Antinuclear

Investigative journalism stopped international nuclear waste dump in Mongolia: what about Australia?

the ambassador said she heard of a similar plan in Australia and asked me to provide Mongolia with any information on it, highlighting the Mongolian government’s enthusiasm about overcoming competition with Australia in hosting the disposal facility.

The Mainichi scoop on the secret plan sparked campaigns in Mongolia to demand that the plan on a spent nuclear fuel disposal facility be scrapped and that relevant information be fully disclosed.

Bowing to the opposition, Mongolian President Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj declared in the U.N. General Assembly session in September last year that the country can never host a radioactive waste disposal facility.

Mainichi scoop on Mongolia’s nuclear plans highlights problems in dealing with waste. Mainichi Daily News,  By Haruyuki Aikawa, 13 March 12, Coverage on a secret document detailing an international nuclear waste disposal site that Japan and the United States had planned to build in Mongolia, for which I won the Vaughan-Ueda Memorial Prize for 2011, has highlighted the difficulties in dealing with radioactive waste.

The secret plan surfaced as the crisis at the tsunami-hit Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant has stirred controversy over the pros and cons of nuclear power.

I learned that the Japanese Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry and the U.S. Department of Energy had been secretly negotiating the plan with Mongolia since the autumn of 2010 when I interviewed a U.S. nuclear expert on the phone on April 9, 2011.

“Would you please help the Mongolian people who know nothing about the plan. Mongolia is friendly to Japan, Japanese media certainly has influence on the country,” the expert said.

I flew to Ulan Bator, the capital of Mongolia, on April 22, and met
with then Ambassador Undraa Agvaanluvsan with the Mongolian Foreign
Ministry in charge of negotiations on the plan, at the VIP room of a
cafe.
Before I asked the ambassador some questions getting to the heart of
the plan, we asked my interpreter to leave the room just as we had
agreed in advance. The way the ambassador talked suddenly became more
flexible after I stopped the recorder and began asking her questions
in English. She explained the process and the aim of the negotiations
and even mentioned candidate sites for the disposal facility.

After the interview that lasted for more than two hours, the ambassador said she heard of a similar plan in Australia and asked me to provide Mongolia with any information on it, highlighting the Mongolian government’s enthusiasm about overcoming competition with Australia in hosting the disposal facility.

I subsequently visited three areas where the Mongolian government was
planning to build nuclear power stations. Japan and the United States
were to provide nuclear power technology to Mongolia in return for
hosting the disposal facility. I relied on a global positioning system
for driving in the vast, grassy land to head to the sites. All the
three candidate sites, including a former air force base about 200
kilometers southeast of Ulan Bator, are all dry land. No source of
water indispensable for cooling down nuclear reactors, was found at
any of these sites and a lake at one of the sites had dried up.

Experts share the view that nuclear plants cannot be built in areas
without water. I repeatedly asked Mongolian officials responsible for
nuclear power policy how they can build nuclear plants at the sites
without water. However, they only emphasized that all the three sites
meet the safety standards for nuclear plants set by the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
An Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry official, who is familiar with
Mongolian affairs, said, “Mongolians are smart but their knowledge of
atomic energy isn’t that good”

In other words, Japan and the United States proposed to build a spent
nuclear waste disposal facility in Mongolia, a country that has little
knowledge of nuclear energy………… I did not feel a sense of
exaltation from learning the details of the secret negotiations on the
disposal site. I rather felt ashamed of being a citizen of Japan,
which was promoting the plan…..
The Mainichi scoop on the secret plan sparked campaigns in Mongolia to demand that the plan on a spent nuclear fuel disposal facility be scrapped and that relevant information be fully disclosed.

Bowing to the opposition, Mongolian President Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj declared in the U.N. General Assembly session in September last year that the country can never host a radioactive waste disposal facility.

Yukiya Amano, director general of the IAEA, which is dubbed a “nuclear
watchdog,” says, “Those who generate radioactive waste must take
responsibility for disposing of it. It’s unfair to expect someone else
to take care of it.”

However, human beings have yet to find a solution to problems
involving nuclear waste.
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/perspectives/news/20120313p2a00m0na003000c.html

March 13, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | General News