Craig,

I apologise if my second post might infer that you were responsible for domestic violence.

I look forward to debating you in a calm and considered manner.

Nuclear Citizens' Jury: an ethical case for importing nuclear wastes.
- Noel Wauchope. Tue 25 Oct 2016.

It's late August, since NWS [nuclear waste storage] was most recently discussed here. At the time Wauchope raised contentious issues that required close attention and an implacable diligence in the search for valid answers. The reader should not be surprised to learn that responses from readers who disagreed exhausted themselves with repetitious pie-in-the-sky assurances whereby SA would be the only state on Earth paved with gold, that a university would be built in central Australia just for the disaffected Aboriginal people and that the waste is a gift, we get to own the bloody stuff. Members Jayb and Tombee were the main progenitors with a nudge from member Alan B.

I respectfully direct the reader to........

Mixed motives in South Australia's nuclear waste import plan
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=18465&page=2
I admit to making a modest contribution to the debate from page 4 onward.

The proposal to use SA as a dump is not new but has received urgent impetus from a nuclear industry desperate for business. Most nations using nuclear power have placed a moratorium on building new plants while there are no viable prospects of ridding themselves of an embarrassing accumulation of nuclear waste. The industry wants someone else to take the problem off their hands. In their proposal they refer to SA as the "importer" of the waste and gleefully emphasize that the waste is free and that it will become SA's property, SA gets to own it. Thus their responsibility becomes the responsibility of a government totally unfamiliar with nuclear waste management.

Thus we have an multi-national industry that defecates all over this planet but does not even have to organise a clean-up.

The USA has large desert areas plus Alaska that are not seismically active, as does Russia in Siberia, as does northern Canada, as does China in the Gobi region and as do the African Sahara states. If untold riches were the only outcome there are plenty of contenders who would have jumped at the opportunity by now.

Nuclear Citizens' Jury: an ethical case for importing nuclear wastes
Noel Wauchope, published 25/10/2016

Let's be clear about this debate. The nuclear power industry is in trouble.

Very few if any new reactors are being built. Governments want the nuclear waste mountain dealt with and are withholding permission to build until that occurs.

The industry is taking the path of least resistance to rid themselves of the problem. They think a bunch of people in a state of far off Australia, having no experience of nuclear power plants [especially their disasters] if offered something like a million dollars each won't take too long to think about it before accepting.

The industry could of course lobby each of the 50 or so nuclear powered nations and try to negotiate deals involving the waste disposal and the building of new plants simultaneously. I'm no expert but I believe that from what I've read here at OLO there is a plant that can eat up piles of waste and reduce its volume to a barrow load of nearly harmless rubble, producing electricity while doing it.

Why is that deal not acceptable?

Experts with a pressing agendum and with billions upon billions of dollars at stake are trying to browbeat John Q Citizen with blandishments and carrots on sticks and true to type doing it not very intelligently with a smug smirk and a glib tongue

If you're offering such a great deal why haven't others grabbed it before this? NWD has been a festering issue for decades.

The most obvious conclusion to be drawn is that the industry is not being completely frank and open in its approach.

FUNDING BENEFITS FROM THE WASTE DUMP

South Australia will no doubt build its nuclear waste dump with Federal Money for Regional Development.

So the South Australian taxpayers won't need to pay.

Instead South Australian workers will benefit from the mining/construction pay.

The Federal Government will benefit from the company tax revenue from the Company Managing the Dump.

Plantagenet would have done well to observe the live streaming of the Nuclear Citizens' Jury - currently available at http://nuclear.yoursay.sa.gov.au/livestreams/citizens-jury-two-video-library/

Richard Denniss has just demolished the economic case for the waste import plan. His speech will be available later on that site. He points out, among other things, that the "economic" modelling for the Nuclear Fuel Chain Royal Commission South Australia (NFCRC) is no more than a very optimistic form of guesswork. No private investor would be willing to join in this cranky plan. There is no competition from other countries. The clear economic path is for countries that host nuclear generation to store their own wastes.

The very likely outcome of the NFCRC plan would be for South Australia to be stuck for hundreds of years with costly "stranded" radioactive wastes above ground.

SM,
I accept your apology. It's very easy to forget that we are dealing with real people on sites like this, not just chimeras created in one's mind.