I don't think Australia will have any logistical problems with nuclear waste, only political problems. Australia has vast areas of PreCambrian basement rocks some with depleted mines so the hole is already dug. Even more conveniently some are in the Woomera Prohibited Area now used for drone testing but which in the 60s had A-bomb tests. Those areas have already lost their nuclear virginity.

The first SMRs to market seem likely to be of the light water type, pressurised or unpressurised. Their spent fuel could be reprocessed which is done in several nuclear countries but not in the US. Decades from now we may want to do that and I suggest mine tunnels will make that retrieval easier. OTOH nuclear countries built on swamp like Bangladesh may suit the borehole approach.

There is no point in discussing anything nuclear in Australia.

no point in discussing anything nuclear in Australia.
ttbn,
What if they were told nuclear sounds like a V8 or the sound of a beer can opening ?

SMR (small modular reactor)

Spent nuclear waste technology has kept pace. What is lacking is, I believe, the arrogant Authors knowledge of that progress. In (walk away safe) MSR nuclear technology, nuclear waste is for the most part, mainly unspent fuel.

Fuel which we would be paid annual millions to accept! Moreover, not only uranium is fuel for nuclear reactors, but, four times more abundant thorium, which does not need enrichment to be used as fuel but rather, two weeks spent in the blanket of a nuclear reactor where it absorbs neutrons to be converted to U233. And as it burns, reduces the half-life to just three hundred (300) years and the waste to around five percent (5%) and vastly less toxic!

Yes, the shielding needs a little beefing, but not a problem. MSR can also be mass produced and shipped wherever power is needed and eliminates to a large extent the need for poles and wires and much of the transmission and distribution losses!

Further, the annual millions we'd be paid to accept nuclear waste, i.e., unspent nuclear fuel would pay all the build cost of a dozen or so, MSR thorium and nuclear waste burners.

Part of the bonus we'd earn would be the hordes of cashed medical tourists using outback and regional medical clinics to access the miracle cancer cure of many death sentence cancers, including some very nasty brain caners, the alpha particle, bismuth 213. A daughter of nuclear decay of thorium in the Molten salt reactor (MSR).

Some day fusion may power the planet, but until then we already have MSR thorium which delivers everything fusion promised but may not deliver for several lifetimes?
Alan B.

Nuclear subs equals nuclear waste! And the need for trained nuclear technologists ahead of delivery. Plus, a plan to dispose of or burn/use that waste.

The useless brain dead in the capital can't or won't think that far ahead, least they have to contend with the burning smell emanating from previously unused cerebral circuits.

We just resumed coal deliveries to China. Which will probably be used to fuel power stations, the manufacture and delivery of armaments and munitions?

Could we see history repeating itself and the term pig iron bob becoming, pig iron elbow?
Alan B.

Tas. Light water is always pressurised! At least 150 atmospheres. Given the heat generated, were this not so, the water would be vapour and instantly decompose to its constitutional parts, (white hot) hydrogen and oxygen. To become in a nano second or less, a massive fuel air bomb to flatten a city block or suburb. (Chernobyl!)

You are right, we have plenty of ready-made burial sites for fuel we get paid annual millions to take, (as former leader with still functioning brain, Bob Huake, wanted) then burn as free fuel ready to use in, walk away safe, MSR technology.
Alan B.