ChristinaMac1, Tuesday, 30 August 2016 5:15:10 PM.

"By unblocking the back end of the nuclear fuel cycles for our international partners and customers, rapid development in conventional Generation III+ nuclear technology receives a strong boost …"

I think I'm right in interpreting "the back end of the nuclear fuel cycles" is an oblique way of saying, "the generation of nuclear waste". One is entitled to speculate on the motive behind the use of indirect jargon such as this. The subterfuge of using less confrontational words, even fine-sounding ones, to express a not so nice blunt truth has been a search for the Holy Grail in the crassest advertising on TV and billboard.
That the back end had been blocked begs the question, "Whence came this constipation of the industry?" Is it self-inflicted? A voluntary altruistic attempt at limiting waste production or perhaps, more truthfully, from government? From exasperated government perceiving a crisis and preferring that the industry self-regulate but seeing its hopes dashed by nuclear corporate greed seeking to have their mess cleaned up by someone else? This time by a pie-in-the-sky scheme pitched to a bunch of ingenuous political rubes in a state hardly anyone on Earth has heard of....South Australia.

"The NFCRC eliminated most of the EU, Russia, China, North America as customers." As the NFCRC does not support the Archer proposal [the proposal outlined above; that someone else other than the nuclear industry itself, should clean up the mess] then in fact the lobbyists like Brook and Heard will have a tougher time than expected to earn a crust. And unless the NFCRC comes to the party, the scheme whereby SA becomes paved with gold will fall flat on its face.

No true Australian could possibly support the bottom-feeders and corporate sharks in their proposal to use the great state of South Australia as a scapegoat to expiate their greed.

It's a pity that Noel Wauchope, ChristinaMac1 and others didn't do some simple arithmetic at the beginning and they wouldn't be getting so hot under the collar about something that is in reality, extraordinarily safe.

Carbon monoxide from cars is potentially dangerous, and Hydrogen Sulfate (from farting) even more so. But before anyone gets their knickers in a knot about the dangers, it's a sensible thing to quantify it, and to compare CO or H2S with that which is in the environment already. Just as the exposure to CO or H2S at 1/1000th of background is unlikely to cause a problem, so is the exposure to radioactivity at 1/1000th of background. So the starting point is - How many Becquerels of radioactivity? Fukushima for example released at most 520 Petabecquerels into the ocean and the natural radioactivity in the oceans is 16 million Petabecquerels. So at its peak, Fukushima added 1/30000th to the radioactivity of the oceans. Notwithstanding some of Chritina's rants where she blames every dead fish in North and South America on Fukushima, this is simply impossible.

Do the numbers! We live on a radioactive planet, garden soil is typically 600,000 Bq/m3. The radioactivity from any proposed dump, at worse, is quite modest compared to background radiation - just like CO from cars and H2S from farts. We could run a dump in a remote part of South Australia for 100 years and the total radioactivity would still be 1% or so of the NATURAL radioactivity in South Australia.

I find it absurd that so many worry about radioactivity without making any attempt to quantify the problem and if you do quantify the problem, it's a small problem compared with other environmental issues.

from Noel Wauchope.
In reply to Billy Bangle
I wasn't worrying about radioactivity. My article said nothing about that.Indeed, I was assuming that there was no problem with radioactivity, and that the whole nuclear waste importation plan was fine, from the health and safety point of view.

My concern was the very real possibility of South Australia being left with "Stranded Waste Containers", and the accompanying risk of financial failure, and the whole project becoming an economic disaster for the State of South Australia.

ChristinaMac1: My concern was the very real possibility of South Australia being left with "Stranded Waste Containers", and the accompanying risk of financial failure, and the whole project becoming an economic disaster for the State of South Australia.

Thanks for clearing that up because I had you pegged as one of those "I just hate anything Nuclear" people.

The Waste Containers can be recycled. There's one other industry on it's own. Value Added.

apart from the benefits to South Australia of;

. They pay Australia to take the Waste of their hands.
2. They pay for the ongoing Maintenance of the Nuclear Site.
3. Australia owns the Nuclear Waste.
4. The Nuclear Waste is in a Secure Location where it can't go missing or get stolen.
5. The Aboriginal get compensated for their Land with Schools, Work & a University, taking The Aboriginal people out of the Stone Age into the Nuclear in one hit on their own Traditional Lands.
6. The dedicated to find ways of utilizing Nuclear Waste for the benefit of Man.
7. The Research belongs to Australia.
8. The Technology can then be sold or Leased out to benefit Australia's Financial bottom line.
9. Australia is Geologically Safe.
10. Australia would be at the forefront of Nuclear Waste Storage, Management, Recycling & Other Uses Technology.

I don't think you really need to be worried about the benefit to South Australia's bottom line in the long run.

The issue of Nuclear Waste Disposal [NWD] has arisen now because around the world government legislated restrictions on the production of nuclear waste have stifled R & D on new reactor technology. The reactor building industry is in a deepening slump and needs to clean up its act before being allowed to produce a whole new generation of nuclear waste. The scheme for South Australia is a multi-national industry ploy to get someone else to pay for the clean up. A $445billion carrot is dangling from a stick as an enticement. The prospect of such riches is enough to make the average politician slaver uncontrollably. But note well, it's not a guarantee or an offer........it's a lobby group estimate given 100% ideal circumstances. In other words, it's fantasy! It's assuming that every nuclear nation and those in prospect of becoming nuclear in the next 70 years will elect governments that will abide by the contractual obligations with NWDS and pay up on time every time.

Now 70 years might be a heck of a long time in politics but it's less than a blink of an eye for residual radioactivity in nuclear waste. Some can remain deadly for in excess of 100,000 years. Can anyone imagine payments for storage being maintained for this length of time? The nuclear industry is hoping the public won't ask questions like this. Can anyone imagine what thousands of canisters of this deadly waste will look like in 100,000 years? Who could guarantee the integrity of their canisters for this length of time? Once again......we mustn't think like this! The nuclear industry will have solved the problem by then, surely! Look how diligently we are seeking to solve our short-term problems today! And if you want to get cynical about it, whether governments pay, multi-national corporations pay or their customers pay, in the long run the tax-payer pays! Just so long as the pay ends up in the executives pockets the source is unimportant really! Cont............

Cont........Who can predict climate change over 100 millennia? Will central Australia remain a desert over all this time? Or might it become, as it once was, lush tropical forest and savannah with regular downpours leaching the contents of those disintegrated canisters into the soils and aquifers. What can we truthfully say about humans in Australia at this time and during the 100 millennia from the time of storage? What can we say about the generation that inherits the problem 70 years from now? What will these generations say about us?

Jayb writes to Noel Wauchope: "No-one mentioned South Australia becoming a "Sacrificial Ground." More meaningless scare words from the Anti-Nuclear Lobby."
Forgive my intrusion here, but why on Earth would you use the phrase "sacrificial ground"? Of course you would avoid it. That someone else has brought it to our attention is damned annoying, isn't it? That gound could well remain sacrificial ground for 100,000 years from now. The nuclear lobby seems not to care what happens after 70 years from now!