Some straight questions asked on nuclear wastes – to Australia’s government authorities

To ANSTO, ARPANSA & the DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRY, INNOVATION and SCIENCE

From ENuFF SA (Everyone for a Nuclear Free Future SA) , Pt. Augusta February 8, 2017

We would like some straight answers to the following questions:

The current National Radioactive Waste Management Facility (NRWMF) is the third attempt in a decade to locate a site for a national radioactive waste dump:

Question: Are any designs for a dump planned? The last shipment of nuclear waste returned to Australia following reprocessing in France, in late 2015. It was categorised by the French authorities as high-level waste (HLW). The SA Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission Report (May 2016) states on page 95 that reprocessed waste is high level. But ANSTO classifies this highly hazardous material as intermediate-level waste (ILW).

Question: Why do the Australian agencies responsible for nuclear waste mislead the public about radiation levels?

Question: Why is spent fuel from both the retired HIFAR and currently operating OPAL reactor not classified HLW? Is it the only spent fuel in the world to be classified ILW?

Question: Would ANSTO explain how the radioisotopes in spent fuel from its research reactors differ from that of nuclear power reactors? When nuclear waste is reprocessed, waste from other countries is mixed together in the reprocessing liquor. Returning material would, therefore, come from other reactors in France (or the UK) or other client country’s reactors, as well as Australia’s.

Question: When will this be explained to the public? Reprocessing of spent fuel cannot remove ALL of the fissile material: Plutonium and Uranium.

Question: Why, then, does information provided by ANSTO state that there is no fissile material remaining in the returned reprocessed waste? And, when will the agency correct this misinformation?

Question: For how long is spent fuel stored at Lucas Heights before transporting it overseas?

Question: What quantity of spent fuel is currently stored at Lucas Heights, and how is it stored?

Question: Is it the case that the Lucas Heights facility holds about 50% of Australia’s nuclear waste, the remainder being held by the Defence Department and CSIRO?

Question: Therefore, where is it intended to dispose of the remainder of Australia’s waste not currently held at Lucas Heights?

Question: What type of research is conducted at the Lucas Heights OPAL reactor?

Question: Is food irradiation occurring in Australia?

ANSTO plans a significant increase in its production of medical isotopes (in particular Molybdenum-99 MO- 99) at the OPAL reactor.

Question: When will ANSTO, and other agencies, explain how much the OPAL waste stream would grow as a result of this production of isotopes for export to other countries? ANSTO is reported to be planning to build a Synroc facility.

Question: Where would a Synroc facility be located; at Lucas Heights or elsewhere?

Question: Does such a project indicate that Australia would no longer transport spent fuel overseas forreprocessing? Or, is it for repackaging already returned reprocessed waste?

Question: When will ANSTO, ARPANSA and the Department of Industry etc. clarify exactly what waste isplanned for permanent disposal at a proposed NRWMF and what is planned for storage at such a facility?

Question: Furthermore, when will ANSTO et al clarify for how long any stored waste would be locatedat, or nearby, such a facility?

Question: Are licences for disposal/storage of any of the national waste time-limited or not? (e.g. 100, 1,000 or 10,000 years)

Question: Will ANSTO and ARPANSA or the government explain to the SA people, particularly those in the Flinders Ranges and Eyre Peninsular, that the community nearby Lucas Heights, when consulted, rejected permanent disposal of waste at that site?

Question: Do the agencies responsible for the nation’s radioactive waste not agree that it is a pointless and unnecessarily hazardous exercise to transport HLW (called ILW in Australia) to temporarily store it for up to 100 years, when it could remain at its present site?

To relocate this waste for an indefinite period is the height of irresponsibility when the Regulatory Guide for Licensing a Radioactive Waste Storage and Disposal Facility (ARPANSA) states that such waste, “must not be less than 10,000 years for disposal of ILW.”

STOP PRODUCING THE WASTE, THEN WE WILL TALK ABOUT DISPOSAL

1.This month

For international news go to https://nuclear-news.net/

‘Sweden acted as vassal state to US’ in Assange case – journalist

Nuke Program for Sale: Hackers offer top secret data to interested buyers

Nuclear Weapons and ‘Generation IV’ Reactors – theme for May 2017

Jim Green All nuclear power concepts (including ‘fourth generation’ concepts) fail to address the single greatest problem with nuclear power − its repeatedly-demonstrated connection to the proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). Not just any old WMDs but nuclear weapons − the most destructive, indiscriminate and immoral of all weapons.

Integral Fast Reactors (IFRs) George Stanford, who worked on an IFR R&D program in the US, notes that proliferators “could do [with IFRs] what they could do with any other reactor − operate it on a special cycle to produce good quality weapons material.”

As with conventional reactors, IFRs can be used to produce weapon grade plutonium in the fuel (using a shorter-than-usual irradiation time) or by irradiating a uranium or depleted uranium ‘blanket’ or targets. Conventional PUREX reprocessing can be used to separate the plutonium. Another option is to separate reactor grade plutonium from IFR fuel and to use that in weapons instead of weapon grade plutonium.

IFR advocate Tom Blees notes that: “IFRs are certainly not the panacea that removes all threat of proliferation, and extracting plutonium from it would require the same sort of techniques as extracting it from spent fuel from light water reactors.”

Conventional reprocessing with the use of separated plutonium as fuel (in breeders or MOX reactors) has the same potential to drawn down fissile material stockpiles, but has increased rather than decreased proliferation risks. Very little plutonium has been used as reactor fuel in breeders or MOX reactors. But the separation of plutonium from spent fuel continues and stockpiles of separated ‘civil’ plutonium − which can be used directly in weapons − are increasing by about five tonnes annually and amount to over 270 tonnes, enough for 27,000 nuclear weapons.

Whatever benefits arise from the potential consumption of outside sources of fissile material must be weighed against the problem that IFRs could themselves be used to produce fissile material for weapons. WMD proliferators won’t use IFRs to draw down stockpiles of their own fissile material let alone anyone else’s − they are more likely to use them to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons.

Other ‘fourth generation’ reactor types

IFRs and other plutonium-based nuclear power concepts fail the WMD proliferation test, i.e. they can too easily be used to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons.

Thorium reactors The use of thorium as a nuclear fuel doesn’t solve the WMD proliferation problem. Irradiation of thorium (indirectly) produces uranium-233, a fissile material which can be used in nuclear weapons.

Some proponents of nuclear fusion power falsely claim that it would pose no risk of contributing to weapons proliferation. In fact, there are several risks, the most important of which is the use of fusion reactors to irradiate uranium to produce plutonium or to irradiate thorium-232 to produce uranium-233.

Amory Lovins says: “In short, the notion that different or smaller reactors plus wholly new fuel cycles (and, usually, new competitive conditions and political systems) could overcome nuclear energy’s inherent problems is not just decades too late, but fundamentally a fantasy. Fantasies are all right, but people should pay for their own. Investors in and advocates of small-reactor innovations will be disappointed. But in due course, the aging advocates of the half-century-old reactor concepts that never made it to market will retire and die, their credulous young devotees will relearn painful lessons lately forgotten, and the whole nuclear business will complete its slow death of an incurable attack of market forces.” http://www.foe.org.au/anti-nuclear/issues/nfc/power-weapons/g4nw

EVENTS

More information at Action Australia

31 May – Adelaide Ben Heard and the Breakthrough Insititute will be spruiking for the nuclear industry

6 – 7 June – Adelaide – Uranium Threat – No Means NO

8 June – Fremantle – Film ‘The Man Who Saved the World’ – with Federal MP Josh Wilson and Mayors for Peace

17 June National day of Action to support UN negotiations to ban and eliminate nuclear weapons

Actions are listed below, in alphabetical order. The details for all events in Australia are available here. To be clear; many of the events are led by women, but inclusive of all!

17 June – BRISBANE – Global Women’s March to Ban the Bomb!
17 June – CANBERRA –Rally to Ban the Bomb… finally!

17 June – DARWIN Planning in progressTo be announced

17 June – HOBART – Women Ban the Bomb Vigil

17 June – MELBOURNE – Women’s March to Ban the Bomb

16 – 18 June PERTH – Tour of US bases

17 June – Sydney – Women’s March to Ban the Bomb

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PETITIONS

Demand the Queensland Government Holds Adani to Account!
Stop the Mine Before it Starts!

Say no to Jay’s high-level waste dump

Land Rights not Mining Rights. Tell the government to stop attacking land rights
http://www.seedmob.org.au/landrights

Donate to Justice for South Australian First People – Treaty Now

PETITION No Nuclear Waste Dump for South Australia http://sagreens.markparnell.org.au/no_waste_dump_for_sa

PETITION. Citizens of Australia demand action to enforce South Australian Nuclear Waste Storage Facility (Prohibition) Act 2000 http://petition.dyndns.org/index.php

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Antinuclear

Australian news, and some related international items