Regulatory Graveyards for Lost Technologies

When regulators apply old statutes or broad doctrines to new fields (e.g., using a chemical‑era law for engineered microbes), they can block first‑generation approvals and therefore prevent iterative improvement; over decades that creates an invisible 'graveyard' of promising technologies — from microbes that extract rare earths to cleaner nuclear deployment — whose social benefits never materialized. — Recognizing and auditing these regulatory graveyards reframes innovation policy: reforming classification and staged‑approval pathways could recover large public benefits in energy, environment, and health.