Foreword Over the past decades, Piero Risoluti has built up an intimate knowl edge of the nuclear industry - in particular of nuclear waste man agement. In this book, his scientific understanding is apparent - for example in his comprehensive but readily understandable descrip tions of waste conditioning and disposal. Moreover, he has also been directly involved in the wider societal and political debates in the nuclear area - especially in his Italian homeland. What shines through in these pages is.his frustration at the lack of progress in im plementing disposal concepts that are judged by many to be very safe and his unfaltering drive to improve this situation. To provoke debate, the book is very deliberately written in a po larising, black and white style that can easily be labelled as "politi cally incorrect" - a characterisation that Piero will probably agree with and be amused by. Criticism is directed equally at "loud mouthed and incompetent anti-nuclear environmentalists", the "nu clear Byzantium" of the international nuclear establishment, the "in tellectual narcissism" of those nuclear experts that dare to admit the importance of societal issues, and the tendency of politicians to "in definite procrastination". These are not words chosen to avoid open confrontation of opposing views.