Antinuclear

If storing nuclear waste is so lucrative how come those countries who produce it aren’t doing so?
If nuclear waste can be stored safely and effectively, won’t other countries get on board and then under-cut South Australia because they can cut out shipping costs to the other side of the world?

If spent nuclear fuel is so safe how come those countries who produce it aren’t storing it?
If the technology to store nuclear waste safely doesn’t exist, how come South Australia thinks it can do so safely?
Why does it seem to be a good idea to store this nuclear waste in volume and concentration unheard of in the history of the planet? Surely ‘spreading the risk’ by each country that produces the waste making their own arrangements is better for the health of the planet.
World markets are volatile – how can any economist predict how much countries will be willing or able to afford to pay for transport and storage of this waste in 10, 20, 50 or 100 years’ time?
Taking on this toxic waste and storing it safely becomes South Australia’s problem for hundreds of thousands of years – how can anyone guarantee that level of safety or the untold billions of dollars that it will take to keep this storage facility safe [from geological, meteorological and even ideological [terrorist] events]?
Nuclear fuel was seen as ‘the next big thing’ 40 years ago and yet the technology and the take-up of this fuel has NOT advanced in the way predicted. Why would anyone believe these ‘next generation’ reactors are just around the corner? Even the Royal Commission itself found that nuclear production of energy is unviable for the state. As it is unviable, less money will be spent in research and development and there’s less chance that ‘clean’ solutions to this poison will ever be found. Meanwhile, SA is left with the world’s largest pile of toxic waste to maintain for perpetuity.
How much will it COST to build a storage facility?
How much will it COST to maintain this facility in perpetuity?

I believe these are very valid concerns which have not adequately been answered by the Royal Commission. However, I believe the ethical considerations have much more weight.

The State Government will lose all credibility on Indigenous matters if it goes ahead with this nuclear facility. Both the state and the federal government are treating the outback as ‘terra nullis’ – an empty expanse full of ‘nothing’ where this waste can be stored out of sight and out of mind. They pay lip service to Aboriginal concerns but do not truly grasp the idea of connection to country. All of us, as human beings, are connected to country in a very real way. We can’t exist if our air and our ground and our water is polluted.

To quote EF Schumacher: The nuclear lobby “is a transgression against life itself, a transgression infinitely more serious than any crime ever perpetrated by man. The idea that a civilisation could sustain itself on the basis of such a transgression is an ethical, spiritual, and metaphysical monstrosity.” Why? Because nuclear fission [and it’s waste] “represents an incredible, incomparable, and unique hazard for human life” which “does not enter any calculation and is never mentioned.”

Like Midas, the Royal Commission is seduced by the idea of untold riches and it lacks the ethical, spiritual and metaphysical backbone to resist the nuclear lobby.