Malaysia insisting that Australia agrees to accept Lynas radioactive wastes
‘Onus is on Lynas to get nod for waste shipment’, The Malaysian Star Reports by MARTIN CARVALHO, YUEN MEIKENG, RAHIMY RAHIM and TASHNY SUKUMARAN , 29 March 12, THE onus of obtaining permission from the authorities to ship waste from the proposed rare earth plant in Gebeng, Pahang, to Australia lies with operators Lynas Corporation, said Science, Technology and Innovations Minister Datuk Seri Dr Maximux Ongkili.
“There has been no official word from the authorities in Australia over the shipment (of the waste) and I have not received any formal communication,” he said at Parliament lobby.
Though helping facilitate Lynas’ investment in setting up the plant here, he noted there were conditions that the company must fulfil with the onus on them to obtain approval for waste shipment to Australia if the need arose. “We are not here for the purpose of just helping Lynas. We have set conditions and they must follow,” he said.
The Atomic Energy Licensing Board’s (AELB) imposed five conditions for the issuance of a temporary operating licence for the Lynas plant which includes locating a suitable site for a permanent disposal facility. “If Lynas cannot process the wastes here according to our standard or cannot find a permanent disposal site, then they have to seek a site outside this country…..
“Otherwise, I am not giving the licence as they have signed for that,” Ongkili repeatedly said….. Ongkili said Lynas Corporation chose to have its rare earth plant in Malaysia because the cost to operate the facility here was 30% of that in Australia….. http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2012/3/28/parliament/11002216&sec=parliament
South Australia the chosen route for Lucas Heights radioactive wastes to the Northern Territory?
Nuclear waste headed to South Australia – Greens, Herald Sun, AAP March 15, 2012 THE Greens say the South Australian Government has abandoned its tough stand against the transport of nuclear waste through the state. Greens MP Mark Parnell said former Premier Mike Rann won a High Court challenge against Howard government plans to locate a nuclear waste
dump in SA. Mr Rann also opposed the transport of nuclear waste through the state to a proposed dump in the Northern Territory.
Federal parliament yesterday passed a Bill authorising the NT dump and Mr Parnell said the State Government now appeared to accept nuclear waste from the Lucas Heights reactor in Sydney would travel through SA….. “This transport is completely unnecessary,” Mr Parnell said today.
“Even if you accept the need to build a waste-storage facility in the Northern Territory, which the Greens totally reject, the most direct route from Lucas Heights to the NT is nowhere near South Australia.”
Mr Parnell said in 2009 a federal government report found that transporting waste through SA was an option that would avoid the
emotive idea of taking it through the Blue Mountains. But he said if the waste came through SA it would travel through Australia’s foodbowl and tourist areas such as the SA Riverland. http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/nuclear-waste-headed-to-south-australia-greens/story-e6frf7jx-1226300436521
Is rare earths company Lynas planning to return radioactive wastes to Australia?
“Where exactly is ‘abroad’? Identify and prove to us which country outside of Malaysia is willing to accept this massive [volume of] toxic waste.
AELB says will close Lynas plant if waste agreement broken http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/aelb-says-will-close-lynas-plant-if-waste-agreement-broken The Malaysian Insider, March 15, 2012 KUALA LUMPUR, The Atomic Energy Licensing Board (AELB) assured Malaysians today it will shutter Lynas Corporation’s rare earth plant in Kuantan if the Australian mining firm violates conditions on the disposal of radioactive material.
According to Star Online, the regulator reminded at its weekly media briefing today that that firm had already struck an agreement with local authorities here for it to return any radioactive waste to Australia if it fails to set up a permanent disposal facility here. Continue reading
Strong opposition to the Labor-Liberal nuclear waste dump legislation
Nuclear dump protesters disrupt Parliament ABC News, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-13/nuclear-dump-protesters-disrupt-parliament/3886614 March 13, 2012 Anti-nuclear protesters have tried to stop debate in Federal Parliament on legislation for Australia’s first national nuclear waste dump.
The Government’s bill to establish the dump has been passed in the Senate with Opposition support. The Greens and independent senator Nick Xenophon opposed the legislation.
A group in the public gallery disrupted proceedings, calling out for the dump to be stopped. They are concerned it will be built on Aboriginal land at Muckaty Station, near Tennant Creek, in the Northern Territory.
The Government has consistently stated the legislation did not specify a site for the dump. But it has offered to give the Northern Territory $10 million if it accepts the waste dump.
Greens spokesman on nuclear issues Scott Ludlam says he is confident the community will continue to fight any plan to use the Northern Territory site. “That is the unnecessary fight that this Government has picked in a bipartisan consensus with the Opposition who opposed it in the first place,” he said.
“This is the beginning of the campaign to stop Muckaty, not the end.” Mr Ludlam says the Greens will continue to fight the project. “The site is in an earthquake zone, it floods regularly, there are very long transport corridors, there are no jobs being applied and it’s opposed from people on the ground, on the front line from Tennant all the way up to the NT Government and people around the country,” he said.
Donna Jackson, from the Australian Nuclear Free Alliance, says she is shocked the legislation has been passed while there is still a legal challenge before the courts about the ownership of the Muckaty site. “Look I honestly didn’t think that they would have the gall to pass this legislation given that the court case is still happening,” she said. “I’m not sure if it set a precedent but I’m not aware of any other bills passing while there is still a court case in action.” Jimmy Cocking from the Arid Lands Environment Centre says it is a sad day for the Territory and the country. “If all of a sudden this starts happening and they construct a nuclear waste facility north of Tennant Creek, the transport of this radioactive waste across the country is going to be a subject of concern with local councils across the country,” he said.
Apart from Greens amendment Australia’s Nuclear Waste Bill is bad legislation
Nuclear waste dump plans pass Senate SBS World News, 13 March 2012 Legislation to establish Australia’s first national nuclear waste dump has passed the Senate, the ABC reports, paving the way for a dump at Muckaty Station in the Northern
Territory.
The Northern Territory government and various local clan groups are opposed to the plan to build a medium-level nuclear waste dump on the aboriginal land north of Tennant Creek….. Anti-nuclear activist Nat Wasley told the Green Left Weekly she welcomed Greens Senator Scott Ludlam’s amendment that international waste cannot be stored at the facility but said the rest of the legislation ‘Is neither new nor good.
It builds on the mistakes of the Howard era and lacks credibility and consent. There are still many hurdles for the government before a dump is up and running, and this proposal will be challenged every step of the way.’…
A dispute over who owns the land in question continues to complicate affairs – a Federal court case is yet to decide if the indigenous group who signed the deal to put Muckaty station in the running to hold the waste are the true owners.
Resources Minister Martin Ferguson’s reitereated the an earlier pledge not to proceeed until the court case is decided, Fairfax reported. ‘In relation to litigation in the Federal Court concerning the nominated land, the Government will not act on this site until this matter is resolved by the Court’, he said….. Muckaty is the only site nominated under the current proceedings.
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1633901/Nuclear-waste-dump-plans-pass-Senate
NSW Wales government will dump radioactive waste at Kemps Creek
LETTER CONFIRMS O’FARRELL WILL DUMP RADIOACTIVE WASTE AT KEMP’S CREEK (NSW), Beyond Nuclear, 5 March 12, The O’Farrell Government has turned its back on the people of western Sydney – and confirmed it will break its election promise and dump tonnes of radioactive dirt from Hunters Hill in Kemps Creek. This is in addition to radioactive material from the former uranium smelter at Hunters Hill already being sent to the Lidcombe waste facility. In a February 7 letter to Liverpool City Council, the O’Farrell Government confirmed: The material to be removed from the Hunters Hill site is predominantly clean soil interspersed with traces of low level radioactive contamination, the SITA facility at Kemps Creek is the only facility in NSW licensed to accept this class of waste.Lynas’ radioactive waste: Malaysia doesn’t want it, Australia won’t take it back
How to dispose of the waste? MY Sin Chew Daily,, 2012-03-01 By LIM SUE GOAN, Translated by SOONG PHUI JEE, Four government departments have earlier recommended that Lynas should ship back waste material produced by the refinery plant to Australia. They have a certain representativeness as four departments account for 16% of the total 25 departments.
It was reported that the Cabinet has accepted the recommendation and required Lynas to ship back all waste material back to Western Australia. It is indeed a positive development, but is it feasible or just a wishful thinking?
Western Australian Minister for Mines and Petroleum Norman Moore told the Parliament in April last year that the Australian Government would not accept responsibility for any waste produced by Lynas. Continue reading
Where to trash Australia’s dead but radioactive Hifar nuclear reactor?
Australia’s media rarely covers anything to do with the nuclear industry, and never covers the issue of trashing the dead nuclear reactor, sorry, I mean “decommissioning’ it. That’s a much nicer word. You can visualise the general pulling the epaulettes off the shoulder of the disgraced captain – decommissioning him – a nice formal protocol.
But what is ANSTO going to do with its dead Hifar nuclear reactor in Sydney? After all, there was a helluva fuss about the uranium left in posh Hunter’s Hill. No doubt ANSTO and the New South Wales government will find some working class suburb in which to dump ANSTO”s old trashed reactor – seeing that ANSTO has a nice new one which is not trash (yet).
But, no – I forgot, the Australian Government will step in and promise some Aborigines the normal facilities that the rest of us have anyway, – if they’ll just be obliging and “volunteer” to have the dead but radioactive nuclear reactor. – Christina Macpherson
Australian Senate, ANSTO transcripts, 19 Feb, 2012,
……Senator LUDLAM: If this is complex, perhaps you can table it, but can you provide me with a current timetable and order of works for the decommissioning of the former HIFAR reactor in the site?
Dr Paterson: There is no formal decommissioning plan which has been adopted at the moment. As we indicated, I believe, at a previous estimates, there is a window of time in which we would like to begin that decommissioning process. A will take on notice the current status of how we are thinking about that window and when the works can begin.
Senator LUDLAM: Can I see it if I look in the right spot in the four-year forward estimates, or is it not there?
Dr Paterson: It is not in the four-year.
Senator LUDLAM: Did you want to add something, Mr McIntosh?
Mr McIntosh: No, certainly not in the four-year. Clearly, there will be a number of issues to be taken into account. One of them is obviously funding, but there is also: there is not much point demolishing a reactor if you have got nowhere to put the waste.
Senator LUDLAM: That is what I am going to come to now. Is it too early for me to ask you what the cost is going to be of pulling that facility apart?
Dr Paterson: I think the engineering estimates for the moment can be tabled.
Senator LUDLAM: Can be?
[ I couldn’t make much sense of the lengthy answer here. C.M.]…. and the second thing that can happen is that the cost estimates which are based on normative numbers that you can extract from quantity surveyors and others in the marketplace may have changed because the marketplace itself has changed. So there are two bases for having reasonable contingencies in these projects: one is scope changes and the other is cost changes because of market forces….
….. Senator LUDLAM: Is it still ANSTO’s intention to store that material which is contracted to return from Europe temporarily in Sydney while the issue of the remote waste dump is resolved one way or another?
Dr Paterson: That is our current planning.
Australia’s New National Radioactive Waste Bill targets Muckaty Station, on Aboriginal land
Natalie Wasley, 8 Feb 12, David Wroe’s opinion piece in the Age on February 8 “First radioactive dump gets the green light” omits a numbers of key issues in the current battle to build the Northern Territory nuclear waste dump. NT Country Liberal Senator Scullion’s amendment to proposed legislation would provide a $10 million cash injection to the Territory as compensation (quite insignificant when you consider this facility will be operating for at least 300-400 years), but there was never any danger of the Coalition not supporting Minister Ferguson’s legislation.
As pointed out in the House of Reps debate, it bears uncanny similarity to the Coalition’s legislation it purports to replace, the main difference being it specifically targets Muckaty-a site nominated in the Howard era. Mr Wroe’s piece also ignores the ongoing opposition to the waste dump from the NT government and many Traditional Owners of the Muckaty Land Trust, who have built broad national support for their campaign and launched a federal court challenge against the nomination of the Muckaty site. If I was David’s driving instructor, I would tell him to look more carefully at the traffic signals.
First radioactive dump gets the green light, The Age, David Wroe February 8, 2012 Australia is set to get its first radioactive waste dump with the government agreeing to a Coalition demand for $10 million for the Northern Territory, which will host the dump.
Energy Minister Martin Ferguson told ABC radio’s PM program yesterday that the government would agree to a demand from Northern Territory Nationals Senator Nigel Scullion for the $10 million fund for education, health and infrastructure, ensuring the passage of the legislation through the Senate.
The preferred site is Muckaty Station, near Tennant Creek. The dump will take medical waste and reprocessed fuel rods from the Lucas Heights reactor. http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/first-radioactive-dump-gets-the-green-light-20120207-1r5ge.html#ixzz1lqYBS82y
Australian Greens move to prevent hasty imposition of nuclear waste dump in Northern Territory
The Australian Greens today vowed to continue the fight against the planned nuclear waste dump at Muckaty Station in the Northern Territory.
The Government has listed the National Radioactive Waste Management Bill for debate tomorrow. Greens Senator Scott Ludlam said Labor’s attempt to force the Bill through the Senate before the completion of a Federal Court case over the status of the land in question was a disgrace.
“The Traditional Owners do not want this eternal radioactive waste dump on their country. The locals don’t want it. The Northern Territory government does not want it. Traditional Owners visited the parliament last year and Dianne Stokes wept here telling the story of her country. There is a Federal Court case currently unresolved as to the status of this land, yet the Government pushes on – led by a minister obsessed with the nuclear industry.”
“This legislation does not just represent a problem for Muckaty – it places enormous and virtually unchecked power in the hands of one minister.”
“In 2007 the IAEA noted examples of states which, having used undemocratic methods lacking public involvement and acceptance, have ‘had to reconsider their programs’. One of the conclusions of the study was that ‘reassessment can become necessary because past decisions were not reached through socially acceptable process’.”
“Last month, in a report to the US Energy Secretary, the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future strongly recommended a ‘consent-based approach to siting nuclear waste storage… noting that ‘trying to force such facilities on unwilling communities has not worked’. And indeed Labor’s stated policy aims to ‘establish a consensual process of site selection, which looks to… the centrality of community consultation and support’, yet the Government ignores both Labor policy and the lessons of history.”
“The Greens will move an amendment to establish a genuinely Independent Commission on the Long Term Safe Storage, Transport and Management of Australia’s Radioactive Waste to find a real solution to this problem.”
“South Australia resisted a nuclear waste dump and won. A Territory has less power and that is why the Government, like the Howard Government before it, targeted the Northern Territory – because it believed it could not resist. But it can and it will resist.”
Senator Ludlam will move to amend the bill to delay its debate until after the resolution of the case over the traditional ownership of the land in the Government’s sights.
Australian government’s planned nuclear waste dump breaks international safety standards
The government’s policy on the most hazardous radioactive waste is to store it in a large above-ground warehouse — indefinitely!
Contrary to the government spin therefore, the Federal Government’s policy on radioactive waste management is not a disposal solution to the most hazardous form of radioactive waste in Australia. This places the Australian Government in breach of its international treaty obligations, but, more importantly, does not eliminate the risks to humans and the environment.
Australia’s lazy plan to dump nuclear wastes – `Solution’ brings more problems By DR PETER KARAMOSKOS Northern Territory News 10 Dec 11 THE proposed radioactive waste repository at Muckaty was determined less on scientific and public health criteria and more on opportunity. Indeed, Muckaty was not even identified as a preferred site in the NT in the original site selection process.
But the contention that is most in error is that the radioactive waste to be disposed of there is largely nuclear medicine waste. Nearly all such waste is actually short-lived and decays in local storage, and is subsequently disposed of safely without need for a repository.
While some medical-related radioactive waste requires appropriate disposal, it is only a very small proportion of the waste intended for the repository. The vast bulk of the waste that is intended to be disposed of at Muckaty is Lucas Heights nuclear reactor operational waste, and contaminated soil (10,000 drums) from CSIRO research on ore processing in the 1950s and 1960s. This waste requires isolation from the environment for up to 300 years (deemed low-level waste).
More hazardous waste (deemed intermediate level waste) arises from further Lucas Heights reactor operational waste, reprocessed spent fuel rods and residues from mineral sands processing. Intermediate-level waste requires isolation from the environment for thousands of years, most usually in an engineered disposal site up to a few hundred metres underground, as specified by the “Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of
Radioactive Waste Management” a legally binding treaty of which Australia is a signatory. We also participate in the development of these international safety standards. Continue reading
Secret plans by Australian government to set up international nuclear waste dump
a five-square-kilometer space would be built on the ground and a 20-square-kilometer space would be created 500 meters below the ground to store 75,000 metric tons of radioactive waste……The candidate area spread from Western Australia to South Australia
A plan to build a final disposal facility surfaced again in 2006 …The government that was then led by Prime Minister John HowardNuclear countries came close to solving problem of radioactive waste Mainichi Daily News. (By Haruyuki Aikawa, Japan December 13, 2011 LONDON — “…The Pangea group of experts funded by nuclear energy-related companies and general contractors from many countries had been secretly planning to build an international disposal site for spent nuclear fuel in Australia. However, the plan fell through after an Australian news organization exposed it.
Doctors say Alice Springs at risk from transport of radioactive waste:
Alice Springs, 28 November 2010: An Alice Springs-based team of doctors has completed a study of the potential risks of transport of radioactive waste materials, and has launched a fact sheet to explain the findings. Co-author, MAPW member Dr Tom Keaney, believes that this work is timely, with the proposed waste repository at Muckaty currently the subject of a major national debate.
- Read the MAPW Fact Sheet on transport of radioactive waste
- Read the media release by MAPW Northern Territory Branch
- Read the MAPW fact sheet: Q&A on the nuclear waste – explaining what it is planned to bury, or store, at the Muckaty site. http://www.mapw.org.au/news/alice-springs-risk-transport-radioactive-waste-mapw-nt-members
Strong call against Australian company Lynas’ rare earths radioactive wastes in Malaysia
Lynas, ….. expects to bring in RM8 billion a year from 2013 that too tax-free, based on current prices.”……
Petition signed by 52000 residents protesting the building of the plant
By Aliran, on 12 November 2011, M N D’Cruz raises the alarm over the Lynas rare earth refinery near Kuantan and says it is the duty of every Pahang resident to oppose the plant……
The biggest question is ‘Why do we want this plant in Gebeng or for that matter anywhere in Malaysia’? Continue reading
Maralinga’s hidden legacy of radioactivity AND asbestos
Maralinga sites need more repair work, files show, The Age, Philip Dorling, November 12, 2011 MORE than a decade after the Howard government declared the clean-up of Maralinga to be finished, the Australian government is continuing to support remediation work at the former British nuclear weapons test site.
Confidential federal government files released under freedom of information also show Canberra bureaucrats have at times been primarily concerned with ”perceptions” of radioactive contamination, while rejecting a request by the Maralinga Tjarutja Aboriginal community for a site near the Maralinga village to be cleared of high levels of toxic uranium contamination.
Files released by the Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism show that erosion of the massive Taranaki burial trench north of Maralinga, described by federal bureaucrats as ”a large radioactive waste repository”, has required significant remediation work. Other burial pits scattered across the former nuclear test range have also been subject to subsidence and erosion, exposing asbestos-contaminated debris…..
The Taranaki trench was excavated in the mid-1990s and used to bury radioactive-contaminated debris and soil, principally from numerous ”minor trials”, British nuclear weapons safety and development experiments conducted between 1956 and 1963 that caused the heaviest radioactive contamination at Maralinga. Records of a Maralinga Lands and Environmental Management Committee meeting in October last year show that ”erosion of the Taranaki trench was noted” and that repair work funded by the Commonwealth would be carried out by the Maralinga Tjarutja. An annual survey of 85 debris pits revealed that 19 pits had been subject to erosion or subsidence, with eight requiring ”major work” and at least four containing exposed asbestos…..
The released files also show that the Australian government declined requests by Maralinga Tjarutja to clean up the trials site closest to the Maralinga Village. Situated east of the Maralinga airstrip, the Kuli site was used by British nuclear weapons scientists to conduct 262 trials that explosively dispersed 7.4 tonnes of uranium into the environment……… http://www.theage.com.au/national/maralinga-sites-need-more-repair-work-files-show-20111111-1nbpp.html#ixzz1dck3m6z7
1 This month
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
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