Inescapable conclusion – nuclear waste dump plan for South Australia is areal dud
The impossible dream Free electricity sounds too good to be true. It is. A plan to produce free electricity for South Australia by embracing nuclear waste sounds like a wonderful idea. But it won’t work. The Australia Institute Briefing paper Dan Gilchrist February 2016 “……Conclusion There are no magical solutions in the real world. When something sounds too good to be true, it usually is.
Even setting aside the technological and economic problems of the Edwards plan, its impossibility can be deduced by a simple observation: it only works if no-one else does it. It is a Catch-22. If the plan is a technological success it will open up competition, which would make it an economic failure.
There is also the question of popular will: perhaps Australia’s edge would be in a unique willingness to implement such a plan? However, Australia has historically had a great deal of hostility toward the nuclear industry. If Australians could be convinced to embrace PRISMs and boreholes, surely some countries with an existing nuclear industry – countries which have, therefore, shown a much greater willingness to accept it – would also be willing to implement those solutions.
It makes far more economic sense to pay for your own boreholes, or PRISMs, or reprocessing, than it does to pay up to ten times the cost for Australia to do it for you – you would save on shipping and port costs, at least.
Not every country would or could implement this solution, but it would take just one other nation on earth to provide competition. If the deal really is as attractive as Senator Edwards claims, surely at least one other nation would be tempted to take a share of such a wildly profitable business. Assuming that Australia will somehow maintain a monopoly in technologies it does not own is naïve.
Deploying new technologies is inherently risky. PRISMs and boreholes may turn out to be massive white elephants financially, and leave us with thousands of tonnes of nuclear waste to deal with. But even if these technologies worked, some other countries would surely be in a position to implement them, and at a reduced risk, once Australia had piloted its development.
It is a plan which creates its own competition.
In reality, there is no reason to think any country would pay what the Edwards plan assumes they will. With no mature nuclear power or waste industry, holding no monopoly on the technologies needed, and far from potential markets, there is no reason to think that Australia would have a competitive advantage. There is no reason to think that Australians will accept 56,000 tonnes of waste with no costed long-term solution.
No other country will line up to take advantage of this amazing opportunity, because it does not exist. Sadly, Senator Edwards’ dream is impossible. https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/conservationsa/pages/496/attachments/original/1455085726/P222_Nuclear_waste_impossible_dream_FINAL.pdf?1455085726
1 Comment »
Leave a comment
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 
Designers of PRISM, General Electric and Hitachi are frauds whose criminality could have put the public at dire risk. They were hit with a $2.7 million penalty by the US DoJ.
http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/general-electric-hitachi-nuclear-energy-americas-agrees-pay-27-million-alleged-false-claims
Ecocidal maniac GE has a rap sheet which is despicable yet they don’t lose their licence to meddle with the atom. Bernie Madoff and his Ponzi scheme got him 150 years in prison yet the GE beasts remain free to run amok with impunity.
http://www.multinationalmonitor.org/mm2001/01july-august/julyaug01corp4.html
LikeLike