Communities around the UK are going to be invited to consider volunteering to host a burial site for nuclear waste in deep geological disposal facilities.
Environment Secretary Hilary Benn will set out in a White Paper the procedures for choosing the sites where radioactive material from the nation's existing nuclear power stations will be disposed of permanently.
Areas which put themselves forward as venues for a deep geological facilities can expect to be rewarded not only with the jobs boost which can be expected from their construction and management, but also by government support for infrastructure projects.
Critics of the volunteering process have suggested that this amounts to offering "bribes" for taking waste which will remain radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years.
But ministers argue that it is the best way of securing public consent to the development of the kind of facility which an independent report said was the best way of dealing with the accumulated higher-activity waste from Britain's civil and defence programmes.
Waste currently in storage and waste produced during the decommissioning of the UK's existing nuclear power plants will eventually be placed permanently in holes deep under the ground, where scientists believe it will pose the least possible risk to humans.
The eventual location of a disposal facility will depend not only on the local population's willingness to host it but also on scientific assessments of the geological suitability of the area.
The new document is not expected to set out details of exactly how much government cash will be available for areas which put themselves forward, but will set out the process by which sites will be chosen and volunteers will be rewarded.
The final choice of a venue for a geological disposal facility may not come for as long as 10 years, a Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs spokesman said.
Business Secretary John Hutton said new research showed that the UK looked set to attract the world's leading energy companies to build its next generation of nuclear power stations.