Advertisement

Nuclear waste not, want not

The AUKUS nuclear submarines deal is an opportunity for South Australia to embrace the lucrative economic opportunity of storing international nuclear waste, argues Tom Kenyon.

Mar 20, 2023, updated Mar 20, 2023
A nuclear waste isolation pilot plant deep underground in New Mexico, US. Photo: AP/Eric Draper

A nuclear waste isolation pilot plant deep underground in New Mexico, US. Photo: AP/Eric Draper

Dan Andrews is right about the spent nuclear fuel from the submarine program. It should be stored in South Australia – and while we’re at it, we should store other countries’ spent fuel as well. It’s an opportunity we should welcome with open arms.

Storing spent fuel is safe, straightforward and, as the 2016 Royal Commission showed, incredibly lucrative. This is yet another incredible opportunity for South Australia brought about by the decision to build submarines here.

Contrary to public perception and the continual propagandising of anti-nuclear campaigners, handling spent nuclear fuel is actually quite straightforward. It’s not an unsolved technical challenge. Finland is doing it. So is France and Sweden. I’ve been to the French one, and the Finnish one (which is the most advanced). They are just underground mines in reverse.

Storing spent nuclear fuel is simply a matter of drilling a hole in geologically stable ground, putting the fuel in there (contained in secure containers) and filling the hole in again. These are all the same mining skills that are employed underground at Olympic Dam, Carapateena and Broken Hill among others. It’s an area of strength for South Australia.

We don’t need to be confident that the structure will last for thousands of years. We only need to be confident they will last for the hundreds of years that the spent fuel is dangerous – not the thousands Greens will tell you. We know we can do this. Walk around cities all over the world and you are surrounded by buildings that are hundreds of years old. Even thousands of years are possible as the Great Pyramids of Egypt attest.

The Royal Commission on the Nuclear Fuel Cycle (RC) found that there was a very strong case for the storage of spent fuel in South Australia that would be worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

Hundreds of billions of dollars.

Storing spent fuel is safe, straightforward and, as the 2016 Royal Commission showed, incredibly lucrative

The RC found that the sovereign wealth fund that could be created for the state would be $445b and that’s after the facility had been built, the facility operated for over 80 years (and assumed a 50% cost and operating over run), and an $83b reserve fund had been created to remediate the site and account for any unforeseen events that may occur.

The effects on the state’s economy would be tremendous, with state GDP forecast to increase by 4.7% (or $6.7 billion per year) as a result of the activities of the repository.

The sovereign wealth fund would pay the state government around $6 billion per year. (All 2016 dollars)

There is no technical barrier to doing this, only our fear and the duplicitous campaigns of the Greens and associated anti-nuclear campaigners.

If the Greens were in any way rational or honest about the environment, they would welcome this repository. They should welcome it. It will directly help address climate change.

We are constantly told by the Greens that we are in a climate emergency, that we have to change our energy mix, only for them to trot out the same tired and increasingly discredited renewables option. If they really believe that we are in an emergency, it’s time to embrace other options.

Even if renewables would work in Australia, there are places where it won’t, like Germany. There not much sun and not much wind in Germany. For these countries, nuclear is the only viable zero emissions technology. Having a permanent solution to the storage of the spent fuel rather than the above ground storage they currently use will make it easier for them to embrace the solution that nuclear power presents.

South Australia is one of the most geologically and politically stable places in the world. We have abundant space and the technical expertise necessary to deliver a solution for our country that will arise from the purchase of nuclear submarines as well as make it easier for other countries to embrace a nuclear solution to climate change.

South Australia is the best place to store the spent fuel from the nuclear submarine program and it is an incredible opportunity for our state.

Tom Kenyon is a former state Labor minister and is a director of cyber software company Internet 2.0

Local News Matters
Advertisement
Copyright © 2024 InDaily.
All rights reserved.