Life-cycle cost in a highly uncertain economic environment: The case of managing the U.S. Department of Energy's nuclear waste legacy

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) faces an unusually difficult challenge in estimating life-cycle costs at former weapons sites because of the uncertainties of technology, stewardship, future land use, laws and regulations, and value and availability of money. Further, it is difficult to forecast local and international events for the indefinite period of time over which DOE will be responsible for many sites. We view the challenge as requiring an approach that accepts some variables as under DOE's control and others not under the Department's control. We suggest being as explicit as possible about the full set of cost elements and viewing life-cycle cost estimation as a stochastic process that will require both detailed data analysis and interviews with experts to provide the basis upon which to produce plausible estimates. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.