Dump World's Nuclear Waste In Australia, Says Ex-PM Hawke

mdsolar writes: "[Former Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke said] Australia bore a responsibility to assist with the safe disposal of radioactive waste, given the ample space the country possesses. 'If Australia has – as we do – the safest remote locations for storing the world's nuclear waste, we have a responsibility to make those sites available for this purpose,' he said. Hawke based this conclusion on a 25-year-old report made by Ralph Slayter, whom the former prime minister appointed as Australia's first chief scientist back in 1989. According to Slayter's report, some of the remote reaches of the Northern Territory and Western Australia could provide apt dumping grounds for radioactive waste."

Comments

Mutants!

[burisch_research]

Radioactive waste + the majority of the world's most dangerous species = ... ? Godzilla? Hundred metre diameter spiders? Snakes the size of the great wall of China?

Re:Mutants!

[kylemonger]

In the face of hard radiation life gets smaller, not larger. Expect really hardy bacteria, not giant reptiles.

Re:Mutants!

[stewsters]

Do you want Mothra? Because that's how you get Mothra.

Commodity of the future

[Scottingham]

Australia sees that the 'waste' is actually >95% fertile material, i.e. fissionable FUEL.

"Yes, yes, we will take all of your...waste...all your energy are belong to us!"

Re:Commodity of the future

[drinkypoo]

This ain't the first kind of waste they've taken on, either. A lot of the plastic people think is getting recycled is getting landfilled in Australia. It's stable for long periods and eventually we'll figure out how to recycle it in a profitable fashion, and they can get paid to sit on it. Win-win.

Heh.

[TWX]

I don't think I want to leave the world's nuclear problem On The Beach...

remote doesn't equal secure

[spineboy]

While having a remote storage location is iseal for minimizing fallout risks, having an area that is sparsely seen y people can have security risks. It may be prone to terrorist type invasions, looking for dirty bomb material. I'm still not sure why a Nevada military type storage facility at Yucca mountain was blocked. - Guess NIMBY applies, even if your nearest neighbor is 200 miles away.

Re:remote doesn't equal secure

[Charliemopps]

Nevada's got a fair number of fault lines. I know there was a lot of politics involved in Yucca mountain, but I do know that there are a number of real concerns in regards to fault lines and similar.

Real concerns? No...

There was a fault line discovered after the site was built. But it did not run under the storage facility. It an under a nearby area where waste was supposed to cool before storage. They moved this cooling area to avoid the fault line. There are earthquakes in the area, there are everywhere... Also keep in mind, the size of the seismic activity needed to harm the facility in any way would have to be so large that any hazardous waste leak that resulted from it would be more of an afterthought compared to the destruction from the quake itself.

Re:remote doesn't equal secure

[Ellis D. Tripp]

Also keep in mind, the size of the seismic activity needed to harm the facility in any way would have to be so large that any hazardous waste leak that resulted from it would be more of an afterthought compared to the destruction from the quake itself.

Destruction of what? The whole idea is to site a nuclear waste dump in the middle of nowhere. What would a local earthquake damage? Some mountains in the middle of a remote desert?

Possible leakage of stored waste would seem to be far more of a potential problem than toppling cactus and shifting rocks around.

Re:remote doesn't equal secure

[physicsphairy]

I would call sparsely populated a significant security advantage. Post proper signage and you don't have to supply much doubt than any unauthorized person in the vicinity is up to no good. None of the fake delivery guy nonsense that works in the movies. You stand a good chance of intercepting the hostiles before they even are close enough to see the facility.

As any bank robber can tell you, the most important part of the operation is the getaway. Walking in and taking what you want at gunpoint is comparatively easy. The next step is to get out of there and lose the authorities by getting to where you can hide and blend in. When the getaway involves hundreds of miles of empty single access road? You're screwed. No criminal or terrorist force is going to come close to matching what the government can dish out for firepower. Their only hope is to get away before the government can mobilize, which, in this case, they have plenty of time to do.

Also, I believe these contaminants are buried deep underground. That's foolproof security. A lock can be picked to bypass having to use the official key. When the security mechanism is a million tonnes of rock there is no shortcut, the terrorists are stuck using the exact same equipment and accessways as everyone else to extract the waste.

The final step is to get the radioactive waste to the target, which is a population area. Terrorists might not care what population area it is, which means by storing it near *any* population area you have saved them the trouble of doing any work to get it to its target. Having access to it for just a few minutes could be enough to do all the damage they want to do. Not so with a remote site.

Transportation Hazards

[Baby Duck]

The problem is getting it safely to central Australia in the first place. Lots of disasters can happen en route. The same resistance is found in the USA. People near railroads and interstates that will transport waste to American deserts are nervous.

You mean we didn't already do this?

[gurps_npc]

I thought that was the explanation for all the crazy animals, half of which can kill you.

geological stability

[mdsolar]

There is some evidence of geological stability there: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N...

Re:Bad idea!

[afidel]

Worse, ninja dropbears, as if the normal ones aren't bad enough.

Re:I would think not.

[Rei]

True. But it is still a fact that Australia is predicted to get drier in the interior. And a hotter, too. It's already undergone a statistically significant measurable shift in its climate.

Anyway, I think Australia would really benefit from this concept. They need to get it approved just once (scale won't influence the rate of NIMBYism, those opposed to the repository would oppose it at any scale), they'll get a HUGE amount of income for little work, and they'll pretty much have nuclear power suppliers held hostage thereafter, as none are going to want to go back to having to try to get local permission to build a repository after their public has been told that it wouldn't happen. And they'll have a tremendous resource for any sort of future isotope or fuel refining that might prove economically viable. I mean, imagine that... picture having all of the world's spent fuel, and then having a technical solution or geopolitical situation that makes it cheaper to get fuel from the waste than to mine new uranium. You're suddenly the near-exclusive nuclear fuel supplier to the entire world. Or supplier of medical isotopes, or isotopes for goods irradiation, or whatever else the future may demand.

Space: 2099

[tekrat]

All radioactive waste is stored in Australia, commanded by John Koenig. But after a huge explosion, Australia is hurled into space on it's own, and the inhabitants of the country are forced to survive by their wits and with their Eagle spacecraft.

Starring Martin Landau and Barbara Bain.
Produced by Gerry Anderson.

Obligatory Archer Reference...

[RockClimbingFool]

Do you want Mad Max? Because THAT'S how you get Mad Max.