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http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2012/03/the-exponential-end-game-leith-van-onselen/#comment-135791

Unconventional Economist (Leith van Onselen)

March 22, 2012 at 10:07 am

My personal view is that central Australia should become the nuclear ‘waste station’ for the world. We are geographically stable (i.e. few if any earth quakes, etc), have loads of deserted space, and could earn significant export dollars. It would also free us up to sell uranium on the proviso that the spent rods are sent back to us for storage

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Store nuclear waste in Australia: Gareth Evans

by: Amanda Hodge, South Asia correspondent
From: The Australian
October 06, 2009 12:00AM

KEVIN Rudd's troubleshooter on nuclear non-proliferation, Gareth Evans, says Australia could make a big contribution by entering the atomic energy fuel trade and taking back all waste derived from the uranium it sells.

The call by the former Labor foreign minister follows that from former ALP prime minister Bob Hawke last month that Australia had to assess a nuclear waste industry as a moral, financial and environmental response to climate change.

It defies the Rudd government insistence it will not take nuclear fuel waste, although Labor has yet to repeal Howard government legislation allowing a nuclear dump to be imposed on the Northern Territory.

In India at the weekend to chair a regional meeting of the Kevin Rudd-initiated International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, Mr Evans criticised last year's nuclear supply deal between the US and India for being "too soft" on India and weakening the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. His comments are sure to ruffle feathers on both sides of the Indian Ocean.

The Indian government is sensitive to the international community's refusal to admit it to the NPT club, and to the Australian government's persistent refusal to sell it uranium as a non-NPT signatory.

While Australia is one of the world's largest suppliers of uranium for nuclear power, the prospect of storing radioactive waste from other countries remains unpalatable to most Australians.

But Mr Evans said it was "difficult to argue with the principle that uranium producers should be responsible for the ultimate disposal of waste products that flow from them".

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Unconventional Economist
March 22, 2012 at 9:26 am

It must be great to walk through life with your head burried in the sand.

The Punisher

22 Mar 2012, 09:47 AM

I guess you could argue along the lines of those who produce it and export it...

But I have no strong opinions on the matter, I can't see myself living in Central Australia anytime soon.

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Shoot it at the sun. Send it to Earth's core. What to do with nuclear waste?

Firing nuclear waste into the sun, placing it in Antarctic ice sheets so it sinks by its own heat to the bedrock, or putting it under Earth's crust so it is sucked to the molten core. These are three of the 14 options the government's advisers are considering to get rid of the UK's troublesome nuclear waste legacy.

All options are technically possible and many are potentially hazardous - either to current generations or those yet unborn. Most also have political drawbacks and are expensive, around £50bn and counting, yet it is a problem the government has decided it must solve.

Last year it appointed a committee on radioactive waste management to re-examine all possibilities to find a publicly acceptable solution to the nuclear waste problem - something that successive governments have failed to do for 50 years.

The committee's options, seen by the Guardian, range from the exotic to the well established. And most have their difficulties. For example, firing waste into the sun or into outer space may permanently rid Earth of the problem but the possibility of rocket failure may make this seem too much of a gamble.

The Antarctica solution, allowing heat producing waste to bury itself in the ice, runs into the difficulty that the interna tionally agreed Antarctic Treaty bans such activity. The last pristine continent is supposed to be untouched by nuclear material.

Sub-seabed disposal, where waste is placed in a pre-dug hole or dropped in specially built penetrators to bury itself in the soft seabed, may be the best technical option. Even if the packages eventually rot and the radioactivity escapes it will be diluted by the sea water. But sea dumping is banned.

Some of the other ideas, such as placing it deep in the ground either to lose it in the Earth's mantle or in deep stratas where it would remain, have been tried by Russians and Americans. The Swedes are successfully using a deep depository but so far the UK has proved short of suitable geological formations. Exporting nuclear waste is also against government policy and likely to draw international protests.

All of the ideas remain on the table and none is yet a frontrunner. The present policy, by default, is storage but with a government committed to safeguarding the environment for future generations this may be ruled out as an option too. Nuclear waste stays dangerous for 250,000 years and even the best constructed concrete bunker is likely to need upgrading every 100 years or so.

A report to the committee says: "Fifty years of experience has proved the pursuit of 'the best' in the long term management of radioactive waste to be an illusory concept. The UK is currently engaged in a process, the success of which would be the identification of 'the acceptable', at a level which would allow the government to proceed with confidence."

Martin Forwood, of Cumbrians Opposed to Radioactive Environment, who is due to meet members of the government committee this week, was dismissive of the 14 ideas: "We thought all these madcap schemes had been junked donkey's years ago. The only sensible solution is to store it where it rightfully belongs - in above ground custom built concrete stores at the site of origin."

The government's estimates it will soon have 500,000 tonnes of higher level nuclear waste it has no home for, even if it never builds another nuclear power station. The even higher volume of low level waste is sent to a waste dump at Drigg, near Sellafield, in Cumbria, for disposal in especially engineered trenches. Meanwhile the more pressing problem is the more dangerous wastes. These are stored all over the country in naval dockyards, at a dozen nuclear power stations, former experimental sites like Harwell, Oxfordshire, or Dounreay, Highlands. But by far the largest stores and the most dangerous high level heat producing liquid wastes are at Sellafield, Cumbria, where Britain's major nuclear facilities were developed.

And it was Sellafield that was the scene of the previous government's last big failed attempt to solve the nuclear waste problem on the eve of the election in 1997.

John Gummer, in his last act as John Major's environment secretary, refused planning permission for a laboratory to test the suitability of the area for disposal of nuclear waste in granite. Mr Gummer ruled that the science on which the planning application was based was flawed.

It was this decision that left the Blair government with a vacuum where its nuclear waste disposal policy was concerned. The committee was originally charged with finding a way forward for nuclear waste disposal by the end of next year, but the committee has pleaded for an extension to the middle of 2006 before it can produce a final report.

Shadow

22 Mar 2012, 09:57 AM

Where do we put it though. Is there a part of central Australia that isn't the traditional home of indigenous Australians? I wonder how they would feel about their land becoming a global nuclear waste dumping ground? Personally think whoever uses the nuclear material should be responsible for its disposal in their own country... that way they are likely to do it right (self preservation).

What to do with nuclear waste... http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2004/apr/14/nuclear.greenpolitics

Yossarian

22 Mar 2012, 10:35 AM

We make money by digging it up and selling it. I don't think we can wipe our hands of who uses it, for what purpose, and how they dispose of it.

Catweasel

22 Mar 2012, 11:00 AM

Catweasel say what up with mouzealot two-prong attack against anti-guru blogger? It seem like great opportunity to start is Anti-Macrobusiness blog site. Alternatively, why it not express itself directly to naughty blogger?

Strindberg

22 Mar 2012, 09:42 AM

Nice example in that Leith blog of how he instantly reacts with abuse to people who disagree with him:

It appears that the no abuse or ad hominem attacks rule on macrobusiness doesn't apply to the resident bloggers.

Shadow

22 Mar 2012, 11:13 AM

Did you post this in the wrong thread? I haven't attacked any blogger, or attacked Macrobusiness in this thread.

Which of my comments did you construe as an attack on Macrobusiness?

Shadow

22 Mar 2012, 10:50 AM

We don't ship our unwanted scrap cars and televisions back to China or Japan or wherever they were made.

They are dumped here in Australia, where they were used...

Andrew

22 Mar 2012, 12:32 PM

You raise valid points regarding receipt of the waste. For the kind of costs we are looking at, I wonder if a dedicated port (not near anything), with dedicated train line to the central Australian location, would be feasible. Sounds costly, but I am pretty sure the price countries would pay to do this would provide for a lot of things to be built. Water acts as one of the best shields against radiation, so nuclear waste in a ship that sunk off the shore of this hypothetical port wouldn't have that severe consequences.

As for the indigenous people, I am sure it could be dealt with in the same way as when someone wants to "destroy" a 100 ha to make a mine site - money talks.

I do wonder if it might be good to save it as a project to go ahead with if mining were to collapse. Some of the skills and resources needed to make it happen overlap, so doing it now while they are stretched for the mining game wouldn't be ideal from that point of view.

Shadow

22 Mar 2012, 12:40 PM

Interesting. You make some points worth considering there.

If water is a good radiation shield, then how about burying the waste under the sea floor in a remote part of the ocean?

Andrew

22 Mar 2012, 12:58 PM

The ocean floor idea is not eliminated by this problem, but it would probably require relatively deep burial (in an already deep portion of the ocean, presumably). That would be approaching the limits of current engineering capabilities I think. If not buried sufficiently, it is conceivable that over the ~100,000+ year (off the top of my head) lifespan of the radiation, the containers would dissolve or leak, and erosion could expose them, then the potential exists for portions of the material to get carried away by the current. Pretty far fetched when writing it, but with this one they really want to cover all conceivable bases.

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Initial treatment of waste

Vitrification

Long-term storage of radioactive waste requires the stabilization of the waste into a form which will neither react nor degrade for extended periods of time. One way to do this is through vitrification.[31] Currently at Sellafield the high-level waste (PUREX first cycle raffinate) is mixed with sugar and then calcined. Calcination involves passing the waste through a heated, rotating tube. The purposes of calcination are to evaporate the water from the waste, and de-nitrate the fission products to assist the stability of the glass produced.[32]

The 'calcine' generated is fed continuously into an induction heated furnace with fragmented glass.[33] The resulting glass is a new substance in which the waste products are bonded into the glass matrix when it solidifies. This product, as a melt, is poured into stainless steel cylindrical containers ("cylinders") in a batch process. When cooled, the fluid solidifies ("vitrifies") into the glass. Such glass, after being formed, is highly resistant to water.[34]

After filling a cylinder, a seal is welded onto the cylinder. The cylinder is then washed. After being inspected for external contamination, the steel cylinder is stored, usually in an underground repository. In this form, the waste products are expected to be immobilized for a long period of time (many thousands of years).[35]

The glass inside a cylinder is usually a black glossy substance. All this work (in the United Kingdom) is done using hot cell systems. The sugar is added to control the ruthenium chemistry and to stop the formation of the volatile RuO4 containing radioactive ruthenium isotopes. In the west, the glass is normally a borosilicate glass (similar to Pyrex), while in the former Soviet bloc it is normal to use a phosphate glass. The amount of fission products in the glass must be limited because some (palladium, the other Pt group metals, and tellurium) tend to form metallic phases which separate from the glass. Bulk vitrification uses electrodes to melt soil and wastes, which are then buried underground.[36] In Germany a vitrification plant is in use; this is treating the waste from a small demonstration reprocessing plant which has since been closed down.[32][37]

Ion exchange

It is common for medium active wastes in the nuclear industry to be treated with ion exchange or other means to concentrate the radioactivity into a small volume. The much less radioactive bulk (after treatment) is often then discharged. For instance, it is possible to use a ferric hydroxide floc to remove radioactive metals from aqueous mixtures.[38] After the radioisotopes are absorbed onto the ferric hydroxide, the resulting sludge can be placed in a metal drum before being mixed with cement to form a solid waste form.[39] In order to get better long-term performance (mechanical stability) from such forms, they may be made from a mixture of fly ash, or blast furnace slag, and Portland cement, instead of normal concrete (made with Portland cement, gravel and sand).

Synroc

The Australian Synroc (synthetic rock) is a more sophisticated way to immobilize such waste, and this process may eventually come into commercial use for civil wastes (it is currently being developed for US military wastes). Synroc was invented by the late Prof Ted Ringwood (a geochemist) at the Australian National University.[40] The Synroc contains pyrochlore and cryptomelane type minerals. The original form of Synroc (Synroc C) was designed for the liquid high level waste (PUREX raffinate) from a light water reactor. The main minerals in this Synroc are hollandite (BaAl2Ti6O16), zirconolite (CaZrTi2O7) and perovskite (CaTiO3). The zirconolite and perovskite are hosts for the actinides. The strontium and barium will be fixed in the perovskite. The caesium will be fixed in the hollandite.

Long term management of waste

The time frame in question when dealing with radioactive waste ranges from 10,000 to 1,000,000 years,[41] according to studies based on the effect of estimated radiation doses.[42] Researchers suggest that forecasts of health detriment for such periods should be examined critically.[43] [44] Practical studies only consider up to 100 years as far as effective planning[45] and cost evaluations[46] are concerned. Long term behavior of radioactive wastes remains a subject for ongoing research projects in geoforecasting.[47]

Above-ground disposal

Dry cask storage typically involves taking waste from a spent fuel pool and sealing it (along with an inert gas) in a steel cylinder, which is placed in a concrete cylinder which acts as a radiation shield. It is a relatively inexpensive method which can be done at a central facility or adjacent to the source reactor. The waste can be easily retrieved for reprocessing.[48]

Geologic disposal

The process of selecting appropriate deep final repositories for high level waste and spent fuel is now under way in several countries with the first expected to be commissioned some time after 2010. The basic concept is to locate a large, stable geologic formation and use mining technology to excavate a tunnel, or large-bore tunnel boring machines (similar to those used to drill the Channel Tunnel from England to France) to drill a shaft 500–1,000 meters below the surface where rooms or vaults can be excavated for disposal of high-level radioactive waste. The goal is to permanently isolate nuclear waste from the human environment. Many people remain uncomfortable with the immediate stewardship cessation of this disposal system, suggesting perpetual management and monitoring would be more prudent.

Because some radioactive species have half-lives longer than one million years, even very low container leakage and radionuclide migration rates must be taken into account.[49] Moreover, it may require more than one half-life until some nuclear materials lose enough radioactivity to cease being lethal to living things. A 1983 review of the Swedish radioactive waste disposal program by the National Academy of Sciences found that country’s estimate of several hundred thousand years—perhaps up to one million years—being necessary for waste isolation “fully justified.”[50] Aside from dilution, chemically toxic stable elements in some waste such as arsenic remain toxic for up to billions of years or indefinitely.[51]

Sea-based options for disposal of radioactive waste[52] include burial beneath a stable abyssal plain, burial in a subduction zone that would slowly carry the waste downward into the Earth's mantle,[53][54] and burial beneath a remote natural or human-made island. While these approaches all have merit and would facilitate an international solution to the problem of disposal of radioactive waste, they would require an amendment of the Law of the Sea.[55]

Article 1 (Definitions), 7., of the 1996 Protocol to the Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter, (the London Dumping Convention) states:

“Sea” means all marine waters other than the internal waters of States, as well as the seabed and the subsoil thereof; it does not include sub-seabed repositories accessed only from land.”

The proposed land-based subductive waste disposal method disposes of nuclear waste in a subduction zone accessed from land,[56] and therefore is not prohibited by international agreement. This method has been described as the most viable means of disposing of radioactive waste,[57] and as the state-of-the-art as of 2001 in nuclear waste disposal technology.[58] Another approach termed Remix & Return[59] would blend high-level waste with uranium mine and mill tailings down to the level of the original radioactivity of the uranium ore, then replace it in inactive uranium mines. This approach has the merits of providing jobs for miners who would double as disposal staff, and of facilitating a cradle-to-grave cycle for radioactive materials, but would be inappropriate for spent reactor fuel in the absence of reprocessing, due to the presence in it of highly toxic radioactive elements such as plutonium.

Deep borehole disposal is the concept of disposing of high-level radioactive waste from nuclear reactors in extremely deep boreholes. Deep borehole disposal seeks to place the waste as much as five kilometers beneath the surface of the Earth and relies primarily on the immense natural geological barrier to confine the waste safely and permanently so that it should never pose a threat to the environment. The Earth's crust contains 120 trillion tons of thorium and 40 trillion tons of uranium (primarily at relatively trace concentrations of parts per million each adding up over the crust's 3 * 1019 ton mass), among other natural radioisotopes.[60][61][62] Since the fraction of nuclides decaying per unit of time is inversely proportional to an isotope's half-life, the relative radioactivity of the lesser amount of human-produced radioisotopes (thousands of tons instead of trillions of tons) would diminish once the isotopes with far shorter half-lives than the bulk of natural radioisotopes decayed.