Comments on the DPIE Submission to Senate Inquiry
By Jean McSorleyIn their evidence to the Senate economic References Committee on 11th May representatives of the DPIE stated that there was no concern over the recommendation of the McKinnon inquiry regarding the need for a repository for high level nuclear waste. The Committee was told that there is no need to pursue a this as Australia does not create High Level Waste. However, it is not true that a repository is not needed.
In the Phase 3 discussion paper on radioactive waste DPIE note in their report, DPIE discusses the types of radioactive waste which will go either to the proposed radioactive waste site in South Australia, either for disposal or storage. The paper discusses those wastes which cannot be disposed of, these are known as Category S wastes. Such wastes are created through the production of radisotopes at Lucas heights, or through the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel (as ANSTO believed would happen at Dounreay had the reprocessing contracts gone ahead). In relation to these waste DPIE notes
"Category S waste is not suitable for near surface disposal. This must be stored until a geological disposal facility is established." and:
However, the report then goes on to note "The small quantity of Category S waste produced by Australia cannot presently justify the cost of constructing a geological disposal facility."
Notwithstanding the issue of how much waste will "justify’ the construction of a geological disposal facility, the fact remains that sometime in the future such a facility will have to be built. The reasons for this are:
- To deal with the long-lived intermediate level waste arising from radioisotope production at Lucas Heights
- To take the waste arising from reprocessing. With regard to this, the current policy in the UK and France is that after reprocessing high level nuclear waste is returned to the customer country, not long-lived intermediate level waste
- To take encapsulated, unreprocessed fuel rods
- To take ‘conditioned’ spent nuclear fuel (Fro example, one suggestion is that the spent fuel rods could be dissolved in nitric acid and have the uranium content changed in order to reduce proliferations. The resulting material could then be immobilised in cement or Synroc. This ‘conditioned’ waste would be Category S and should go to a deep geological repository.
Many thanks to Jean McSorley for supplying this article to SEA-US Inc.
Note - DPIE is the Commonwealth Department of Primary Industry and Energy.
Page last updated October 31, 1998.
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