Senator Kerry Nettle joined Greens supporters and other protesters outside the Australian Nuclear Association conference in Sydney today. This ageing band of nuclear warriors were joined by Dr Ziggy Switkowski, Chairman of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) as part of their campaign to support John Howard’s plan for 25 nuclear reactors in Australia.
Kerry outlined the Greens plan for a Nuclear Free Australia, including keeping Sydney’s nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights shutdown. Copies of the Greens new Nuclear Family post card (see picture above) were distributed to the public.
Howard’s announcement of the opening of the new nuclear OPAL reactor as a “triumph” earlier in the year fell flat three months later when it had to be shutdown because of problems in the fuel assembly and leaking water coolant. Almost three months later the reactor has not been restarted and ANSTO say they don’t know when it will become operational. Insiders say the repairs could take up to 12 months and the blame game has begun.
The Greens say the $140 million annual cost of running the reactor would be better spent on alternative ways to produce nuclear medicines, cleaning up Australia’s legacy of radiation and diplomacy on nuclear proliferation.
The three month shutdown has confirmed what doctors have said in an Australian report on nuclear medicine we don’t need the reactor.
That is a bloody brilliant picture.
Good on you, Kerry Nettle and the band of merry men and women gate-crashing the nukes party.
In particular - well said - on the OPAL reactor and its costs.
While the major parties are touting all these tax cut bribes - it’s looking as though the Greens are the only party with some sort of vision beyond this King Midas-like attitude about taxation and “the economy”
Many Australians are waking up to the fact that, as with King Midas - promises of everything turning to gold are hollow promises indeed.
The Greens seem to be the only ones to spell it out - that the economy depends on the environment - the geographical physical environment, and the social environment. The entire nuclear fuel cycle leads to the destruction of both.
With regard to both Labor and the Coalition’s nuclear policies, I hope there will be further coverage of a story just reported on the ABC News website. In August, a USAF B-52 flew over America with six nuclear-armed cruise missiles attached to its wing. The report states that four senior officers were subsequently fired and 65 personnel had their rights to handle nuclear weapons withdrawn.
If such a thing can happen under supposedly rigorous military protocols, what does that say about the potential misuse of the uranium we’re planning to send overseas in ever-increasing quantities under a Howard or Rudd federal government?
My local federal member is Martin Ferguson, who is accorded a special mention for his pro-nuclear stance in Ian Lowe’s recent essay, Reaction Time (see especially page 67). I have therefore asked him, given such incidents and the science as presented by people such as Ian Lowe, why it’s supposedly OK to ship our uranium overseas. I hope the Greens and the Democrats will press him to answer the same question.
Turnbull’s flagging alternatives to nuclear power, probably as a way to ensure the Wilderness Society campaign has less ammunition to use against him in their double whammy campaign against the members for Wentworth and Kingsford-Smith.
ABC News story on it
Hi all,
Thought this would be a good place to ask the question: Where are we getting the information for the claim that nuclear energy is unsafe?
To qualify that, I agree that nuclear is not a viable alternative due to time and cost to build, fossil fuel, and permanent waste. Furthermore I’m well aware of Chernobyl and other examples of unsafe technology.
My question is, given technological advances and improvements, is nuclear power itself unsafe?
Gordon, the danger of an accident at a nuclear plant, while certainly a small likelihood, is so tremendous that it cannot but be seen as dangerous.
But, more fundamentally, how can you treat nuclear power outside its context of uranium mining, enrichment, transport, re-processing, transport and storage? You can’t. They are all part of the same process. And you cannot separate the nuclear power industry from nuclear weapons proliferation. They go hand in hand.
Nuclear power will always involve a large array of dangers that will not be involved in the other alternatives.
Points taken and agreed.
The source of the question is from many of the current campaigns against nuclear power including ‘unsafe’ as one of the arguments against it.
I agree with the likelihood vs consequence argument but stating that nuclear power is unsafe does imply that a disaster is likely - everyone knows it would be catastrophic.
Does using this argument leaves the opening for the argument that “technology means nuclear power is safe now”?
Given the undeniable points that nuclear is unnecessary, too expensive, will take too long, and what do we do with the waste, the ‘unsafe’ argument seems to give the pro-nuclear lobby room to argue that we don’t need to give them.
That said, I can see the value in tapping into the public’s fears on the issue and since this is not a direct debate, any angle should be exploited I suppose.
Thoughts?
Neclear power is safe. Methods to control waste are known and proven. Ony scarmongering camplaigns keep this cheap clean source of power out of reach.
For those who cite Chernoble I have these arguments
1. Comparing a Russian reactor with a Western one is like deciding not to get on a Boeing or Airbus because Tupolov can’t build safe planes.
2. By staying out of the Nuclear industry the west has stalled development of safer and more capable reactors for 30 years. The sooner we allow our scientists and engineers to get to work the safer the nuclear industry will be. As it is we are going to leave it to the Russians, Chinese and Indians then wonder that they stuff up.
Yes, it’s true that we do not absolutely need a research reactor for production of radioisotopes for research and medical use. If we don’t have one, we won’t have cancer patients dying left, right and centre that we’re unable to treat.
In practice, if we had no reactor, the vast majority of our demand for reactor-derived radioisotopes would be via importation from overseas - primarily, that would be importation of bulk Mo-99, which ANSTO already does a little bit at present - it’s needed whenever there was downtime at the HIFAR reactor, since we’ve only ever had a single operational reactor for isotope production.
Of course, the imported radioisotope is being produced using a reactor anyway, so we’re still supporting the use of a reactor for isotope production, just not in our own backyards.
We can also shift the use of medical and scientific isotopes away from reactor-derived isotopes a little bit, say by replacing the use of I-131 with I-123, with the latter being cyclotron-derived. But this will not eliminate the demand for reactor-derived I-131 and other nuclides completely, although, again, importation could theoretically meet our needs.
However, the 13 hour half-life of I-123 makes things a little difficult - If we’re to talk about using I-123 and Tc-99m produced in cyclotrons to displace reactor-derived Mo-99 and I-131, then we’re going to need more cyclotrons - I’m dubious of the capacity for radioisotopes with these half-lives to be produced very frequently and shipped, very frequently, all across the country to our scientific and medical institutions - we really need the cyclotrons installed where these radioisotopes are being used.
Same story with the cyclotron based production of Tc-99m - Tc-99m is really the “workhorse” of nuclear medicine, accounting for the vast majority of all nuclear medical imaging and so forth. Whilst theoretically it can be produced in a cyclotron, again, with a 6 hour half life, we have this issue of getting the isotope to where it is needed on time as it is needed - the traditional Mo-99/Tc-99m generator approach works very well, but Tc-99m is generated directly using the cyclotron approach - to my knowledge, you can’t produce Mo-99 in a cyclotron. So, either we import bulk Mo-99 and ANSTO produces the Tc-99m generators, or we might need more cyclotrons, to make cyclotron-derived Tc-99m accessible to patients.
Several of the well-publicised “accidents” “at the Lucas Heights reactor” in recent years were leaks in a hot cell used for radiopharmaceutical production, or spillage of a radioisotope sample, things like that - there are some ignorant people who are quick to pin these things on the big scary nuclear reactor, but it’s nothing to do with the nuclear reactor at all - we’d still have these issues on rare occasion, even if ANSTO’s facility had a couple of cyclotrons in the place of OPAL.
Radioisotope and radiopharmaceutical production still produces radioactive waste, and there is still some theoretical possibility for radioactive release into the environment in the event of an accident - granted, the radioactive waste isn’t of the same magnitude as used fuel assemblies from a fission reactor.
We’re still going to need to deal with radioactive waste, though - it’s an inevitable part of modern science and medicine. We need to deal with it responsibly and in an environmentally sound way - and it’s probably better to do that close to the source where it’s generated, not in the outback.
Whilst for the most part, anti-nuclear groups are rational, and recognise the need for nuclear medicine, and the essential role of radionuclides in scientific and medical research and industrial techology, and I’m grateful for that, I can’t help but think there are some small minority of people out there who will see the “nooklear boogeyman” in any nuclear technology, including cyclotrons or any scientific research using radioactive isotopes.