The SA 'citizens' jury', like all others, will prove to be a useless crock. It is anything but democratic, and the Labor government is using it as a tool to blur the issue and hide the fact that they do not have the guts to make a decision themselves. They have spent public money and time on a Commission which came up with all the information they need. This information has been well publicised and discussed publicly in South Australia. There is no need for humming and hahing. The appalling Wetherill government has enough information to make a legitimate decision now. Consulting spotty teenagers and other totally inept and unknown people is not necessary. It is up to the government to do the job it was elected to do, and say nay or yea. Unelected private companies and selected yokels have no place in the workings of elected governments.

Thanks for the article Noel

The Royal Commission's job is even more daunting, thankless and ultimately fruitless because there will inevitably be a need for NATIONAL Parliamentary decision-making over the least objectionable of any concrete outcomes.

This is for a NATIONAL low level radiation waste dump. As radioctive waste will need to travel from outside States (especially from Lucas Heights, NSW) to any South Australian nuclear waste dump this will require new laws and approvals decided in Canberra.

The South Australian Royal Commission and Citizen's Jury - all educational non-specialists - will long be forgotten in this years/decades long all-of-Australia process.
___________________________________________________

One question:

Is any waste dump in any country earning verifiable serious money from storing other people's waste?

I'm asking this because:

"If We Built It - They Will Come With $$Billions"

- seems to be an unproven, therefore spurious, claim by the nuclear lobby.

Projections of future earnings don't count.

Pete

A jury shouldn't be necessary after a Royal Commission. It wasn't done for the building unions inquiry. As an attempt to massage public opinion it perversely gave an opportunity for diehard opponents to vent their views. In my opinion both the jury and the Commission's main recommendation were politically naive.

The Commission's central recommendation was to build an international nuclear waste facility in SA at an estimated cost of $41 bn. Commissioner Scarce later clarified this by saying he expected overseas customers to meet most of this cost upfront presumably as well as paying hefty fees later on. With no indication of where the $41 bn might come from, either government or private sources, the jury was whistling in the dark. It would be like a convent of nuns approving motherhood.

All is not lost however on the nuclear front. We still have to replace ageing coal stations while building stronger interstate transmission lines. That might necessitate a scaled down nuclear waste facility after which the international waste issue can be revisited.

What a waste of time, at best the outcome is a flip of a coin, and if it does come down to approving Nuclear, the greens will discredit the finding and run another scare campaign.

There is an issue perceived by some some nuclear engineer beneficiaries (aye Ziggy! *) that:

- all the many caches of low level waste in hospitals, and
- intermediate level waste in barrels at Lucas Heights, and
- high level waste in cooling pools co-located with the reactor at Lucas

should be all concentrated in a Central Waste Dump. There is engineering logic to concentration but considerable cost to those less fortunate.

It is like combining all Australia's many gaol inmates (of varying security records) in one Mega Gaol on low valuee inland desert - that monied coastal, cityfolk couldn't care less about.

If you are poor white or aboriginal desert folk who happen to live near the facility you will notice:

- unpredictable fluctuations in land prices that may benefit monied property speculators who sell to the high paid white high-tech staff of the facility.
- most, on the bottom of the social heap, won't benefit and will be displaced or further marginalised.

Wellington, NSW experienced such selective property rush distortions when its maximum security concentration camp was announced. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wellington_Correctional_Centre .

Said Camp suffered a violent riot http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/violent-riot-at-wellington-correctional-centre-in-nsw/news-story/01a782971a2591ff1b4591d482dfa016

The equivalent for a toxic radioactive waste dump could be:

- a 1-in-1000 year natural disaster that luckily the monied on the coast don't need to suffer from. Big floods of mining sites happen so how bout above ground storage?
- a Monis like siege in the control room of the facility - China Syndrome plot? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_China_Syndrome
- "peaceful" greenie/uni protesters breaking in and occupying the toxic facility

Noting Lucas Heights now has an aircraft crash barrier on the reactor roof - see https://australianmap.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/ANSTO-OPAL-reactor.jpg

- the risk of 9/11 like pilot Kamikazies is considered serious by those who run current nuclear facilities here in Oz.

* Have faith. We can be relieved NBN's "Ziggy" would probably run things https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ziggy_Switkowski#Nuclear_research

Pete

ttbn, you make good solid points. The whole process now demonstrates the old British trick of putting the issue on as "long as possible stick" with more talk feasts, committees, meetings and rinse repeat, start again...
If they keep stalling from making big decisions about actually going ahead with the Royal commission's recommendations, then "hopefully" people will get sick of it and vote it away...or start making noisy attention seeking behavior on social media outlets, with twisted logic arguments.

The whole thing demonstrates an even deeper deficit in leadership of this country...that be in SA or at Federal level