Nuclear fuel leasing – not economically viable for Australia
When nuclear reactors shut (as they are doing in USA) – where is the income stream to pay Australia for having all that radioactive trash?
Proponents are talking up the billions that might be made by swallowing our pride and making Australia the world’s nuclear waste dump. But they have been silent about the costs.
And the waste would need to be monitored and problems addressed for millenia
Wasting Australia’s Future: Why We Shouldn’t Become The World’s Nuclear Waste Dump, New Matilda, By Dr Jim Green on November 9, 2015 There are many good reasons why Australia should not set its sights on becoming a dumping ground for nuclear waste. Dr Jim Green takes up the case.
While sceptical about the prospects for nuclear power in Australia, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has given cautious support to the idea of a nuclear fuel leasing industry in Australia. Such an industry would involve uranium mining, conversion (to uranium hexafluouride), enrichment (increasing the ratio of uranium-235 to uranium-238), fuel fabrication, and disposal of the high-level nuclear waste produced by the use of nuclear fuel in power reactors overseas.
In the Prime Minister’s words: “We have got the uranium, we mine it, why don’t we process it, turn it into the fuel rods, lease it to people overseas, when they are done, we bring them back and we have got stable, very stable geology in remote locations and a stable political environment.”
Regardless of its merits, a nuclear leasing industry is an economic non-starter. That much is clear from the data provided in the latest edition of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Nuclear Technology Review. Uranium miners could be compelled to participate in an Australian nuclear leasing industry. But try telling that to BHP Billiton. The company bluntly stated in its submission to the 2006 Switkowski Review: “BHP Billiton believes that there is neither a commercial nor a non-proliferation case for it to become involved in front-end processing or for mandating the development of fuel leasing services in Australia.”
And there’s no point appealing to the patriotic fervour of Australia’s uranium miners: they are majority foreign-owned. Continue reading
Australia’s demonstrated incompetence on dealing with radioactive trash
Wasting Australia’s Future: Why We Shouldn’t Become The World’s Nuclear Waste Dump, New Matilda, By Dr Jim Green on November 9, 201 “…….Is there any reason to believe that Australia would manage a deep underground repository any more responsibly than the US? No.
Is there any reason to believe that things might be worse in Australia? Yes.
The US has a wealth of nuclear expertise at its disposal; Australia has comparatively little.
Moreover, Australia has its own sordid history dealing with long-lived nuclear waste. In the late-1990s, the Australian government carried out a clean-up of the Maralinga nuclear test site. It was done on the cheap and many tonnes of plutonium-contaminated debris remain buried in shallow, unlined pits in totally unsuitable geology.
A number of scientists with inside knowledge of the Maralinga project publicly noted their concerns. Nuclear engineer Alan Parkinson said of the ‘clean up’: “What was done at Maralinga was a cheap and nasty solution that wouldn’t be adopted on white-fellas land.”
US scientist Dale Timmons said the government’s technical report was littered with “gross misinformation”. Geoff Williams, an officer with the Commonwealth nuclear regulator ARPANSA, said the ‘clean up’ was beset by a “host of indiscretions, short-cuts and cover-ups”. Nuclear physicist Prof. Peter Johnston said there were “very large expenditures and significant hazards resulting from the deficient management of the project”.
Barely a decade after the Maralinga ‘clean-up’, a survey revealed that 19 of the 85 contaminated debris pits have been subject to erosion or subsidence.
Australia’s demonstrated incompetence feeds back into the economic debate. Some − perhaps many − countries would surely think twice about entrusting nuclear waste to a country that has already proven that it is not up to the task.https://newmatilda.com/2015/11/09/wasting-australias-future-why-we-shouldnt-become-the-worlds-nuclear-waste-dump/
Banks NAB and CBA support climate action (but watch out for nuclear investment)
This is a good start. But use of the words “low carbon”always needs to be taken with a grain of salt, as it is often code for “nuclear”
Would these banks back nuclear power as a “low carbon” option?
Banking On Climate Action, NAB And Commonwealth Bank Move To Support Paris Talks, 
New Matilda, By Thom Mitchell on November 6, 2015 The move has drawn praise from green groups, who are still warning both institutions need to back away from investments in coal. Thom Mitchell reports.
Two of Australia’s biggest banks stepped up their commitments to climate action, outlining how they will support the international push to limit the rise in average global temperatures to two degrees or less ahead of a major United Nations summit in Paris this December.
The Commonwealth and National Australia Banks confirmed they support the two degree target, with NAB even going as far as to committing to spending at least $18 billion by 2022 “to help address climate change and support the transition to a low carbon economy”. “NAB believes the financial sector has an important role to play in assisting the transition to a low carbon economy, through both the energy we purchase directly and through financing,” the institution said in a statement.
The $18 billion will be spent on “new lending, debt market activity, provision of risk management products, development of financing solutions and advisory activity”.
“Finance will be provided to our customers to undertake climate change mitigation such as renewable energy and energy efficiency including low carbon property, low emission transport, and climate change adaptation activities,” the statement reads. Continue reading
Trans Pacific Partnership final text confirms fears of critics
TPP Environment Fears Confirmed By Final Text https://newmatilda.com/2015/11/06/tpp-environment-fears-confirmed-by-final-text/
By Thom Mitchell on November 6, 2015 The content of the TPP is finally known, and it appears to be as bad as critics feared. Thom Mitchell reports.
The Trans Pacific Partnership leaves the door open for corporations to inhibit the ability of governments to legislate for environmental protection, critics of the biggest free trade deal in history said after the release of the final text yesterday.
Like many trade deals, the TPP includes ‘Investor State Dispute Settlement’ clauses which allow multinational corporations to sue governments in trade tribunals outside of national judiciaries if laws are passed that risk their profits. According to Dr Mathew Rimmer, a Professor of Intellectual Property and Innovation law at the Queensland University of Technology, “They have given foreign investors very broad ranging powers to go into investment tribunals to make complaints about decisions by government that affect their foreign investments.”
“There are some clauses there dealing with protection of the environment…and the right to regulate, but they aren’t absolute defences,” Dr Rimmer said.
The Executive Director of America’s influential Sierra Club, Michael Brune, said the fact that “the words ‘climate change’ don’t even appear in the text [is] a dead giveaway that this isn’t a 21st-century trade deal”.
“It sets us back further, empowering fossil fuel corporations to challenge our public health and climate safeguards in unaccountable trade tribunals while increasing dirty fossil fuel exports and fracking,” Brune said.
Over more than half a decade, the deal was negotiated in secret between 12 ‘Pacific Rim’ countries, including Australia, the United States, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Chile, Singapore, Vietnam and Brunei.
Adelaide’s January heatwave attributed to climate change
The findings are reported in the fourth issue of the American Meteorological Society’s report into extreme weather. The report looked at 33 extreme weather events around the world and analysed which could be attributed to human activity and which were the result of natural variability in weather patterns.
As David Mark reports, detecting the human hand in climate change is a developing area of climate science.
Continue reading
Indonesia to deny nuclear waste ship access to Indonesian waters
Nuclear Waste Ship will be Denied Entry to Indonesian Waters http://www.globalindonesianvoices.com/23422/nuclear-waste-ship-will-be-denied-entry-to-indonesian-waters/ 05 Nov 2015 By : Leo Jegho
“Our investigation has found that the vessel had ever entered our seawaters when sailing to France. And now we are monitoring its travel back to Australia,” Bakamla Chief Vice Admiral Desi A Mamahit told reporters at his office in Jakarta, according to Detik.com.
Transporting the nuclear waste is BBC Shanghai, an Antigua & Barbuda-flagged general cargo ship. Admiral Desi mentioned two reasons why Indonesian authorities disallow BBC Shanghai passing through Indonesian waters on its way to Australia. The first reason is that the Indonesian seawaters are not part of the routes allowed for foreign vessels traveling from Europe to Australia and vice versa. The second reason is that BBC Shanghai carries nuclear waste.
BBC reported that BBC Shanghai is due to reach Australia by 27 November and that it is now in Africa. France-based nuclear company Areva sent the nuclear waste back to Australia.
The waste reportedly derives from the spent nuclear fuel sent from Australia to France in 1990s and early 2000s. French law obliges such nuclear waste to be sent back to Australia.
Fact-checking Senator Sean Edwards’s claim on future nuclear bonanza
FREE ENERGY – WITH NUCLEAR? http://www.factsfightback.org.au/free-energy-with-nuclear/ November 4, 2015
The claim
Senator Sean Edwards claimed that an expansion of the nuclear fuel 
cycle in South Australia could provide low or even no cost electricity, create a generation of high-paying jobs and do so without any subsidies from government. His plan is to take spent fuel from older nuclear power plants from around the world, and reprocess them for use in fourth generation reactors here in Australia. We could be paid to take waste which we then turn into fuel, providing free electricity.
The facts
So called fourth generation reactors are not yet commercially available but are predicted to become available sometime in the 2030s. If these reactors become commercially available they will be able to take spent fuel rods(currently treated as nuclear waste) from older nuclear reactors and use them to generate electricity. This effectively turns a waste source into a valuable commodity.
The claim that low or no cost electricity can be produced comes from the idea that other countries would pay South Australia to take their nuclear waste. This would mean that not only will South Australia pay nothing for its fuel costs but it would generate an additional revenue source from taking other countries waste and turning it into a commodity.
We will address his argument as three linked claims:
- Other countries will pay Australia to take nuclear waste for storage.
- Australia can build fourth generation reactors to use this spent fuel to generate electricity.
- This will result in free electricity, and perhaps even earn sufficient profit for the state that it will allow a reduction in taxes.
Claim 1
The expert advice to the South Australian Royal Commission into expanding the nuclear fuel cycle gave a time-frame of 25 years to complete a long term waste storage facility. The Generation IV International Forum expects fourth generation reactors – capable of using existing waste stockpiles as fuel – to be commercially deployed in 2030-2040. This means that any waste storage facility that South Australia develops is likely to be completed at about the same time as fourth generation reactors become commercially available. It is likely that South Australia’s own waste storage business would need to compete with other countries’ fourth generation reactors. Spent fuel will cease to be waste, and will become a commodity. Why would anyone pay South Australia to take a commodity?
Claim 2
The circular reasoning is clear. If fourth generation reactors work as hoped, no-one will pay South Australia to take their spent fuel. Further, if fourth generation technology proves to be expensive and difficult to maintain, South Australia would have locked itself into expensive electricity generation, having set up a waste import industry. In either case, countries with existing stockpiles of spent fuel have a clear competitive advantage over South Australia. It makes more financial sense for them to build fourth generation reactors next to existing stockpiles than it does to transport it half-way around the world. There is no good outcome for South Australia.
Claim 3
According to the US Energy Information Administration, fuel represents less than 15% of the cost of generating electricity with advanced nuclear power plants. Most of the cost is in the initial capital expense and maintenance of the reactor. Even if Australia received “free” fuel – a wildly optimistic hope – the cost of building reactors is still great. Wind and solar have no fuel costs, but no one thinks renewable electricity is free. Furthermore, the cost of setting up an international waste storage component would be extreme large. The Pangea proposal which looked at setting up a nuclear waste disposal facility in the late 1990’s included port facilities and a fleet of specialised ships. It showed that any waste facility would be very expensive.
The first ton of waste that Australia received would require a gamble of many billions of dollars.The findings
Perhaps the cheapest way to take a gamble on nuclear power might be to create temporary storage facilities now, use this brief window before fourth generation reactors are deployed commercially to get paid to take waste, and be among the first in the world to build the reactors which can use our newly acquired waste for fuel.
However, the risks are obvious. If fourth generation reactors turn out to have high costs of operation, we would be locked into expensive electricity. If they can’t be made to work commercially at all, we would have given ourselves a high-level waste problem for tens of thousands of years, a problem that may not have a solution. And if they are cheap and effective, most countries could build their own and bid for the fuel we are so generously taking for a fee. If we can plan ahead for fourth generation technology, so can everyone else.
Even at best, if everything goes just as hoped, the payoff for our gamble is paltry. A 15% reduction in energy costs from nuclear reactors, which already have a higher cost per unit of energy than new wind and solar generators, is far from “free” electricity. A waste industry, costing billions to set up, which will see its revenues killed off – in as little as ten years – by the very technologies we hope to champion, can hardly be said to provide “generations” of high-paying jobs. And we will inherit a nuclear waste storage problem that must be solved for at least hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of years.
The most risk for the least reward is not a smart business plan. Free electricity is no more than a pleasant dream.
Christopher Pyne joins Australia’s pro nuclear dance troupe
In February Mr Pyne said he did not support either a nuclear enrichment industry or nuclear waste storage in South Australia. “I don’t support a nuclear waste dump in South Australia,” he told the ABC.
Now, he has softened his stance, saying he will have a look at proposals to start an industry.
“I’m looking forward to the royal commission’s findings and if Kevin Scarce can convince the Australian public through his Royal Commission that we should go down the track of investing in a nuclear industry, well I’m interested in having a look at it. I’m not convinced but I’m happy to look at it,” he said,……
Mr Pyne signalled he may be open to nuclear waste storage, a politically explosive issue in the state.
“There are countries around the world which have managed to solve the issue of the storage of nuclear waste, so I think that is a bit of an old-fashioned argument,” he said.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull last month said Australia should consider getting involved in the nuclear fuel cycle of production, export and storage and Assistant Science Minister Karen Andrews said that developing a nuclear waste disposal industry was an option…….
Earlier this year Mr Pyne had cautioned of the political dangers of dredging up the issue. http://www.afr.com/news/christopher-pyne-signals-turnaround-on-nuclear-20151104-gkqgkc#ixzz3qeTZQrA1
Iluka Resources to subdivide West Victoria land with radioactive trash tomb
Miner Iluka Resources gets Horsham Council approval to subdivide Douglas mine land http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-04/miner-iluka-gets-nod-to-subdivide-douglas-mine-land/6910420 Horsham Council has approved an Iluka Resources’ application to subdivide land at its Douglas mine in western Victoria.
The approval is subject to a range of planning and environmental conditions.
“The mineral sands miner said it did not need some parts of the site, including Pit 19 where radioactive mining by-product was buried.
The council’s planning committee has been reviewing the application for the past month and it has now been approved with conditions. Future activities on the land deemed sensitive will trigger an environmental audit and previous use of the land would be disclosed to any future buyer.
The conditions require a plan which clearly outlines land previously used for mining purposes and the disposal of radioactive by-product.
Trans Pacific Partnership fails the environment, ignores climate change
Climate change missing from full Trans-Pacific Partnership text, The Age November 5, 2015 Gareth Hutchens “…….this is the first time Australians have had a chance to see what the federal government has been negotiating on their behalf for over five years.
Matthew Rimmer, Professor of Intellectual Property and Innovation Law at the Queensland University of Technology, told Fairfax Media it looks like US trade officials have been “green-washing” the agreement.
“The environment chapter confirms some of the worst nightmares of environmental groups and climate activists,” Dr Rimmer said.
“The agreement has poor coverage of environmental issues, and weak enforcement mechanisms. There is only limited coverage of biodiversity, conservation, marine capture fisheries, and trade in environmental services. The final text of the chapter does not even mention ‘climate change’ – the most pressing global environmental issue in the world.”
Controversially, the deal includes a clause giving foreign companies the right to sue Australian governments if they introduce laws they say have harmed their investments.
Dr Patricia Ranald from the Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network said the “safeguards” Mr Robb claimed he had won to prevent foreign tobacco companies suing Australian governments for pursuing anti-smoking policies do not appear strong enough.
“The general ‘safeguards’ in the text are similar to those in other recent agreements which have not prevented cases against health and environmental laws,” Dr Ranald said.
“Public health groups have influenced governments to include in the text the option of more clearly excluding future tobacco control laws from ISDS cases, which is important and has angered the tobacco lobby. But this also begs the question of how effective are the general ‘safeguards’ for other public health and environmental laws.”
Dr Rimmer also criticised the investment chapter, saying it was one of the most “labyrinthine” in the agreement……..http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/details-of-transpacific-partnership-finally-released-20151105-gkrivo.html
Even Westinghouse gives cost of nuclear reactor as $17.5billion
Global energy giant Westinghouse says an Australian nuclear power plant would cost $17.5bn November 5, 2015 ……..Ms Bowser, Westinghouse’s vice president of new plant project advancement, said construction of the company’s AP1000 model would take four years but deciding a site and various necessary approvals would take longer.
Big companies urge action on climate change (but beware of BHP’s nuclear lobbying
This sounds good, and it IS good. At the same time BEWARE of BHP Billiton. They are part of the nuclear lobbying to get nuclear accepted as the cure for climate change
Paris 2015: Australian corporate giants sign up for action on climate, SMH November 5, 2015 Peter Hannam Environment Editor, The Sydney Morning Herald More than a dozen of Australia’s largest companies including BHP Billiton, Westpac and Origin Energy, have signed up to take long-term action on climate change.
The firms have joined more than 250 global corporations, boasting more than $US5.6 trillion ($7.7 trillion) in annual turnover, that have agreed on steps such as putting a price on carbon and buying 100 per cent of their electricity from renewable sources.
The pledges by companies, which also include ANZ, Commonwealth Bank, AGL, Infigen and Brambles, come just weeks before delegates from almost 200 nations meet in Paris to negotiate a global climate treaty aimed at keeping temperature increases to within 2 degrees of pre-industrial levels…….http://www.smh.com.au/environment/un-climate-conference/paris-2015-australian-corporate-giants-sign-up-for-action-on-climate-20151104-gkqk2c.html
Cameco’s uranium plans in Western Australia stalled indefinitely by low prices
Uranium miner Cameco to move in WA when demand lifts for nuclear energy, Perth Now
October 28, 2015 North American uranium miner Cameco plans to advance its WA projects when demand picks up.
The company says it is frustrated by roadblocks to uranium mining in WA, particularly from the WA Labor Party, which may stop new uranium mines from going ahead if elected.
Cameco Australia managing director Brian Reilly said uranium miners would need access to more Australian ports to export its products in the future……..http://www.perthnow.com.au/business/uranium-miner-cameco-to-move-in-wa-when-demand-lifts-for-nuclear-energy/news-story/cb93a50d83666159909dfa00d4b94c7c
Resources Minister Josh Frydenberg expresses nuclear lobby’s religious belief in future uranium boom
Uranium will rebound: Frydenberg The West Australian, 3 Nov 15 New Resources Minister Josh Frydenberg has backed WA’s fledgling uranium industry to climb off the canvas as Australia works towards a free trade agreement with yellowcake-hungry India…….
WA is yet to mine any yellowcake, with uranium prices depressed since the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan.Before the disaster the uranium price was above $US70 a pound, today it is $35/lb….
Australian media continues to confuse return of Lucas Heights wastes with plan to import world’s radioactive trash
Why does the media continue to confuse the return of nuclear waste to Lucas Heights (permitted due to contracts, in Australian law) with the ill conceived plan to invite the world’s radioactive trash in, as a supposedly $squillion dollar industry – (which is illegal in Australia)
WA site ‘ideal’ for nuclear dump https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/wa/a/29976367/wa-site-ideal-for-nuclear-dump/ Andrew Probyn | Federal Political Editor | Canberra November 3, 2015, The man behind WA’s only short-listed site for a radioactive waste dump says the mulga scrub near Leonora would be ideal home for the world’s spent nuclear fuel rods.
Glenn Baker, who owns 100ha submitted by Leonora Shire Council for low and intermediate level radioactive waste dump, said the area had the stable geology, environment and remoteness necessary for a world repository of high level nuclear waste.
The South Australian Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission has been told the industry could be worth $28 billion over the next three decades, such is the global demand for nuclear waste storage.
Mr Baker’s property “Waarmba” is one of seven sites short-listed for a federal radioactive waste management facility to dispose more than 4200 cubic metres of low-level waste from hospitals and universities, and store almost 700 cubic metres of intermediate waste from Lucas Heights nuclear reactor in Sydney. Continue reading
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