Antinuclear

Why the hurry?

Well, at the end of next month around 28 steel canisters of reprocessed nuclear waste is set to return home from France and the government needs to find somewhere to put it.

Australia produces nuclear waste in the form of medical byproducts, and spent nuclear fuel from its research reactor. We don’t have the facilities to process it here, so it is sent offshore. Under international agreements, the processed material has to be returned to Australia and stored here.

While it will be stored at a newly built temporary site at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) in Lucas Heights, the government says it, and the rest of the nuclear waste sitting at 100 different locations across the country, needs a permanent home.

• Australia has accumulated over 4900 cubic metres of low to mid level nuclear waste over the past 40 years. That’s the equivalent of two Olympic sized swimming pools.And we produce about 40 cubic metres worth annually (We don’t produce any high level radioactive waste. Phew!). [ that’s because we send it overseas for processing,under contract to take back the ‘high level’ waste]…,
• A Department of Industry and Science spokeswoman told news.com.au the government was “committed” to building a national radioactive waste management facility on a site that had been “volunteered” even if an agreed site is not found by next year……
• the Australian Conservation Foundation doesn’t think the outback is the ideal location.Spokesman Dave Sweeney believes the bulk of the waste should remain at the ANSTO facility in Sydney and at the CSIRO facility in Woomera, SA, where the country’s, if not the world’s top minds, are located.

  He says there wasn’t an urgent need to move the waste and argued there were still risks associated with transporting and storing radioactive material in the middle of nowhere.

  “We are not aware of all the sites that have nominated, but we are aware of some of them and there are problems,” Mr Sweeney said.

  The sites the ACF are aware of all rest in outback WA. One has been submitted by retired prospector and Shire of Leonora councillor, Glenn Baker, who applied to have the facility on his property in the northern Goldfields.

  Another is believed to have been put forward near Warburton, 1500km east-north-east of Perth.

  While a third was put forward by mining company Gindalbie Metals Ltd.

  Mr Sweeney said he had been told no land holder from the Northern Territory had put forward a submission.

  A spokesman from the Office of the Northern Territory Chief Minister confirmed the government had not made any submissions to the Commonwealth process.

• Gindalbie managing director Mike O’Neill confirmed to news.com.au the company had offered Badja Station, a former merino sheep station 500km north of Perth, as a potential site.He said the company saw the nuclear project as an opportunity to put to use some of the 113,000 hectares of the disused site as well as create more jobs.

  Around 100 hectares would be used for the storage facility, while money generated from the site could be used to regenerate the former pastoral land, he added.

  And while the storage facility will only house Australian nuclear waste, Mr O’Neill said Gindalbie was open to storing international waste if the government allowed.

  “If we can meet the requirements and there is a profit in it and it can be undertaken safely and everybody was on side, then yes we would (be open to it),” he said.

  At present, a Royal Commission is being held in South Australia to examine the feasibility of developing a nuclear storage facility which would house not only our waste but international waste.

  A spokeswoman from the Department of Industry and Science said nominations for the National Radioactive Waste Management Facility would be assessed through aMulti Criteria Site Assessment (MCSA) process. http://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/time-is-ticking-for-australias-first-nuclear-waste-dump/story-e6frflp0-1227384591004