The commitment to permanently store the waste from the submarine engines threatens a repeat of the 30-year skirmish over where to bury low-level nuclear waste.
The commitment, which was known to both major parties before the May 2022 federal election, threatens a repeat of the past 30-year skirmish over where to bury the low-level nuclear waste that festoons universities and hospitals across the country.despite work starting on a site near Kimba in western South Australia, Defence Minister Richard Marles said the site for processing and storing spent fuel rods would be on defence property, which is federally owned.
“The sealed nuclear reactor is our friend because by virtue of having a sealed reactor, we can provide assurance in respect of every piece of nuclear material through the life cycle of the nuclear material,” Mr Marles said Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, which is separately spruiking nuclear power as part of Australia’s low emissions future, backed the establishment of a high-level processing and waste facility.
“Nuclear submarines are powered by highly enriched uranium – the same material that can be used in nuclear weapons and which inevitably becomes high-level radioactive waste.“AUKUS presents by far the biggest threat yet that Australia will become a dumping ground for the world’s worst nuclear waste.
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