By Jim Green
The plan to dump 75,000 tonnes of high-level nuclear waste in South Australia or Western Australia is gaining increasing support.
The plan came to light in December when a promotional video produced by Pangea Resources was leaked. Pangea has acknowledged that it first began developing the plan in the early 1990s.
Pangea's major backer is British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL), which is 100% owned by the British government. BNFL was recently listed as one of the worst corporate polluters by the British government's Environment Agency, and its plan for an underground nuclear dump in the UK was rejected last year on safety grounds.
Pangea has recruited some high-profile Australian consultants, including scientist Sir Gustav Nossal and former ambassador for disarmament David Reese. The executive directors of two right-wing think-tanks, the Institute of Public Affairs and the Sydney Institute, have expressed support for the plan.
Most politicians from the major parties have distanced themselves from the proposal. However, some Liberal MPs openly support it. WA's Senator Ross Lightfoot claims that more than half of the Liberal-National Coalition could be persuaded to support the dump.
In December, federal science and resources minister Nick Minchin told parliament, "I can confirm that as far as this government is concerned there have been absolutely no ministerial-level discussions with that company, Pangea Resources". However, on March 24 Minchin said he had misled parliament as conservation minister Wilson Tuckey had met Pangea last year.
Pangea lodged a formal submission to the government's Strategic Investments Office in March. David Pentz, head of the Australian arm of Pangea said the proposal was lodged "to enable us to engage in a dialogue with the government on the merits of the proposal".
'Moral values'
Pentz said, "The most important political and public acceptance component will be to demonstrate the moral and ethical values. (Our plan) is a global solution to a global problem and it is our fervent wish to make a significant contribution to world security." This rhetoric overlooks the fact that the nuclear industries of just three countries — the US, France and Japan — account for almost 60% of all nuclear power plants.
Gerard Henderson, head of the Sydney Institute, says the Pangea plan "would place this country at the centre of world deliberations on the environment and the control and monitoring of nuclear weapons". However, accepting the mess from dismantled weapons would facilitate weapons development programs by minimising public opposition near weapons production sites and propping up the illusion that progress is being made with nuclear disarmament.
Not one of the nuclear-armed countries intends to completely dismantle its nuclear arsenal. The Pangea proposal is not being driven by concerns about weapons proliferation. It is an attempt by the nuclear power industry to dump its waste problems on isolated and politically vulnerable communities in order to increase its chances of survival.
Lightfoot says, "We are not grappling with our global responsibilities — we can't expect to benefit from exporting uranium if we are not prepared to deal with the waste created from its use". But of course "we" have no say in whether uranium is mined or not. For example, two-thirds of the Australian population oppose the Jabiluka mine yet the mine proceeds.
The moral and ethical arguments sound a little flimsy, so lets get down to business. According to Access Economics, the dump would generate $200 billion in income, or $8200 for each of Australia's 6 million households.
Unfortunately, there is no intention to distribute the income among Australia's households. The dump would generate massive profits for investors, modest royalty payments for governments and crumbs for the rest of us.
Pangea's promotional video says: "The carefully selected geological formations provide a high isolation environment which ensures that no releases of radioactive material can ever take place at the site." Yet, on the strength of recent research, CSIRO scientist Dr Peter Wallbrink says, "There's little doubt modern Australians have underestimated the extent of change we have inflicted on our landscape. In some cases the rates are staggering. We're talking about changing the very face of Australia in comparatively few years, so dramatic is the scale of these events."
National nuclear dump
The Pangea plan for an international dump is long-term and by no means a sure thing. A more immediate concern is the plan to build a national nuclear dump in the Billa Kalina region of SA. Test drilling could begin within weeks to find a specific site for the dump, which will consist of unlined trenches.
The government claims that the dump is being established to dispose of nuclear waste from more than 50 sites around the country. However, the dump is essentially a clearing exercise for the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, which wants to minimise public opposition to another nuclear reactor in the Sydney suburb of Lucas Heights. ANSTO recently acknowledged that it is responsible for most of the waste which will be sent to the national dump.
The national dump could be the thin end of the wedge. It would lower the financial, regulatory and political obstacles to the establishment of an international dump. According to a report in the March 15 Business Review Weekly, "Some SA Liberals believe the Howard government thought the argument about the Billa Kalina repository would give them a good handle on attitudes to the Pangea proposal".
According to Rebecca Bear-Wingfield, who represents women from several Aboriginal groups living in the Billa Kalina region, "Our people have been directly affected by nuclear weapons testing, missile testing and uranium mining. The commonwealth government now intends to dump nuclear waste on our country. This is an abuse of human rights which we will stop. Government's can't keep dumping their poisons on us. We will make this a national and international issue."
So-called "disposal" of nuclear waste in underground dumps is an out-of-sight, out-of-mind con job. The least problematic of a bad bunch of options is above-ground storage at the point of production.
On-site storage is better than centralised stores or dumps because it avoids the risks associated with transportation. On-site storage also forces producers to deal with their own mess and this encourages the minimisation of waste production.
Above-ground stores are better than underground dumps because it is easier to monitor above-ground stores, there is a better chance of effective remedial action if problems are discovered and a greater number of future management options will be available.
Above-ground storage is the best option for nuclear waste, but not a good or permanent one. There are security risks: for example, five 44-gallon drums of uranium oxide went missing from Queensland's Mary Kathleen uranium mine in 1980.
Above-ground stores are vulnerable to weather conditions and other hazards, and their useful life is measured in decades, not millennia. As anti-nuclear campaigner Jean McSorley says, "There's no environmentally proven way for disposal — nuclear waste means eternal vigilance".
Nuclear power must be replaced with renewable energy sources and nuclear research reactors must be replaced with safe, clean alternatives for medical and scientific applications.