Well, when the tide of "official" misinformation and mindless hysteria dies down, we may be able to put this stuff where it will be eternally safe.

buried deep somewhere in the permanently parched outback on the driest continent on earth; but particularly if we can earn literal billions for doing so!

The waste can be melted and combined with molten glass to form a sealed solid ceramic like product invented by our own CSRIO, that is impervious to both alkaline or acid products

Then stored as a solid in stainless steel drums that are then stored and packed tight in sand in cast iron containers that when tested in a contest between said cast iron container and a loco doing 40 klicks the container remained undamaged whereas the loco was totaled.

there is no doubt that somewhere in the waterless interior, will be a safe upland repository eminently suitable to safely store this stuff deep in dry as bone tunnels, until it becomes reuseable in FBR's; at which time it will be a valuable item we can sell back to those who gave us charge of it, for a suitable fee.

And given there is no water, not a problem for natives, who protected by metres of solid rock, still need faraway reliable water sources to survive.

It's high time the tide of misinformation and activist scaremongering ended!

If it came from here then we have a responsibility to take it back and dispose of it thoughtfully.

But particularly those who earned a quid as royalties when it was first mined!
Rhrosty.

Well Rhrosty no:

- The odd coincidence that Aboriginal land is chosen for waste dumps suggest white landowners don't want waste dumps on their own land - for some reason...

- building waste dumps far from white coastal cities is convenient for cities but potentially dangerous for country-people (white and Aboriginal) who live near the dumps.

- claims of the unlikelihood of 1 in 250,000 year natural disasters (earthquakes!) rupturing-venting waste dumps forgets the assumed rarity of the earthquake that lead-on to the Fukushima disaster...

- insider sabotage or human terrorist action siezing radioactive material from isolated low guarded waste dumps for redistribution in cities should also be factored in now...

- the cost to the taxpayer of permanent waste dumps + essential manned security to guard them, should be factored into nuclear corporations' profit expectations...

//The odd coincidence that Aboriginal land is chosen for waste dumps suggest white landowners don't want waste dumps on their own land - for some reason...//

I'll have one. Nuclear waste dumps are only frightening to people who don't understand how little danger they actually pose.

But when I was at uni, I had the opportunity to spend a semester studying 'nuclear physics & it's applications'. As taught by a real, card-carrying physicist and not by some hippie who did high school physics and believes that that makes him just as knowledgeable.

So I know better than about 95% of people who like to shoot their mouth off about this subject how much relative risk nuclear power plants and their associated waste dumps pose. And it's a lot less than you pretend it is.

// building waste dumps far from white coastal cities is convenient for cities but potentially dangerous for country-people (white and Aboriginal) who live near the dumps.//

Bullshyt. You've seen how I've taken AC to task for making technically incorrect statements. You know I am tenacious and that I won't accept anti-scientific crap from anybody. Properly managed nuclear waste dumps aren't dangerous to anybody, save the people who fret too much about the mythical dangers and raise their blood pressure and risk of cardiovascular disease. Which has naught to do with the radiation, and aught to do with the fretting.

//claims of the unlikelihood of 1 in 250,000 year natural disasters (earthquakes!) rupturing-venting waste dumps forgets the assumed rarity of the earthquake that lead-on to the Fukushima disaster...//

Assumed rarity? Who in the world, who understands the most basic principles of contemporary geology, would ever claim that earthquakes around the Pacific 'Ring of Fire' are assumed to be rare events?

// insider sabotage or human terrorist action siezing radioactive material from isolated low guarded waste dumps for redistribution in cities should also be factored in now...//

No, it shouldn't. It's bloody difficult to seize anything which is buried without first carrying out some excavation work, which is likely to attract the attention of the Man. Johnny Q. Towel-head cannot just waltz into a waste dump with his excavating equipment, dig up a bunch high-level waste for use in dirty bombs and waltz off again. Backhoes are large, noisy and BRIGHT FCUKING YELLOW. They stick out like a sore thumb. You can't misappropriate high-level waste by stealth, and anybody who tries it by force will end up shot.

//the cost to the taxpayer of permanent waste dumps + essential manned security to guard them, should be factored into nuclear corporations' profit expectations...//

Of course they should.

Has anyone ever met an activist who could lie straight in bed?

Please let me know, I'm interested in the impossible.

//Has anyone ever met an activist who could lie straight in bed?//

I can. I'm 5' 7'', my bed is six foot, and I tend to sleep flat on my back. That gives me a whole five inches of wriggly room.

Australians in general don't seem to realise that we are obligated to take back this radioactive trash that originated at Lucas Heights. It is a relatively small amount from, France, the UK, and Argentina.

It probably could be stored safely at Lucas Heights, particularly if we now stopped creating this trash.

Unfortunately, the nuclear lobby has seized on this as a foot in the door, for making South Australia become the world's nuclear trash dump.

South Australia Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission asks for submissions - curiously this is seen as a State matter, not a national matter. However, the Royal Commission is inviting submissions from international nuclear companies. Their submissions may not be published - "commercial confidentiality".

Australians in general would hardly know that this is happening.

What needs to be done is the closing down of the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor, and the rejection of this super expensive and toxic industry.

Yes, Lucas Heights does produce medical radioisotopes. Yes those can be made by non nuclear means, as Canada is now doing. Yes, medical radioisotopes made by non nuclear cyclotrons are very expensive.

But in the total scheme of things, in the long run, to continue making and welcoming radioactive trash to this country is going to be much more expensive.
But do we care about our grandchildren?

Interesting, but what about the radioactive waste produced by the production of wind turbines? Ah that's alright it is in China!

Reportedly coal fired power stations have produced uranium in the smokestack emission as well as a whole host of equally or more dangerous heavy metal toxins, which after having contaminated the lungs of some of us, inevitably wind up in waterways, our drinking water, and the bellies of various marine animals.

Some of which may find their way onto our dinner tables and thereby into us!

Antinuclear activists never acknowledge that some nuclear waste started life as mined uranium coming out of aboriginal land, and for which they may have earned royalties for.

Their ignorance is only exceeded by their obdurate obtuse commentary and extremely dated misinformation!

You are likely to get a bigger dose of rads from ten hours in the air, than what you might pick up in twenty years camping on top of buried waste? Nor is it made less safe by a possible earthquake.

Which can't do much except perhaps slice a canister or two in half! And given the intended solid state nature of the waste, makes little or no difference to the background rads we might be experiencing!

We'd likely get a lower reading than what we'd get day on day from the walls of a granite stone building.

Stop and smell the Co2, which is what is threatening us with a global extinction event, not nuclear power or even a few canisters of deeply buried nuclear waste.

And more germane to hunter gatherer Aborigines than a few canisters of faraway deeply buried waste!

Aborigines need to camp near water, and therefore many miles from any possible or intended site.

And that factor makes waterless sites on the driest inhabited continent on earth the only place to bury this waste, where it'd be safer than the thousand year old dead sea scrolls!

Stop with the hyperventilated hysteria and listen to someone like Tony Lavis, who at least knows what he is talking about. As do those of us who spent years working with radioactive material as just a useful and not overly dangerous tool!

Even if Jonny Q towel head had a backhoe he'd have trouble digging through solid bedrock, which is the only place to safely store this stuff!
Does anybody have any idea just how well the dead sea scrolls were preserved when they were recovered from a cave after a thousand years of incarceration high up on the side of a desert mountain!

And given the waste would be buried even deeper in a safer drier excavated man made tunnel and then buried as rock crete, inside stainless steel drums that are then packed tight in cast iron containers more durable than a forty ton loco!

And given one could then back pack the space around the steel drums and the casks with pumped concrete, to make the task of digging it up again by Jonny Q towel head an almost impossible task!

If the dead sea scrolls were safe, in a naturally dry natural repository, then any waste would be even safer in a studier man made inherently drier repository!

The only thing making nuclear waste available as a weapon for Johnny Q towel head is the disingenuous mendacity of the antinuclear brigade.

Who will as is their want, invent all the highly inventive horror movie excuses to prevent it being safely buried and therefore out of reach of the snatch and grab intending terrorist!
Rhrosty.

-
Plantagenet
"The odd coincidence that Aboriginal land is chosen for waste dumps suggest white landowners don't want waste dumps on their own land - for some reason".

Don't be silly plantagenet, they would be compensated at least 10 times what a white landholder would get for the same level of disturbance. More sit down money, & more for the aboriginal industry gravy train. Many Graziers, struggling with drought & low prices would give their right arm for such a source of income.

With aboriginal land, we would be paying rent for ever. With white land, it would be resumed, with little recompense.

As for danger, with the latest technology this waste has become a new valuable source of energy, far to valuable to throw away. Future waste will be so exhausted you would be able to eat it.

Thanks Toni for confirming that you wriggle around all over the place to avoid admitting the truth. As I said, activists couldn't lie straight in bed.

Another issue is of course the bulk of the radioactive waste is produced by hospitals treating cancers of various sorts. It is usually low level with a short half life, but it is still radioactive waste. The Lucas Heights facility is a small reactor which as I understand it is used to produce isotopes for medical treatment. It is was hooked up to a generator it could probable power a fair bit of Sydney.