Once you’ve selected a site and wind direction, click on the place marker for information on resettlement and radiological control zones.
This interactive map is designed to illustrate two key points about nuclear power plant accidents.
Nuclear accidents can spread radioactive fallout over a very large area.
The radioactive fallout pattern can be very random − it depends on prevailing weather patterns and topology. You might be reasonably close to a nuclear accident and be largely unaffected … or you might live a long way away but suffer much greater impacts because of local weather patterns.
The sites listed in the map are potential nuclear power sites in Australia, as discussed in a 2007 report by The Australia Institute: Andrew Macintosh, 2007, “Siting Nuclear Power Plants in Australia Where would they go?”, Web Paper No. 40.
The map makes no allowance for local weather conditions, topology etc. at the Australian sites. The fallout map is taken directly from the Chernobyl disaster. We would like to be able to produce an interactive map which takes account of local weather conditions and topology, but do not have the resources to carry out that work.
For modern reactors, the likelihood of an accident resulting in radioactive fallout dispersion as widespread as Chernobyl is small. However, risk assessment needs to consider both the frequency and the impacts of accidents – and for nuclear power plants, the frequency of catastrophic accidents is low but the impacts of accidents such as Chernobyl and Fukushima is extremely high. A 2003 MIT study, The Future of Nuclear Power, assessed the probability of serious reactor accidents in a scenario where the number of nuclear power reactors worldwide tripled by 2055. The MIT report found that “both the historical and the [risk assessment] data show an unacceptable accident frequency.”
In addition to accidents, we need to consider the potential for attacks on nuclear plants. A 2004 study by the Union of Concerned Scientists concluded that a major terrorist attack on the Indian Point reactor in the US could result in as many as 44,000 near-term deaths from acute radiation syndrome and as many as 518,000 long-term deaths from cancer among individuals within 50 miles of the plant.
There is a long history of conventional military strikes on ostensibly peaceful nuclear plants in the Middle East, driven by proliferation fears. Examples include the destruction of reactors in Iraq by Israel and the US and Israel’s bombing of a suspected nuclear reactor site in Syria in 2007. If we extend that line of thought, what happens when two nuclear-powered nations go to war? Will they shut down their power reactors and go without electricity, or take the risk of a catastrophe initiated by missile strikes?
In addition to the accidents at Fukushima, Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, there have been partial core meltdowns in the reactors powering a number of Soviet/Russian submarines and at the following experimental / research reactors:
NRX (military), Ontario, Canada, in 1952
EBR-I (military), Idaho, USA, in 1955
Windscale (military), Sellafield, England, in 1957
Santa Susana Field Laboratory (military), Simi Hills, California, in 1959
SL-1, Idaho, USA in 1961. (US military)
Enrico Fermi Nuclear Generating Station (civil), Newport, Michigan, USA, in 1966
Chapelcross, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, in 1967
Lucens reactor, Switzerland, in 1969
A1 plant at Jaslovské Bohunice, Czechoslovakia in 1977. 25% of the fuel elements in a heavy water moderated carbon dioxide cooled 100 MW power reactor were damaged due to operator error.
Jim Green, 25 March 2011, www.abc.net.au/unleashed/45612.html
Prominent British columnist George Monbiot announced in the UK Guardian on Monday that he now supports nuclear power. That isn’t a huge surprise. Having previously opposed nuclear power, he announced himself ‘nuclear-neutral’ in 2009.
As recently as last week, Monbiot declared himself neutral while saying that he would not oppose nuclear power if four conditions are met:
“1. Its total emissions – from mine to dump – are taken into account, and demonstrate that it is a genuinely low-carbon option.
2. We know exactly how and where the waste is to be buried.
3. We know how much this will cost and who will pay.
4. There is a legal guarantee that no civil nuclear materials will be diverted for military purposes.”
Along with renewables, nuclear meets the first condition – it is a low-carbon energy source. The other three conditions have not been met. No country has established a burial site for high-level nuclear waste. There is no clarity as to how much waste disposal programs will cost nor who will pay. We do know that monitoring and management will be required for millenia. If the Roman Empire was fuelled by atomic energy, we’d still be looking after their waste.
Monbiot’s fourth condition has not been met – there is no meaningful legal guarantee against diversion of materials for weapons programs. Unless, that is, you count the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which actually enshrines the “inalienable right” of all signatory countries to the full suite of nuclear fuel cycle facilities including those that are most useful for weapons production.
So Monbiot’s position hasn’t changed as a result of his four conditions being met. Indeed there is no mention of them in his column on Monday. Instead, Monbiot has become a nuclear supporter as a result of the Fukushima nuclear crisis.
He writes: “A crappy old plant with inadequate safety features was hit by a monster earthquake and a vast tsunami. The electricity supply failed, knocking out the cooling system. The reactors began to explode and melt down. The disaster exposed a familiar legacy of poor design and corner-cutting. Yet, as far as we know, no one has yet received a lethal dose of radiation. … Atomic energy has just been subjected to one of the harshest of possible tests, and the impact on people and the planet has been small. The crisis at Fukushima has converted me to the cause of nuclear power.”
Monbiot is understating the radiological impacts of Fukushima and ignoring other serious impacts. Many, many thousands of people have received very small radiation doses as a result of Fukushima. For a tiny, unlucky percentage, that radiation exposure will prove to be fatal. Thus Monbiot’s claim that “no one has yet received a lethal dose of radiation” does not stand up to scrutiny. We can be confident that the death toll from Fukushima will be far smaller than Chernobyl. Beyond that generalisation, it’s best not to speculate until data is available on collective human radiation exposure as a result of the crisis.
Monbiot ignores the impacts of Fukushima other than direct radiation exposure. These include restrictions on the consumption of food, water and milk; the expense and trauma of relocating 200,000 people; the very serious impacts of the nuclear crisis on the emergency response to the earthquake and tsunami; and big economic hits to the tourism industry and to agricultural industries.
Monbiot understates the impacts of nuclear power more generally. In terms of radiation releases and exposures, long-term exposure from uranium tailings dumps is estimated to be a much more significant source of exposure than routine reactor operations or reactor accidents. Nuclear fuel reprocessing plants have been another major source of radioactive pollution.
It is no small irony that nuclear power’s worldwide reputation has taken a huge battering from the Fukushima emergency while vastly greater radiological impacts from routine operations receive virtually no public attention.
Monbiot takes offence at ill-informed, moralistic objections to nuclear power. Fair enough. Yet two of the greatest objections to nuclear power both have a moral dimension − one because of its particularity, the other because of its generality.
The particular moral problem concerns the disproportionate impacts of the nuclear industry on indigenous peoples. The nuclear industry’s racism is grotesque. Regardless of all the other debates surrounding energy options, it’s difficult to see how this pervasive racism can be reduced to being just another input into a complex equation, and tolerated as a price that must be paid to keep the lights on.
The other major moral concern with nuclear power is its repeatedly-demonstrated connection to the proliferation of nuclear weapons. As former US vice president Al Gore says: “For eight years in the White House, every weapons-proliferation problem we dealt with was connected to a civilian reactor program. And if we ever got to the point where we wanted to use nuclear reactors to back out a lot of coal … then we’d have to put them in so many places we’d run that proliferation risk right off the reasonability scale.”
Nuclear weapons are the most destructive, indiscriminate and immoral of all weapons, and nuclear warfare has the capacity to directly cause catastrophic climate change by lifting thousands of tonnes of soot into the stratosphere. Thus nuclear weapons pose an an existential threat to humanity. This proliferation problem must weigh very heavily against nuclear power in comparative assessments of energy options.
Much of Monbiot’s March 21 column concerns the limitations of renewables. He’s right to point to the limitations and costs of renewables, not least because they are poorly understood. But instead of addressing serious clean energy proposals, Monbiot simply demolishes one particular branch of thinking – the argument that current electricity supply systems can be replaced with off-grid, small-scale distributed energy.
There is certainly a role for local energy production but no serious analysts argue that it can completely displace centralised production. Thus Monbiot is demolishing a straw man argument.
In Australia, a growing body of literature demonstrates how the systematic deployment of renewable energy sources, along with energy efficiency policies and technologies, can generate very large reductions in greenhouse emissions without recourse to nuclear power. These include reports produced by academics such as Hugh Saddler, Richard Denniss and Mark Diesendorf, and important contributions by the Australia Institute, engineer Peter Seligman, CSIRO scientist John Wright, Siemens Ltd., and the ‘Beyond Zero Emissions’ group among others.
Like it or not, the Fukushima disaster will put a significant dent in nuclear power expansion plans around the world. Fukushima will prove to be an even greater disaster if that energy gap is filled with fossil fuels. It is more important than ever to fight for the systematic, rapid deployment of existing, affordable clean energy solutions. And to insist on major R&D programs to expand the capabilities of renewables and to reduce the costs. And last but not least, to aggressively pursue the energy efficiency and conservation measures that can deliver the largest, cheapest, quickest cuts to greenhouse emissions.
Jim Green is the national nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth, Australia.
Dr Ziggy Switkowski headed the Howard government’s Uranium Mining, Processing and Nuclear Energy Review (UMPNER), which produced a report in late 2006 – pro-uranium mining and pro-nuclear power but argues against expansion into conversion, enrichment, fuel fabrication and reprocessing.
The UMPNER report is posted at http://pandora.nla.gov.au/tep/66043
Switkowski says renewables are now a more economically viable choice than nuclear power for Australia. See The Age.
The Switkowski report misses the point (Prof Jim Falk)
* The narrow terms of reference set by the federal government have restricted the Switkowski panel to a study of nuclear power, not a serious study of energy options for Australia. A body of existing research indicates that the objectives of meeting energy demand and reducing greenhouse emissions can be met with a combination of renewable energy and gas to displace coal, combined with energy efficiency measures, without recourse to nuclear power.
Economics (Dr. Mark Diesendorf)
* The Switkowski report makes questionable assumptions that are highly favourable to nuclear power. In reality, nuclear power is likely to cost more than double dirty coal power and hence even more than wind power. The report’s very low estimates of the costs of nuclear electricity are achieved by means of a magician’s trick.
* The report cites studies on the external costs of electricity generating technologies. The low environmental and health costs obtained are misleading, because these studies do not include the main hazards of nuclear power – the proliferation of nuclear weapons and terrorism – and most do not treat adequately the hazards of rare but devastating accidents.
CO2 emissions (Dr. Mark Diesendorf)
* The Switkowski report evades the issue of the large increases in CO2 emissions from mining and milling uranium ore as the ore grade decreases from the current high-grade to low-grade over the next few decades.
Renewable energy (Dr. Mark Diesendorf)
* The report has no basis for its claim that “Nuclear power is the least-cost low-emission technology …” How can the Switkowski panel assert that nuclear is least cost, when it has neither performed any analysis nor commissioned any on this topic? To the contrary, wind power is a lower cost, lower emission technology in both the UK and USA and would also be lower cost in Australia. Hot dry rock geothermal power should be commercially available within a decade and is likely to be less expensive than nuclear power. So are some power stations burning biomass from existing crops and existing plantation forests.
Weapons proliferation and uranium safeguards (Prof Richard Broinowski)
* Switkowski’s recommendation to expand Australian uranium exports is irresponsible in today’s political climate: the international non-proliferation regime is deeply flawed, pressures exist for both vertical and horizontal nuclear weapons proliferation, and Australian nuclear materials are increasingly likely to end up in weapons programs.
* Despite statements from as high as the Prime Minister from within the current Federal Government advocating extending nuclear fuel cycle of activities in Australia, the report is correctly dismissive of the economic potential and technical capacity of Australia to participate in these, at least in the medium term.
Uranium enrichment (Prof Jim Falk)
* The Switkowski report is pessimistic about the short- to medium-term prospects for uranium conversion, uranium enrichment, fuel fabrication or spent nuclear fuel reprocessing industries to be established in Australia.
* On the issue of enrichment, the report concludes that “there may be little real opportunity for Australian companies to extend profitably” into enrichment and that “given the new investment and expansion plans under way around the world, the market looks to be reasonably well balanced in the medium term.”
A doctor’s perspective (Dr. Bill Williams)
* The report optimistically asserts that 25 nuclear reactors could give an 8-18% reduction in Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, but is silent on the vast amount of weapons-useable plutonium the reactors would produce.
* The report fails to seriously address the vulnerability of nuclear reactors to sabotage resulting in catastrophic radiation emergencies.
* The report is silent on known and quantified increased risks to workers in nuclear industry, and it is silent on multiple reported and controversial clusters of childhood cancers and congenital malformations in the vicinity of nuclear reactors.
* The report is silent on the well-documented capacity of low-level ionising radiation to injure chromosomes and the long-term genetic implications, i.e., gene pool effects and generational toxicity.
* The report fails to anticipate ‘necessary’ increases in the power of police and other surveillance authorities associated with a nuclear power program, in addition to the potential for restrictions on the public’s right-to-know and to resist imposition.
Uranium mining (Dr. Gavin Mudd)
* The Switkowski report fails to properly account for the increasing environmental cost of uranium mining. This includes the magnitude of mine wastes, the long-term impacts on surface water and groundwater resources, the energy costs of extraction which will invariably increase in the future for proposed mines, and the true life-cycle greenhouse emissions.
* Uranium market / nuclear power scenarios in the past have always proven to be overoptimistic, often by a large margin.
* The current “boom” in uranium exploration from 2004-2006 has not seen any new economic deposit discovered at all – only further drilling at known deposits or prospects.
* There are no “well established plans” for rehabilitation at Ranger as the mining-milling plan changes every year. Additionally, the current bond held by the Australian Government is only one-fifth of the estimated cost of full rehabilitation. For Olympic Dam, the bond held by the South Australian Government is only one-tenth of the estimated cost.
* The Beverley and Honeymoon projects are not required to rehabilitate contaminated groundwater following mining.
* Not one former Australian uranium mine site has demonstrated successful and stable long-term closure of mine wastes (tailings, waste rock and/or low grade ores).
Radioactive waste (Dr. Jim Green)
* The Switkowski report notes that 25 power reactors would produce up to 45,000 tonnes of spent nuclear fuel but is silent on the proliferation and security implications of the 450 tonnes of plutonium contained in that amount of spent fuel. That amount of plutonium would suffice for about 45,000 nuclear weapons. Neighbouring countries would be encouraged to develop a fissile material production capability.
* The Switkowski report floats the possibility of exporting spent nuclear fuel to the USA although that is at best a remote prospect. The report then ignores the inquiry’s term of reference regarding importation of spent nuclear fuel and high-level nuclear waste for disposal in Australia.
* The report stresses the need for public acceptance of waste management proposals but is silent on the draconian imposition of a nuclear dump in the NT. An expanded nuclear industry in Australia would very likely result in further impositions of nuclear facilities on unwilling communities.
* A member of Switkowski’s panel, Prof. Peter Johnston, has previously criticised the federal government over its incompetent handling of radioactive waste issues but there is no mention of these ongoing problems in the report.
Further comments (Dr. Jim Green)
Dr Switkowski falsely claims that: “There is no country that has moved from civilian nuclear power to nuclear weapons.” In fact five of the 10 countries to have built nuclear weapons did so with crucial technical support and/or political cover from peaceful programs.
The economic claims of the 2006 Switkowski report were assessed by UNSW academic Ben McNeil in the Journal of Australian Political Economy in 2007. He concluded that “the direct and external costs of introducing nuclear energy to Australia greatly exceed those used by the [Howard] government to justify its position. … From a marginal cost perspective, the Switkowksi report’s conclusion that nuclear energy is the ‘least cost low-emission baseload technology option’ is particularly dubious, given that costs of other baseload options like biomass, carbon capture and storage and geothermal technologies were not reviewed. Moreover, an examination of the likely subsidies required to ensure nuclear energy viability in Australia’s partially liberalised energy market suggests considerable political and economic risk in comparison to other more agile and less risky energy options.”
Ben McNeil, June 2007, The Costs of Introducing Nuclear Power to Australia, Journal of Australian Political Economy #59, http://web.maths.unsw.edu.au/~bmcneil/publications/McNeil.JAPE.pdf
More information:
* EnergyScience Coalition www.energyscience.org.au See the detailed critique of the Switkowski report, and relevant briefing papers (inc. #16 on baseload power).
Critique of Switkowski Report – Uranium Mining
By Monash Uni engineering lecturer Dr Gavin Mudd
This is copied from the EnergyScience Coalition critique of the draft 2006 Switkowski report <www.energyscience.org.au>
For articles, conference papers etc by Dr Mudd on uranium mining and other issues, see:
http://users.monash.edu.au/~gmudd
The Switkowski report fails to properly account for the increasing environmental cost of uranium mining. This includes the magnitude of mine wastes (now greater than 300 million tonnes and growing by some 20 million tonnes per year), the long-term impacts on surface water and groundwater resources, the energy costs of extraction which will invariably increase in the future for proposed mines (including the next Olympic Dam expansion), and the true life-cycle greenhouse emissions.
Uranium market / nuclear power scenarios in the past have always proven to be overoptimistic, often by a large margin.
Exploration (section 2.1.4)
The report over-simplifies exploration. It is widely accepted within the uranium industry globally that future exploration to discover new deposits will increasingly have to be deeper, meaning more expensive drilling and studies, as well as higher energy costs should any mine proceed. In this light, it is worth noting that for the same time period of uranium exploration boom from 1969-1971, numerous major new deposits were discovered across Australia. The current “boom” in uranium exploration from 2004-2006 has not seen any new economic deposit discovered at all – only further drilling at known deposits or prospects.
Production (section 2.1.5).
The increase of Australian uranium production higher than current 12,000 t U3O8/year cannot occur about 2015. This is due to the declining ore grade at Ranger, the long delay in construction and commissioning of the next proposed expansion at Olympic Dam, and the relatively minor production from Beverley (and proposed Honeymoon production is miniscule). Additionally, as noted in submissions to the House of Representatives Inquiry, the alleged production of 15,000 t U3O8/year for the next proposed expansion at Olympic Dam is unlikely to eventuate – ore grade drops by half as well as extraction efficiency likely to decline from the current 65% to less than 50%, thereby suggesting only 8,000 t U3O8/year (40 Mt/year at 0.04% U3O8, 50% extraction).
There are no “well established plans” for rehabilitation at Ranger as the mining-milling plan changes every year. Additionally, the current bond held by the Australian Government is only one-fifth of the estimated cost of full rehabilitation. For Olympic Dam, the bond held by the South Australian Government is only one-tenth of the estimated cost, though no public disclosure of this data has ever been made. Also, the Beverley and Honeymoon projects are not required to rehabilitate contaminated groundwater following mining – this is the largest impact from in-situ leach mining, and both companies acknowledge the potential for groundwater migration at their sites. Not one former Australian uranium mine site has demonstrated successful and stable long-term closure of mine wastes (tailings, waste rock and/or low grade ores).
Radioactive Emissions (section 6.4).
No measurements of radioactive emissions, e.g. radon gas, at Beverley have ever been published, with very few studies at Ranger and Olympic Dam in terms of environmental releases. The claims of low emissions are dubious. The available evidence clearly suggests that radon releases increase overall due to mining (see Mudd, G M, 2005, A Detailed Analysis of Radon Flux Studies at Australian Uranium Projects. Radiation Protection in Australia, December, 22 (3), pp 99-119).
Environmental “Performance” of Australian Uranium Mines (section 7.4.3)
There is a clearly detectable downstream change in water quality in the Magela Creek due to Ranger (that is, magnesium and sulfate elevated by some 300% or so), a scientific fact now universally accepted by the Supervising Scientist and ERA. Recent research has shown that although the concentrations are minor, they have measurable effects on some aquatic species – yet the research is still ongoing to fully evaluate the extent of these impacts. Further to this, many of the incidents had major impacts on water quality on the Ranger site itself, with monitoring often inadequate to properly judge the true extent of impacts from the various incidents. The extent of incidents also shows the seriousness of the risks posed by uranium mining in World Heritage ecosystems and landscapes.
Jim Green
National nuclear campaigner – Friends of the Earth, Australia
jim.green@foe.org.au
2007
A lightly edited version of this paper is one of the EnergyScience Coalition fact sheets www.energyscience.org.au
INTRODUCTION
The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) is a set of proposals first advanced by United States’ President George W. Bush in February 2006. It envisages:
* the expansion of nuclear power in the US and globally;
* changes to international civil nuclear arrangements such that a limited number of ‘supplier’ nations would provide fuel services — supplying fresh fuel and recovering spent nuclear fuel for treatment and disposal — to ‘user’ nations; and
* a set of proposals with a domestic US focus, including reprocessing and the development of fast neutron reactors, aimed primarily at helping to resolve intractable waste management problems.
The domestic aspects of the GNEP have dominated the ongoing debate in the US and they are the focus of this paper.
The US Department of Energy (DOE) lists the following benefits of the GNEP <www.gnep.energy.gov>:
* providing energy “without generating carbon emissions or greenhouse gases”;
* recycling used nuclear fuel to minimise waste and reduce proliferation concerns;
* assuring maximum energy recovery from still-valuable used nuclear fuel.
* safely and securely allow developing nations to deploy nuclear power to meet energy needs; and
* reducing the number of required US geologic waste repositories to one for the remainder of this century.
The US proposes to recommence commercial processing, and to develop and build fast neutron reactors which would produce electricity and also convert long-lived radioactive wastes into relatively short-lived wastes (a process called transmutation).
A May 2006 report by the US House Energy and Water Development Appropriations Committee points to the lack of detail in GNEP proposals: “[T]he Committee has serious reservations about GNEP as proposed by the Administration. The overriding concern is simply that the Department of Energy has failed to provide sufficient detailed information to enable Congress to understand fully all aspects of this initiative, including the cost, schedule, technology development plan, and waste streams from GNEP.” (US House Committee, 2006.)
RADIOACTIVE WASTE
Establishing interim storage and permanent disposal facilities for nuclear waste has been a protracted and controversial issue in the US and it is a long way from resolution.
The waste management problems could jeopardise plans to build new reactors. The US House Committee (2006) questions whether the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would licence new reactors in the absence of a clear disposal path for spent fuel, and notes that DOE’s response is to seek legislation eliminating the availability of disposal space in a permanent repository as a consideration for the NRC in licensing new reactors. The Committee argues that attempting to “legislate away” the waste problem is not a responsible course of action.
The estimated opening date for the Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada has been pushed back to 2017 — initially it was planned to be in operation in 1998. The US House Committee (2006) notes that DOE’s latest plan for Yucca Mountain envisages a license application for construction being filed in fiscal year 2008, construction starting three to four years later and disposal of commercial spent fuel sometime near the end of the next decade. This is a seven-year delay from the schedule just two years ago, the Committee notes. In other words, Yucca Mountain is not drawing closer but receding into the future!
Even if the Yucca Mountain repository is eventually opened, the current legal limit for the repository is insufficient for the total projected waste output of the current cohort of reactors operating in the US, although the GNEP reprocessing and transmutation plans aim to partly address this problem.
Steve Kidd (2006) from the World Nuclear Association states: “The difficulties encountered with establishing Yucca as an operating repository have undoubtedly influenced the move towards GNEP. The likelihood of having to establish several Yuccas in the USA alone, if there is a significant boom in nuclear power in the 21st century, has obviously concentrated a lot of official thinking.”
REPROCESSING
Aspects of the GNEP may partially and temporarily alleviate the waste management problems, according to its proponents. In particular, the recommencement of commercial reprocessing in the US will reduce the volume of high-level nuclear waste to be disposed of. (Spent nuclear fuel from conventional reactors typically comprises, by mass, 3% high-level waste, 1% plutonium and 96% unused uranium.
Oelrich (2006), a member of the Federation of American Scientists, summarised the problem in the Nuclear Engineering International magazine: “Few are willing to argue that Yucca Mountain is the ideal long-term geologic waste repository. It was picked, in part – and there can be much debate about how large a part – because of political expediency. At the time of the decision, Nevada had a much smaller population and was politically weak. Since then, the population of Las Vegas has exploded and Senator Harry Reid of Nevada is the Minority Leader in Congress. Whatever the fate of Yucca Mountain, it continues to be an ugly political battle that no-one wants to repeat. Thus, a few look to recycling as an alternative to Yucca while most supporters of recycling look at it as a way to substantially increase the loading of Yucca while avoiding having to decide on a second repository site during any current politician’s lifetime.”
The GNEP envisages the development of novel reprocessing technologies, with particular emphasis on ‘UREX+’. The DOE says UREX+ would accomplish the following:
* Separate uranium from the spent fuel at a high level of purification that would allow it to be recycled for re-enrichment, stored in an unshielded facility or simply buried as low-level waste.
* Separate and immobilise long-lived fission products, technetium and iodine, for disposal in Yucca Mountain.
* Extract short-lived fission products, cesium and strontium, and prepare them for storage until they meet the requirements for disposal as low-level waste.
* Separate transuranic elements (plutonium, neptunium, americium and curium) from the remaining fission products so they can be fabricated into fuel for fast neutron reactors. <www.gnep.energy.gov/gnepProliferationResistantRecycling.html>
The main potential advantages of UREX+ over conventional ‘PUREX’ reprocessing are as follows:
* Plutonium mixed with other transuranic elements is more difficult and dangerous to use in nuclear weapons compared to the plutonium extracted from spent fuel during conventional reprocessing.
* The transuranic elements can be irradiated in fast neutron reactors, converting them to nuclides with shorter half-lives, thus facilitating storage and disposal.
The development of new reprocessing technology promises to be protracted and expensive. The US House Committee (2006) states that “advanced recycling on any significant scale is at least a decade or more in the future”.
FAST NEUTRON REACTORS
Fast neutron reactors use plutonium as their basic fuel and have no moderator. The intention is to fission long-lived wastes to transmute them to nuclides with shorter half-lives, thus simplifying disposal. Fast neutron reactors would be required because complete destruction of transuranics is not feasible in conventional light-water power reactors.
As with the development of new reprocessing methods, the development of fast neutron reactors also promises to be expensive and protracted (as has been the historical experience with fast breeder reactors). The US House Committee (2006) states that the plan to use fast reactors “adds significant cost, time, and risk” to previous, less ambitious plans to recommence commercial reprocessing in the US and to use the separated plutonium in mixed plutonium/uranium oxide (MOX) fuel.
Transmutation — using neutrons from reactors or spallation sources, or charged particles from particle accelerators — has been studied for decades but progress has not been promising and there is no reason to believe that the use of fast neutron reactors will dramatically improve the balance of benefits to costs and risks.
A report from the UK government’s Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee (2003) concluded that partitioning (separation of different nuclides) followed by transmutation could deal with only a small fraction of the UK’s higher-activity wastes, it would be costly, and would require new nuclear reactors and reprocessing plants.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Interdisciplinary Study concludes that: “Decisions about partitioning and transmutation must … consider the incremental economic costs and safety, environmental, and proliferation risks of introducing the additional fuel cycle stages and facilities necessary for the task. These activities will be a source of additional risk to those working in the plants, as well as the general public, and will also generate considerable volumes of non-high-level waste contaminated with significant quantities of transuranics. Much of this waste, because of its long toxic lifetime, will ultimately need to be disposed of in high-level waste repositories. Moreover, even the most economical partitioning and transmutation schemes are likely to add significantly to the cost of the once-through fuel cycle.” (Ansolabehere et al., 2003.)
The GNEP proposals are promoted for their purported non-proliferation benefits, but it appears that a primary objective is simply to lessen the political controversy surrounding nuclear waste management issues. However, the GNEP is at best a partial, temporary and problematic solution to the waste controversies. The US House Committee (2006) states: “Resolution of the spent fuel problem cannot wait for the many years required for the GNEP to proceed through comprehensive planning, engineering demonstration, NRC licensing of the recycling plant, any new reactor types such as fast reactors, and each new recycled fuel type, and ultimate operations. The credibility of the Administration’s support for the future of the nuclear power industry rests on its resolution of the issues associated with taking custody of spent fuel and opening a permanent geologic repository for high-level nuclear waste (Yucca Mountain), as required by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. GNEP will not be ready to begin large-scale recycling of commercial spent fuel until the end of the next decade, and the Yucca Mountain repository will not open until roughly the same time. Such delays are acceptable only if accompanied by interim storage beginning this decade.”
Richard Lester, professor of nuclear science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, also doubts whether the GNEP plans will lessen the controversy surrounding waste management issues: “Energy Secretary Sam Bodman recently suggested that GNEP has the potential to postpone a second U.S. waste repository indefinitely, even if nuclear power growth does resume. This appeals to politicians, who are almost desperately eager to avoid another politically painful repository-siting process. But offsetting this promise is the requirement, also implicit in GNEP, to find sites for new reprocessing plants, fuel and target fabrication facilities, and fast-spectrum burner reactors. Each of these may be easier to site than a second waste repository, though perhaps only marginally so. But GNEP is likely to increase the quantity of required nuclear sites, possibly by a large number.” (Lester, 2006.)
Lester’s (2006) conclusion is pessimistic: “The Bush administration claims that this scheme could eliminate the need for repositories other than Yucca Mountain, cut the duration of the waste disposal problem from hundreds of thousands of years to something much shorter, and use almost all the energy in uranium fuel. This is an appealing vision, but the reality is that GNEP is unlikely to achieve these goals and will also make nuclear power less competitive.”
According to Steve Kidd (2006), the US nuclear power industry has greeted the GNEP “politely, but coolly”.
The GNEP envisages that reprocessing plants could double as interim storage sites. However, there are no commercial reprocessing plants in the US, and one can easily imagine heightened opposition to the development of reprocessing plants if they are also to serve as interim storage sites.
Oelrich (2006) states: “To an extent, reprocessing is an attempt to escape the political pain of finding a site for a second geologic repository. But this simply trades the well-know political problems of Yucca Mountain for the thus far hypothetical, but most likely equally intense, local political resistance that can be expected from trying to site more than a dozen fast neutron reactors, a couple of reprocessing centres, and the transportation of spent fuel.”
Given the problems with management of domestic wastes, it is almost inconceivable that the US would receive spent fuel or high-level waste from power reactors in other countries for disposal. (A program has been operating for many years under which the US accepts some spent fuel from research reactors, but a program dealing with wastes from power reactors would involve vastly greater amounts.)
One last potential advantage of the GNEP proposals is that by using plutonium as the primary nuclear fuel in some reactors, uranium reserves will be greatly extended. However, Kidd (2006) states that “the nuclear industry is convinced that there are more than adequate uranium reserves and resources to fuel any conceivable growth path of nuclear energy this century.”
WEAPONS PROLIFERATION
UREX+ is preferable to conventional reprocessing, but keeping plutonium mixed with other, more radioactive isotopes might not create much of a radiation barrier to would-be proliferators (Oelrich, 2006). Spent nuclear fuel provides a vastly greater radiation barrier — by as much as several orders of magnitude. Indeed from the mid-1970s until recently, US governments have implemented a policy of opposition to reprocessing because of proliferation concerns.
Lester (2006) questions the non-proliferation claims made in support of the UREX: “[A]doption of UREX+ reprocessing of light-water reactor fuel combined with reprocessing of advanced burner reactor fuel would introduce sizeable new flows and stocks of contaminated plutonium that might be only marginally better protected from would-be proliferators than pure plutonium, and much less protected than if the plutonium simply remained in the spent fuel. For countries that are not now reprocessing, including the United States, this would not be a positive development. In the case of GNEP, the goal of ensuring that no plutonium would be available to nuclear felons centuries from now is achieved at the price of an elevated proliferation risk during the several-decade period between waste generation and disposal, as well as the additional economic costs, plus health, safety, and environmental risks, incurred during that time.”
While the emphasis has been on the development of fast neutron reactors to ‘burn’ plutonium and other actinides, these reactors can also be used to ‘breed’ plutonium, which sits uncomfortably with the stated non-proliferation objective.
Fast neutron reactors could initially be fuelled with existing plutonium stockpiles but in the longer term the system relies on the ongoing production of plutonium and on reprocessing.
The history of conventional reprocessing is not reassuring. For many years plutonium has been separated from spent fuel at considerably greater rates than its use in MOX or breeder reactors, such that the global stockpile of separated plutonium has been steadily increasing. The stockpile of ‘unirradiated’ plutonium (separated or contained in MOX) has grown to over 270 tonnes, with about 15-20 tonnes of plutonium separated from spent fuel each year but only 10-15 tonnes fabricated into MOX fuel (and a very small amount into fuel for the few existing fast neutron reactors). (Albright and Kramer, 2004; Greenpeace 2005.)
The GNEP’s vision of regional reprocessing centres could come into conflict with the fundamental GNEP goal of limiting the spread of reprocessing. It is argued that existing plants could be used, but in the longer term new reprocessing plants would be required. Moreover, since a new reprocessing method is envisaged, the argument about the potential use of existing plants does not hold.
It is difficult to see how the non-proliferation goals of the complex GNEP concept could be realised when the vastly simpler problem of reducing existing stockpiles of unirradiated plutonium — by slowing or suspending reprocessing — remains unresolved.
FURTHER READING
US Department of Energy’s GNEP website: <www.gnep.energy.gov>
Nuclear Age Peace Foundation:
<www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/key-issues/nuclear-weapons/issues/proliferation/fuel-cycle/index.htm>
International Atomic Energy: <www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Focus/FuelCycle/index.shtml>
REFERENCES
Albright, David, and Kimberly Kramer, November/December 2004, “Fissile material: Stockpiles still growing”, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol.60, No.6, pp.14-16, <www.thebulletin.org/article.php?art_ofn=nd04albright_016>.
Ansolabehere, Stephen, et al., 2003, “The Future of Nuclear Power: An Interdisciplinary MIT Study”, <web.mit.edu/nuclearpower>.
Greenpeace, 2005, “The Real Face of the IAEA’s Multilateral Nuclear Approaches”, <www.greenpeace.org/international/press/reports/IAEAmultilateralnuclearapproachreport>.
Kidd, Steve, 2006, “GNEP: the right way forward?”, Nuclear Engineering International magazine, June 1, <www.neimagazine.com/story.asp?storyCode=2036516>
Lester, Richard, 2006, “New Nukes”, Issues in Science and Technology, Summer, <www.issues.org/22.4/lester.html>.
Oelrich, Ivan, 2006, “GNEP: not quite ripe”, Nuclear Engineering International magazine, August 7, <www.neimagazine.com/story.asp?sectionCode=76&storyCode=2038013>.
Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee (UK), December 2003, “Advice to Ministers on the Application of Partitioning and Transmutation in the UK”, <www.defra.gov.uk/rwmac/reports/part-trans/index.htm>.
US House Energy and Water Development Appropriations Committee, May 2006, “Global nuclear energy partnership (GNEP)”, House Report 109-474.
<http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/cpquery/T?&report=hr474&dbname=109&>
If Lucas Heights can’t maintain health and safety standards, what reason is there to believe Martin Ferguson’s planned nuclear waste dump at Muckaty Station will be safe, asks Jim Green
It’s a sad truth that whistleblowers have provided the public with more information about accidents at the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor site on Sydney’s outskirts than the site’s operator — the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) — ever has.
After a report on ABC’s Lateline last week, it’s clear that this pattern has been repeated. A secret report by Comcare, the federal government’s workplace safety watchdog, finds that ANSTO has under-reported accidents, breached safety standards, and breached health and safety laws.
The Comcare report was produced in response to revelations last year by ANSTO whistleblower David Reid. The report finds that ANSTO did not take all reasonable steps to maintain a safe working environment; failed to take all reasonable steps to train and supervise ANSTO Health employees; failed to comprehensively risk assess its radiopharmaceutical production process; failed to notify Comcare of safety incidents; and that ANSTO’s suspension of David Reid was “somewhat extreme” and that he was denied procedural fairness.
You’d hope that the Federal Government would step in to redress the problems at Lucas Heights and to do so with some urgency.
No such luck. The government has asked for a “review” of the Comcare report. And if that review finds its way into the public arena it will most likely be thanks to a whistleblower. If the review doesn’t produce the answers the government wants to hear, further reviews will likely be commissioned until the government gets the whitewash it wants.
These problems have obvious relevance for ANSTO workers and for the residents of surrounding suburbs, all the more so in light of ANSTO’s approach to emergency planning. Nuclear engineer Tony Wood, former head of ANSTO’s Division of Reactors and Engineering, said (pdf) way back in 2001:
“Another document called the Sutherland Shire Local Disaster Plan is needed to cater for the public. This plan is a most remarkable document. … In the whole document there is no mention of the words ‘iodine’ or ‘nuclear’ or ‘reactor’ and only one mention of ‘ANSTO’. No one would guess from reading this plan that there was a nuclear reactor in the area. … Here is a document presented as a reactor emergency plan that doesn’t mention the words ‘reactor’ or ‘radioactivity” because it doesn’t want to upset people.”
In the event of an accident with off-site consequences, local residents would have to sue ANSTO to achieve redress. On this issue Wood was even more scathing:
“I believe that it is very important that the public be told the truth even if the truth is unpalatable. I have cringed at some of ANSTO’s public statements. Surely there is someone at ANSTO with a practical reactor background and the courage to flag when ANSTO is yet again, about to mislead the public. For example, the claim ANSTO makes for nuclear indemnity is indefensible.”
The problems at ANSTO also have national significance. ANSTO is actively promoting the development of nuclear power in Australia — although the organisation has demonstrably failed to competently and safely run a much smaller nuclear research facility.
More immediately, ANSTO is up to its neck in the plan to establish a national nuclear waste repository in the Northern Territory, both as the main source of the waste and as the operator of the repository (if it proceeds).
Federal Resources Minister Martin Ferguson plans to put the National Radioactive Waste Management Bill before Parliament this month. Mussolini would blush. The Bill gives Ferguson the power to override all state and territory laws that could in any way impede his dump plan — and the power to override almost all Commonwealth laws. Public health laws, occupational heath and safety regulations, road safety laws — all subject to ministerial whim.
Ferguson claims that the Traditional Owners for the proposed dump site at Muckaty Station, 120 kilometres north of Tennant Creek, support the proposal. In truth, some do, but many do not. Letters of protest and petitions from Muckaty Traditional Owners have been ignored. Muckaty Traditional Owners have initiated legal action in the Federal Court challenging the nomination of the site, yet Mr Ferguson persists with the fiction that Traditional Owners support the dump.
Ferguson has refused repeated requests from concerned Traditional Owners to meet with them. His latest excuse for ignoring them is that the matter is subject to legal action. He has also said that he will consult Traditional Owners after a decision has been made on the proposed Muckaty dump — a thorough reworking of the traditional of consultation.
Ferguson says he will “respect” the Federal Court’s decision but in fact he is pre-empting it by pushing forward with legislation which entrenches Muckaty as the only site under active consideration for a national repository. Interestingly, Ferguson’s Bill is very similar to Howard-era legislation (pdf) which Labor slammed as being “sordid” and “draconian”.
Ziggy Switkowski, who was until recently the Chair of the ANSTO Board, has been promoting the construction of 50 power reactors in Australia. Over a 50 year lifespan, 50 reactors would be responsible for 1.8 billion tonnes of radioactive tailings waste at uranium mines. The reactors would be responsible for a further 430,000 tonnes of depleted uranium waste, a by-product of the uranium enrichment process (which would most likely take place overseas). The reactors would directly produce 75,000 tonnes of high-level nuclear waste and 750,000 cubic metres of low-level and intermediate-level waste.
The Labor Party promised to address radioactive waste management issues in a manner which is “scientific, transparent, accountable, fair and allows access to appeal mechanisms” and to “ensure full community consultation in radioactive waste decision-making processes”. Every one of those promises has been broken by Martin Ferguson and his Waste Management Bill.
It’s very clear that nuclear power reactors produce vastly more waste than ANSTO’s research reactor. The government needs to demonstrate a capacity to safely and responsibly manage the Lucas Heights research reactor and the waste it produces before trying to sell us on the idea of a nuclear power industry.
Rudd Government dumping election commitments
Jim Green, Online Opinion, 23 December 2008 http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=8330&page=0
With a Senate Committee report on Thursday calling for the repeal of draconian laws allowing the imposition of a radioactive waste dump in the absence of any consultation with or consent from Aboriginal Traditional Owners, it is time for resources and energy minister Martin Ferguson to come clean on his plans for managing this contentious issue.
Labor voted against the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Act in 2005/06 with senior Labor MPs describing it as ‘extreme’, ‘arrogant’, ‘draconian’, ‘sorry’, ‘sordid’, and ‘profoundly shameful’. At its 2007 national conference, the ALP voted unanimously to repeal the legislation. Over a year later and Martin Ferguson has not budged while Prime Minister Kevin Rudd – for all his boasting about keeping election promises – has conspicuously failed to ensure that this commitment is kept.
The Labor Government will most likely repeal the Radioactive Waste Management Act in the new year but the controversy over radioactive waste management will continue. The waste in question ranges from the relatively innocuous – such as lightly-contaminated lab-coats – to the far more hazardous and long-lived wastes arising from the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel rods from reactors at Lucas Heights.
If the Labor Government intends to pursue the Howard Government’s plan to establish a dump in the Northern Territory, it will need to override NT laws – and thereby break its pre-election pledge to respect state/territory laws which outlaw the imposition of radioactive waste dumps.
Four sites in the NT are under consideration. None of the four sites was short-listed when a national site selection study was undertaken in the 1990s, informed by scientific, environmental and social criteria. The NT sites were short-listed under the Howard government simply because the NT was seen as a soft political target. Thus Labor’s commitment to handle the issue in a scientific manner will go out the window if the NT sites are pursued.
Early in the new year, Mr Ferguson is expected to wave around a consultant’s report purporting to demonstrate that his favoured site is ideal for a radioactive dump – just as his predecessor, Senator Peter McGauran, paraded a consultant’s report in 2002 purporting to demonstrate that a site immediately adjacent to a missile and rocket testing range in South Australia was the safest place in the nation for a radioactive waste dump. Controversy forced the Howard government to abandon that location, then to abandon the SA dump plan altogether, and Mr McGauran was demoted to a junior ministry for his heavy-handed and clumsy mismanagement of the issue.
Labor’s election commitment to handle the issue transparently went out the window long ago. In April, Mr Ferguson refused to provide substantive answers to questions on his radioactive waste plans, simply asserting that all matters raised were “under consideration”. The secrecy was such that even a question about what specific matters were under consideration was also said to be under consideration!
Mr Ferguson is likely to try to impose a radioactive waste dump in an area in the Muckaty Land Trust, 120 kms north of Tennant Creek. This site was nominated by the Northern Land Council despite vocal opposition from a number of Traditional Owners whose country will be affected by the proposal.
Traditional Owner’s are divided. Dianne Stokes, a Muckaty Traditional Owner who has been leading the campaign against the dump, said at the Senate Committee hearing in Alice Springs; “We want to keep talking about it and continue to fight it until we are listened to. The big capital N-O. The Ngapa clan and the rest of the other totems in that land trust are all connected. We have connections to each other and are related to each other. We are the same tribe, the one ancestral cultural group of people who are the strong voice, and one voice, in that country”.
Muckaty Traditional Owner Marlene Bennett told the Committee hearing in Alice Springs: “I would just like to question why Martin Ferguson is sitting on this issue like a hen trying to hatch an egg. The people of the Northern Territory elected the Labor Party. We were led to believe that the nuclear waste thing would be all overturned and overruled, and at this moment we are extremely disappointed. How many times do we have to say no? No means no.”.
The opposition of numerous Muckaty Traditional Owners was expressed during the Senate inquiry and has also been acknowledged by the ALP at federal and territory levels. Among others, Indigenous affairs minister Jenny Macklin has acknowledged the opposition and distress of Muckaty Traditional Owners, while in 2001 she publicly acknowledged that Australia has no need for the nuclear reactors which are the greatest source of the problem.
In April, the NT Labor conference unanimously adopted a resolution acknowledging that the nomination of Muckaty was not made with the full and informed consent of all Traditional Owners, that it did not comply with the Aboriginal Land Rights Act and that the Muckaty nomination should be repealed.
One wonders if the fate that befell Peter McGauran will be visited on Martin Ferguson – demotion for clumsy, heavy-handed mismanagement of a contentious issue that demands a more considered, intelligent approach.
NUCLEAR WASTE AND INDIGENOUS RIGHTS
Jim Green, national nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth:
Given that it was a clear point of policy difference between the major parties, it was surprising that the Coalition government’s efforts to impose a nuclear waste repository on unwilling communities received so little media interest during the election campaign.
This issue provides a window into relations between the Coalition government and Indigenous people over the past decade and a test of the former government’s policy of practical reconciliation.
In February 1998, the Coalition government announced its intention to build a national nuclear waste repository near Woomera in South Australia. Leading the battle against the repository were the Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta, a council of senior Aboriginal women. Many of the Kungka Tjuta witnessed first-hand the impacts of the British nuclear bomb tests at Maralinga in the 1950s. They were sceptical about the Coalition government’s claim that nuclear waste destined for the Woomera repository was ‘safe’. After all, the waste would be kept at the Lucas Heights reactor site in Sydney if it was perfectly safe, or simply dumped in landfill.
The Maralinga legacy continued to resonate in another way. A clean-up of Maralinga in the late 1990s generated controversy when nuclear engineer and whistleblower Alan Parkinson revealed that it had been compromised by cost-cutting. This was disconcerting for South Australians since the same government department responsible for the Maralinga clean-up was also responsible for the Woomera repository. Alan Parkinson’s book on the Maralinga clean-up, Maralinga: Australia’s Nuclear Waste Cover-up, was published by ABC Books last year. Mr Parkinson said: “What was done at Maralinga was a cheap and nasty solution that wouldn’t be adopted on white-fellas land.”
The proposed repository generated such controversy in South Australia that the Coalition government secured the services of a public relations company. Correspondence between the company and the federal government was released under Freedom of Information laws. In one exchange, a government official asks the PR company to remove sand-dunes from a photo selected to adorn a brochure. The explanation provided by the government official was that: “Dunes are a sensitive area with respect to Aboriginal Heritage.” The sand-dunes were removed from the photo, only for the government official to ask if the horizon could be straightened up as well.
The federal government used compulsory land acquisition powers to take control of land for a repository in SA, extinguishing all Native Title rights and interests. The Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta continued to implore the federal government to get their ears out of the pockets, and after six long years the government did just that. In the lead-up to the 2004 federal election, with the repository issue biting politically, the government decided to cut its losses and abandon its plans for a repository in SA.
The ears went straight back into the pockets, however. Unequivocal promises not to impose a repository in the Northern Territory were broken by the Coalition government after the 2004 election. Traditional Owners were not consulted before three sites in the Territory were short-listed for a repository.
Government ministers asserted that the three sites are “some distance from any form of civilisation” or, more bluntly, that they are “in the middle of nowhere”. This is offensive to Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people living and running successful pastoral and tourist enterprises three, five and 18 kilometres from the sites.
And then in 2005, the Coalition government rail-roaded the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Act through parliament. This legislation provides wide-ranging exemptions from Aboriginal heritage protection laws. Then in 2006, the government rail-roaded amendments to the Waste Management Act through parliament. The amendments state that a nuclear dump site nomination is legally valid even without consultation with, or consent from, Traditional Owners.
The former Coalition government prided itself on its approach of ‘practical reconciliation’. However, its handling of the nuclear waste issue suggests that practical reconciliation was nothing more than rhetoric. Let’s hope that the Rudd Labor government avoids the temptation to impose a nuclear waste repository on an unwilling Indigenous community.
On July 14, 2004, the federal government announced that it had abandoned plans to build a national radioactive waste dump in South Australia. The backdown was a major victory for the environmental and Aboriginal organisations which fought the dump plan for over six years.
The government announced its intention to build the dump near Woomera, 500 kms north of Adelaide, in February 1998 – just a few months after it announced its intention to build a new nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights in southern Sydney. The two plans were closely linked. Up to 90% of the waste to be dumped in SA is stored at Lucas Heights. And the political agenda was simply to get radioactive waste out of Lucas Heights in order to reduce public opposition to the new reactor.
A campaign to oppose the dump took shape. The Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta – a senior Aboriginal women’s council from northern SA – took up the fight, as did the Kokatha traditional owners. The Kungkas – victims of the British nuclear testing program at Maralinga and Emu Field in the 1950s – have been supported by the GANG (Girls Against Nuclear Genocide) who have moved to Coober Pedy to help fight the proposed nuclear dump.
The Kungka Tjuta recounted time and again their experiences of the Maralinga nuclear test program in South Australia in the 1950s. They knew first hand about the problems of the nuclear industry and pleaded with the politicians to ‘get their ears out of their pockets’.
The Maralinga experience also influenced the dump campaign in another way. The federal government completed a ‘clean-up’ of Maralinga in the late 1990s, but it was grossly inadequate. Even after the ‘clean-up’, kilograms of plutonium remain buried in shallow, unlined trenches in totally unsuitable geology. The botched ‘clean-up’ was hardly reassuring.
The federal government planned to build two facilities at Woomera – an underground dump for lower-level waste, and an above-ground store for ‘interim’ storage of higher-level wastes including those arising from the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel rods from the Lucas Heights reactor. As public and media opposition to the dump plans grew, the Olsen Liberal government in SA sniffed the political wind and announced in 1999 that it would accept the underground dump but would legislate in an attempt to ban the higher-level waste store. The Labor Party – state and federal – trumped them by announcing opposition to both the dump and the store.
Several environment groups have fought the dump plan since it was first announced, including Friends of the Earth and the Australian Conservation Foundation. Opposition to the dump grew along the transport corridor linking Lucas Heights to Woomera, in no small part because of Friends of the Earth’s Nuclear Freeways project. On numerous occasions FoE activists took a mock nuclear waste castor along the transport corridor, building relations with communities all the time. This project was highly successful. Of the 18 councils along the transport corridor, 16 took a position of opposing the dump and the trucking of radioactive waste through their communities. FoE also organised numerous ‘radioactive exposure’ tours, taking hundreds of students to nuclear sites in SA – the proposed dump site and the uranium mines at Honeymoon, Beverley and Roxby Downs.
The Nuclear Freeways project was also significant in linking the dump proposal to the root of the problem – the planned new reactor at Lucas Heights. While the federal government mounted scare campaigns about waste stored in urban areas, it became increasingly well known that the dump plan had nothing to do with the small volumes of waste stored around the country and the everything to do with Lucas Heights. The NSW government was persuaded to hold a parliamentary inquiry into radioactive waste management in 2003-04, and that inquiry concluded that the dump proposal could not be justified and should be abandoned.
The Labor Party won the 2002 election in SA, and in the following year it legislated in an attempt to ban any form of national radioactive waste facility being built in SA.
The SA Labor government also tried a legal manoeuvre to stop the dump in 2003 – announcing its intention to declare the dump site a public park, which would make it immune from compulsory acquisition by the federal government. That led the federal government to use an urgency provision in the land acquisition act to seize control of the dump site with the stroke of a pen in mid-2003. The SA Labor government challenged the land seizure in the federal court, but lost. The SA government appealed the judgement to the full bench of the Federal Court, and that appeal was upheld in June 2004 – reversing the land seizure.
By July 2004, the Howard government was in trouble. It had the option of appealing the Federal Court decision to the High Court, but that appeal would have been deeply unpopular and it probably would not have succeeded in any case. And already, the dump was shaping up as a key issue in marginal seats in SA. For example, in the marginal seat of Adelaide, polling showed that the dump was second only to Medicare as a vote-swinging issue.
The Howard government decided to cut its losses and abandon the dump plan. The government said it would instead attempt to find a site to co-locate both lower and higher level wastes.
The victory of the dump campaign is something to savour – a fantastic result reflecting an enormous amount of hard work by a broad, effective alliance.
The Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta’s ‘Irati Wanti’ website is archived at
‘We are winners because of what’s in our hearts, not what’s on paper.’
Open Letter from the Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta – senior Aboriginal women’s council from northern SA – after the Federal Government abandoned its plan to build a national radioactive waste dump in South Australia.
August 2004
People said that you can’t win against the Government. Just a few women. We just kept talking and telling them to get their ears out of their pockets and listen. We never said we were going to give up. Government has big money to buy their way out but we never gave up. We told Howard you should look after us, not try and kill us. Straight out. We always talk straight out. In the end he didn’t have the power, we did. He only had money, but money doesn’t win.
Happy now – Kungka winners. We are winners because of what’s in our hearts, not what’s on paper. About the country, bush tucker, bush medicine and Inma (traditional songs and dances). Big happiness that we won against the Government. Victorious. And the family and all the grandchildren are so happy because we fought the whole way. And we were going away all the time. Kids growing up, babies have been born since we started. And still we have family coming. All learning about our fight.
We started talking strong against the dump a long time ago, in 1998 with Sister Michelle. We thought we would get the Greenies to help us. Greenies care for the same thing. Fight for the same thing. Against the poison.
Since then we been everywhere talking about the poison. Canberra, Sydney, Lucas Heights, Melbourne, Adelaide, Silverton, Port Augusta, Roxby Downs, Lake Eyre. We did it the hard way. Always camping out in the cold. Travelling all over with no money. Just enough for cool drink along the way. We went through it. Survivors. Even had an accident where we hit a bullock one night on the way to Roxby Downs. We even went to Lucas Heights Reactor. It’s a dangerous place, but we went in boldly to see where they were making the poison – the radiation. Seven women, seven sisters, we went in.
We lost our friends. Never mind we lost our loved ones. We never give up. Been through too much. Too much hard business and still keep going. Sorry business all the time. Fought through every hard thing along the way. People trying to scare us from fighting, it was hard work, but we never stopped. When we were going to Sydney people say “You Kungkas cranky they might bomb you”, but we kept going. People were telling us that the Whitefellas were pushing us, but no everything was coming from the heart, from us.
We showed that Greenies and Anangu can work together. Greenies could come and live here in Coober Pedy and work together to stop the dump. Kungkas showed the Greenies about the country and the culture. Our Greenie girls are the best in Australia. We give them all the love from our hearts. Family you know. Working together – that’s family. Big thank you to them especially. We can’t write. They help us with the letters, the writing, the computers, helped tell the world.
Thank you very much for helping us over the years, for everything. Thank you to the Lord, all our family and friends, the Coober Pedy community, Umoona Aged Care, the South Australian Government and all our friends around Australia and overseas. You helped us and you helped the kids. We are happy. We can have a break now. We want to have a rest and go on with other things now. Sit around the campfire and have a yarn. We don’t have to talk about the dump anymore, and get up and go all the time. Now we can go out together and camp out and pick bush medicine and bush tucker. And take the grandchildren out.
We were crying for the little ones and the ones still coming. With all the help – we won. Thank you all very much.
No Radioactive Waste Dump in our Ngura – In our Country!
Australia’s radioactive waste arises from the production and use of radioactive materials in scientific research and industrial, agricultural and medical applications. The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), operator of the research reactor at Lucas Heights, south of Sydney, is the main source of waste destined for a national nuclear waste facility. (Other waste streams ‒ such as those generated at uranium mines, and wastes from nuclear weapons testing ‒ would not be disposed of at the national facility.)
The vast majority of nuclear medicine procedures are diagnostic imaging procedures; the remainder are for therapy or palliation (pain relief). According to Medicare figures, nuclear medicine represents less than three percent of medical imaging. Nuclear medicine should not be confused with X-rays using iodine contrast, radiotherapy or chemotherapy, which are used much more commonly.
ANSTO is increasing production of nuclear waste from its radioisotope export business ‒ it plans to ramp up production of technetium-99m, the most commonly used medical radioisotope, from one percent of global supply to 25-30 percent. When all costs, including final waste disposal, are considered, this business costs taxpayers and leaves Australia with much more radioactive waste. The government subsidy to ANSTO for 2019-20 alone was $282 million.
The federal government claims that waste storage at Lucas Heights is reaching capacity and that failure to find a new waste storage or disposal site will impact on medical radioisotope supply and thus adversely affect public health.
Those claims ignore several important points:
* Nuclear medicine typically uses short-lived radioisotopes and the waste does not require special handling after a short period of radioactive decay.
* The absence of a national waste storage or disposal facility has not adversely impacted nuclear medicine, nor will the establishment of such a facility improve nuclear medicine.
* Waste can be safely stored at Lucas Heights for decades to come, as has been acknowledged by the national nuclear regulator, by the Australian Nuclear Association, and even by ANSTO itself.
Before delving into those arguments, it should be noted that only a small fraction of the waste generated at Lucas Heights ‒ and an even smaller fraction of radioactive waste generated nationally ‒ arises from the production or use of medical radioisotopes. Keith Pitt, the minister responsible for radioactive waste management, claims that “more than 80 per cent of Australia’s radioactive waste stream is associated with the production of nuclear medicine”. A figure of just 20 percent would be closer to the mark; less than 1 percent if uranium mine wastes are included in the calculations.
In any case, the fact that some waste is of medical origin doesn’t mean that a poorly designed and executed plan for a national waste facility should be accepted. The current plan for a waste facility near Kimba is contentious and problematic for numerous reasons, not least the unanimous opposition of the Barngarla Traditional Owners and the government’s extraordinary refusal to allow Traditional Owners to participate in a ‘community ballot’. The racism has been so crude that it attracted criticism from Coalition MPs (and others) on federal parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights.
Another concern is that the National Health and Medical Research Council’s ‘Code of practice for the near-surface disposal of radioactive waste in Australia’ states that a repository should not be built on agricultural land. Thus the Kimba site should have been precluded from consideration.
Scare-mongering
Regardless of the outcome of the current push for a national waste facility ‒ and bearing in mind that all previous plans have been abandoned ‒ there will be an ongoing need for hospitals to store clinical waste. After nuclear medicine is used in a patient, the vast majority is stored on site while it decays. Within a few days, it has lost so much radioactivity that it can go to a normal rubbish tip. There will always be multiple waste storage locations even if a national facility is established.
The government’s claim that a national waste facility is urgently required lest nuclear medicine be affected amounts to scare-mongering. Tilman Ruff, Associate Professor at the Nossal Institute for Global Health at Melbourne University, notes: “The emotive but fallacious claim that provision of nuclear medicine services needed for diagnosis and treatment of cancer will be jeopardised if a new nuclear waste dump is not urgently progressed is being dishonestly but persistently promoted.”
Likewise, health professionals noted in a joint statement in 2011: “The production of radioactive isotopes for nuclear medicine comprises a small percentage of the output of research reactors. The majority of the waste that is produced in these facilities occurs regardless of the nuclear medicine isotope production. Linking the need for a centralised radioactive waste storage facility with the production of isotopes for nuclear medicine is misleading.”
Nigel Scullion, then a Coalition Senator, said in 2005 that “Australia will not get access to radiopharmaceuticals” if a nuclear waste repository site was not quickly cleared of any impediments.
Indeed Scullion claimed that access to medical radioisotopes would cease by the end of 2006. Fifteen years later, access to radioisotopes has not been affected and the sky hasn’t fallen in ‒ but Coalition MPs continue with their cynical scare-mongering.
Go back another decade, and the Howard government was scare-mongering to win support for its plan to replace the HIFAR research reactor at Lucas Heights with a new reactor. It wasn’t at all clear that a domestic reactor was required for medical radioisotope production. After all, countries such as the US, the UK and Japan had sophisticated nuclear medicine with little or no reliance on domestic reactor supply.
Indeed there were expert views that a new reactor would adversely affect public health. Prof. Barry Allen, a former chief research scientist at ANSTO, Head of Biomedical Physics Research at the St. George Cancer Care Centre, and author of over 220 publications, told Radio National’s Background Briefing program in 1998:
“I mean it’s reported that if we don’t have a reactor, people will die because they won’t be getting their nuclear medicine and radioisotopes. I think that’s rather unlikely. Most of the isotopes can be imported into Australia; some are being generated on the cyclotron. But on the other hand, a lot of people are dying of cancer and we’re trying to develop new cancer therapies which use radioisotopes, which emit alpha particles which you cannot get from reactors. And if it comes down to cost benefit, I think a lot more people would be saved if we could proceed with targeted alpha cancer therapy, than being stuck with a reactor when we could in fact have imported those isotopes.”
ANSTO’s Lucas Heights site
ANSTO’s Lucas Heights site cannot be used for disposal of nuclear waste. It is unlikely that the site would meet relevant criteria, and in any case federal legislation prohibits waste disposal there.
But nuclear waste can be (and is) stored at Lucas Heights; indeed much of the waste destined for a national facility is currently stored there.
Claims that storage capacity at Lucas Heights is nearing capacity and that a national waste facility site is urgently needed have been flatly rejected by Dr Carl-Magnus Larsson, CEO of the federal nuclear regulator, the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA). Dr Larsson stated in parliamentary testimony in 2020: “Waste can be safely stored at Lucas Heights for decades to come”.
Similar comments have been made by ANSTO officers, by the federal government department responsible for radioactive waste management, and by the Australian Nuclear Association. ANSTO officers have noted that “ANSTO is capable of handling and storing wastes for long periods of time” and that waste is stored there “safely and securely”.
Long-lived intermediate-level waste
Of particular concern is long-lived intermediate-level waste (ILW) including waste arising from the reprocessing of irradiated nuclear fuel from the OPAL research reactor at Lucas Heights as well as earlier research reactors. The government plans to move this ILW to the Kimba site for above-ground storage while a deep underground disposal site is found. (Lower-level wastes will be permanently disposed of at Kimba if the project proceeds.)
But the process of finding an ILW disposal site has barely begun and will take decades; indeed ARPANSA has flagged a timeline of 100 years or more.
The vast majority of ILW is currently stored at Lucas Heights. Why not leave it at Lucas Heights ‒ described by an ANSTO officer as “the most secure facility we have got in Australia” ‒ until a disposal site is found? The government doesn’t have a good answer to that question ‒ indeed it has no answer at all beyond false claims about storage capacity limitations and scare-mongering about nuclear medicine supply.
Until such time as a disposal site is available, ILW should be stored at Lucas Heights for the following reasons:
* Australia’s nuclear expertise is heavily concentrated at Lucas Heights;
* Security at Lucas Heights is far more rigorous than is proposed for Kimba (a couple of security guards); and
* Ongoing storage at Lucas Heights avoids unnecessary costs and risks associated with double-handling, i.e. ILW being moved to Kimba only to be moved again to a disposal site.
Conversely, above-ground storage of ILW in regional South Australia increases risk, complexity and cost ‒ for no good reason.
Need for an independent inquiry
The current plan for a waste facility at Kimba should be scrapped. It is unacceptable to be disposing of nuclear waste against the unanimous wishes of Barngarla Traditional Owners, and ILW storage at Kimba makes no sense for the reasons discussed above.
Australia needs a thorough independent inquiry of both nuclear waste disposal and production. We need a long-term disposal plan that avoids double-handling and unnecessary movement of radioactive materials and meets world’s best practice standards.
An inquiry should include an audit of existing waste stockpiles and storage. This could be led by the federal nuclear regulator ARPANSA in consultation with relevant state agencies. This audit would include developing a prioritised program to improve continuing waste storage and handling facilities, and identifying non-recurrent or legacy waste sites and exploring options to retire and decommission these.
An inquiry would also identify and evaluate the full suite of radioactive waste management options. That would include the option of maintaining existing arrangements until suitable disposal options exist for both ILW and lower-level wastes.
Radioisotope production options
We also need to thoroughly investigate medical radioisotope production options with the aim of shifting from heavy reliance on reactor production in favour of cyclotrons (a type of particle accelerator). Among other advantages, cyclotrons produce far less radioactive waste than research reactors.
PET scanning is the fastest growth segment in nuclear medicine. Overwhelmingly this is used in cancer diagnosis and increasingly in therapy, and relies only on cyclotrons for supply.
We have a choice: whether we follow ANSTO’s expensive business model to ramp up reactor manufacture of radioisotopes ‒ and the long-lived radioactive waste that goes with it ‒ or collaborate with Canada and other countries to develop cyclotron manufacture of radioisotopes that does not produce long-lived nuclear waste.
ANSTO is a taxpayer-funded organisation. The decision to ramp up reactor waste production will leave many future generations with radioactive materials that last hundreds of thousands of years.
Clean cyclotron production of technetium-99m was approved in Canada last year, and should become the future of radioisotope production. It avoids the accident and terrorist risks of nuclear reactors, has no weapons proliferation potential, and creates very little nuclear waste.
Cyclotron radioisotope manufacture at multiple sites will also be more reliable than our single reactor, which has a record of multiple unplanned outages.
We should be leaders in this field, not laggards.
Dr Jim Green is the national nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth Australia. His PhD thesis on the replacement of the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor focused on medical radioisotope supply options for Australia.
Nuclear medicine and the proposed national radioactive waste dump
Jim Green, December 2015
National nuclear campaigner – Friends of the Earth, Australia
To download a 2-page paper addressing these issues right-click here.
“As health organisations, we are appalled that access to nuclear medical procedures is being used to justify the proposed nuclear waste dump. Most waste from these procedures break down quickly and can be safely disposed of either on site or locally.” − Dr Bill Williams, Medical Association for the Prevention of War
“Linking the need for a centralized radioactive waste storage facility with the production of isotopes for nuclear medicine is misleading. The production of radioactive isotopes for nuclear medicine comprises a small percentage of the output of research reactors. The majority of the waste that is produced in these facilities occurs regardless of the nuclear medicine isotope production.” − Nuclear Radiologist Dr Peter Karamoskos
Summary
Proponents of a national radioactive waste facility (a repository for lower-level wastes and a co-located store for higher-level wastes) claim or imply that nuclear medicine would be jeopardised if the facility does not proceed. There is no basis to such claims – they amount to dishonest scare-mongering.
Proponents claim that most or all of the waste that the federal government wants to dispose of or store at a national repository/store arises from medicine, specifically the production and use of medical radioisotopes. However, measured by radioactivity, the true figure is just 10-20%. Measured by volume, the figure may be within that range or it may be higher than 20% − but it takes some creative accounting to justify the claim that most or even all of the waste is medical in origin.
In any case, the fact that some waste is of medical origin doesn’t mean that a national repository/store is the best way to manage the waste.
If the plan for a national repository/store does not proceed, medical waste will continue to be stored at the Lucas Heights reactor site operated by the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) and, in much smaller volumes, at hospitals. Some waste is used in hospitals and then sent back to ANSTO (e.g. molybdenum ‘cows’ that have been ‘milked’ of the daughter radionuclide, technetium-99m − by far the most commonly used medical radioisotope). That is no problem since ANSTO and hospitals continue to produce radioactive waste and thus they have an ongoing need for on-site waste stores and waste management expertise regardless of the options for periodic off-site disposal.
Nuclear medicine is not being adversely affected by the absence of a national radioactive waste repository/store. Nuclear medicine will not benefit from the creation of a national radioactive waste repository/store.
The incessant references to nuclear medicine to ‘sell’ the proposed radioactive waste repository/store amount to nothing more than emotive propaganda − which is what critics of the proposed national radioactive waste repository/store are routinely accused of.
Scare mongering
Successive governments have engaged in a scare campaign in relation to medical isotopes. Here are some examples:
· Senator Nigel Scullion, who purports to represent the NT in the Federal Senate, said: “If we don’t have a site that is clear of any impediments by April [2006] then by December 2006 Australia will not get access to radio pharmaceuticals that are essential to the early diagnosis of cancer and to deal with many cardiovascular issues in Australia.” (13/10/05, abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200510/s1481671.htm) Senator Scullion’s scare-mongering was proven to be false.
· A joint media released by Nigel Scullion and David Tollner, the CLP Member for Solomon in the NT Parliament, said: “A delay [in building the waste facility] would severely limit the availability of life-saving radiopharmaceuticals used in the treatment of cardiovascular disease and early intervention against cancer, particularly breast cancer.” That one paragraph contains layers of confusion and misinformation. As the Medical Association for the Prevention of War noted, Senator Scullion and Mr Tollner were “peddling a lie” (ABC, 17/10/05).
· National MP John Cobb said: “But let me ask this: do people want hospitals, do they want life-saving cancer treatment and equipment …? … I must stress how much medical waste is involved. I wonder whether those who have such a problem with it want to close down our hospitals.” (House of Representatives, 16 October 2003, pp.21329-30) Needless to say, no hospitals have been closed down, no hospitals will be closed down, no-one wants hospitals closed down.
· In 2002, science minister Peter McGauran accused WA Premier Geoff Gallop of putting at risk life-saving nuclear medical research by refusing to accept that its waste had to be stored somewhere. (‘Premiers dump on waste site’, The Australian, August 7, 2002.)
Much of the pro-dump propaganda is somewhat less disingenuous than the comments of Senator Scullion, Mr Tollner, Mr Cobb, and Mr McGauran, implying rather than asserting that nuclear medicine would be jeopardised if the NT dump plan does not proceed. For example federal resources minister Martin Ferguson said in 2010: “We need a repository. We need nuclear medicine. All Australians benefit from the outcome of establishing a low and medium level repository in Australia, because half a million Australians a year demand access to nuclear medicine.” (www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2010/03/04/2836622.htm)
David Tollner said he approached then Prime Minister John Howard about funding an oncology unit at Royal Darwin Hospital as compensation for hosting a nuclear waste facility. (16/10/05, abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200510/s1483293.htm) If there is a need for an oncology unit in Darwin, it would be totally unacceptable for federal support to be dependent on acceptance of a nuclear waste dump.
Fraction of the radioactive waste of medical origin
The federal Labor government − as with the previous government − routinely asserts that most of the waste is a by-product of the production and use of medical isotopes. Sadly, that false claim is sometimes echoed in the NT, as with the August 2011 NT News editorial which asserted that the waste arises “almost solely” from nuclear medicine.
Here are some examples of politicians peddling misinformation:
· Then resources minister Ian Macfarlane said the nuclear waste arises “predominantly from medical services” (6/6/05, www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2005/s1385915.htm).
· Then science minister Peter McGauran said: “However, the Government remains totally and utterly committed to the safe and secure storage of low level radioactive waste − the bulk of which is produced from nuclear medicine procedures, and is the necessary by-product of life-saving medicine.” (24/6/2004, www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2004/s1139557.htm)
· Mr McGauran said that the waste destined for the national dump “is largely produced by nuclear medicine” (ABC Radio National, Australia Talks Back, 5/2/02).
· In 1997, Mr McGauran said that “During this year more than 260 000 Australians will have a nuclear medicine procedure. … As a result of these procedures, some 35 spent fuel rods are generated by the Lucas Heights research reactor every year.” However just 10% of the spent fuel can be attributed to medical radioisotope production.
· Then science minister Brendan Nelson said on 2/11/05 in Parliament that “… much of [the nuclear waste is] sourced from hospitals around Australia, which is currently stored at ANSTO. We have another 1,800 cubic metres at Woomera, much of that sourced from hospitals. In fact most of this stuff comes from hospitals. …” Hospitals account for only a tiny fraction of the waste (about 3% by volume). Just over 2000 cubic metres of low-level waste are stored at Woomera and none of it is of medical origin. Mr Nelson had no idea what he was talking about.
For low-level waste (LLW) and short-lived intermediate-level waste (SLILW):
* The claim that most of the waste is of medical origin certainly cannot be true in relation to waste volume, since 54% of the volume is non-medical CSIRO soil.
* A rough estimate would be as follows: say one quarter of ANSTO’s waste is medical (1320/4=330m3), and one third of the state/territory waste is medical (151/3=50 m3), so overall perhaps ONE TENTH (380/3700 m3) of the national inventory of LLW/SLILW is a by-product of medical isotope production and nuclear medicine. Or if we assume that one half of ANSTO’s waste is medical (1320/2=660m3), the overall figure is 710/3700 or 19%.
For long-lived intermediate-level waste (LLILW):
* Only a small fraction of this waste could be attributed to medical isotope production. Spent fuel accounts for a large majority of the radioactivity of Australia’s LLILW (though only a small fraction of the volume), and according to ANSTO (1993 Research Reactor Review submission), just 10% of the Lucas Heights ‘HIFAR’ reactor’s neutrons were used for medical isotope production. Presumably a similar figure applies for the new OPAL reactor − there is no reason to believe otherwise.
* Of the rest of Australia’s LLILW (other than spent fuel), about half by volume comprises reactor and isotope production wastes (limited detail is available), but this would account for only a small fraction of the LLILW inventory when measuring by radioactivity.
In sum, for LLW plus SLILW plus LLILW, 10-20% of the current stockpile would be the plausible range for medical waste − closer to 10% if measuring by radioactivity (because spent reactor fuel is such a large contributor to total radioactivity) and closer to 20% if measuring by volume.
For current and future production, roughly 30-40% of the volume could be attributed to medicine, but if measuring by radioactivity the figure would still be in the range of 10-20% (again because the radioactivity figures are dominated by spent fuel).
What should be done?
Two parallel processes should be initiated regarding radioactive waste management in Australia: a radioactive waste audit, and a National Commission or comparable public inquiry mechanism.
The federal government should immediately initiate an audit of existing waste stockpiles and storage. This could be led by the federal nuclear regulator ARPANSA in consultation with relevant state agencies with responsibility for radioactive waste. This audit would include developing a prioritised program to improve continuing waste storage and handling facilities, and identifying non-recurrent or legacy waste sites and exploring options to retire and de-commission these.
A National Commission would restore procedural and scientific rigour, and stakeholder and community confidence in radioactive waste management. It would identify and evaluate the full suite of radioactive waste management options. That would include the option of maintaining existing arrangements, keeping in mind that 95% of the waste is securely stored at two Commonwealth facilities: ANSTO’s Lucas Heights facility, and a large volume of very low level waste stored on Defence Department land at Woomera, SA.
(“Nuclear medicine involves the use of radioisotopes for the diagnosis and treatment of medical conditions. Significant concerns exist within the Australian community and amongst health professionals and scientific experts regarding current research reactor based production and the Commonwealth Government’s position regarding the disposal of these radioisotopes. On the basis of current information, we, the undersigned members of the health sector, recommend that the nuclear medicine industry in Australia undergo a full independent inquiry.”)
Dr Margie Beavis, 7 March 2016, https://newmatilda.com/2016/03/07/50511/
The Federal government is seeking a location for a nuclear waste facility. But the provision of information to communities has been problematic, with some major flaws.
Claims have been made that provision of nuclear medicine services is a key reason to build it, but existing medical waste makes up a very small proportion of the total waste requiring disposal.
In addition, little has been said about ANSTO’s business plan to greatly ramp up Australia’s reactor based production of isotopes from 1 per cent to over 25 per cent of the world’s market, which will massively increase the amount of long-lived radioactive waste produced in the future.
A new process may reduce the volume of the waste, but the actual quantity of radioactive material to store will be significantly greater, and will become most of the radioactive waste Australia produces.
In Australia nuclear medicine isotopes are indeed useful, but according to Medicare figures represent less than 3 per cent of medical imaging. They are most commonly used for bone scans and some specialised heart scans. They are not needed (as claimed by government) for normal X-rays, most heart scans and the vast majority of cancer treatments (surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy).
Government statements that one in two Australians at some point in their life need nuclear medicine stretch credibility.
It is interesting to hear government adviser Dr Geoff Currie’s contribution to this debate. But it does not reflect the position of the world leaders in isotope production.
The Canadians, who have been the leading exporters and best practice experts producing 30 per cent of the world’s isotopes for many decades, are in the process of phasing out nuclear reactor production.
Canada produced a “Report of the Expert Review Panel on Medical Isotope Production 2009“. After this report the Canadian government stated, “Canadians have been left to shoulder a disproportionate amount of the nuclear waste burden associated with reactor-based isotope production. This includes the significant costs associated with long-term management of the waste. The Government favours a new paradigm in which Canadians benefit from Canadian-based isotope production, supplemented if necessary from the world market, and supply is sustainable because of reduced waste and improved economics.”
They gave a number of other reasons why Canada wished to phase out reactor use. These included reliability of supply (reactor breakdowns created worldwide isotope supply shortages); investment in reactor production of medical isotopes would crowd out investment in innovative alternative production technologies like cyclotrons; and reactor production was the most expensive option, at no stage commercially viable without major taxpayer subsidies.
The Canadian Triumf research team had a successful pilot project in January 2015. They demonstrated a process that enables the routine production of sufficient Tc-99m (which is 85 per cent of isotopes used) to satisfy the daily demand for a population the size of British Columbia – or 500 patients – from a six-hour run on a common brand of medical cyclotrons.
Clinical trials began in early 2015. There are plans to have 24 cyclotrons operating across Canada by 2018, when they are planning to close down their reactor.
A very comprehensive 2010 OECD Nuclear Energy Agency report found reactor based isotope production requires significant taxpayer subsidies, as the cost of sale does not cover the cost of production.
The report concludes: “In many cases the full impact of Mo-99/Tc-99m provision was not transparent to or appreciated by governments… The full costs of waste management, reactor operations, fuel consumption, etc were not included in the price structure. This is a subsidisation by one country’s taxpayers of another country’s health care system. Many governments have indicated that they are no longer willing to provide such subsidisation.”
Clearly cyclotron production of nuclear medicine is not widely available right now, but planned in Canada in the next three to five years. How rapidly we adopt their technology will determine how long we need to use reactor produced isotopes.
What is needed urgently is a debate about how much waste we make. We have a choice: whether we follow ANSTO’s expensive business model to ramp up reactor manufacture (and the long-lived radioactive waste that goes with it), or collaborate with Canada to develop cyclotron manufacture of isotopes that does not produce long-lived nuclear waste.
It is a bit like Australia’s stance on coal for energy – with continued reliance on 19th century technology rather than a switch to 21st century renewables – do we continue with 20th century reactor technology and back the wrong horse?
ANSTO is a taxpayer-funded organisation. The decision to ramp up reactor waste production will leave many future generations with radioactive materials that last hundreds of thousands of years. So for the six communities proposed, Australia’s future nuclear waste burden is the elephant in the room.
When managing toxic materials, the first principle should be reducing their production at source. We urgently need an inquiry into nuclear waste production in Australia, given we already have more radioactive waste than we know what to do with.
Taken from: http://www.sea-us.org.au/roxby/roxstory.html
# 2001 Incident : Summary – Spills totalled 4,216,000 litres, no location or other data provided (except detail below).
# Incident : Undated – Total of NINE Process spills (including December incident below), no location or other data provided.
# Incident : Undated – TWO ‘Pond’ spills, no location or other data provided.
# Incident : Undated – ‘Undefined’ spill at the Port Adelaide sulfur yard.
# Incident : Undated – ‘Undefined’ Diesel ‘leak’ from a bulk storage tank at Olympic Dam, no location or other data provided.
# Incident : ‘Late’ – ~30,000 litres of Diesel spill at a Pump Station for Borefield B, no data provided.
# Incident : December 12 – 427,000 litres of Process leaching slurry containing 0.1% U (1,000,000 ppb) accidentally spilled from a holding tank. This represents a mass of uranium of about 0.43 t of uranium.
# Incident : October 21 – Large scale FIRE in the Solvent Extraction section of the Olympic Dam processing complex. Exact details still remain unclear, though it did apparently involve the release of radionuclides into the environment (mainly the atmosphere for wide dispersion).
# Incident : May – ~40,000 litres of Diesel spilt from underground fuel lines at Pump Station 1, Borefield A, and spread some 200 m from the source. The lines had corroded, since they were more than 15 years old. The residual contamination left in groundwater as there was perceived to be “no significant environmental risk” (pp 17).
# 2000 Incident : 106 spills totalled 2,021,000 litres, no location or other data provided..
# Incident : January 20 – Three workers were in the underground mine when explosives detonated. Although not injured, it represents a major breach in blasting safety procedures.
# 1999 Incident : December 23 – Part of the solvent extraction plant goes up in flames – this is where the copper and uranium is extracted. Allegedly, the fire was contained outside the uranium section with no contact with radioactive materials, although the detail is unclear. The fire could be seen as far as 25 km away at nearby Andamooka.
# Incident : December – Two workers seriously injured in a sulphuric acid spill.
# Incident : October 12 – Radioactive scrap metal detected at WMC’s scrap metal merchant in Adelaide. Load returned to Roxby.
# Incident : March 31 – Copper smelter explodes late at night, causing extensive damage. No workers injured.
# March 26 – Court case brought against Hugh Morgan (chief of WMC) and federal ministers Alexander Downer and Robert Hill, alleging genocide against the Arabunna people by the Roxby mine.
# March 26 – Official opening of the expansion, specially by Prime Minister John Howard.
# 1998 Incident : March 6 – Man is crushed to death in the underground mine at Roxby.
# 1997 December 11 – A further Amendment to the Roxby Indenture is passed through the SA parliament giving WMC responsibility for Aboriginal Heritage over 1.5 million hectares, well beyond the mine lease.
# December 3 – Senator Robert Hill, Federal Environment Minister, approves expansion to 200,000 tpa of copper and 4,000 tpa of uranium, but advises more environmental studies will be required for the full proposed expansion.
# Incident : November 30 – Union strike over the leak and spillage of sulphuric acid. 70 employees walked off the job after 23 workers had been overcome by fumes in the smelter area.
# November 6 – Supplement to the EIS released by WMC (their comments and responses to public comments on the Draft Expansion EIS).
# October 2 – ROXSTOP finishes with immense success.
# September 22 – ROXSTOP Desert Action and Music Festival begins at Roxby Downs, being the first major protest at the mine for over a decade. It includes protests at the minesite, blockading the highway of the delivery of equipment for the expansion, a public meeting on worker’s health, a music festival in the Mound Springs area, tours and witnessing of the damage to the Mound Springs by the two Borefields, and people having a ball doing it!
# May 12 – Draft Expansion Project EIS released for public comment.
# (Early) EIS for the proposed expansion of mining at Olympic Dam/Roxby Downs is announced.
# 1996 December – Amendments to the Indenture are made giving legal rights to WMC for extraction of up to 42 Ml/d of fossil Great Artesian Basin water every day for the next 40 years. This allows an increase in production to 350,000 tpa of copper and 7,000 tpa of uranium. This amendment was made without public scutiny and commits SA to at least another 100 years of uranium mining at Roxby.
# November – Borefield B, with one operational bore, is commissioned and bought into production.
# September – Work begins on the construction of Borefield B, deeper into the Great Artesian Basin in order to supply up to 42 million litres per day (Ml/d).
# July 15 – WMC Board commits to the major expansion of Roxby Downs, with “detailed design” to 200,000 tonnes per year copper level, and “conceptual design” to 350,000 tonnes per year of copper.
# April 24 – The SA Government Inquiry into the Olympic Dam Tailings Leakage is released, with damning indictments of WMC and yet still endorses their environmental management.
# January – John Faulkener, Federal Environment Minister, confirms the approval for expansion to 150,000 tpa and a special water licence is granted to WMC by the SA government.
# WMC announce plans for expansion to 350,000 tpa of copper and 7,000 tpa of uranium.
# 1995 WMC announces expansion to 150,000 tpa of copper and the development of Borefield B. Mines and Energy SA (MESA) modelling projections of the 50 year drawdown and Great Artesian Basin recovery rates are not made public.
# Roxby Downs completes second minor expansion to a production capacity of copper and uranium of about 85,000 and 1,600 tonnes per year, respectively.
# 1994 Incident : February 14 – WMC reveals that up to 5 million cubic metres of liquid has leaked from its tailings retention system at Roxby Downs. According to WMC the leak had been happening for at least two years but only became fully understood in January 1994.
# 1993 September – Memo from the Department of Mines and Energy (MESA) warns of a “potential problem” with water seepage and uranium tailings at the site.
# May – WMC and the Department’s of Mines and Energy and the Environment acknowledge that the tailings dam has been leaking.
# Minister for Mineral Resources approves increase in drawdown from 2 to 4 metres at the boundary of Borefield A. Approval restricted to 4 metres to try and protect the Mound Springs.
# April – WMC announce plans for a further expansion (‘Optimisation 2’).
# March 31 – WMC formally acquire 100% ownership of Olympic Dam. The cost to WMC was US$419 million
# March – British Petroleum (BP) withdraw from the Olympic Dam Joint Venture and sell their share to WMC.
# 1992 Incident : Worker dies at Roxby as the explosives he was setting underground prematurely detonate.
# Roxby Downs completes minor expansion to a production capacity of copper and uranium of about 66,000 and 1,200 tonnes per year, respectively.
# 1991 Approval given by the South Australian Government to expand Borefield A.
# February 19 – WMC/BP announce plans for a minor expansion (‘Optimisation 1’).
# 1990 Anti-uranium demonstrators block the path 3 shipments of Roxby output at Port Adelaide, a total of 24 uranium-carrying trucks. The uranium was sold to Sweden, Britain and the USA.
# 1989 Incident : November 5 – A total of 320 mm of rainfall at Olympic Dam led to major flooding. Increased groundwater levels were noted, as were the potential for flood waters to enter limestone cavities.
# 1988 Incident : November 5 – Major accident at the copper smelter during the official opening ceremony when a loud bang followed by a massive flame burst occurs.
# November 5 – Official opening of the Olympic Dam Project, including ‘special guest’ Norman Foster (former Labour politician).
# June 22 – First ore milled in the Olympic Dam metallurgical complex, production capacity of copper and uranium is about 45,000 and 900 tonnes per year, respectively.
# 1987 Mid – Surface decline and entrance tunnel completed.
# February – Operation of Borefield A commences.
# Incident : February – Major failure at the desalination plant when 70 ML in about 1 hour is lost through a massive limestone cavity beneath the surface of the storage pond. The estimated flow rate of the leak was up to 20,000 litres per second. The difficulty of predicting and locating potential limestone cavities was recognised.
Jeremy Roberts | March 27, 2008
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23437824-5013404,00.html
BHP Billiton will need nearly half of South Australia’s current electricity supply to power its vastly expanded Olympic Dam copper and uranium mine.
The mining company wrote to potential suppliers this month revealing that power demand for the mine was expected to top 690 megawatts when it reaches full production in 10 years.
This 30 per cent increase on previous forecasts for the mine 600km northwest of Adelaide is equivalent to nearly 42 per cent of South Australia’s total electricity consumption and nearly half of Adelaide’s power supply.
An industry insider yesterday described as “staggering” BHP’s new power needs, which exceed previous forecasts by 170mW.
It would require the building of new power stations in the state at a time when incentives for business to invest in traditional power generation are clouded by efforts to combat global warming.
The new BHP forecast comes a week after the Rudd Government’s Garnaut report on greenhouse emissions recommended power generators not be compensated in a carbon trading scheme.
South Australia has been an importer of electricity for several years, and its power distribution system was stretched to capacity to meet demand during the record heatwave earlier this month.
BHP is the state’s largest single power consumer, taking 120mW. The company will use the aditional 570mW to power on-site mineral processing to separate uranium, copper and gold, as well as for the expanded Roxby Downs township, a larger airport and the new open-cut mining operation.
The instability in the power generation sector adds to the challenges BHP faces in developing Olympic Dam.
A company spokeswoman yesterday described the request for 690mW of power as an estimate. “The expansion project remains in pre-feasibility and is yet to be approved,” she said. But in correspondence to the state’s power suppliers, dated March 5 and marked “commercial in confidence”, BHP calls for expressions of interest to supply the power.
The correspondence was followed by in-person briefings on March 12, and asks suppliers to address three supply options: power generation at the Olympic Dam site, elsewhere in the state, or a combination of both.
The company says 60MW of the power would be used to run a desalination plant planned for the coast of the Upper Spencer Gulf, and to pump the water 320km north to Olympic Dam.
Providing the additional power within a 10-year timeframe will challenge South Australia’s energy planners.
Gas-fired power stations normally take up to three years to build, industry sources said. Queensland’s largest coal-fired power station, Kogan Creek in the western Darling Downs, which was opened last December, took four years to build.
Sourcing base-load renewable energy from “hot rocks” geothermal sources in the north of the state may become an option, but the technology has not yet been proved viable.
The South Australian Government has not imposed any mandatory requirements on BHP to source renewable energy.
South Australian Greens MP Mark Parnell said the lack of renewable energy sources for Olympic Dam would make the state a “greenhouse pariah”.
“Our state risks being left with a huge carbon black hole as we become the greenhouse dump for one of the world’s richest companies,” Mr Parnell said.
BHP snubs SA carbon reductions
Jeremy Roberts
November 29, 2007
The Australian
<www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22838774-643,00.html>
BHP Billiton has distanced itself from South Australia’s ambitious greenhouse gas reduction and renewable energy targets, vowing to use the “most economic” power source for its massive Olympic Dam expansion.
On a hot, dry day in Adelaide, new chief executive Marius Kloppers said the company’s “local” operations – dominated by the proposed Olympic Dam expansion 600km north of Adelaide – would not be singled out to generate greenhouse gas reductions.
“It is a global issue – it is not a local issue,” he said after addressing his first annual general meeting in Australia as chief executive.
Mr Kloppers rejected “any specific item” in BHP’s portfolio of 33 current and proposed projects, including an expanded Olympic Dam, as producing emissions cuts.
“What we need to do is deploy every dollar in the most effective way – not target it towards any specific item which might, or might not, be the most effective one in the portfolio,” he said.
Mr Kloppers’ stance was backed by chairman Don Argus, who was asked if he would like to see significant renewable energy supply an expanded Olympic Dam copper and uranium mine.
“We will work on the most economic way to power what we have to power in this development,” he said.
With Olympic Dam already the state’s biggest consumer of electricity, the proposed expansion would more than triple its power demand to about 400 megawatts.
The company has committed itself to a 6 per cent cut in greenhouse gas emissions from its operations by 2012.
But the comments by BHP executives fly in the face of the Rann Government’s target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions in South Australia to 60 per cent of 1990 levels by 2050.
The target was written into Australia’s first climate change law, passed in July, which also aimed to have 20 per cent of electricity consumption coming from renewable sources by 2014.
The targets have been criticised for being voluntary. But Mr Rann said yesterday that the Government “was working with big and small business, to help meet these ambitious targets”.
He pointed to the emerging hot rocks energy sector, based in the mid-north and northeast of the state, which “may prove to be a vital source of energy for our booming mining industry”.
The expansion of the Olympic Dam mine has been delayed since company statements last year pointed to the release of an environmental impact statement by mid-2007.
The release of the massive document is now expected in late 2008 or early 2009, as the company addresses state government concerns over the project’s environmental and greenhouse effects. The delay also stems from BHP’s examination of a radical redrawing of its project.
Click here to download a 3-page 2008 PDF statement about the Roxby Downs Indenture Act:
In this webpage:
* Summary
* Peter Burdon’s article
* Greens MP Mark Parnell’s speech in SA Parliament.
Summary
BHP’s Olympic Dam copper/uranium/gold/silver mine in South Australia is a state within a state; it operates under a unique set of laws enshrined in the amended Roxby Downs Indenture Act. That would be unobjectionable except that the Indenture Act allows Olympic Dam wide-ranging exemptions from environmental laws, water management laws, Aboriginal Heritage laws, and it curtails the application of the Freedom of Information Act.
Then SA Liberal Party industry spokesperson Martin Hamilton-Smith said “every word of the [Indenture] agreement favours BHP, not South Australians.” It beggars belief that the SA Labor government would agree to such one-sided terms; and it beggars belief that Mr Hamilton-Smith and his Liberal colleagues waved it through Parliament with no amendments.
The only politician to insist on some scrutiny of the amended Indenture Act was SA Greens MLC Mark Parnell. He was accused of holding the state’s economy to ransom. Yet the transcripts of his late-night Parliamentary questioning of the Labor government ought to be required reading (see here and here). Time and time again the government spokesperson said that BHP wanted such-and-such a provision in the Indenture Act, and the government simply agreed without further consideration or consultation.
For example, Parnell asked why the Indenture Act retains exemptions from the SA Aboriginal Heritage Act. The government spokesperson said: “BHP were satisfied with the current arrangements and insisted on the continuation of these arrangements, and the government did not consult further than that.”
Above the law? Roxby Downs and BHP Billiton’s Legal Privileges
Peter Burdon
Friends of the Earth, Adelaide
May 2006
What would you say if you were told that a large portion of South Australia is subject to an entirely different set of laws to the rest of the state? How would you feel if you knew that those legally responsible for this land consume more energy and water, create more waste and dangerous material and extract more resources than any other body in South Australia?
Over 20 years ago the South Australian Government enacted the Roxby Downs (Indenture Ratification) Act 1982 (Indenture Act). In a single document the Government legislated that some 1.5 million hectares in central South Australia, including the Roxby Downs mine and surrounding areas, would be exempt from some of our most important environmental and indigenous rights legislation. The Indenture Act provides BHP Billiton the legal authority to override the:
· Aboriginal Heritage Act 1988
· Development Act 1993
· Environmental Protection Act 1993
· Freedom of Information Act 1991
· Mining Act 1971
· Natural Resources Act 2004 (including the Water Resources Act 1997)
This decision undermines community expectations that corporations should be regulated to limit the potential damage they can cause and to ensure they remain accountable for their actions. It also challenges the South Australian Government’s expressed commitment to the “strictest environmental standards” for the Roxby Downs/Olympic Dam mine. Such sweeping legislative power is unprecedented and inconsistent with modern practices and government promises.
The inclusion of the Aboriginal Heritage Act 1988 (AHA) in the Indenture Act has significant consequences for issues of equality and questions how seriously our State Government treats Indigenous rights and interests.
The AHA is the key legislative enactment aimed at protecting Indigenous heritage in South Australia. Prior to the operation of Native Title in the early 90s the AHA governed most government/Indigenous relations concerning land and cultural heritage. The Act continues to play an important function for Indigenous cultural heritage. However, under the Indenture Act the traditional owners of the land surrounding Roxby Downs, the Kokatha, Arabunna and Barngarla peoples, are now forced to deal with BHP Billiton to have their heritage recognised. As ACF nuclear campaigner David Noonan noted, BHP Billiton is
“[I]n a legal position to undertake any consultation that occurs, decide which Aboriginal groups they consult and the manner of that consultation. As the commercial operator and proponent of expansion within these areas, [BHP Billiton is] in a position of deciding the level of protection that Aboriginal heritage sites received and which sites they recognised.”
Through the Indenture Act, the government has abdicated its responsibility to address Aboriginal Heritage issues in relation to the Roxby Downs mine. They have placed BHP Billiton in a legal position to:
· Ignore the provisions of the 1988 Act designed to protect Aboriginal heritage
· Determine the nature and manner of any consultation with Indigenous communities
· Choose which Aboriginal groups to consult with
· Decide the level of protection that Aboriginal Heritage sites receive
· Decide which Aboriginal Heritage sites they recognise
As owners of the Olympic Dam mine, BHP Billiton clearly cannot participate in decisions concerning the recognition and protection of Aboriginal sites without a gross conflict of interest.
Freedom of Information
In October 2002 Premier Mike Rann and the Minister for Administrative Services, Jay Weatherill, signed the ‘Citizens Right to Information’ charter. This Charter commits the Government of South Australia to making information in Government documents and records readily accessible to the citizens of South Australia. Contained within this document is a promise that the “South Australian Government is committed to attaining the highest standards of openness and accountability.”
To fulfil this promise the Charter directs citizens to the Freedom of Information Act 1991 (FOI) and provides information about how to use the legislation. On this point Friends of the Earth campaigner Joel Catchlove notes,
“Freedom of Information legislation is an indispensable element of any society represented by a government. The legislation promotes government accountability and fosters informed public participation in government.”
Legally, the FOI consists of rights and obligations concerning access to and amendment of, information in the hands of government. The principal right conferred is a general right of access to a document of an agency or an official document of a minister. The other basic rights and obligations which FOI confers or imposes are, in summary:
“The obligation of the responsible minister to publish certain information, including: a statement setting out the organization and functions of agency; a statement of the categories of the document that are maintained in the possession of the agency; and a statement of any information that needs to be available to the public concerning particular procedures of the agency in relation to obtaining access to documents.”
and
“The obligation to make available for inspection and purchase documents that are used by the agency in making decisions, such as manuals containing guidelines and practices.”
Under confidentiality clause 35 of the Indenture Act, BHP Billiton have veto power over information relating to activities undertaken within the 1.5 million hectares covered by the indenture. Mr Catchlove notes:
“There is thus a massive portion of South Australia where mining giant BHP Billiton operates which is not subject to open public review or discussion and the fundamental tenancies of representative government have been laid to waste. The government promises openness and accountability with one hand and takes it away with the other.”
This fact was also commented on by Hedley Bachmann in his 2002 report to the State Government on reporting procedures for the South Australian uranium industry. In his report Bachmann recommended:
“In order to allow the release of information about incidents, which may cause or threaten to cause, serious or material environmental harm or risks to the public or employees, the government should revise and appropriately amend the secrecy/confidentiality causes in the legislation.”
The Bachmann report addressed a range of transparency or secrecy clauses contained in legislation relating to uranium mining. At the conclusion of his work the State government amended two pieces of legislation to comply with his recommendations. They were the
· Radiation Protection Act 1982: Section 19
· Mines and Workers Inspection Act 1920: Section 9
While the veto power held by BHP Billiton remains intact, citizen confidence and faith in the South Australian government cannot. South Australian citizens have a right to know exactly what actions, decisions or activities our representatives and corporations are undertaking, particularly in such a high-risk operation as the Roxby Downs uranium mine. The mine consumes more resources than any other enterprise in the state and has the potential to serious damage the health of South Australian workers and South Australia’s natural heritage. Many natural wonders, which are of deep significance to the land’s Traditional Owners, come under the Indenture Area. Responsible, accountable governments and corporations should have no need for secrecy, and in a project the scale of Roxby Downs, there is too much at stake to maintain it.
Environmental Protection
At 2006 levels of operation, the Roxby Downs/Olympic Dam uranium mine is licensed to take 40 million litres of water a day from the Great Artesian Basin (GAB). The GAB is a vast and ancient body of water that lies deep under the surface of central Australia. It begins in far north Queensland and is a source of water for many pastoral properties and habitats, including the fragile and unique mound springs in South Australia’s arid north. Currently BHP Billiton extracts 33 million litres a day from the GAB and farmers, environmentalists and traditional owners have reported dramatic reductions in water pressure threatening and sometimes extinguishing rare ecosystems. Under the Indenture Act, BHP Billiton is not required to pay for this water.
The radioactive waste tailings dam at Olympic Dam amounts to 60 million tonnes and is growing at 10 million tonnes annually. The tailings dam has been plagued by spills – most significantly in 1994, when the mine operators admitted some five million cubic litres had leaked from the dams over two years. Environmental audits provided to the Rann Government continue to emphasise that the mine tailings are inadequately managed and “an issue of real concern” requiring “the implementation of urgent remedial measures”. BHP Billiton has no long-term plans for the management of these tailings, which because of their radioactivity may remain dangerous for thousands of years. When all valuable resources have been extracted BHP Billiton simply plans to ‘cap’ the tailings dump with soil.
Additionally, Olympic Dam consumes more electricity than any other body in the State, ten percent of the state’s production, effectively making it SA’s single biggest producer of greenhouse gas. This impact will only increase with the mine’s projected expansion.
The Indenture Act provides an override to the Environmental Protection Act 1993 (EPA) and the powers and functions contained within. The EPA was enacted to provide for the protection of the environment and the establishment of an Environmental Protection Authority to monitor and enforce compliance with the Act. The key objective of this legislation is the avoidance of ‘environmental harm’, a term that is defined in the legislation to mean any harm or potential harm to the environment, of whatever degree or duration. Potential harm includes risk of harm and future harm.
The legislation imposes different penalties for offences causing environmental harm. The most heavily penalised offence is the offence of causing serious environmental harm by polluting the environment intentionally or recklessly and with knowledge that serious environmental harm will or might result. A lower penalty is imposed where a person, by polluting the environment, causes serious environmental harm.
The Environmental Protection Authority is charged with enforcing these provisions. The Authority has the power to:
· Serve notices on people violating the EPA and order them to comply.
· Place conditions on licences and other environmental approvals.
· Impose or vary a condition of an environmental authorisation.
· Demand financial assurance to be made where there is a high risk that operation will result in environmental harm. This money is used to counteract resulting environmental or community damage.
· Require an organization to prepare a plan of action in the event of emergencies that might arise out of the operation.
These provisions are South Australia’s most important and strongest environmental safeguards and they are absent from BHP Billitons Olympic Dam operation. In fact, under the Indenture, Primary Industries and Resources South Australia (PIRSA), is responsible for overseeing the project’s environmental standards. As a government body dedicated to promoting mining, PIRSA has a clear conflict of interest in this role. Friends of the Earth Campaigner Sophie Green notes:
“Whether you support the mining operations at Olympic Dam or not commonsense dictates that where a massive project is being undertaken which has the potential (and indeed likelihood) of damaging vast portions of the environment, our strongest environmental safeguards should apply. We are only asking that BHP Billiton be held to the same standard as every other corporation in Australia.”
In reviewing the conditions surrounding the massive 1994 leak, Dr. Gavin Mudd emphasises that the Indenture Act essentially prevents the mine from environmental responsibility and “until the [Indenture] Act is revoked entirely there can be no truly independent, external environmental assessment of the impacts of Olympic Dam”.
Legal accountability and guarantees of BHP Billiton’s environmental performance are crucial, particularly in light of the proposed expansion of the Olympic Dam mine into the largest open cut mine in the world. The scale of this operation and the associated risks threaten damage to the environment on a scale we have not yet seen. Ms Green notes,
Our Government is playing a dangerous balancing game with promises on one hand and contrary legislative action on the other. Actions speak louder than words and its time we demanded more from our representatives.
References:
1 Noonan, D 2006, personal communication, 30 March 2006
2 Government of South Australia, ‘Citizens Right to Information’, accessed 1 May 2006.
3 Catchlove, J 2006, personal communication, 7 April 2006.
4 Catchlove, J 2006, personal communication, 7 April 2006.
5 Bachmann, H 2002, ‘Reporting Independent Review of Reporting Procedures for the SA Uranium Mining Industry, August 2002, p. 1
6 Wiese Bockmann, M 2006, ‘Waste fears at uranium mine’, The Australian, 10 March 2006, p. 7
7 Green, S 2006, personal communication, 7 April 2006.
8 Mudd, G 1997, ‘SA Parliamentary Inquiry into the Tailings System Leakage’, Sea-US, accessed 11 May 2006, <http://www.sea-us.org.au/roxby/sa-inquiry.html>
Greens (SA) Amendment Bill
The Greens’ Bill to repeal the legal privileges was rejected by Liberal and Labor parties.
Legislative Council
GREENS BILL: Roxby Downs (Indenture Ratification) (Application of Acts) Amendment Bill
June 6th, 2007
http://www.markparnell.org.au/speech.php?speech=173
On the 6th of June, Mark Parnell introduced and spoke about his Greens Private Members bill, for an act to amend the Roxby Downs (Indenture Ratification) Act 1982
The Hon. M. PARNELL: The Roxby Downs (Indenture Ratification) Act 1982 was created to fast-track and protect the establishment and operation of the Olympic Dam copper and uranium mine, which was then owned by a joint venture comprising BP and Western Mining Corporation (which later became WMC Resources Ltd). In 2005 BHP Billiton acquired WMC Resources Ltd and the benefits of this act passed to that company.
The bill I have introduced deals with a small but important aspect of the indenture legislation, that is, the parts of the act that provide that this indenture act takes precedence over other laws of South Australia. Section 7 of the Roxby Downs (Indenture Ratification) Act provides:
“The law of the state is so far modified as is necessary to give full effect to the indenture and the provisions of any law of the state shall accordingly be construed subject to the modifications that take effect under this act.”
The Act, having created that general precedence over other state law, then goes on to list a large number of public statutes that are to be construed subject to the provisions of the indenture. These include the Commercial Arbitration Act, the Crown Lands Act, the Development Act, the Electricity Corporations Act, the Environment Protection Act, the Harbors and Navigation Act (although, given the location of the Roxby Downs mine, one wonders where this act might fit in; nevertheless, it is subject to this indenture), the Mining Act, the Petroleum Act, and it goes on, finishing with the Water Resources Act. These acts of state parliament are secondary to the provisions of the indenture; the Indenture Act prevails.
The purpose of this bill is basically to say that enough is enough when it comes to exemptions from state law. The deal to get the Roxby Downs (Indenture Ratification) Act through and get the mine up was made in the 1980s. It is 25 years ago now that this bill went through and standards of law, especially environment protection provisions, have advanced greatly in that time. The special exemptions that helped get the Roxby Downs mines up and running are simply no longer relevant or appropriate in the 21st century. In short, the world’s biggest miner does not need a free kick from the South Australian government or from this parliament. There is absolutely no reason for the mine operators to be granted special favours that give them a potential commercial gain over other miners and other developers.
It will come as no surprise to honourable members to know that my view that indenture laws are bad law applies to this legislation, as it did to the Whyalla legislation passed before I got here. The issue is one of levelling the playing field, of equity, so that corporate players in South Australia are all bound by the same rules and that we do not have special rules for some players over others. What I need to make abundantly clear is that this legislation is not about repealing the indenture act or about closing the Roxby Downs mine: it purely seeks to remove the special exemptions from state law that apply pursuant to this Indenture Act.
The uranium industry has also been calling for a level playing field and, as members might recall, one of the key recommendations of the Uranium Industry Framework Steering Group, which was released in 2006 by commonwealth industry minister Ian Macfarlane, was:
“The Australian government and state and territory governments [to] work cooperatively to ensure that, where possible, environmental and other regulatory arrangements across jurisdictions are harmonised.”
They are important words. Harmonisation means a level playing field, that the law applies equally to all players. The framework document goes on as follows:
“. . . coherent and consistent policy framework reflecting the respective policy objectives, roles and responsibilities of the Australian government and state and territory governments in relation to the regulation of the uranium industry.”
So in a way, my bill puts into effect what the uranium industry itself is calling for — harmonisation and uniform standards to apply to all.
I point out that one piece of legislation which does not apply to Roxby but which would apply to any other miner in South Australia is the Aboriginal Heritage Act. This is the primary piece of legislation in this state to protect our indigenous cultural heritage. However, the indenture act places BHP Billiton in a legal position so that it can choose which Aboriginal groups it acknowledges and consults with, what form that consultation takes, which Aboriginal heritage sites it recognises, and what degree of protection to offer to those sites.
In response to media interest in this bill, Richard Yeeles from BHP Billiton said yesterday in a statement that he released to ABC radio:
“Olympic Dam complies in all respects with Aboriginal heritage legislation — in fact, in making its relationships with Aboriginal groups and protecting Aboriginal heritage, Olympic Dam does much more than the Aboriginal heritage legislation requires.”
My response to that is to thank Richard Yeeles, because that is exactly my point, that is, the indenture act is an anachronism. If we do not need these special privileges, let us get rid of them. It should not be up to BHP Billiton to determine which laws it complies with in this state and to what extent it complies with them. So, I am as one with Richard Yeeles. If he is saying that BHP Billiton is already complying with the law, let us remove the exemption from the indenture legislation.
The Environment Protection Act is another act of this parliament that is part of the exemption in the indenture act. Some aspects of the mine’s operation are monitored by the EPA, but one environmental aspect that is outside that is water resources. The water resources laws now contained in the Natural Resources Management Act do not apply to the Roxby Downs mine. As members would know, because it has been mentioned in this place many times, whilst irrigators and householders are suffering water restrictions, BHP Billiton’s arrangements provide that it gets its water for free and there is no risk to the quantities it can take. That is directly against the national water initiative which says that, when we need to reduce allocations, we need to share the pain of those cuts around. This particular corporate operation does not need to share any of the pain of water cuts to which irrigators and householders are subject.
One question honourable members might be asking themselves is: why bother with amending this indenture act now? Clearly, if and when the expanded open-cut mine is given approval, we will need to rewrite the laws anyway because, clearly, the current indenture act does not apply to a big open-cut mine. The current indenture act applies to a mine with a production of 350 000 tonnes of copper per year, and it is limited to the current method of operation, which basically means that it is underground mining. The Olympic Dam mine currently produces some 235 000 tonnes of copper, and the expansion is projected to increase its output to 500 000 tonnes — and possibly up to one million tonnes — and that will be through an open cut, which will necessitate a review and updating of the act to apply to the mine’s changed circumstances. However, I think it is important that we consider now the appropriateness of an approach that exempts a corporate player from complying with the laws of this state. If the Roxby extension goes ahead, we can reflect the decision we make now in any new arrangements that are put in place.
I do not propose to go into a lot of detail about the explanation of the clauses of the bill. It is a very simple bill. There are two main operative sections, the first of which amends section 7 —modification of state law. The key elements of my bill are that five named acts are removed from the power of that exemption. So, two Aboriginal heritage acts, the Development Act, the Environment Protection Act and the Natural Resources Management Act will apply to the Roxby Downs mine.
In addition to section 7, the bill also provides that the secrecy provisions contained in section 35 of the indenture do not apply in relation to freedom of information applications. I think that is important because the Freedom of Information Act is the standard the law of this state applies to disclosure of information, and it is unfair for secrecy provisions to override that public law. That is not to say that, by making section 35 of the indenture subject to the Freedom of Information Act, it will be open slather; it will not be. The protections in the Freedom of Information Act in relation to commercially confidential material, for example, would continue to apply. However, the message it sends is that the documents BHP Billiton provides to government are equally able to be disclosed under freedom of information as those of any other mining company.
The second main operative provision of the bill is clause 5, which repeals section 9 of the act, which modifies the Aboriginal heritage legislation as it applies to this project. So, again, it levels the playing field and it says that this mine is subject to the Aboriginal heritage legislation in the same way as any other miner would be. In summary, I think most members of the South Australian community would be very surprised to discover that a 25 year old piece of legislation that allows the biggest development in South Australia to follow the least amount of rules is still in place.
It seems very clear to me that there is no financial argument at all for a need for these exemptions. There is no need for BHP Billiton to be given special treatment. This is one of the world’s richest companies. It announced, as I recall, a half year profit of some $8 billion. I do not believe that we do need to tread on eggshells when we are negotiating with large manufacturing corporations such as BHP Billiton. There is no question at all that, in its view, it is here for the long haul, and there is no risk of its taking its bat and ball and going somewhere else because it is being made to comply with the general laws of South Australia. With those comments, I commend the bill to the council.