On Saturday November 3, about 1,000 people gathered at Parliament House in Adelaide, the capital of South Australia (SA), for the 'Don't Dump on SA – We Still Say No to Nuclear Waste' rally.
Plans to turn SA into the world's nuclear waste dump were defeated in 2016 but the state is being targeted for a national nuclear waste dump by the conservative federal Coalition government.
Millions have been spent bribing local communities and tens of millions more are promised to the selected site ‒ either in the Flinders Ranges or farming land near Kimba in the Eyre Peninsula.
The rally was held to send a clear message to the Federal Government to abandon the current abysmal site selection process and to the SA government to uphold state legislation that makes radioactive waste facilities illegal.
People travelled from the affected communities of Kimba on the Eyre Peninsula and the Flinders Ranges to join other South Australians concerned about the issue for a vibrant and colourful event of speakers and performers.
Eyre Peninsula resident Anna Taylor asked the crowd: "Why would you put radioactive waste in the middle of our food bowl when only 4% of our country is productive land?"
Adnyamathanha man Dwayne Coulthard said: "This process by the Federal Government is cultural genocide. We have had enough of being ignored. No radioactive waste dump on Adnyamathanha country in the Flinders Ranges. No waste dump in Kimba."
Dr Margie Beavis from the Medical Association for Prevention of War (MAPW) dispelled government scare-mongering linking the practice of nuclear medicine to its dump plans. Nuclear medicine has not been hindered by the absence of a national dump nor will it be helped by the establishment of a dump.
President of SA Unions Jamie Newlyn said: "Minister Canavan came out recently and identified Whyalla, Port Pirie and Port Lincoln as areas where they could bring in nuclear waste. Those port communities in that logistics chain were all stunned by that announcement. The mayors of all of those communities are surprised that the announcement was made without any consultation."
"We're talking about this toxic, horrible nuclear waste coming through ports and across supply chains, across our boat links, across our highways and through our ports, that then it has to travel hours and hours by road or rail to a final destination, and those communities don't get a say either? That is a disgrace," Newlyn said.
A Friends of the Earth speaker noted that the plan to turn SA into the world's nuclear waste dump is still being promoted even though it lost support from major political parties in 2016. Two recent reports have promoted the plan to turn SA into the world's nuclear waste dump: one from a far-right politician and the other from 'ecomodernist' Ben Heard. Nuclear dumpsters aim to turn the SA into Australia's nuclear waste dump as a stepping stone to turning the state into the world's dump.
Other speakers included state Labor Party MP Eddie Hughes and federal Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young.
It is one of the most original, most cunning creations by the antinuclear movement: Asterix und das Atomkraftwerk, a pirate compilation of pictures taken from a dozen odd of existing editions of the French comic, with a new story told in the speech bubbles. While the Vienna street paper Augustin managed to publish an interview with the pirate author in 2006, he has remained anonymous even 40 years after the November 1978 referendum on Austria's nuclear power plant at Zwentendorf, 35 kilometres west of Vienna.
In the run-up to the 40th anniversary of this historic event this year, the Salzburg Platform Against Nuclear Hazards (PLAGE) has produced an exhibition titled Asterix and the Nuclear Power Plant – the destiny and outreach of an Austrian pirate comic.
It is this story of success and of prosecution that is told in parts 1 and 2 of PLAGE's Asterix exhibition. Its core is composed of selected scenes in which decisive moments of the struggle are called forth, or popular slogans put in the mouth of Asterix and Obelix and other figures, or on the banners they are carrying, often with a self-ironical note. Besides comments on those events and slogans, information is added on the political context, on some nuclear technical terms etc. Part 4 recalls how the comic was produced with the tools of pre-cut-and-paste times. In part 5, a quiz rounds off this pirate comic's journey from Austria to Spain and even Euskadi, via the Netherlands and other countries.
PLAGE has 'unofficially' presented the Asterix exhibition at this year's Nuclear-Free Future Award ceremony in the Great Hall of Salzburg University. It will be officially launched to the Salzburg media on December 15th.
P.S,: Inspiration for this exhibition came from ... the Nuclear Monitor! In autumn 2017, it announced that the Laka Foundation, Amsterdam, was preparing an exhibition of original material and documentation on a comic named Asterix und das Atomkraftwerk and on how it had spread to other countries, an adventure completely unknown in Austria. That announcement immediately triggered the idea of an exhibition for the Austrian public, to be first presented on the 40th anniversary of the Zwentendorf referendum. An exhibition coming on 20 roll-up posters, well transportable, ready for use in a broad variety of educational and cultural facilities, and even on squares in town and the like. Without the Laka Foundation's original material, the PLAGE exhibition would not have been possible.
Looking at a map of South Australia's nuclear landscape, the land is scarred. Uranium mines and weapon test sites, coupled with indications of where the government is currently proposing to site nuclear waste dumps, leave their marks across the desert. But amidst the devastation these poisonous activities have left on the land and its people, there is fierce resistance and boundless hope.
Friends of the Earth Australia has been running Radioactive Exposure Tours for the past thirty years. Designed to bring people from around Australia to meet local activists at various nuclear sites, the Rad Tour provides a unique opportunity to learn about the land, the people, and the nuclear industry in the most up-front and personal way.
This year's tour featured visits to uranium mines, bomb test legacy sites, and proposed radioactive waste dumps on Arabunna, Adnyamathanha, and Kokatha land in South Australia, and introduced urban-based activists to those directly confronting the nuclear industry out in country. It brought together about 30 people including campaigners from the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons and Reaching Critical Will, environmental activists with Friends of the Earth Australia and other organisations, and interested students and others looking to learn about the land, the people, and the industries operating out in the desert.
The journey of ten days takes us to many places and introduces us to many people, but can be loosely grouped into three tragic themes: bombing, mining, and dumping. Each of these aspects of the nuclear chain is stained with racism, militarism, and capitalism. Each represents a piece of a dirty, dangerous, but ultimately dying nuclear industry. And each has been and continues to be met with fierce resistance from local communities, including Traditional Owners of the land.
The first two days of the trip are spent driving from Melbourne to Adelaide to Port Augusta. We pick up activists along the way, before finally heading out to the desert. Our first big stop on the Tour is a confrontation with the atomic bomb.
The UK government conducted twelve nuclear weapon tests in Australia.1 Nine took place in South Australia, at Emu Field and Maralinga. All of the tests used plutonium ‒ some of which may have been produced from uranium mined at Radium Hill in South Australia. The UK and Australia also conducted hundreds of so-called 'minor trials' to test the effects of fire and non-nuclear explosions on atomic bombs, which spread plutonium far and wide.
While our Tour didn't take us to the Emu Field or Maralinga sites this time, we did visit people and lands affected by the testing in Woomera, a small town about 450 km north of Adelaide. Established as a base for a missile and rocket testing program, it is full of the ghosts of both people and weapons.
On our first night at Woomera we were joined by Avon Hudson, a nuclear weapon test whistleblower who as a Royal Australian Air Force serviceperson was assigned to work at Maralinga during the time of the 'minor trials'.
Avon gave testimony to the Royal Commission investigating UK nuclear weapon testing in the 1980s after disclosing classified information to the media starting in the 1970s. His stories, told to us around the campfire and while visiting various sites in Woomera, were full of pain. He described how those serving in the Australian military were not given information or protection against the nuclear tests, how the radioactive fallout affected Aboriginal and other local communities, and how the radioactive racism by the government continues to leave a lasting mark on current and future generations.
While it has so far escaped having to answer for the deaths in Woomera, the UK government did pay A$13.5 million in compensation to the Maralinga Tjarutja Traditional Owners in 1995. But other known victims of British testing, including members of the Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta, have not been compensated.
Yami's daughters Karina and Rose Lester played an important role in raising support for the Treaty in Australia and participating in its negotiation in New York. Working with the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), Karina delivered a statement on behalf of more than 30 indigenous groups from around the world at the negotiations, successfully advocating for provisions on victim assistance and environmental remediation, as well as a recognition of the disproportionate impact of nuclear weapons on indigenous populations.
Several of us from ICAN, the civil society coalition that advocated for years for the nuclear ban treaty, were on this year's Rad Tour. We joined to connect with and learn from those resisting other pieces of the chain of nuclear violence, and to sit on country that has been so harmed time and again.
As of April 2018, two uranium mines are operating in South Australia: Olympic Dam and Beverley Four Mile. These mines produced and exported 5,493 tonnes of uranium oxide in 2016 ‒ 63% of Australia's total production that year.12 The only other operating uranium mine in Australia is Ranger in the Northern Territory, where mining has ceased but stockpiled ore is being processed until the mine's final closure a few years from now.
After days spent camping on the red earth of this region, it was devastating to see the massive Olympic Dam mine displacing the ground, burrowing into it with machines and metal, bringing poison up from the depths. We went on a tour conducted by BHP, the mine's operator. We were not allowed to take photos, or leave the vehicle we were on.
In addition to the uranium ore, Olympic Dam has generated over 150 million tonnes of uranium tailings ‒ radioactive sludge that is left over after extracting the uranium-bearing minerals from the ore. Friends of the Earth describes it as a "toxic, acidic soup of radionuclides and heavy metals."13 The tailings, and the processes used in extraction, risk the safety of workers and local communities. In the mid-1990s it was revealed that about three billion litres had seeped from the tailings dams over two years.14 Between 2003 and 2012, BHP reported 31 radiation leaks at the mine. On our tour, we were not permitted to see the tailings dams.
After our trip to the mine, we visited the Mound Springs near Lake Eyre, in Arabunna country. These are natural springs sustained by the underlying Great Artesian Basin. We were accompanied by Kokatha Traditional Owner Glen Wingfield, who, while not Arabunna, has spent his life visiting the springs. He lamented the depletion of the springs, explaining that it gets sadder to visit each time because the water levels are down more and more each and every time. Studies have shown that the pressure in the Great Artesian Basin has declined due to increased extraction.16 As the water table drops, springs have started drying up across South Australia as well as Queensland.
Uranium mining companies, and federal and state governments, typically ignore the concerns of Traditional Owners, use divide-and-rule tactics to split local communities, provide false or misleading information, and even use legal threats ‒ all to ensure that the uranium industry gets its way. When it comes to Olympic Dam, this racism is enshrined in legislation. WMC Resources Limited, which started the uranium mine, was granted legal privileges under the South Australian Roxby Downs Indenture Act. This legislation overrides the Aboriginal Heritage Act, the Environment Protect Act, the Water Resources Act, and the Freedom of Information Act.17 The current mine owner, BHP, has refused to relinquish these legal privileges.
The problems of uranium mining, however, are not just local. Australia's uranium is exported around the world. It was in the Fukushima reactors that suffered a meltdown in 2011. It is converted into high-level nuclear waste in power reactors across the globe. Australia's uranium exports have produced over 176 tonnes of plutonium ‒ enough to build over 17,600 nuclear weapons.
On the tour of Olympic Dam, it wasn't clear the BHP guides knew where their uranium was going. "Europe," said one. "I think maybe China," said another. It's a sad fact that BHP's customers include nuclear weapons states as well as countries refusing to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty or the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
While BHP anticipates the mine will operate for another 85 years, opposition to its operation will continue. And while that opposition has not yet seen the closure of the mine, it likely did play a role in BHP's decision not to go ahead with its planned mega-expansion of the mine in 2012. For now, at least, the gates of hell have not been enlarged.
From the gates of hell we travelled to what might be described as the gates of paradise. For now.
The federal government of Australia wants to build a facility to store and dispose of radioactive waste in South Australia, either at Wallerberdina Station near Hawker or on farming land in Kimba.20 Wallerberdina Station is located in the Flinders Ranges, the largest mountain range in South Australia, 540 million years old. Approaching from the north on our drive down from Lake Eyre can only be described as breathtaking. The red dirt, the brown and green bush, and the ever-changing purples, blues, and reds of the mountains themselves are some of the most complex and stunning scenes one can likely see in the world.
Most people might find it shocking that the federal government would want to put a nuclear waste dump smack in the middle of this landscape. But after visiting other sites on the Rad Tour, it was only yet another disappointment ‒ and another point of resistance.
What is known is that the Wallerberdina site is of great cultural, historical, and spiritual significance to the Adnyamathanha people.21 It borders the Yappala Indigenous Protected Area, which is a crucial location for biodiversity in the Flinders Ranges. Its unique ecosystem provides a refuge for many native species of flora and fauna, contains many archaeological sites as well as the first registered Aboriginal Songline of its type in Australia, and is home to Pungka Pudanha, a natural spring and sacred woman's site.
In case that isn't enough, the area is a known floodplain. Our travels around the proposed site contained ample evidence of previous floods that sent massive trees rushing down the plain, smashing into each other and into various bridges and other built objects. The last big flood occurred in 2006.
The Adnyamathanha Traditional Owners were not consulted before their land was nominated for consideration by the government for the waste dump. "Through this area are registered cultural heritage sites and places of huge importance to our family, our history and our future," wrote Adnyamathanha Traditional Owners in a 2015 statement.22 "We don't want a nuclear waste dump here on our country and worry that if the waste comes here it will harm our environment and muda (our lore, our creation, our everything)."
We met Adnyamathanha Traditional Owners Vivianne and Regina McKenzie, and Tony Clark, at the proposed site. They invited us into the Yappala Indigenous Protected Area to view the floodplains and swim in the beautiful Pungka Pudanha. We'd just been camping at Wilpena Pound in the Flinders Ranges National Park only a few kilometres away. It is impossible to understand the government's rationale for wanting to build a toxic waste dump on this land so cherished by its Traditional Owners, local communities, and tourists alike.
The McKenzies have been working tirelessly to prevent the proposed dump from being established, as have other local activists. Fortunately, they have some serious recent successes to inspire them.
In 2015, the federal government announced a plan to import 138,000 tonnes of high-level nuclear waste from around the world to South Australia as a commercial enterprise. But Traditional Owners began protesting immediately, arguing that the so-called consultations were not accessible and that misinformation was rife.23 In 2016, a Citizen's Jury, established by then Premier Jay Weatherill and made up of 350 people, deliberated over evidence and information. In November that year, two-thirds of the Jury rejected "under any circumstances" the plan to import or store high-level waste.24 They cited lack of Aboriginal consent, unsubstantiated economic assumptions and projections, and lack of confidence in the governmental proposal's validity.
The attempts by the Australian government and the nuclear industry to impose a waste dump in the Flinders Ranges, just like their attempts to impose waste dumps and uranium mines elsewhere in the country, or their refusal to compensate victims and survivors of nuclear testing, are all mired with racism. They are rooted in a fundamental dismissal and devaluation of the lives and experiences of indigenous Australians, and of communities they consider "remote" ‒ both in their proximity to cities but more importantly, to power.
The industry and government's motivations for imposing nuclear violence on these people and this land are militarism and capitalism. Profit over people. Weapons over wellbeing. Their capacity for compassion and duty of care has been constrained by chronic short-termism ‒ a total failure to protect future generations. The poison they pull out of the earth, process, sell, allow others to make bombs with, and bury back in the earth, wounds us all now and into the future.
But nuclear weapons are now prohibited under international law. New actors are challenging the possession of nuclear weapons in new ways, and nuclear-armed states are facing a challenge like never before. The nuclear energy industry ‒ and thus the demand for uranium ‒ is declining. Power plants are being shuttered; corporations are facing financial troubles. Dirty and dangerous, the nuclear industry is dying.
This is in no small part due to the relentless resistance against it.
This resistance was fierce throughout all of the country we visited, from Woomera up to Lake Eyre, from Roxby Downs to the Flinders Ranges. We listened to stories of those living on this land, we heard their histories, witnessed their actions, and supported their plans.
And, we were able to share something special with many of them: ICAN's Nobel Peace Prize.
Awarded in 2017, the Prize recognizes ICAN's efforts to highlight the humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons and to work with governments to negotiate and adopt the nuclear weapon ban treaty. But the Prize is not just for those advocates directly involved in that aspect of the campaign's work. It's a recognition of all the efforts of anti-nuclear activists through the long history of the atomic age, activists who have put their bodies on the line in defence of the earth and human health, in protection of our planet, in opposition to governments that pull poison out of the ground and drop it on human beings and animals around the world.
Sharing the Nobel Prize with the resisters in South Australia was a deep joy. It seemed to bring inspiration and invigoration to many who have fought for so long against impossible odds in difficult places against powerful corporations and governments. It was a humbling reminder of the collective effort of all our advocacy and activism across time and space. We're all connected, and we cannot do this alone. Movements are made of people, reaching out across borders, across struggles, to cultivate solidarity and strength in one another. Resistance is fertile.
Hideyuki Ban ‒ Co-Director of the Citizens Nuclear Information Center, Tokyo.
On July 28, 2017, the Japanese government released a geoscientific characteristics map to provide a basis for selecting locations for high-level nuclear-waste disposal sites. The map, on a 1:2,000,000 scale, shows the entire Japanese archipelago, accompanied by five aerial maps. The explanations of the standpoints used to evaluate aerial favorability for site construction are provided, along with the criteria for those standpoints, accompanied by the maps, which use color-coding to indicate individual standpoints.
The map divides the nation into four colors. The areas unfavorable from the standpoint of the stability of deep underground strata are colored in orange; the areas unfavorable because of the possibility of excavation for mineral resources in silver; the areas having favorable characteristics in pale green; and the areas that are additionally favorable in terms of transportation convenience in dark green (these areas are called green coastal areas).
In Japan, an act concerning the deep geological disposal of high-level nuclear wastes was established in 2000. It stipulates the methods of selecting disposal sites based on a stepwise approach, and the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NUMO) was established as the organization that is taking the initiative in selecting the sites and carrying out the disposal process. The stepwise approach consists of three steps; a literature survey, a general survey, and a detailed survey. NUMO, established mainly by electric power companies, encouraged municipalities across the nation (about 3,500 in total at that time) to apply for a literature survey.
However, all the municipalities that showed an interest in application later abandoned the idea due to strong protest. In 2007, Toyo Town, Kochi Prefecture, which was the only municipality that managed to submit an application, was obliged to withdraw it because of strong protest that demanded the recall of the town mayor. After this event, the government judged that the site selection process would not go forward if it continued to wait passively for applications, and thus adopted a second approach for use in parallel to the passive approach ‒ it decided to look for municipalities and encourage them to apply for a literature survey.
Thereafter the government used every opportunity to exchange opinions with many municipalities, and in spring 2011, it was prepared to request about 10 municipalities which had showed an interest to accept a literature survey. However, the Fukushima Daiichi NPS accident occurred immediately before the delivery of the request. The government became unable to pursue this plan any further, and the entire attempt to encourage municipalities to apply collapsed.
The municipalities' interest had been attracted by government money, which were to be paid in return for their acceptance of the survey. After the Fukushima Daiichi accident, public criticism against nuclear power increased. Under such conditions, the government realized that gaining municipalities' interest would not be sufficient and that it would be necessary to show scientific reasons to justify the survey. In 2013, the government devised another approach, which was firstly to show the geoscientific characteristics of individual areas, secondly to identify the areas that could possibly host a disposal site, and thirdly to encourage municipalities that might be interested to accept a literature survey. It was the first time the government had adopted such an attempt.
The geoscientific characteristics map was created in this context. The map color codes indicate the areas judged unfavorable from a set of standpoints ‒ volcanic activity, fault activity, upheaval, denudation, geothermal activity, bedrock hardness, the ranges influenced by pyroclastic flows, and prospective mineral resources. The areas judged favorable in terms of transportation (about 20 km from the shore) are also color-coded. Based on these standpoints, the archipelago is color-coded in four colors. The geological conditions specific to each area will be examined in the literature survey, with reference to geological records, while the characteristics map shows the divisions based only on the information available nationwide.
Therefore, while the map is called a geoscientific characteristics map, the characteristics specific to individual areas are not always reflected. As an example, the map is supposed to exclude areas having pyroclastic flow deposits younger than 10,000 years as not favorable, but the map does not consider the range of influence of the pyroclastic flow from a possible eruption of the Kikai Caldera Volcano, Kagoshima Prefecture, the most recent eruption of which was 7,300 years ago. This influence will be considered in the literature survey. Many areas in Tokyo are classified in the green coastal areas, but because the Kanto Plain was formed during the Quaternary period, the bedrock is still soft deep underground, and there may be many unlithified rocks. This should also be considered in the literature survey.
This geoscientific characteristics map does not consider restraints in the use of land due to legislation or international treaties, nor social conditions such as population density and the number of landowners.
NUMO's conventional conditions for the acceptance of survey applications were only volcanic activity and fault activity. The other standpoints are included in the social characteristics map scheduled to be examined in the literature survey. Therefore, the release of the map is a step forward for the government. NUMO is modifying the acceptance conditions in order to be consistent with the conditions described in the map.
The Japanese archipelago lies in the tectonic movement zone, where four plates meet. Even if all the conditions presented in the map are satisfied, it would still be difficult to isolate wastes from the environment for more than 100,000 years. Especially, information on relatively large amounts of deep underground water, which should essentially be considered for long-term stability, is limited. The government intends to ensure the long-term safety of high-level waste (HLW) by using engineering methods, and this governmental intention remains unchanged.
After the release of the geoscientific characteristics map, the government and NUMO intend to promote activities to gain public understanding, mainly in the areas whose characteristics have been judged favorable (green coastal areas). However, of the 47 prefectures nationwide, 20 prefectures have already turned down the survey. Citizens' movements against nuclear power generation have been powerful since the Fukushima Daiichi accident, and the movement strongly demands that all nuclear power plants be shut down first in order to halt the accumulation of HLW. The Science Council of Japan also stated that the upper limit of HLW should be determined (2012). However, the government and NUMO intend to promote the conventional concept and plan of geological waste disposal, separating the disposal site issue from the controversy of nuclear power plants. This head-on disagreement is expected to continue.
The government does not make efforts to form a participatory consensus concerning the treatment of HLW. As an example, consensus meetings or deliberative polls have not been conducted and are not planned. The government councils did not discuss ways in which to obtain social agreement. What the government has attempted to do thus far is to try to earn public agreement for its geological disposal policy. However, what it has actually been engaged in is organizing gatherings that attempt to obtain public agreement for the government's plan, under the name of explanatory hearings.
The government's stance concerning the new characteristics map is that its release is not intended to persuade municipalities to accept a survey for disposal site selection; the government says that it will not initiate any survey unilaterally without gaining the agreement of the locals. According to the government, "this is the first step in a long road to realize final HLW disposal."
NUMO plans to begin the first step by organizing dialogue gatherings with a small number of people in the areas judged favorable from all the standpoints including transportation. NUMO said that it would release the schedule of dialogue gatherings, but to date, it has not been released. It is not known when the schedule will be announced, but from October this year, the government and NUMO plan to hold explanatory hearings about the geoscientific characteristics map in 45 prefectures. With publicly invited participants, the gatherings will be used by the government to explain the map during the first half of the hearings, and during the second half the participants will be divided into small groups to exchange opinions with NUMO. Through this group dialogue, NUMO expects to exploit human resources who can work proactively to invite the site to the area.
While the geoscientific characteristics map has been made public, when literature surveys will begin is unknown, and the issue of disposal site selection is expected to confront many problems.
So is the dump dead? The Premier left himself some wriggle room4, but the plan is as dead as it possibly can be. If there was some life in the plan, it would be loudly proclaimed by SA's Murdoch tabloid, The Advertiser. But The Advertiser responded to the Premier's recent comments ‒ to the death of the dump ‒ with a deafening, deathly silence.
It has been quite a ride to get to this point. The debate began in February 2015, when the Premier announced that a Royal Commission would be established to investigate commercial options across the nuclear fuel cycle. He appointed a gullible nuclear advocate, former Navy man Kevin Scarce, as Royal Commissioner. Scarce said he would run a "balanced" Royal Commission and appointed four nuclear advocates to his advisory panel, balanced by one critic.5 Scarce appointed a small army of nuclear advocates to his staff, balanced by zero critics.
The final report6 of the Royal Commission, released in May 2016, was surprisingly downbeat given the multiple levels of pro-nuclear bias.7 It rejected ‒ on economic grounds ‒ almost all of the proposals it considered: uranium conversion and enrichment, nuclear fuel fabrication, conventional and Generation IV nuclear power reactors8, and spent fuel reprocessing.
The only thing left standing (apart from the small and shrinking uranium mining industry9) was the plan to import nuclear waste as a commercial venture. Based on commissioned research, the Royal Commission proposed importing 138,000 tonnes of high-level nuclear waste (spent nuclear fuel from power reactors) and 390,000 cubic metres of intermediate-level waste.
The SA Labor government then established a 'Know Nuclear' statewide promotional campaign under the guide of 'consultation'. The government also initiated the Citizens' Jury.
In the immediate aftermath of the Citizens' Jury, the SA Liberal Party and the influential Nick Xenophon Team announced that they would actively campaign against the dump in the lead-up to the March 2018 state election. The SA Greens were opposed from the start.
Implausible claims about the potential economic benefits of importing nuclear waste had been discredited by this stage.18 The claims presented in the Royal Commission's report were scrutinised by experts from the US-based Nuclear Economics Consulting Group (NECG), commissioned by a Joint Select Committee19 of the SA Parliament.
The NECG report said the waste import project could be profitable under certain assumptions ‒ but the report then raised serious questions about most of those assumptions.20 The report noted that the Royal Commission's economic analysis failed to consider important issues which "have significant serious potential to adversely impact the project and its commercial outcomes"; that assumptions about price were "overly optimistic" in which case "project profitability is seriously at risk"; that the 25% cost contingency for delays and blowouts was likely to be a significant underestimate; and that the assumption the project would capture 50% of the available market had "little support or justification".
The economics report was an inside job, with no second opinion and no peer review ‒ no wonder the Citizens' Jury was unconvinced and unimpressed.
By the end of 2016, the nuclear dump plan was very nearly dead, and the Premier's recent statement that it is "not something that will be progressed by the Labor Party in Government" was the final nail in the coffin. The dump has been dumped.
"Today's news has come as a relief and is very much welcomed," said Yankunytjatjara Native Title Aboriginal Corporation Chair and No Dump Alliance spokesperson Karina Lester. "We are glad that Jay has opened his ears and listened to the community of South Australia who have worked hard to be heard on this matter. We know nuclear is not the answer for our lands and people – we have always said NO."
Narungga man and human rights activist Tauto Sansbury said: "We absolutely welcome Jay Weatherill's courageous decision for looking after South Australia. It's a great outcome for all involved."
The idea of Citizens' Juries would seem, superficially, attractive. But bias is inevitable if the government establishing and funding the Jury process is strongly promoting (or opposing) the issue under question. In the case of the Jury investigating the nuclear waste plan, it backfired quite spectacularly on the government ‒ jurors knew they were being pushed to vote 'yes' and they responded by voting 'no ... not under any circumstances'.26 Citizen Juries will be few and far between for the foreseeable future in Australia. A key lesson for political and corporate elites is that they shouldn't let any semblance of democracy intrude on their plans.
The role of the Murdoch press needs comment, particularly in regions where the only mass-circulation newspaper is a Murdoch tabloid. No-one would dispute that the NT News has a dumbing-down effect on political and intellectual life in the Northern Territory. Few would doubt that the Courier Mail does the same in Queensland. South Australians need to grapple with the sad truth that the state's Murdoch tabloids ‒ The Advertiser and the Sunday Mail ‒ are a blight on the state. Their grossly imbalanced and wildly inaccurate coverage of the nuclear dump debate was ‒ with some honourable exceptions27 ‒ disgraceful. And that disgraceful history goes back decades; for example, a significant plume of radiation dusted Adelaide after one of the British bombs tests at Maralinga in the 1950s but The Advertiser chose not to report it.
Conversely, the most sickening aspect of the debate was the willingness of the Murdoch press29 and pro-nuclear lobbyists30 to ignore or trash Aboriginal people opposed to the dump.
"Last year I was awarded the SA Premier's Natural Resource Management Award in the category of 'Aboriginal Leadership − Female' for working to protect land that is now being threatened with a nuclear waste dump. But Premier Jay Weatherill has been silent since the announcement of six short-listed dump sites last year, three of them in SA.
"Now the Flinders Ranges has been chosen as the preferred site and Mr Weatherill must speak up. The Premier can either support us ‒ just as the SA government supported the Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta34 when their land was targeted for a national nuclear waste dump from 1998-2004 ‒ or he can support the federal government's attack on us by maintaining his silence."
Perhaps Premier Jay Weatherill will find his voice on the federal government's contentious proposal for a national nuclear waste dump in SA, now that his position on that debate is no longer complicated by the parallel debate about establishing a dump for foreign high-level nuclear waste. He might argue, for example, that affected Traditional Owners should have a right of veto over the establishment of a national nuclear waste dump ‒ precisely the position he adopted in relation to the international high-level dump.
Euratom Directive 2011/70/EURATOM prescribes that Member States of Euratom have to submit comprehensive data about their radioactive waste and waste management plans. Yet the European Commission's first attempt at an overview, published in a report1 released May 15, is limited because different countries use different definitions, and most countries have not even started to calculate future waste production.
Issues of concern include the lack of sufficient funds for radioactive waste management, the lack of reflection on the fact that no final disposal technologies have been implemented for high-level waste, and the tendency of half of the Member States to want to find final solutions outside of their own borders.
The move from the European Commission to accept the option of shared / regional disposal options as acceptable is a highly worrying development. Especially since many of the Member States are still creating more radioactive waste and have no plans to minimise its production, for instance by a phase-out of the largest source of these wastes ‒ nuclear power generation. The Commission also found that those that seem to want to rely on regional solutions lag behind in the necessary research and planning for waste management. The Commission shows some implicit concerns (of course, never too explicit), and concludes that any such consideration should be accompanied by maximum transparency and public participation.
The delays in the planning of the start of operation of the potentially first high-level waste disposal repositories ‒ in Finland (from 2020 to 2022), Sweden and France (both from 2025 to 2030) ‒ is a welcome indication that some sense of realism is entering this field. It has to be remarked, however, that all three programmes still need to overcome essential technological and social hurdles. It is especially interesting to see the delay for Sweden, where Finland is relying on the technology that is still under development in Sweden and the primary cause for the delays.
There are a lot of implicit warnings in this generally rather critical overview by the European Commission ‒ especially since the Commission is usually so diplomatic. But the Commission shies away from its official mandate to point out to Member States that they have an obligation under the Aarhus Convention and EU law to take the information in this report and from procedures including public participation into account not only in future reporting (as the Commission does now), but also in concrete decisions. Among others, decisions concerning new nuclear projects and life-time extension of existing reactors.
There are several issues where Member States seem to stick their heads in the sand. For instance, concerning the question as to whether there are sufficient human resources and skills available to deal with the nuclear legacy. The indications on this question in the national reports are only sketchy. Another one is the independence of the national regulator who has to oversee the quality of radioactive waste management. Every Member State declares that this independence is guaranteed, but practice shows that that issue is far more complicated and depends on factors like availability of independent experts, sufficient financial resources, access to sufficient independent research capacity, a well-established culture of transparency and public participation, including safeguards against co-optation.
Given the realities in countries where the issue of radioactive waste costs has come to real calculations ‒ e.g. Germany and the UK ‒ the need for government guarantees and buy-outs shows that this gap is real. The Commission indicates that it received insufficient information to be able to properly estimate whether sufficient funds have been set aside and will be available when needed. That some Member States now already declare that they might be depending on EU funding is a bad sign.
This European Commission report was long awaited and its outcomes support the worst fears. Even after almost 70 years of nuclear technology in Europe and research investments costing hundreds of millions of euros, the continent is only scratching the surface of what it needs to do to solve the nuclear legacy.
German taxpayers should pay nuclear power companies "appropriate compensation" for the government order to shut them down by 2022, the country's highest court ruled on December 6.
The Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) didn't put a figure on the compensation entitlement, but the industry talks about €19 billion (US$19.8 bn). Eon said the accelerated nuclear phase-out policy will cost it €8 billion, RWE did not provide any information but analysts estimate its claim at €6 billion euros, while Vattenfall claimed €4.7 billion.
The companies did not argue that they should be allowed to operate reactors for longer, but that they should be compensated. About 70% of Germans regularly reject nuclear power in opinion polls.
After the 2011 Fukushima disaster, the government of Angela Merkel, backed by the then opposition Social Democrats and Greens, rescinded the longer reactor operating lifespans approved in December 2010 and set earlier closure dates for each of the 17 power reactors. Eight closed immediately, nine are due to close by 2022.
The power companies argued that this is an unconstitutional expropriation. The Federal Constitutional Court ruled that the decision to reduce reactor lifespans was constitutional and that it did not constitute expropriation, but that it amounted to a restriction of the companies' property rights and that compensation should therefore be paid.
Eon, RWE und Vattenfall, the companies that brought the case, may prefer to use the entitlement as a bargaining chip in the ongoing acrimonious dispute over who pays for disposing of nuclear waste, the producers of it or the public. That is, credit the entitlement against whatever waste disposal cost is set.
Public money helped set up nuclear power and, one way or another, public money will also pay for the 'clean-up', if that's possible, of the nuclear waste.
On December 15, Germany's coalition government, with the support of the Greens, passed a law regulating the long-term costs of nuclear waste management. As discussed in Nuclear Monitor #833, power companies will pay €23 billion into a government-controlled fund and they will be off the hook for any future cost increases. A leading regional newspaper blasted the deal as "a nasty deal at the taxpayers' expense". 140,000 people have so far signed a petition: 'We're not paying for your waste'.
Activists are especially mad at Jürgen Trittin, a senior Green and former environment minister, who co-headed the group that wrote the law. Trittin knows that the clean-up funds fall far short of what's needed, wrote Jochen Stay, a leading activist.
Parliament will vote on scrapping a tax on nuclear fuel on 1 January 2017. The Social Democrats have said they'll campaign in next year's election to bring the tax back in, but if they have to share government with the conservatives again, that's likely to gurgle down the drain again like it did in the present coalition.
Stay's .ausgestrahlt group said in a December 15 statement: "The Bundestag will decide today that in future the general public will have to pay for the nuclear waste, and not those who for years made billions with their nuclear power stations. The power companies can buy themselves out with a once-only payment. At the same time the parliament is highly likely to throw out a motion to extend the tax on nuclear fuel."
Australian nuclear waste import plan dead, revived, dead again ... hopefully.
We reported in the last issue of Nuclear Monitor that plans to use South Australia (SA) as a dumping ground for around one-third of the world's spent nuclear fuel was all but dead and buried.1 Since then, the project has been revived by the SA government then buried again (hopefully) by opposition parties.
The first indication of major opposition to the dump plan was on October 15, when 3,000 people participated in a protest at Parliament House in Adelaide, the capital of SA. Then, on November 6, two-thirds of the 350 members of a South Australian government-initiated Citizens' Jury rejected "under any circumstances" the government's plan to import 138,000 tonnes of spent fuel and 390,000 cubic metres of intermediate-level nuclear waste as a money-making venture.
SA Premier Jay Weatherill previously said that he established the Citizens' Jury because he could sense that there is a "massive issue of trust in government". It was expected that when Weatherill called a press conference on November 14, he would announce that no further work would be carried out on the dump plan. But Weatherill instead announced that he wanted to hold a state-wide referendum on the issue, as well as giving affected Aboriginal communities a right of veto over nuclear developments on their land.
However, to hold a referendum enabling legislation would be required and cannot be passed without the support of political parties opposed both to a referendum and also to the nuclear waste import project. Those parties are the main opposition Liberal Party (favored to win the next state election in early 2018), the Nick Xenophon Team and the SA Greens. The conservative Liberal Party and the Nick Xenophon Team had not opposed the nuclear waste import proposal before the Citizens' Jury, and their opposition fundamentally alters the political dynamics of the debate.
Then the Labor Party government announced that it would not seek to repeal or amend the SA Nuclear Waste Storage Facility (Prohibition) Act 2000, which imposes major constraints on the ability of the government to move forward with the nuclear waste import proposal.2 (Nor will the state government encourage the federal government to repeal laws banning nuclear power, "recognising that in the short-to-medium term, nuclear power is not a cost-effective source of low-carbon electricity for South Australia").
So we're back where we started ‒ the waste import proposal seems to be dead in the water. Nevertheless the state government and SA's Murdoch tabloid, The Advertiser, along with some other supporters are fighting a furious rear-guard battle to try to revive the corpse. They are relentlessly attacking and undermining the credibility of the Citizens' Jury. Those voices of those defending the integrity of the Jury3 ‒ or pointing to its pro-nuclear biases4 ‒ are being drowned out by the chorus of criticism in The Advertiser.
66% per cent of respondents were not confident that a nuclear waste import project would bring significant economic benefits to SA.
But the kindest thing the NECG report had to say was that the waste import project could be profitable under certain assumptions, and the NECG report then raises serious questions about most of those assumptions. The NECG report notes that the Royal Commission's economic analysis didn't even consider some important issues which "have significant serious potential to adversely impact the project and its commercial outcomes"; that assumptions about price are "overly optimistic" and if that is the case "project profitability is seriously at risk"; that the 25% cost contingency for delays and blowouts is likely to be a significant underestimate; and that the assumption the project would capture 50% of the available market had "little support or justification".
How will this debate unfold? In all probability, nuclear waste proponents will, sooner or later, tire of banging their heads against a brick wall ‒ particularly if, as expected, the Liberal Party wins the state election in early 2018. It seems that there is little or no internal dissent to the Liberal Party's opposition to the dump ‒ most or all Liberal parliamentarians think the project is too much of an economic gamble and/or they see the political advantage in taking a no-dump position to the next state election. That said, the Liberal Party is pro-nuclear and it cannot be assumed that the party will retain its current no-dump policy.
Unnamed 'sources' told the Murdoch press that they plan to approach potential customer countries in an attempt to shore up the economic case (some reports suggest interest from Taiwan).10 The state government cannot engage in negotiations with potential customers because of the constraints imposed by the SA Nuclear Waste Storage Facility (Prohibition) Act 2000, but private parties can do as they please.
In the event that the Liberal Party backflips on its current no-dump policy, the SA Nuclear Waste Storage Facility (Prohibition) Act 2000 is amended or repealed, and a credible business case is developed including agreements with potential customer countries, then there is still the issue of the promised right of veto for affected Aboriginal Traditional Owners. Yet the Premier has acknowledged the "overwhelming opposition of Aboriginal people" and he should therefore abandon any further attempts to pressure Aboriginal people into accepting a high-level nuclear waste dump.
13. Jay Weatherill, ABC SA 891 Radio, 15 November 2016.
Read more about Australian nuclear waste import plan dead, revived, dead again ... hopefully.
On October 20, the German coalition government of Social Democrats and Conservatives passed a new law on nuclear waste. The law was defended by a leader of the opposition Greens and former environment minister, Jürgen Trittin, outraging activists.
Trittin argued on national television that it is reasonable ("sinnvoll") for operators of nuclear power stations to pay €24 billion into a fund and after that to be cleared of all responsibility for the growing mountain of nuclear waste that will radiate for all eternity. All other costs are to be borne by society.
In the year 2000, Trittin negotiated the first nuclear power phase-out with energy utilities. This time, he's agreed with them on the €24 billion.
A Münster-based activist group wrote: "We're asking ourselves: Is that supposed to be Green nuclear policy for the population or the anti-nuclear movement? Shame on him who thinks that this might be about possible government coalitions to be formed in 2017 [when federal elections are held] or possible employers after Trittin's time as an MP ends."
A leading anti-nuclear campaigner, Jochen Stay of .ausgestrahlt, sees the law enabling the nuclear operators to buy their way out of their responsibility "while the general public will bear the predictable cost increases in waste storage – this is the exit from the polluter pays principle". A leading regional newspaper, the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung, commented: "Rotten deal at taxpayers' expense".
Stay writes that Trittin touted the deal as if he were a government spokesperson: "Anyone hearing that asks themselves when was the last time the Greens raised a critical voice in nuclear policy decisions. What better can happen to a government than when it makes a highly controversial law and one of the most important opposition politicians talks it up on national television? That'll make the power companies happy, whose share prices rose steeply due to the law. For the stock exchange rates the risk ‒ now shifting from RWE, Eon and others to the public ‒ as much more serious than Jürgen Trittin does."
In the neighbouring state of North-Rhine Westphalia, Greens nuclear policy also looks dismal. Social Democrats and Greens share government there. In the Greens draft election program for next year, there are only simplistic descriptions of nuclear problems. The uranium enrichment plant at Ahaus, the only one in Germany, doesn't even get a mention. Nor is there a plainly expressed rejection of road transportation of waste caskets from Jülich to Ahaus, and the fact that the state government has already approved such transports also doesn't get a mention. The draft lacks specific demands, exit dates, and possible ways to make a nuclear exit complete. All of which leaves the electoral program falling far short of the decisions taken by the last Greens national congress.
Another worry for the anti-nuclear movement is the federal government's plan to stop taxing the power companies' nuclear fuel supplies. That's due to happen at the start of 2017. But the activist group .ausgestrahlt has found out that the companies are already tricking their way out of paying the tax, which would lose the federal coffers nearly €750 million this year. The finance ministry website notes that expected revenue from the fuel element tax this year is €1.1 billion, but only €355 million has been raised so far. The activist group called for protest action in Berlin directed at finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble as he was due to present his tax estimate. Calling for urgent signatures to a petition, .ausgestrahlt wants the minister to keep the fuel tax for at least another year.
On November 2, a vigil was held outside a nuclear research facility in Jülich to protest against trucking Castor waste caskets to Ahaus or for shipment to the USA. The supervisory board was meeting inside at the time.
Depending on the route chosen, the waste would roll on busy highways, through densely populated areas for 180‒190 kms to Ahaus. Activists want the waste kept in Jülich.
A protest resolution to stop the Jülich to Ahaus shipments ‒ the West Castor Resolution ‒ has been signed by 68 groups, with more likely. They include International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and the Greens branch in Jülich. Activists demand the new construction of the safest possible interim storage in Jülich, a definite rejection of casket transports to Ahaus or the USA and the taking of responsibility by the nuclear industry. The resolution in German is posted at www.sofa-ms.de.
On Wednesday 2 November, the energy committee of the North-Rhine Westphalia state parliament discussed keeping the 152 Castor waste caskets in Jülich, where the waste was produced by an experimental reactor. It was decided to keep them in Jülich at least until the end of 2017, when there will be federal and several state elections. The Red-Green coalition government of North-Rhine Westphalia will be relieved that the controversial transport won't happen in a year when there will be elections in both the state and the nation.
"Under no circumstances" would it be possible to transport the waste by the end of next year, said Rudolf Printz, the technical manager of the Jülich-based nuclear facility disposal enterprise (Entsorgungsgesellschaft für Nuklearanlagen), because many issues remain unresolved. The company is responsible for dismantling the reactor.
The committee debated with experts about the future of the nuclear waste. Experts testified that all options for managing the waste pose risks. Outcome: no solution in sight.
Experts have been wrestling for years with the question of what to do with the Jülich waste. The storage in Jülich has to be emptied because it is regarded as potentially vulnerable to earthquakes. That has caused three other options to be examined. Storage in what is officially just a temporary repository in Ahaus, shipment to the USA, or new construction of a quake-proof repository in Jülich. It became clear in the committee session that all three options pose problems.
Transportation to Ahaus failed just before it was to be implemented, at least for the interim. In July this year, the Federal Office for Radiation Protection (Bundesamt für Strahlenschutz, BfS) licensed the operator of the Jülich repository to store the waste in Ahaus. But according to Printz, tighter new safety regulations for temporary holding of atomic waste rule Ahaus out. Among other things, an additional wall needed to be built there to secure it against terror attack and plane crashes. "Ahaus is obsolete," reactor safety expert Rainer Moormann told the MPs.
Shipping the spent fuel to the USA has been discussed for years. The US energy authority had signalled that nuclear fuel which had been made available to other countries for research could be taken back to the USA to prevent any danger of it being spread further. But the devil is in the detail. How should the transportation be done? How would irradiation of the population be prevented? What would all that cost? Moreover, it is uncertain that the next US president will honour the promise to take the waste back.
A third option, building a new quake-proof repository in Jülich, would take especially long. It would take at least 10 years to have such a facility operable, explained Christian Küppers, expert in nuclear technology and reactor safety with the Freiburg-based NGO Institute for Applied Ecology (Öko-Institut). That makes the plan look unrealistic to many.
Social Democrat Garrelt Duin, North-Rhine Westphalia economics minister who is politically responsible for nuclear supervision, did not present to the committee. Nor was he asked anything.
Opposition Conservatives (CDU) and Liberals (FDP) demanded speedier action by the government. The nuclear supervision of the ministry said they're looking "for the earliest possible solution" because the 152 Castors were only "tolerated" in Jülich for now.
As reported in Nuclear Monitor #827 in July 2016, after more than two years of work, a commission considering the storage of Germany's high-level nuclear waste submitted its final report to the government in late June. Repository projects like Gorleben, Morsleben and Asse have failed, and the waste commission was supposed to map out a path forward. But it failed to do so: it evades all decisive issues or is so vaguely worded that the nuclear lobby can already rejoice over its interpretational wriggle room.
The commission hopes that a decision on a site can be reached by 2031 and the repository opened in 2050 ‒ but even that decades-long timetable was described by commission president Michael Mueller as "ambitious", and the commission's report says that the repository might not open until "the next century".
About 700 anti-nuclear activists demonstrated on Saturday October 29 in the German town of Lingen, where French-owned Areva produces nuclear fuel for power stations worldwide (www.lingen-demo.de). They demanded immediate closure of nuclear power stations in Lingen, Grohnde (in Germany), Tihange, Doel (Belgium), Fessenheim, Cattenom (France) and all others.
Another main demand was immediate closure of the Areva fuel element factory in Lingen and Germany's only uranium enrichment plant in Ahaus, trinationally owned by Germany, Netherlands and Britain.
It was the biggest anti-nuclear protest in Lingen in years and activists said they were very happy with the turnout. Around 100 activist groups called out to participate. Aktionsbündnis Münsterland gegen Atomanlagen, the major mobilisers, said "the mood was good and there was broad media coverage", including by the major national TV news, The Tagesschau.
The activists see the demo as another important step towards exiting nuclear power, still produced by eight of the original 17 power stations. Chancellor Angela Merkel announced on May 30, 2011, that all 17 would be shut down by 2022, in a policy reversal following Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.
"We're going to stay on it so that uranium enrichment and fuel element production will also have to be ended," wrote the Münster-based group.
An expert opinion by lawyer Cornelia Ziehm, commissioned by International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), argued in July that it is illegal under German law to export fuel elements from Lingen to the fault-prone reactors at Doel, Cattenom and Fessenheim. Ziehm refuted the contrary legal stance of the federal government point by point. The IPPNW and allied civic action groups are demanding that the environment minister, Barbara Hendricks, a Social Democrat, take action at last.
"Deny your approval of export of the fuel elements to the unsafe power station close to the border. The lives and health of us citizens here in Germany and in Belgium and France have to take priority over any entrepreneurial interests," declared Dr. Angelika Claussen of IPPNW in a communication to the minister.
On Sunday November 6, activists against the uranium enrichment plant at Ahaus, near Münster, celebrated the 30th anniversary of their "Sunday stroll" around the plant. Since 1986 the protest walk has taken place on the first Sunday of every month at 2 p.m. "The object remains immediate closure of the plant," the activists said.
And on Sunday November 12, a very unusual anti-nuclear action will start at 2pm in Aachen, where Belgium, Netherlands and Germany abut. The Alemannia Aachen soccer club will dedicate its home game against the second team of FC Cologne to opposition to the nearby Belgian nuclear power plant at Tihange. Both teams will have "Stop-Tihange" written on their jerseys and profits will flow to anti-nuclear protests. Up to 33,000 people fit into the stadium and all involved are hoping for a full house.
The Royal Commission had a strong pro-nuclear bias3 in its composition but still rejected ‒ on economic grounds ‒ almost all of the proposals it considered: uranium conversion and enrichment, nuclear fuel fabrication, conventional and 'Generation IV' nuclear power reactors, and spent fuel reprocessing.
The ecomodernists weren't deterred. They hoped that the nuclear waste import plan would proceed and that it would lay the foundations for the later development of fast reactors in South Australia (SA). Now it seems that the waste import plan will be abandoned and the ecomodernists are inconsolable.
The SA government will come under strong pressure to abandon the waste import plan in the wake of the Citizens' Jury's vote. Roman Orszanski, climate and energy campaigner with Friends of the Earth Adelaide, said: "Three thousand people protested against the proposed nuclear waste dump outside Parliament House on October 15 and there will be more protests and bigger protests if the SA government attempts to push ahead."
Premier Weatherill said: "There's no doubt that there's a massive issue of trust in government, I could sense that, that's why we started the whole citizen's jury process because there is no way forward unless we overcome those issues."4 The "massive issue of trust in government" will of course become all the more massive if Weatherill rejects the clear verdict of the Citizens' Jury.
Friends of the Earth Australia said: "Despite the pro-nuclear bias of the Royal Commission and SA government's so-called consultation process5, the Citizens' Jury has had the good sense to send a clear 'no' message to Jay Weatherill. South Australians do not want the state turned into the world's nuclear waste dump. The Premier has repeatedly said that he will respect the Jury's decision and now he must rule out any further work on his ill-considered nuclear frolic. More than $10 million has already been wasted promoting the dump plan and any further expenditure of taxpayers' money should be ruled out."
"This "bold" idea looks to have just gone up in a giant mushroom cloud. When Premier Jay Weatherill formed the citizens' jury to review the findings of a Royal Commission that recommended that SA set up a lucrative nuclear storage industry, he professed confidence that a well-informed cross-section of the state would make a wise judgment.
"Late Sunday, it handed down a stunning and overwhelming rejection of the proposal. Brutally, jurors cited a lack of trust even in what they had been asked to do and their concerns that consent was being manufactured. Others skewered the Government's basic competency to get things done, doubting that it could pursue the industry safely and deliver the dump on-budget.
"It seems almost impossible now to see a way through for those in Cabinet and the broader Labor Party who have quietly crossed their fingers and backed the idea of taking the world's nuclear waste.
"With the party planning a special convention which must endorse changes to policy so the industry can be more deeply considered, internal critics now have an extremely potent weapon.
"Those outside the state party ‒ including the SA Liberals, independent Senator Nick Xenophon and even senior federal Labor figures — now have clear public permission to start peeling away.
"Perhaps worse than that, if Mr Weatherill now elects to continue down the nuclear path, it would be by actively ignoring the public will uncovered by a process he personally put in place to test."
Friends of the Earth Australia said: "The Premier said he will respect the views of Aboriginal Traditional Owners and it is clear that an overwhelming majority of Traditional Owners are opposed to the high-level nuclear waste dump plan.7 The Citizens' Jury should be congratulated for showing respect to Traditional Owners and the Premier must now do the same by abandoning the plan."
"There is a lack of Aboriginal consent. We believe that the government should accept that the Elders have said NO and stop ignoring their opinions. The Aboriginal people of South Australia (and Australia) continue to be neglected and ignored by all levels of government instead of respected and treated as equals."
a. consulting indigenous people in flawed processes that does not allow Aboriginal people to exercise free, informed, and meaningful consent.
b. not receiving free, informed and meaningful consent from indigenous people in the past in all matters, including nuclear.
c. engaging in practices that lead to the disruption of trust in indigenous people; for example, Maralinga.
d. engaging in practices that disrupt indigenous people's connection to country, for example the stolen generation and construction of sites like Olympic Dam. A nuclear waste facility is inherently an imposition on connection to country.
problematic. The consultation process has not been transparent, culturally inappropriate, held in inappropriate places with poor access, encountered language and literacy barriers, internet barriers, was directed by non-indigenous people, and did not recognise past wrongs and emotions.
"Many Aboriginal communities have made it clear they strongly oppose the issue and it is morally wrong to ignore their wishes. ... Jay Weatherill said that without the consent of traditional owners of the land "it wouldn't happen". It is unethical to backtrack on this statement without losing authenticity in the engagement process."
The Citizens' Jury produced a raft of evidence to justify its distrust of government. The government's handling of the current nuclear waste debate is a case in point. The SA government repeatedly said it wanted a balanced, mature debate on the issue. But the government chose a nuclear advocate to head the Royal Commission, and the Royal Commissioner stacked his Expert Advisory Committee with three nuclear advocates and just one critic.
The Royal Commission relied on just one economic report, written by Jacobs MCM, a consultancy with deep links to the nuclear industry. The lead authors of the report were Charles McCombie and Neil Chapman from ARIUS, the Association for Regional and International Underground Storage.
ARIUS is the successor to the infamous Pangea Resources, an international consortium that secretly developed plans to build an international high-level nuclear waste dump in Australia.10 Pangea's existence wasn't known until a corporate video was leaked to Friends of the Earth in 1998.11 Pangea set up an office in Australia but gave up in 2002 ‒ A$600 million poorer ‒ in the face of overwhelming public and political opposition.
Charles McCombie, co-author of the Jacobs MCM report, was heavily involved in Pangea Resources. Likewise, former Pangea chief Jim Voss is heavily involved in the current push for SA to accept foreign nuclear waste, as an 'Honorary Reader' at UCL Australia and a member of UCL Australia's Nuclear Working Group. In the late 1990s, Voss denied meeting with federal government ministers when he had in fact met at least one minister ‒ Wilson 'Ironbar' Tuckey ('ironbar' because he once assaulted an Aboriginal man with a steel cable12). A Pangea spokesperson said at the time: "We would not like to be lying ... we very much regret getting off on the wrong foot."
Needless to say, the conflicted economic report produced by Jacobs MCM predicted that South Australia would become filthy rich if the state agrees to import vast amounts of nuclear waste.
"Would you believe me if I told you the report that the commission has solely relied on was co-authored by the president and vice president of an advocacy group for the development of international nuclear waste facilities? Charles McCombie and Neil Chapman of the consultants MCM head the advocacy group ARIUS ‒ the Association for Regional and International Underground Storage.
"They prepared the report in conjunction with Jacobs, a global engineering and consulting firm which has a lucrative nuclear arm and boasts of its "more than 50 years of experience across the complete nuclear asset cycle".
"When I interviewed the royal commissioner last week, he initially denied that the consultants who prepared the modelling ‒ that is the sole basis of the commission's recommendation in favour of a nuclear waste dump ‒ faced any conflict of interest.
"He then said there would have been a conflict of interest had it been the only material the commission had relied upon, but said it was "reviewed by our team of experts and found to be an appropriate estimation of what the costs, risks and benefits might be if we were involved in the storage of waste".
"That is the same "team of experts" who, apparently, recommended the consultants in the first place."
"It is impossible to provide an informed response to the issue of economics because the findings in the RCR [Royal Commission report] are based on unsubstantiated assumptions. This has caused the forecast estimates to provide inaccurate, optimistic, unrealistic economic projections. We remain unconvinced that estimates relating to the cost of infrastructure."
"The advice of two contributing authors to the Jacobs MCM economic and safety assessment, who are lobbyists for the organisation "Arius", has called into question the objectivity of elements of the RC report. Given the authoritative nature and optimistic outcome of the economic analysis in particular, concern has been expressed that RC decisions and recommendations may not be free from bias and manipulation. The issue with the inherent bias could have been abrogated by seeking additional independent economic and safety analysis. The jury is not calling into question the impartiality of the Commission but is concerned that advocates for international nuclear waste storage may have influenced RC outcomes and damaged the integrity of the RC process and may not permit an informed decision.
"The economic modelling has a number of flaws, including not accounting for negative externalities or opportunity costs, compared to other potential investments and relies on a very optimistic interest rate."
US Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz was recently called to testify before the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on Energy and Natural Resources, now chaired by Lamar Alexander (Republican ‒ Tennessee) and ranking minority member Diane Feinstein (Democrat ‒ California).1 These two have participated in rare bi-partisanship on Capitol Hill in their effort to support their mutual friends: corporations that generate nuclear waste.
Alexander is even getting good at promoting nuclear energy as the prime solution to the climate crisis and labeling anyone opposed to moving the irradiated fuel rods from the reactor sites as "climate deniers." He has learned to speak of "signals" and that Congress and the Department of Energy (DOE) must signal that it will take the waste in order for corporations to decide to build more reactors, which he says are the only climate solution.
In answer to a series of questions from Feinstein, Moniz basically affirmed his DOE's charade: that it can, unilaterally, move ahead on creating "consent-based" consolidated storage sites (what we call a Parking Lot Dump) identical to the technology in use for dry storage at reactor sites ... but out in the middle of the "nowhere" of Texas, New Mexico and South Carolina.
These areas have inhabitants, who have not been asked at all if they "consent" to taking the nation's worst waste at sites that are designed for decades, at best, with no plan for how the waste will ever move again. It is the nuclear contractors who have "consented"! The people of the communities of Hobbs / New Mexico, Aiken / South Carolina, August / Georgia and Andrews County / Texas all have what Moniz does not: a future. Moniz and the entire Obama Administration gang will be exiting 1000 Independence Avenue by January 20, 2017.
So, not too much store should be given to the pronouncements in the hearing, nonetheless Moniz tipped his hand on a startling new theory: that the DOE can use its procurement authority to move ahead on contracting with private contractors to provide storage for commercial waste. While it may be true that the DOE has the ability to set up a contract, it remains unclear that it has the authority to take ownership of the waste and move it. One can congratulate Moniz on his slippery answers to the good Senator from California since he said DOE would need more work on "transportation of the waste" without sending the signal (per Alexander) in public that a change in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act is needed.
Given the coming Lame Duck Congress it is entirely possible that the DOE intends, as has happened repeatedly in the past, to sneak some small wording to make this change into another bill. US readers living in major urban transport are encouraged to call your congress members and warn them of this possibility ‒ and remind them that moving the waste would be a local Main Street issue.
"We all live in Nevada" was a cry of the 1990s; now we all live in the nuclear zones of Texas, New Mexico, South Carolina, or any other area at risk for consolidated storage, and also at all the closed reactor sites. We are one community. This is a value that we have built over the last four decades.
2017 is bringing other changes too: Harry Reid (Democrat ‒ Nevada) is retiring. Harry has been a one-man "Yucca Mountain-Protector" who, I think, has made Corbin Harney, the spiritual leader of the Western Shoshone Nation (who passed in 2007), proud. Reid has done more than any other person to stop Yucca Mountain. Yucca is a site that would fail the mission of waste isolation and thanks to Harry and many of us, and so many others, including Presidents Obama and Clinton, thankfully no waste there. Reid retires when Congress adjourns and we encourage you to send a thank-you card! Senator Harry Reid, 600 East William Street #304, Carson City, NV 89701 USA.
We as a community must keep these commitments! There is a lot of work ahead. In June the Nuclear Information and Resource Service convened a group of "planners" for a radwaste summit. This event is not outreach ‒ it is "in-reach" for activists who are committed (recently and long-term both) to finding ways to work together to prevent really bad waste plans. The event will be Dec. 2‒4 in Chicago. For more information, contact the author (maryo@nirs.org, ph. 828-252-8409).
The direct cost of the clean-up is now estimated at US$640 million (€573m), based on a contract modification made in July with contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership. The cost-plus contract leaves open the possibility of even higher costs as the clean-up continues and, as the LA Times notes, it does not include the complete replacement of the contaminated ventilation system (which failed after the February 2014 explosion) or any future costs of operating the repository longer than originally planned.
Yet another cost for the federal government was a US$74 million (€66m) settlement paid to the state of New Mexico in January 2016.2,3 The negotiated agreement relates to the 14 February 2014 explosion and a truck fire that took place nine days earlier. It sets out corrective actions that Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL ‒ the source of the waste drum that exploded) and WIPP must take to resolve permit violations.
"Nonetheless, the department still faces challenges in completing the recovery. For example, in March 2016, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, which oversees DOE's nuclear facilities such as WIPP, reported7 that DOE had made progress in revising its nuclear safety plans at WIPP but additional work remained to address safety concerns to prevent a recurrence of the February 2014 radiological accident."
The report states: "The EA analysis considered operational events and reviews conducted during May 2014 through May 2015 and identified a significant negative trend in performance of work. During this period, strong and unrealistic schedule pressures on the workforce contributed to poor safety performance and incidents during that time are indicators of the potential for a future serious safety incident."
The report points to "serious issues in conduct of operations, job hazard analysis, and safety basis."
failing to properly track overtime such that "personnel may be working past the point of safety".
The Office of Enterprise Assessments' report concludes: "The issues discussed above could be leading indicators of a potentially serious incident in the future. Many more issues involving conduct of operations, maintenance, and inadequate controls also raise concerns about the possibility of a serious incident."
"If LANL had adequately developed and implemented repackaging and treatment procedures that incorporated suitable hazard controls and included a rigorous review and approval process, the [February 2014] release would have been preventable," the AIB report states.
The AIB report points to the failure of LANL to effectively review and control waste packaging, train contractors and identify weaknesses in waste handling. The board also found that LANL, contractor EnergySolutions and the National Nuclear Security Administration office at LANL failed to ensure that a strong safety culture existed at the lab.
The AIB found that workers did not feel comfortable raising safety issues and felt pressured to "get it done at all costs." LANL employees also raised concerns that workers were brought in with little or no experience and rushed through an inadequate training program. "As a result," the AIB report states, "there was a failure to adequately resolve employee concerns which could have identified the generation of non compliant waste prior to shipment" to WIPP.
The immediate cause of the 14 February 2014 explosion ‒ mixing nitrate wastes with an organic absorbent (kitty litter) ‒ was recognized as a potential problem in 2012, if not before. One worker told the AIB that when concerns were raised over the use of organic kitty litter as an absorbent, the employee was told to "focus on their area of expertise and not to worry about the other areas of the procedure."
Workers noticed foaming chemicals and orange smoke rising from containers of nuclear waste at LANL, but supervisors told them to "simply wait out the reaction and return to work once the foaming ceased and the smoke subsided," the AIB report states.
"Lessons were not learned," the report states.
A February 2016 report from the DOE's Office of the Inspector General (OIG) was equally scathing of LANL.12 "Overall, we found LANL's corrective action program did not always adequately address issues, did not effectively prevent their recurrence, and did not consistently identify systemic problems," the report said. OIG auditors reviewed 460 issues cited between January 2009 and February 2014, and found "significant weaknesses" in the lab's ability to analyze and document the root causes of problems ‒ some of them significant health and safety issues ‒ and find solutions.
But the National Nuclear Safety Administration ‒ a semi-autonomous agency within the DOE ‒ is itself a big part of the problem of systemic mismanagement of nuclear sites.
A June 2015 Government Accountability Office report strongly criticized the National Nuclear Security Administration's (NNSA) oversight of contractors who manage the nation's nuclear weapons facilities.14 The report points to a litany of ongoing failures to properly oversee private contractors at eight nuclear sites, including those managing LANL. The report found that the NNSA lacked enough qualified staff members to oversee contractors, and it lacked guidelines for evaluating its contractors.
"The GAO, which investigates federal agencies as requested by Congress, said the NNSA shortcomings stem from a 4-year-old experiment in reducing "overly prescriptive and burdensome" federal oversight of contractors by letting the private companies self-report their problems. NNSA staff told the GAO, however, that contractors aren't always as self-critical as they need to be in assessing their own performance.
"The so-called "contractor assurance system" isn't convincing the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee that the management of the nation's nuclear facilities is improving. Committee leaders from both major political parties pointed to a leaking container of radioactive waste from Los Alamos that shut down a nuclear waste repository near Carlsbad last year as one of the incidents that prove the NNSA and the Department of Energy have a long way to go in improving oversight of private contractors.
""For nearly two decades, this committee has uncovered management challenges facing the DOE complex involving contractor oversight. For the past five years, DOE has experimented with a new approach to contractor oversight that is not ready for prime time," committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., and ranking member Frank Pallone Jr., D-N.J., said in a statement. "We saw the results of this experiment at the Y-12 security breach in Tennessee three years ago and more recently in oversight failures that led to a costly incident at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant site.""
7. Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, March 2016, 'Staff Issue Report: Waste Isolation Pilot Plant Documented Safety Analysis'.
Opposition to the proposed nuclear waste facility by Lake Huron continues to grow. By the end of 2015, at least 182 communities (representing more than 22 million people) on both sides of the U.S.–Canada border have adopted resolutions opposing the plan by Ontario Power Generation to build a deep geological repository (DGR) for storage of low- and intermediate-level radioactive nuclear waste.
The immediate outcry on both sides of the border prompted the Conservative government of Stephen Harper to postpone any decision until Dec. 1, 2015, after the Oct. 19 federal election – in which they were booted out of office. The new government of Liberal Justin Trudeau then pushed that decision to March 1, 2016, after a dozen members of Michigan's congressional delegation urged the new prime minister to deny the construction permits necessary for the storage facility to be built.
Meanwhile, American efforts to engage the International Joint Commission (IJC), which oversees boundary waters' issues, have come to naught. As the IJC's Public Information Officer Frank Bevacqua told me by email, both the Canadian and U.S. federal governments would have to ask the IJC to intervene on the issue. "The IJC does not review proposals for site-specific projects [like the DGR] unless asked to do so by both governments," he said.
The Saugeen First Nation is especially concerned about simply moving the proposed facility into somebody else's backyard. "We might not be the best of friends when we push nuclear waste on our brothers' and sisters' territory," he told ICTMN.
In December, Bruce Power announced that it will invest $13 billion to refurbish the Bruce site, overhauling six of the eight reactors on Lake Huron beginning in 2020.5 Just weeks later, OPG announced a $12.8 billion refurbishment of four nuclear reactors at Darlington, while extending the life of its ageing Pickering nuclear power plant on Lake Ontario.6 The Pickering move requires public hearings and approval from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, but Ontario's Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli has voiced his approval and touted the nuclear industry as "emissions-free," while ignoring the issue of nuclear wastes.
Barrett, in turn, is onside with the billionaires now pushing nuclear energy expansion worldwide: Richard Branson (Virgin Group), Peter Thiel (PayPal co-founder), Bill Gates and Paul Allen (Microsoft co-founders), and Jeff Bezos (Amazon) have all endorsed nuclear energy as the solution to climate change.8 As well, scientists James Hansen, Kerry Emmanuel, Ken Caldeira and Tom Wigley have recently called for building 115 new reactors per year as "the only viable path forward".8 They dismiss nuclear waste as "trivial" and claim that there "are technical means to dispose of this small amount of waste safely."
In that case, the resulting nuclear waste should be stored in their basements and under the billionaires' mansions, rather than near bodies of water like the Great Lakes, which provide 40 million people with their drinking water.
1. Konnie Lemay, "Saugeen Nation May Be Final Word in Nuclear Waste Storage Next to Lake Huron," Indian Country Today Media Network, December 11, 2015.
4. Joyce Nelson, "Nuclear Dump Controversy," Watershed Sentinel, Sept.-Oct., 2015.
5. Robert Benzie, "Bruce Power to invest $13 billion to refurbish nuclear station on Lake Huron," Toronto Star, December 3, 2015.
6. Rob Ferguson, "Ontario Power Generation to spend $12.8 billion refurbishing four Darlington nuclear reactors," Toronto Star, January 11, 2016.
7. John Barrett, "Nuclear power is key to decarbonization, and Canada can lead the way," The Globe and Mail, December 16, 2015.
8. Emily Schwartz Greco, "A Big Fat Radioactive Lie," Other words.org, December 4, 2015.