said: We will have a repository in

10 years. In 1982 they said: We will have a repository in 16 years. In 1990 they said:

We will have a repository in 20 years."