Isolation

Nuclear Waste - options
Updated 22 March 2008

PANGEA | NUCLEAR WASTE

What are the options for radioactive waste management besides dumping it on politically vulnerable communities far from the site of production and use?

While the nuclear industry itself believes there is 'consensus' that remote waste dumps are the most effective way to deal with the nuclear waste problem,this is far from true. There is a strong case to be made for leaving the waste on or close to the surface in monitored, dry containment facilities close to sites of nuclear expertise.

The waste remains visible. Buried waste can be forgotten, with the possibility of exposing people who accidentally breach the repository to contamination at some stage in the next 250,000 years.
No options are foreclosed. Keeping the waste on the surface makes it amenable to treatment by some potential future technology (eg transmutation).The waste remains dry. Buried waste would eventually contaminate groundwater systems which, in arid regions, is typically relied upon for daily water needs.
The waste remains accessible. If buried, leaking wastes and contaminated soils and water would be difficult if not impossible to retrieve. Above ground storage permits easy access and regular monitoring. It is possible to repackage the waste when it is found to be leaking.
The risk of transport accidents and subsequent contamination is reduced. Remote burial means transportation across the continent which would put communities en-route at risk of accidental exposure and radioactive contamination. There is a hugely greater risk associated with the transport of nuclear material over sea.To encourage waste minimisation. Remote burial would foster an "out of sight, out of mind" culture among producers of nuclear waste. On-site storage would encourage best practice waste minimisation strategies to be developed.
It would remain close to expert supervision. Remote burial renders nuclear waste difficult for experts to monitor the site. To keep waste safely isolated from the environment, expert monitoring must be in place for the entire duration of toxicity.
A well resourced "guardianship" culture should be fostered to extend into future generations to ensure that waste is effectively managed. The only way to achieve this is by above-ground dry storage at or near the site of production and use.

In an Australian context, there would seem to be two options for maintaining the waste until real solutions emerge for treating the waste. The most important principle is to stop producing the waste in the first place.

1- Return the waste to Lucas Heights

There is already waste stored there. Before the fuel rods produced at Lucas Heights are sent overseas for reprocessing they are stored at the ANSTO facility for 10-20 years. At this point they are far more radioactive than when they return from reprocessing, so there is no argument for remote storage on the grounds of safety alone, or these materials would have to be immediately removed.
The majority of Australia’s nuclear scientists, trained to work with and monitor these extremely hazardous materials, work at the ANSTO facility - there are not so many nuclear scientists living in Alice Springs or remote communities.
There is capacity to store the waste at the ANSTO facility. At a meeting with DEST (Department of Education, Science and Training), Traditional Owners from two of the proposed sites in Central Australia were told that Lucas Heights is part of a growth pathway for the greater Sydney area and therefore there is no room for the waste to be stored there (and therefore, illogically that the waste needs to be trucked thousands of kilometres to be temporarily dumped in a remote location, despite being apparently perfectly safe). This contradicts statements that have previously been made by key nuclear industry organisations and advocates, which clearly acknowledge that ANSTO can manage its own waste at the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor facility, where the majority of Commonwealth waste is produced.

ANSTO is legally prohibited from disposing of spent fuel reprocessing waste at Lucas Heights, but there is no legal obstacle to long-term storage of reprocessing waste at Lucas Heights.

2 - negotiate for France/Scotland to store the waste at the reprocessing facilities for the period it would be held in the proposed interim storage in Australia

The facilities at Dounrey and La Hague where Australian-origin nuclear waste is stored were designed to cope with much larger volumes of material arising from the commercial nuclear power industry. There is therefore an argument that leaving Australian material there for the time being is a safer option than establishing a nuclear waste dump in Australia.
Negotiating for the waste to remain in Europe avoids the transportation of the material halfway around the world.

Thanks to Natalie Wasley / No Waste Alliance for this section

Waste Isolation - not dumping

“Disposal” in its normal use cannot be applied to radioactive wastes from the nuclear fuel chain and nuclear weapons production. Disposal implies that you put something somewhere and walk away. We do not have a proven method to insure that radioactivity will stay where we put it. Experience over the last 50 years shows that every type of nuclear waste “disposal” to date, has leaked and done so faster and at higher rates than were projected by either dumpers or regulators.

It is time to update our views of radioactive waste and reject the concept of disposal.

Our goal is nuclear waste isolation from the biosphere for this generation and all to come, over the duration of hazard posed by the waste. Isolation is defined as zero incremental dose and zero release.

The only way to achieve this goal is by adopting a zero release policy and zero incremental dose and risk standards. Zero release must apply to all types of radioactive waste, all practices, and all releases. This policy precludes the deregulation and release of radioactive contaminated materials in so-called “recycling “ or reprocessing.

Zero release requires the end of the nuclear fuel chain.

Some, on hearing this statement will dismiss the idea. This is either because of a loss of hope for the world, or alternately, a deep investment (financial, ideological or otherwise) in activities which depend upon irradiation of others and contamination of the environment. This conflict of interest is the source of nuclear policy which has, over the last half century resulted in tens of millions of people, as well as other species being exposed, involuntarily, to ionizing radiation over and above Earth’s ambient radiation levels.

We must respect the rights of other species and future human generations to continue the isolation of our wastes, so we must not do anything that precludes the possibility of their accomplishing this.