Natalie Wasley clearly finding no safety issues with the company turns her outrage to the foreign company not having a certified MUA ship killing contract.

Epic Fail.

Scare-mongering pure and simple. The author is clearly ignorant of the fact that nuclear waste is not the scary beast she believe is is, Furthermore, nuclear power is by far the safest way to generate electricity, and if not for 50 years of scaremongering by the anti-nuclear power protest movement, nuclear power would now be about 10% of current cost. It would have replaced most coal and gas fired power world wide by now.

"WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN – IF NUCLEAR POWER DEPLOYMENT HAD NOT BEEN DISRUPTED"
https://www.thegwpf.com/what-could-have-been-if-nuclear-power-deployment-had-not-been-disrupted/

An excellent argument in favour of Australia building its own reprocessing plant, which will definitely be helpful if we're ever going to embrace the sensible option for combating CO2 emissions from power generation.

//Adnyamathanha Traditional Owner Regina McKenzie describes the Flinders Ranges as "arngurla yarta" (spiritual land). Upon receiving the 2016 Peter Rawlinson environment award, Regina said: "The proposed dumpsite contains thousands of Aboriginal artefacts. Our ancestors are buried there. We don't want a nuclear waste dump here on our country and worry that if the waste comes here it will harm our environment and muda (our lore, creation)."//

People's ancient spiritual beliefs are all very well, but they're really not a good basis for policies concerning technology that was only developed in the latter half of last century.

Also, I'm pretty sure that any Indigenous people who claim that their beliefs proscribe something their ancestors would have had no concept of and no word for are being less than truthful. Seems to me that's a modern article of faith they've adopted, taught to them not by dreamtime spirits but by your common or garden variety hippy.

//The nuclear chain is toxic from start to finish.//

So is everything else. It's the dose that makes the poison. Here's a helpful infographic about radiation doses. I recommend taking the time to study it carefully. You never know, you just might learn something.

http://blog.xkcd.com/2011/03/19/radiation-chart/

//Instead of continuing with plans to greatly expand the production and export of radioactive medical isotopes from Lucas Heights, the federal government should start planning to replace the reactor with more benign technologies for scientific and medical applications.//

No, that's a crap idea. Enabling research is important; in an age where science seems increasingly under siege shutting down research infrastructure doesn't help anybody.

//Environment groups, trade union and health organisations have long called for an independent inquiry into the production, transport and management of radioactive waste in Australia that includes all key stakeholders.//

Sounds great, as long as it's independent of any hippies. They don't understand any of the technical issues and just end up being nuisances.

A huge beat up of biblical proportions! And a to secret every boy and his dog knew about! The carriers weren't exactly queuing! And the low-level waste hardly spent fuel but used in, walk away safe, thorium-powered MSR technology able to generate virtually free, safe, clean, cheap, CO2 free power for virtual centuries!

And with the thorium create U233, and from that derive miracle cancer cure bismuth 213!

Power to drought-proof this wide brown land and cheap enough to tun endlessly available seawater into endlessly sustainable fuel, some of which can be reprocessed to release the hydrogen as carbon-free fuel, with the residual Cabon stored in wood relacing strong as steel plastics and or carn ich fertilizes, that also improve the soils ability to retain moisture!

Interestingly, As CO2 is vacuumed out of seawater, for the aforementioned alternative fuels/fertilizers, The sea absorbs equivalent amounts of CO2 directly from the atmosphere! Thus providing a mechanism to effectively and better than trees alone! Lower the % of CO2 in it! With all that that implies!

CARBON FREE energy that cheap would enable many hitherto undoable nation-building projects and effectively drought-proof this wide brown land!
Alan B.

Nuclear power plants are a very silly idea indeed. Chernobyl. Fukishima. Three Mile Island. Dozens of other accidents, some with fatalities or thousands of people exposed to radiation and many cancer deaths. The International Atomic Energy Agency says there is an ongoing problem with illegal trafficking in stolen or lost nuclear material. Obviously this could lead to terrorists making dirty bombs or crude nuclear devices. Computers in nuclear power plants can be hacked. Nuclear reactors can be targeted in military conflict. Designed to last 10,000 years, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant quickly started leaking airborne radioactive material in 2014. Things always go wrong. Human error always happens. There is only one nuclear reactor needed for energy - it's called the sun, which if captured would provide enough energy to supply the world thousands of times over, for billions of years. Nuclear power plants are short-term, expensive, high risk, old-fashioned, discredited technology, including the latest ones. Dumbest thing ever invented. Close them all down.

I take it the author is not an indigenous resident of the Flinders Ranges otherwise she would be sticking her nose into other people's business.

Some SA factoids; the state has about quarter of the world's easily mined uranium. Yellowcake from Olympic Dam is transported to Adelaide for export and uranium-copper concentrate is railed to Darwin to be processed in China. The SA dept of state development says that SA uranium fuels 22 gigawatt years of electricity in overseas light water reactors. That's nearly 200 Twh that could power all of Australia. Note that the SA outback is already mildly radioactive (seemingly no effects on locals) and there there were the A-bomb tests at Maralinga and Emu.

If anywhere in the world should assist the nuclear fuel cycle it is SA. Their high power prices from subsidised renewables and high priced dwindling gas is scaring away business. Fear mongers are not helping.