Nuclear waste and effects on our environment

+ Where do we currently keep nuclear waste in Australia

Radioactive waste management is costly, complex, contested and unresolved, globally and in the current Australian context. Current levels of radioactive waste created by nuclear power stations globally equates to approximately 34,000m³ of high-level waste each year. That’s equivalent to 3,400 concrete trucks worth of high-level waste.

Nearly all of Australia’s intermediate level waste is held where it was created at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation’s (ANSTO) Lucas Heights nuclear research reactor facility in south Sydney. This material is Australia’s highest-level radioactive waste and is the most significant management challenge.

Some waste is also kept at both current and closed uranium mines and there have also been incidents of illegal dumping of nuclear waste throughout Australia in places like the Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary in South Australia.

"The disposal of radioactive waste in Australia is ill-considered and irresponsible. Whether it is short-lived waste from Commonwealth facilities, long-lived plutonium waste from an atomic bomb test site on Aboriginal land, or reactor waste from Lucas Heights. The government applies double standards to suit its own agenda; there is no consistency, and little evidence of logic." ‒ nuclear engineer Alan Parkinson (2002)

+ Different kinds of waste

Nuclear waste can come in a wide range of different forms, such as spent fuel rods, ceramic pellets, tailings, tailings liquid, contaminated objects, e.g. hospital equipment, other liquid waste, and more. Each type of waste is treated differently based on the level of radioactivity and other factors.

+ Nuclear waste storage locations in the future

Australia does not have a dedicated national radioactive waste facility. The government has been trying unsuccessfully for 40 years to find long-term storage and disposal sites for the low and intermediate level radioactive waste produced at Lucas Heights. High-level waste from any commercial nuclear energy facility would present far greater challenges.

The most recent location chosen by the previous Morrison Government to both dump and store waste was a place called Napandee, near Kimba in regional South Australia, but many local residents and the region's Barngarla Traditional Owners opposed this plan.

In July 2020, the Morrison Government established the Australian Radioactive Waste Agency.

“From day one the perception of this new agency has been tainted – rather than being expert and independent, it has been created primarily to advance the Government’s Kimba plan.

"The government wants to convince the Australian public that this facility is necessary for nuclear medicine to continue, but this is not the case. Universities and hospitals that produce radioactive waste will still need to manage waste at these places.” – Dave Sweeney (2020)

The Traditional Owners, the Barngarla people, launched a legal challenge to stop the facility going ahead, saying they were not sufficiently consulted. They were concerned about a sacred women's site near the Kimba which was at risk of being harmed by a nuclear facility. In July 2023 they won this legal challenge in the Federal Court, proving that there was apprehended bias in the decision-making process by former federal minister Keith Pitt in selecting the site. This legal action has successfully stopped the site from going ahead as a nuclear storage facility.

+ Length of time to break down

Nuclear reactors produce long-lived radioactive wastes that pose a direct human and environmental threat for between 1,000 – 100,000 years and impose a profound inter-generational burden.

This factor presents one of the key problems with nuclear waste. It is impossible for humans to ensure that the waste is kept secure and isolated for the time period that it poses a hazard. In fact, the world's only deep underground nuclear waste repository ‒ the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant ‒ was closed from 2014‒17 following a chemical explosion in an underground waste barrel.

Nuclear waste needs to remain intact through changes in climate, wars, political decisions, societies, cultural beliefs, plants and animal life and the deterioration of the material that it is stored in.

+ Water usage

Nuclear power is a thirsty industry that consumes large volumes of water. This water is needed at all stages of the nuclear process from uranium mining and processing through to reactor cooling.

Many reviews into the viability of a nuclear power generation industry in Australia have concluded that the water volumes required would need to be derived from sea water so nuclear generators would need to be built close to Australia’s coastline near more densely populated areas.

At Olympic Dam, BHP is licensed by the South Australian government to extract the equivalent of up to 42 million litres of water per day from the Great Artesian Basin. Its unsustainable extraction is threatening the existence of the Mound Springs north of the mine - precious isolated oases that host unique flora and fauna. These springs are of great significance to the Arabanna and other Aboriginal people and they are drying up. (Baker, 2020)

Uranium mining also presents significant challenges through a combination of high-water usage and the risks of tailings dams filled with radioactive tailings. BHP commissioned a 2016 study which warned of the 'extreme' risks of all existing and proposed tailings dam waste storage facilities at the Olympic Dam mine in South Australia. The study concluded that more than 100 workers are at risk of losing their lives in a catastrophic tailings dams embankment breach. BHP kept these warnings secret for three years.

In the Northern Territory at the Ranger Uranium mine, annual spills from the mines tailings dam have washed through the World Heritage listed Kakadu National Park and through the rivers and streams that the Mirarr people, the Traditional Owners of the land, live play swim and hunt from. (The Conversation, 2013)

+Effects of nuclear waste on our environment

If radioactive elements are released into the environment, they can harm all living things including plants, animals and people. Because of the long life of nuclear material these threats last virtually forever. Radioactive elements can increase the likelihood of almost all forms of cancer for animals and humans.

In the case of liquid tailings from uranium mining, large numbers of birds who drink the water have died. (Friends of the Earth et al, 2020, p.79)

In the case of the nuclear disaster at Fukushima, the radioactive fallout will remain toxic for hundreds to thousands of years, covering large swathes of Japan. It will never be fully ‘cleaned up’ and will continue to contaminate food, humans and animals.

The accident will see an increase in cancer as people inhale the radioactive elements, eat radioactive food and drink radioactive beverages. In 1986, a single meltdown and explosion at Chernobyl in the Ukraine covered 40% of the European land mass with radioactive elements and large parts of Europe and the food grown there will remain radioactive for hundreds of years. (Caldicott, 2014)

+ Uranium mines in Australia

There are two operating uranium mines in Australia: Olympic Dam and Beverley Four Mile, both located in South Australia.

+ Mythbusting: Is nuclear power a ‘clean’ source of energy?

Nuclear power produces highly toxic radioactive waste so it cannot be considered a clean energy. Nuclear fuel rods are only used to provide electricity for three to five years, and then they are removed and stored as waste, effectively forever.

+ References

Alan Parkinson, 2002, 'Double standards with radioactive waste', Australasian Science, <https: data-preserve-html-node="true"//nuclear.foe.org.au/flawed-clean-up-of-maralinga/>

Sweeney, D, 2020, Federal radioactive waste agency flawed from day one, Australian Conservation Foundation Website, last accessed 15 December, 2020, <https: data-preserve-html-node="true"//www.acf.org.au/federal_radioactive_waste_agency_flawed_from_day_one>

Friends of the Earth Australia, Australian Conservational Foundation, Environment Victoria, 2020, Submission to the Victorian Parliament's Standing Committee on Environment and Planning Inquiry into Nuclear Prohibition, last access 15 December 2020, <https: data-preserve-html-node="true"//www.parliament.vic.gov.au/images/stories/committees/SCEP/Inquiry_into_Nuclear_Prohibition_Inquiry_/Submissions/S39_-_Aus_Conservation_Foundation_Friends_of_the_Earth_Aus_and_Environment_Vic.pdf>

Caldicott, H, 2014, The impact of the nuclear crisis on global health, last accessed 15 December 2020, < https://www.amsj.org/archives/3487>

The conversation, 2013, Ranger’s toxic spill highlights the perils of self-regulation, last accessed 8 December 2020, < https://theconversation.com/rangers-toxic-spill-highlights-the-perils-of-self-regulation-21409>

Baker, R. 2020, South Australia’s disappearing springs raise questions for miner BHP, Sydney Morning Herald, published 23 November 2020, last accessed 12 January 2021, <https: data-preserve-html-node="true"//www.smh.com.au/environment/sustainability/south-australia-s-disappearing-springs-raise-questions-for-miner-bhp-20201117-p56f6m.html>