Antinuclear

From the archives- Poison in the Heart. The Nuclear Wasting of South Australia

Academia, By Vincent Di Stefano, July 2016

This paper offers a brief reflection on the some of the principal recommendations of the recent South Australian Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission report. The Royal Commission proposed that the South Australian government put steps into motion to receive over one third of the world’s high level nuclear waste for above-ground storage and eventual burial in yet-to-be-built underground repositories in the South Australian desert. In real terms, the report recommended that South Australia imports 138,000 tons of high level waste in the form of spent fuel rods, and an additional 390,000 cubic metres of intermediate level waste for storage and eventual underground burial. The paper provides some historical context regarding the circumstances that have over the past 70 years seen the world-wide accumulation of 390,000 tons of high level nuclear wastes from nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons programs

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… Resuscitating a Nightmare It is a curious thing to observe the confidence with which the recent Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission has embraced the promotion of South Australia as the ideal destination for over one third of the world’s accumulated stores of spent nuclear fuel. This spent fuel, together with the 400,000 cubic metres of intermediate-level nuclear waste that the Royal Commission recommends be transported to South Australia, represents a problem that nations with decades-long histories of nuclear energy production have failed to resolve. The entrancement induced by a whiff of billions of dollars of new revenue presently has a closed circle of nuclear advocates and politicians straining to persuade the people of South Australia to obligingly make their way as latter-day lemmings towards a dangerous and uncharted nuclear abyss.

In the short term, the Commission calls for the transportation of vast tonnages of highly radioactive materials from around the planet for decades-long storage in above-ground facilities. In the longer term, it proposes the construction of a deep underground repository for the “permanent” burial of the most dangerous wastes produced by a destructive and senescent civilisation.

……………Quo Vadis? The project to bury the world’s nuclear poison in the heart of the Australian desert has not sprung out of a void. It is an idea that has been insidiously festering for two decades in a variety of incarnations. The first stirrings of the hellish project to turn Australia into the world’s nuclear dumping ground emerged in the late 1990s when Pangea Resources, a U.K. based company promoted the construction of a commercially-operated international waste repository in Western Australia. The project was supported by a $40 million budget, 80% of which came from British Nuclear Fuels Limited (wholly owned by the U.K. government), with the remaining 20% from two nuclear waste management companies.

That particular project came to an abrupt halt in 1999 after Friends of the Earth in the U.K. came into possession of a promotional video produced by Pangea Resources and sent it on to its sister organisation in Australia. The project did, however, excite the imagination of a number of prominent Australian politicians including former prime ministers Bob Hawke and John Howard. In 2005, Bob Hawke excitedly proclaimed : “Forget about current account deficits . . . we could revolutionise the economics of Australia if we did this

The situation is no different today. Current Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and opposition leader Bill Shorten seem to be in lock-step regarding the desirability of importing the world’s high level nuclear waste into South Australia. Neither has listened to the voices of indigenous traditional owners or of the more informed advocates of restraint and sanity. …………….https://www.academia.edu/27381729/Poison_in_the_Heart_The_Nuclear_Wasting_of_South_Australia?email_work_card=title

March 31, 2025 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized