nuclear-news

South Australia’s financially risky nuclear waste import scheme

Shunning nuclear power but not its waste: Assessing the risks of Australia becoming the world’s nuclear wasteland   http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629616301323 Mark Diesendorf 

Abstract

The South Australian Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission has undertaken ‘an independent and comprehensive investigation into the potential for increasing South Australia’s participation in the nuclear fuel cycle’. In its Final Report, issued 6 May 2016, it acknowledges that nuclear power would not be commercially viable in South Australia in the foreseeable future. However it recommends that ‘the South Australian Government establish used nuclear fuel and intermediate level waste storage and disposal facilities in South Australia’.

This is a business proposition to store a large fraction of global nuclear wastes, providing interim above-ground storage followed by permanent underground storage in South Australia.

The present critical evaluation of the scheme finds that the Royal Commission’s economic analysis is based on many unsubstantiated assumptions. Furthermore, the scheme is financially risky for both Australian taxpayers and customers and has a questionable ethical basis.

July 6, 2016 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA, business and costs, wastes