I think storing Nuclear Waste in Australia is a very good idea. Australia is a vast uninhabited land. Nuclear wast could be stored here safely. There are no major Earthquake fault lines to damage the storage facility. The Countries with Nuclear Waste can pay Australia to Store it. We would own it & eventually, when they find a way to utilize the waste Australia will have it all. It would be safe from theft by terrorists. When Countries want to use the waste to generate energy again then they can buy it off us. Win, Win for Australia.

Only a small point but I think the SA election is 15 March (the Ides).

My thanks, Malcolm 'Paddy' King, - you're so right!
That blows out my argument about the "last ditch" before the election.

Well - there will now be plenty of opportunity for more "last ditches"before March 15.

I think they should just change the State's name to South BHP-Billitionia. It's really all about saving BHP's financial bacon, as Olympic Dam is not too profitable, now. Import nuclear wastes. Get the tax-payer to fork out for the costs, give the profits to BHP, and rave on about "clean jobs" for South BHPBillitonia.

A bit of a pity - as the former South Australia (pre S. BHPBillitonia) could have done so well with renewable energy, which can partner with agriculture - sheep and wheat can share the land farming with wind and solar.

Thank you for publishing a long list of names and organisations. It clearly indicates that many trained minds and people of good faith wish to at least consider nuclear options on their merits, rather than on spin and hyperbole. To the extent that each one of them seeks to have a broad, factual, open discussion on the subject, they should be commended.

Environmental concerns are the most important globally in the long run, yet they so often are dismissed on commercial grounds or discussed only at an emotional level. This well-intentioned yet misguided author has adopted an unquestioning yet questionable emotive stance on a few things, such as:
THAT Fukishima is a nuclear disaster. Over-reaction, scaremongering and poor management have multiplied the problems many times over. Remember, not a single person has died due to radiation, yet the loss of well over 10,000 lives due to the tsunami which preceded the power failures at the power plant has been accepted without public criticism and the loss of life due to avoidable societal breakdown, personal loss and depression continues. Why?
ACCUSING all people who tweet in favour of considering nuclear power of being paid to do so. That is essentially just an attack on free speech. It is a silly thing to write.
THE last sentence is an unacceptable slur on a person specifically because she is qualified in the area in which she has expressed an opinion. That is reprehensible.

Perhaps by accident, then, this article will prompt informed future discussion of Australia's and the world's energy future.

I remain unconvinced that the 'wind+solar" approach will lead to an adequate electricity outcome.

Society will sooner or later (too late?) demand, either country by country, or via an enforceable world-wide treaty, that fossil fuels must stay in the ground.

Where will the world obtain supplies of post-fossil energy, especially electrical energy? Carbon free, safe, stable, reliable and affordable electricity will be needed globally, but where will it come from? That is the real question.

All other questions are, relatively speaking, either name-calling or minor details.

Did the proponents of nuclear energy “all” “go quiet” after Fukushima, or were they just drowned out by the knee-jerk reactions of the Australian media and the rest of the Left wind mill brigade?

“These South Australians get inspiration from both national and overseas nuclear advocates.” And? This one liner makes it sound like a crime; unlike, of course, the dark-age mourners who get their inspiration from bats in the belfry. It’s hard to decide whether the people who think that the world can continue to flourish with old ‘technology’, like windmills or solar panels, are childishly naïve, or just bloody-minded.

Certainly, South Australia’s economy is “depressed”, thanks to Labor from Rann to the totally incompetent Wetherill. Labor will go next month, but they haven’t come up with one idea that has worked (just deepened the state of decay); and the Liberals under the untried Steve Marshall don’t want to say much except that they will do whatever it takes. But, as the author says, they don’t have a nuclear policy either.

So, why should South Australians not listen to the well-respected Prof. Brooks and the business leaders when they have finally woken up to Labor, and have no idea what the Liberals will be like. Somebody has to come up with something to scrape off the rust, and it looks like it will not be a politician – as usual.

Noel surely doesn’t think that people who do have the knowledge he mentions would not be engaged prior to any moves made? And, his “last ditch before the election” is a little purple, given that neither gang of thick politicians will go ahead with it anyway. Sure, we are only slightly ahead of Tasmania in the rust bucket states, but we do have some clever people here – except for the pollies, of course, who are the reason for the perilous state of our economy.

It’s a bit ‘off’ that we mine and sell stuff for good money to other countries when it is not safe enough for ourselves.

Good idea, it has to go somewhere, and the rent received could completely resuscitate, the SA economy.
The dangers that are always trotted out as objections, are around fifty years out of date, and when FBR becomes an essential reality, this stuff will be worth much more than any of the yellow cake we are currently exporting!
As a large supplier of uranium, we could limit the potential harm this product could cause, by enriching it ourselves, and then taking it back, once it is completely depleted as peaceful purpose fuel.
The current problem we as a species and the world faces is carbon, not nuclear fuel, or it's waste products!
Rhrosty.

Apart from a little wine, & dairy products, there is not much use for South Australia. Lets face it, without them pinching water from the eastern states, there would be none of them either.

About the only reason for settling there was it avoided the dangerous trip through Bass strait, & the hard slog up the east coast, [in a sailing ship], to get to Sydney. Still I suppose the same could be said about Melbourne.

So South Oz is not much use for anything, & if we have enough sense to never build another navy vessel there, no work either. It is also a serious economic drag on the east & west of the country, which is becoming harder to support.

One of the few things they have been good at is digging up uranium, so they would probably be good at burying the used stuff too. There would only be a couple of hundred thousand people required then, for a short but rich & happy life in the radiation, & the rest could migrate to somewhere with enough water to sustain life as we know it.

So that's South Oz taken care of, all we have to do now is get rid of Tasmania. What are the chances of giving it to the Kiwis? Yer, they are not that dumb. How about we give it to the boat people, but without all the foreign aid we poor into the place now? Would it drift away if we cut the tow rope?

Hell in just 5 minutes planning we have the rest of Oz back in the financial land of the living. See things aren't that hard really.

About all large parts of SA is good for is as a nuclear waste dump but there is no possibility of it happening in Aus in the forseeable future, as the politicians quoted point out. The public are far too scared of all things nuclear for the idea to get up. Teh author should know this.

From that point of view the article is a waste of space and time.

To Hasbeen - What an appropriate name!.
South Australia is a beautiful State, with the potential for beautiful and positive activities. Its agricultural potential is enhanced by new developments in solar technology. Solar photovoltaics can now be organised so as to farm the sunlight while simultaneously protecting horticulture from excessive sunlight and using water conservatively.

South Australia is already Australia's renewable energy leader, lowering greenhouse emissions, and bringing down electricity costs. Renewable energy growth will provide much CLEAN employment
South Australia has the most beautiful scenery, it's a magnet for tourists,whether for its landscape and history, or for its wineries and its internationally acclaimed arts and festivals.

South Australia has its special history - never having been a prison colony led it to be a proud State, valuing its history, arts and Aboriginal heritage,
It saddens me to see South Australia written off as the junk place of our nation, fit only to be the world's radioactive trash dump, making $billions for a few greedy people.

A very usefull article, it gave lots of links to intelligent, well argued and positive lines of enquiry for those seeking information on the soundness of not only joining but actually leading the world in high tech fuel cycle participation.

South Australia has all the attributes for leading the world in future energy solutions.

Thanks Noel

Noel - while it is good that you defend your own state and there are many good points about it - much of it is desert. They even managed to let off atomic bombs in it way back, without anyone noticing much.

But if you really liked the state why do you encourage the construction of unsightly alternative energy projects, of marginal economic utility and of limited use in the electricity industry?

I also read about that project using solar power to grow high value crops in one part of the state.. no way it will ever be economic - and this sort of stuff is encouraged...

Come on Noel, "South Australia is already Australia's renewable energy leader, lowering greenhouse emissions", sorry can't let you get away with that one. When we take the full life emissions of green energy, we find no savings or in fact that it is less green than coal.

You go on, " and bringing down electricity costs". Perhaps that is why South Oz has the highest electricity charges in the nation.

Even more, "Renewable energy growth will provide much CLEAN employment", you should try selling that to Obama & his ratbag mates in their EPA. They would be the only ones stupid enough to believe that fairytale, & it has cost them billions so far, & lost jobs.

I suppose you could try Spain. A university study there found each green job cost 2 REAL jobs in the real economy.

Actually Noel, I rather like SA, but it really is time you started paying your own way, as value for money, you are a dead loss to the rest of the mainland. Tasmania is prettier, closer, & costs a hell of a lot less to keep

There are two separate issues here: one is a safe-for-thousands-of-years repository for high and medium level nuclear waste, and the other is a reprocessing facility for nuclear reactor fuel rods so that the uranium 235 can be reclaimed for further use, and plutonium can be removed.

The repository would be quite feasible on one of the kratons of very old, very stable rock as far inland from the sea as possible. My limited knowledge of mining leads me to think of a spiral decline with horizontal galleries leading off. The radioactive material, in double wall drums, would be put at the end of the bottom gallery and concreted into place. The next few barrels would be put immediately in front and similarly concreted in. When each gallery is filled, fill the decline to it with concrete and work on the next gallery up. When all galleries are filled, concrete fill the decline up to ground level. Terrorist proof, earthquake proof and groundwater proof!

The recycling centre, on the other hand, creates all sorts of problems of security and leaks. It would need to be near the coast to obtain the amounts of water needed which increases the terrorist risk. The fuel rods would need to be dismantled and then processed to separate the extremely radio-active materials, produced by the decay of U235, from the remaining U235. This is an extremely hazardous process at every step with every mishap toxic.

South Australia could set up a repository as set out above but should not go ahead with a reprocessing facility.

Hi Noel.Wauchope

An excellent article.

To nuclear enthusiasts:

I wonder how much the taxpayers will need to pay for all the extra Australian police and military to provide security for transportation of high level nuclear waste within Australia?

And who pays extra counter-terrorist security costs for high level nuclear waste factories?

These high level waste factories are not simply waste "dumps". They need expensive, active, processes and safeguards to keep the spent rods cool.

@Brian of Buderim

Your concern with reprocessing dangers are well founded. Reprocessing is the root to high proliferation risk (bomb grade) Plutonium 239. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reprocessing :

"Reprocessing has been politically controversial because of the potential to contribute to nuclear proliferation, the potential vulnerability to nuclear terrorism,..."

Regards

Pete

Brian of B: Don't concrete the stuff in. It's too valuable.

Type IV nuclear power generation will use almost all of the old fuel rods, thus releasing the other 99% of energy from the original uranium.

That includes the transuranics, plutonium and so forth.

After a period in cooling ponds, current reactor fuel rods can be quite easily stored in drums, as at present, until Type IV power plant come on line.

After everything else has been consumed, the resulting tiny volume of material is so stable that it can be disposed of with little consideration for its radiation content beyond the first two or three hundred years.

The best part is that while the world's stockpiles of plutonium, enriched uranium, spent fuel rods and depleted uranium are feeding the Type IV's, there is no need to mine uranium for Type IV's. The new reactors will have literally thousands of years' worth of fuel at the current electrical loads without a single new mine.

Here's hoping that this short article starts the discussion that will bring SA and Australia's nuclear future a few steps closer.

Thanks again, Noel.

Generation 1V nuclear reactors do not exist - their present existence is little more than a gleam in the eye of desperate nuclear lobbyists. The most hyped and most unlikely of these are small modular nuclear reactors- so prohibitive;y expensive that they are not really taken seriously.
All Gen 1V reactors need plutonium and/or enriched uranium - involving all the dangers and security costs of transport
All Gen 1V reactors create fission products so highly toxic and long-lasting that they require the same level and space for disposal as the existing reactors. http://edition.cnn.com/2013/11/07/opinion/lyman-nuclear-pandora/

Gen IV technology was proved in practice 40 years back.

The only things holding it back in the 1970's were the US military, because it wasn't attractive to them and, now, the nay-sayers, such as the paranoid, inappropriately named, generally anonymous and thus unchallengeable "Concerned Scientists" mob which you linked to.

Noel, please do try to present accurate and balanced advice. I don't want to question your ethics or anything like that, but I sure as eggs are eggs don't understand why an energetic, intelligent person would rely on cherry-picked facts from unreliable sources, when there is so much really good stuff available, much of which has been peer reviewed, from sources such as you referenced in the lead article.

Gen iv reactors have proved uniformly to be very expensive white elephants. The reactor at Monju, which closed recently, is a classic example. Cooling highly toxic radiactive material with liquid sodium that explodes on contact with air or water is dangerous indeed.

There are still over 150,00 Japanese people who cannot return to live in their homes after the Fukushima melt-downs. The July 2012 report of the Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission- established by an Act of Japan's national parliament - states that the Fukushima disaster was "a profoundly man-made disaster that could and should have been foreseen and prevented" if not for "a multitude of errors and wilful negligence that left the Fukushima plant unprepared for the events of March 11." The cosy relationship between the Japanese government and the nuclear power companies contributed significantly to the lack of approriate measures to prepare for the tsunami. Given the strong push for deregulation at present, there is no guarantee that regulatory failure may not contribute to future potential catastrophic failure of Australian industry.

In 2012 the respected magazine The Economist investigated the nuclear industry. The cover was titled "Nuclear Power: The dream that failed". There are no long term disposal sites for nuclear waste anywhere in the world. High level waste needs to be stored for millenia. In any calculation of costs, nuclear proponents inevitably omit the prohibitive costs of liability, decommissioning and waste storage.

Nuclear power is closely linked to nuclear weapons proliferation- the majority of nuclear weapons states developed their weapons under cover of a "peaceful" nuclear power industry.

Heavy funding of university positions and research by mining companies does raise serious questions about the validity of the research and advocacy - just as drug company funding raises questions in medical research.

The dream of power "to cheap to meter" has long since eveporated.
Nuclear power is dirty, dangerous, expensive and obsolete. Why poison SA for generations to come?

Margaret:
Para 1: Tell us again, where the sodium issue arises - it is hypothetical, in part because it cannot contact either air or water in the manner suggested by you.
Para 2: Bureaucratic delay is not necessarily the same as justifiable cause. Especially in this case. As stated above, not a single death amongst the thousands of others has been due to nuclear issues. It's probable that none ever will be. Why avoid the demonstrated facts and focus on the hypothetical?
Para 3: It is simply not true to say that these costs are never included. For example, the accumulated fund in the USA for storage and dismantling is so large that some argue that it is far above that which will be needed.
Para 4. Name one instance when materials of war have originated in power reactors. Just one. You will not be able to, because it has not happened and will not happen. The fuel within power reactors is not suitable for bomb-making and Type IV will be no exception to this.
Para 5. Buying and selling universities in the manner you suggest is an old furphy. Universities have in place ethics committees and so forth to protect their reputations, which are vastly more valuable than those of any single academic, regardless of where he raises some of his research funding. Besides which, the sometimes challenging system of peer review exists specifically to ensure that poor work is not published.
Para 6: Unfounded affirmations. Please stick to the facts

@JohnBennetts

Re your "...Name one instance when materials of war have originated in power reactors. Just one. You will not be able to, because it has not happened and will not happen. The fuel within power reactors is not suitable for bomb-making"

How about looking at the instances of RESEARCH reactors being used to produce the Plutonium that is subsequently reprocessed for nuclear devices-weapons.

The example I give is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIRUS_reactor :

"CIRUS (Canadian-Indian Reactor, U.S.) was a research reactor at the Bhabha Atomic Research Center (BARC)...near Mumbai, India. CIRUS was supplied by Canada in 1954, but used heavy water (deuterium oxide) supplied by the United States.

It first went critical July 10, 1960... CIRUS produced some of India's initial weapon plutonium stockpile, as well as the plutonium for India's 1974 Pokhran-I...nuclear test."

Also Israel's Dimona (NNRC) Reactor, variously described as a "power" or "research" reactor over the years, is also known to have produced Plutonium for Israel's nuclear weapon program.

Pete

Plantaganet provided us two examples. One was essentially a miltary research reactor with no power production capability.

The other was a military reactor hidden behind a political screen of power production. If electricity was what the Israelis wanted, they would not have constructed a military one, designed to make weapons-grade materials.

Both were military reactors badged otherwise for political purposes.

It appears that we have agreed that the commercial power reactors on the market cannot produce weapons grade materials. Also, that once a military reactor, always a military reactor, regardless of re-badging for political purposes.

Commercial reactors have no other purpose than power generation, as will be the case for any reactor ever constructed in South Australia.

This discussion has been plagued by irrelevancies such as the "disaster" with no,zero, nil, zilch deaths due to radiation at Fukushima, when outside the gates there were thousands of deaths due to natural causes, plus more hundreds due to bureaucratic mismanagement and scare-mongering. Avoidable? Yes. Due to lack of maintenance and due to failure to upgrade safety systems? Yes. Hugely expensive? Yes. But the events at Fukushima Power Station were not, of themselves, the disaster.

Why sidetrack into military reactors and research reactors when the discussion is about zero carbon nuclear energy?

Why are we not spending our efforts comparing and contrasting the specific merits and drawbacks of the various designs of Power Reactors that may be of use to Australia, in particular South Australia? The byproducts and fuels of these plants simply cannot be diverted to weapons; indeed some designs are consuming massive amounts of weapons grade materials at present, not because they have to but because they can.

This is the only way to rid the world of the existing stocks of weapons grade material, including plutonium.

It is streets ahead of chucking energy-dense materials down deep holes or hoping that future generations will learn to love and look after the bomb.

Hi John

When there is an increase in a nation's nuclear know-how, nuclear organisational size and increased budget size there are always dual-use concerns and assumptions - even if not intended.

Within Australia many on the green side of politics will always oppose nuclear development unless gradually argued otherwise.

People inside and outside government are concerned with foreign policy implications under such headings as South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone and relations with some neighboring countries.

There are many issues to explore:

- It would be interesting to get a handle on what is happening with international exchange and trade in high level nuclear waste at the moment. For example is Japan paying France much to store spent fuel rods at the moment?

- And what difference might Japan's developing reprocessing facilities have on nuclear waste trade?

- What market distortions in the high level waste trade might be caused by the US and Chinese energy and defence departments?

Meanwhile as the cost of hydrocarbon energy (oil, gas etc) increases the political and economic arguments for nuclear will strengthen.

Regards

Pete

Hi, Pete.

Small Modular Reactors, SMR', will soon be available commercially.

These will be pre-loaded and sealed, come in sizes to 100MW and will be formidable challenges for terrorists who seek to divert fissile material for other purposes, eg dirty bombs.

Organisations and individuals who share the Greens' security concerns will find middle ground once their proliferation are resolved. Of course, these reactors must be opened somewhere and either maintained, refuelled or dismantled. My hope is that they last at least 60 years and a dozen refuellings.

The obvious question is "Who opens them, and where?". The original equipment manufacturer. That means only a few sites globally, where security can be more tightly managed than in 500 or a thousand individual locations.

I don't mean to underestimate your knowledge or that of other readers, but it is simple to find information about SMR's. Each searcher will find articles at his or her level fairly easily, both for and against.

I really regret having joined the black coal fired power game at the end of its domination of the market. Younger engineers entering their profession have a wider range of technologies to work with. My own experience during development and construction of megawatt-scale or larger solar thermal installations has been a great ride, although after a decade of enthusiasm it appears probable that low temperature ST will not win the race to commercialism. Maybe tracking mirrors, very high temperatures and cunning energy storage solutions will do the job.

Good young engineers have dozens of energy technologies in front of them, none yet commercially dominant in the way that coal has been king for 100 years. The smartest and quickest have an opportunity to develop a exciting multidisciplinary professional career.

Some who are about to leave Australia's automotive industry will have draughting, design detailing, materials engineering, metallurgy, laser welding, fabrication, robotics, numerical control and general production experience and much more that will be needed in the emerging energy technologies.

How good is that?

Thanks John for the information and comments.

I need to write an article to continue the discussion on nuclear waste and power development in Australia.

Regards

Pete

JohnBennets. Your comments on SMR's potential for South Australian engineers and the potential for SA, with a soon to be 'reserve' of skilled personnel (as described above) from the automotive industry makes fascinating reading and exciting potential.

It is political will and vision that will see this happen. Plantagenet's concerns, comments etc re the military aspect of this discussion are worthy of exploration, but I can see no better environment than that of South Australia's stable geography, stable political system and skill base to overcome these issues.

These problems and research prospects would seem a worthwhile direction for the ARC to explore (as opposed to research $ into the efficacy of street art in communicate global warming to the masses) (sorry, sarc).

An interesting and absorbing discussion.

Coal fired Power Stations are out dated dying Technology. It would be cheaper to put 6kW on everybody's domestic roof free. Let Gas power run Industry during the day, if they haven't got Solar, & at night.

The Power Companies just have to adapt to changing Technology & learn run on reduced revenue & profits. The CEO will just have to get used to granting themselves lower Salaries, Bonuses & Perks. The same thing happened to Whale Oil, Horses, Corsets.

'Jayb' writes,

"Australia is a vast uninhabited land. Nuclear wast could be stored here safely. There are no major Earthquake fault lines to damage the storage facility. The Countries with Nuclear Waste can pay Australia to Store it. We would own it & eventually, when they find a way to utilize the waste Australia will have it all. It would be safe from theft by terrorists. When Countries want to use the waste to generate energy again then they can buy it off us."

Nuclear waste can indeed be stored safely in the Outback, but that does not uniquely qualify it for the job. In casks such as those seen at http://goo.gl/maps/gDwia and at https://www.dropbox.com/s/o6mrb62bfe8seww/uww.jpg , the world's present accumulation of nuclear fuel that was retired five or more years ago could safely be stored in Vatican City.

That means caches like the one in the second link, which is in Ontario, where I live, could be shipped to Oz, but won't be. Like all nuclear power waste through all history, it has made no trouble.

Not for radiation-sensitive living things. But its existence implies trouble of a different kind: a large amount of government fossil fuel tax revenue has been cancelled. That means the Ontario and Canadian national governments don't want to ship it abroad and forget it. They want it to weigh on the minds of the easily deceived, so that nuclear power expansion doesn't take away *more* of their fossil fuel income.

If it *did* get shipped, it would probably not increase in value after decades of sitting at the destination. There is 1000 cubic miles of uranium dioxide in the Earth's continental crust, which is to the whole Earth as the residual skin on an apple that has been 71 percent peeled is to the apple.