Larry O’Loughlin’s Submission reminds Senate of the unsolved problem of nuclear wastes, and calls to retain Australia’s nuclear prohibitions.
Environment and Other Legislation Amendment (Removing Nuclear Energy Prohibitions) Bill 2022 Submission 147
There are long-term issues with the use of nuclear materials which create more problems than the
short-term solutions they are alleged to provide
Australia has nuclear medicine as an option for some specific needs and nuclear materials have uses
in diagnostics. Australia has a nuclear reactor to produce some of these materials and in order to
gain international recognition of the reactor and to be part of international nuclear safeguards we
needed a regulations regime which was obtained through ARPANSA.
We do not now need to start developing nuclear power for electricity generation or for propulsion
or nuclear weapons. There are far better options for achieving long-term goals
The main problem with nuclear options is the generation of waste, whether high, medium or lowlevel. Some nuclear waste must be managed for thousands of years; longer than the known life-span
of any human civilization.
There is a need for further research on how to deal with nuclear waste but we do not need to
produce more waste in order to study it. We already have enough and do not have a solution for
that.
There are many sources of information on the costs and problems of nuclear power and I trust that
the Committee will refer to these and that there will be many submissions that provide this detail. I
suggest that particular respect be given to work which looks at the entire timeframe of the waste
that needs to be managed. That is, the economics of nuclear projects must be considered over
thousands of years. We should also consider the durability of maintenance regimes over those years
and the likelihood of further capital input to upgrade and maintain systems which potentially no
longer provide an economic return.
All nuclear options necessarily include a high level of support of public money from government in
order to operate. Governments do not always make good economic decisions. Once they start
something they find it hard to stop.
We should not now be starting on a long-term nuclear pathway which will be expensive, create longterm problems managing dangerous materials, and for which other and better options currently
exist
Please do not develop nuclear power . https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Environment_and_Communications/Nuclearprohibitions/Submissions
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