Radioactive waste is curiously missing from debate over Dutton’s going nuclear
Jun 27, 2024
The media is abuzz with Dutton’s Nationals-inspired plan to go nuclear in terms of electricity, due to “aging coal plants” shutting down, as Insiders host David Speers put it on Sunday, yet he neglected to note that another reason coal’s no longer viable is its emissions are cooking the planet.
Dutton announced on 19 May that seven sites for nuclear powerplants will be established across the continent. And he added that the current alternative, which is renewable energy is unreliable, even though the current plan is power sources, like solar and wind, that will be backed up by battery plants.
Speers then led the usual debate with his cohosts about the issues triggered: nuclear power is more expensive, investment in interim renewables may be deterred, the plants will take eleven years to build, and they won’t even start delivering electricity until the 2040s.
Of course, the major plus is that nuclear doesn’t produce greenhouse planet-heating gas emissions.
So, if that’s the case, then what’s the issue?
Well, nuclear powerplants produce radiation via the splitting of the nuclei of uranium atoms, which is used to produce electricity. But another offshoot is it creates radioactive atoms, which are deadly.
So, if we recall the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear powerplant disaster, it resulted in tonnes of radioactive material being released into the atmosphere making an entire region uninhabitable.
Yet, while the possibility of a major incident like that is an issue, there’s another more pertinent problem with Dutton’s plan that isn’t being discussed: not during the Insiders chat, nor during any other broadcast media debate, and a browse through online articles fails to rate its mention either.
And what’s being conveniently left out of the equation is that Dutton’s proposed nuclear powerplants will produce masses of radioactive waste, which is lethal and volatile, and can remain active and, therefore, dangerous for up to 10,000 to 100,000 to one million years.
Dystopian environmentalism
Right now, as the Coalition has seriously put a nuclear proposal on the table, and the national debate around it sees all involved dutifully ignore the question of nuclear waste, it should be pointed out that currently, right across the globe, there is no long-term storage facility for this refuse.
The high-level radioactive waste produced by plants mainly consists of spent nuclear fuel rods.
The International Atomic Agency puts the amount of radioactive waste without a long-term storage solution at over a quarter of a million tonnes across the globe.
And this waste is either initially sitting in cooling pools or has since been placed in dry casks in storage facilities. And some of this stored waste is currently leaking into the environment.
The solution that’s been developed is storing the waste deep underground in tunnels and leaving it there for 100,000 years until it is no longer dangerous, which is a process that involves fuel rods being sealed in thick copper canisters placed in drilled holes which are then filled with clay.
Finland is currently building the only long-term storage facility on the planet. It is 437 metres deep. The tunnel is drilled into 2-billion-year-old rock, so seismic activity is not a concern. And the facility will eventually be about 50 kilometres long, at which point it will be sealed in with concrete.
A key debate around what to do about the plant once it is finished is what sort of markers should be produced to warn humans ten of thousands of years from now not to go drilling in the area.
Labor’s already dealing with the waste issue
So, where is Dutton planning on storing this waste? And why didn’t the commentators on Insiders raise this issue?
Activists had been warning back in September 2021, when then PM Scott Morrison announced the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine deal, that it was also opening up a backdoor for more nuclear developments in this country. And now they appear to have been affirmed.
But when it comes to the AUKUS submarine deal and the waste of the Australian submarines, as well as that from the US and UK nuclear powered boats that are to be stationed in Western Australia on permanent rotation from 2027, the problem of where to store the long-term waste is being handled.
Introduced last November, the Australian Naval Nuclear Power Safety Bill 2023 contains measures to deal with long-term nuclear waste storage on unceded First Nations land, and as we’re also talking locally produced US and UK waste, why not also assist our allies with their ever-growing stockpiles?
Indeed, while many environmentally aware Australians have been bowled over by Dutton’s nuclear proposal, they’ll further be shocked to find that Labor has already introduced laws to deal with any radioactive waste.
So, Albanese has already fought half Dutton’s battle on his behalf.
And when the true gravity of the prime minister already attempting to sign over multiple sites of Aboriginal land to become multinational radioactive waste dumps wears off, those same climate-concerned locals might recognise the clear bipartisanship at play here.
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