15 February - The Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission, set up by the South Australian Government in March 2015, is not just of interest to the state. Its findings are likely to influence the Australian Government's deliberation whether Australia should include nuclear power in its power generation mix.
And for nuclear power to play a role anywhere in Australia, federal laws will need to be changed.
The Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission was to investigate the potential for South Australia to participate in:
further exploration and extraction of uranium;
enrichment of uranium;
nuclear power generation; and
storage and disposal of radioactive and nuclear waste.
Ahead of his final report due in May 2016, commissioner Kevin Scarce took the somewhat unusual step of releasing his 'Tentative Findings', providing a five-week feedback period for the community to reflect on the presented evidence.
The decision takes into account that the Australian community is torn over the nuclear issue, and as the world's third largest exporter of uranium has not yet developed a nuclear industry.
The commissioner emphasises that community consent will be essential to the successful development of any nuclear fuel cycle activities.
South Australia has most of the nation's known uranium resource and it is home to the world's largest known uranium orebody at the BHP's Olympic Dam mine. While there could be significant economic advantages in expanding the state's nuclear activities, according to the commission's report they are mainly in the storage and disposal of used nuclear fuel. This could meet a major global need and potentially deliver substantial economic benefits.
A highly profitable integrated storage and disposal facility could be established by the late 2020s.
Developing capacity for storing uranium waste could also open up opportunities for 'fuel leasing', linking the processing of uranium with its eventual return for disposal.
Nuclear Fuel Cycle; click image to enlarge
Some economic benefits could also be gained by an expansion of the state's uranium mining. However, royalty payments resulting from uranium production would remain small compared to the state's total revenue: In 2014/15 the uranium production in the state was valued at about $346.5 million, earning the state royalty payments of just $15.9 million, which compares to a total state revenue of around $17 billion.
The report also looked into thorium as a potential fuel source, as there are numerous deposits in the State. However, the commissioner found that at present their exploitation is not commercially viable, nor is it expected to be in the foreseeable future.
To be used for nuclear power, uranium oxide needs to be processed into uranium fuel, through processes that convert the oxide to uranium hexafluoride (UF6), enrich the content of the radioactive uranium-235 type in the uranium mix, and finally fabricate fuel.
The commissioner could not establish an economic case for developing more uranium processing capabilities than are already present in South Australia - at least for the next decade - as the international markets for such services are heavily oversupplied.
Notably, he also dampens enthusiasm for nuclear power, finding that it is not commercially viable to generate electricity from a nuclear power plant in South Australia in the foreseeable future. High upfront capital costs and also the long lead time for new capacity to become operational are among the significant barriers. In the special case of South Australia, there is also the long distance to the National Electricity Market, which would make it difficult to export electricity.
Nevertheless, he recommends keeping the option open should it be required as a low-emissions power source in the future. To underscore this, the commissioner's report refers to recent peer-reviewed studies concluding that across its lifecycle nuclear power greenhouse gas emissions are equivalent to wind and solar, and it can balance the impact of intermittency from renewable sources.
Among the various elements of the nuclear fuel cycle considered in the report, storage and disposal of used nuclear fuel (high level waste) present the only big economic drawcard for the state - provided the community can be convinced that this is a good idea.
German storage nightmare
The process of establishing a high-level waste repository can go very wrong, as was found with Gorleben in Germany...more
The challenge is considerable, though. Such fuel comprises ceramic uranium material sealed in its metal cladding, and while most of the contained radioactive elements decay within 500 years, residual radioactivity will require isolation from the environment for hundreds of thousands of years.
Two countries, Finland and Sweden, have been successful in advancing projects to store spent fuel in deep geological repositories. After 30 years of development they are expected to become fully operational in the 2020s.
The facilities are located in an extremely stable geological environment and include sophisticated engineered barriers that delay a potential exposure of fuel to groundwater. According to Mr. Scarce, South Australia could meet similar requirements for a safe, long-term disposal of used fuel in the Gawler Craton, a large block within the western and northern parts of South Australia that has been geologically stable for millions of years.
Australia could not only gain financially but reap reputational benefits from providing storage options, as used nuclear fuel is a global concern, with many countries yet to find a solution for the disposal of their waste.
The project would require an integrated disposal concept with an above-ground interim storage facility for the metal or concrete casks that contain the fuel. A separately located, secure, underground repository facility would then have to be established, comprising a series of tunnels into which specially designed canisters containing used fuel and intermediate level waste are permanently deposited.
The report includes a range of cost and revenue assumptions. Under one possible scenario highlighted by the commissioner, such a facility could produce total revenue of $257 billion over a period of 120 years. The associated costs of the project are estimated at $145 billion, and include supporting infrastructure, such as a dedicated port facility, airport and freight line. A $32 billion Reserve Fund would cover maintenance costs over the whole life of the facility.
Over the first 30 years of operation the revenue generated for the State is estimated to be more than $5 billion per year; the project could also provide around 1500 full time jobs during the 25-year construction process.
The commissioner proposes a State Wealth Fund as an attractive option to accumulate and equitably share the profits from such an industry. He makes the case that if 15% of gross revenue and all profits were invested in such a fund, and 50% of resulting interest retained, it could generate more than $6 billion each year over a period of more than 70 years, and in total accumulate $445 billion.
Digging it down under?
ARDR analysis: Dr Gerd Winter
Following the release of the Tentative Findings by the SA Royal Commission into the Nuclear Fuel Cycle, the Australian Science Media Centre (AusSMC) asked academic experts to comment. Unsurprisingly, their responses were right along well established battlelines and professional interests.
The worry is this: if experts with a supposedly deep understanding of this vexed issue cannot agree on accepting even the basic findings let alone the commission's conclusions, how can this be expected from the broader community - and in proxy its political leaders? But precisely this will be required if this Royal Commission can avoid being just a waste of money.
Before having a look at these comments, lets remind ourselves that what the commissioner has put forward as SA's best option is to establish far reaching services which in one way or another will affect the state or the nation for the next century and beyond. If the state is going to offer the storage of spent fuel it will take at least until the end of 2020 to implement a facility at a substantial cost. Importantly, though, the stored fuel will be with us pretty much forever.
Politicians around the world have managed to support nuclear power in breathtaking avoidance of the fact that the inevitable spent fuel has to go somewhere.
France and Germany are notable examples: In the 70s German politicians gave the nod to nuclear power in the belief that geologically stable salt domes in Gorleben, an area in the Lower Saxony would be an assured way to get rid of the waste, not only from German but also French reactors.
Only, it was not, as the community increasingly resisted the transport and storage of the high-level radioactive waste.
It also appears that some of the assumptions on the suitability of salt domes were overly optimistic.
Now, in 2016, there is still no solution in sight, and high-level radioactive fuel is kept above ground in intermediate storage creating an ongoing headache.
Australia has avoided this problem - we are indeed a lucky country - but by exporting the fuel we are part of the problem, whether we like it or not. Somewhere high-level nuclear waste needs to be put away. The commission's report tells us now that we could become part of the solution, and not only that, South Australia could financially benefit a lot from it.
A way forward is possible, with Sweden and Finland showing how it can be done. There storage facilities will come online in the 2020s, the first in the world.
However, the decision making process in Nordic countries is famously slow but consensus driven, whereas other countries - including Australia - tend to have a more polarised discourse with one side then simply winning. That is until the other side gets the upper hand and decisions are overturned.
The potential money that could be made, at least according to the commission's estimate, is a siren call few politicians will be able to rationalise without immediately succumbing to a state of profuse salivation.
Take SA state Labor MP Tom Kenyon who in an piece in Adelaide's InDaily conjured a land of milk and honey - "We will be able to build a spectacular state" - all paid for by the nuclear waste of others.
Some in the wider community will take the bait. Trouble is, as the commissioner rightly points out, to pull this off we will need a broad consensus across society. This cannot be just a matter for SA alone, and it has to be inclusive of the concerns that our indigenous community may bring forward.
It is not just a matter of bipartisan agreement by our policy makers.
Indeed, the Gorleben example highlights what happens when political parties agree but large segments of the society, who feel not represented by the major parties, do not and resist.
The quality of public debate and the expert advice that can inform this debate will be crucial, but if the responses experts provided the AusSMC are anything to go by, it is going to be a hard ride.
Lets have a look:
AusSMC collated ten expert comments across the spectrum of relevant expertise, of which five broadly welcomed the findings of the commissioner.
Four experts rejected the commissioner's conclusions regarding a proposed storage facility for high-level nuclear waste from other countries.
Notably, three of these experts broadly rejected not only the conclusions but the basic assumptions underlying these conclusions.
Thus, Professor Jim Falk, a professorial fellow at the University of Melbourne and an emeritus professor at the University of Wollongong said: "Given this [the widespread concerns across the globe about the safety of storing nuclear wastes], it would be fair to characterise any government which sought to open the way to waste storage and disposal in Australia as at best 'courageous' and perhaps less politely, as 'very politically foolish.'"
Ian Lowe, former president of the Australian Conservation Council and emeritus professor at Griffith University referred to a recent report from the Australia Institute, which questions the assumptions the commissioners findings are based upon and finds that the storage of high-level radioactive waste from countries like Japan, Taiwan and South Korea would probably not be profitable.
In very much the same way, Dr Mark Diesendorf, associate professor and deputy director of UNSW's Institute of Environmental Studies refers to the Australia Institute report, saying the commissioner failed to raise points made in that report, including why nuclear countries would pay to export their waste when it may be cheaper to manage it at home. "The economic analysis justifying this scheme is a single 2016 study, most of whose assumptions are not stated in the Commission's report. The Commission discusses the alleged benefits of this scheme, while failing to acknowledge the economic risks of Australia managing high-level wastes for hundreds of thousands of years by means of unproven technologies and social institutions."
Associate Professor Reza Hashemi-Nezhad, a nuclear physicist from the University of Sydney and Australia's only expert in the field of Accelerator Driven Nuclear Reactors which uses thorium as fuel, rejects a key finding of the commissioner that there is international consensus about geological disposal being the best technical solution for the disposal of used fuel.
"If it is so, why after about 70 years is there still continuous debate about the viability and safety of geological disposal".
Unsurprisingly, he then goes on to promote the establishment of a nuclear incineration facility based on thorium fueled accelerator driven systems (TFADS), which is contrary to the commissioner's finding that "Energy generation technologies that use thorium as a fuel component are not presently commercial, nor expected to be in the foreseeable future.
Other experts with various backgrounds have neither problems with the commissioner's conclusions nor with the evidence these draw upon.
Here as one example: Associate Professor Nigel Marks from Curtin University, an expert in radioactive waste, welcomed the report, saying that all four findings were "spot-on". He says: "Kudos to the Weatherill government for facing down the fear-mongers and looking to the future for South Australia." He also points out that Australia has accquired considerable expertise in nuclear storage technology through ANSTO's Synroc program. (It may be mentioned that A-Professor Marks has an employment history with ANSTO).
I agree with Professor Lowe, who points out that at present it seems difficult to see how lasting political, and importantly broad community consensus can be achieved in support of such a major and far reaching endeavour. This is irrespective of how favourable the general conditions for it may be, and how much some parts of the community will trump up the potential economic benefits for the state.
It is also going to be a test whether the community can come together and put all facts, one by one, on the table to then work towards a decision all can live with.
Australia has grappled more than most countries in developing a coherent climate change mitigation strategy, with people refusing to get across the usual carved out trenches (some will say we still haven't got one). Yet on climate change the scientists were at least more or less one voice in their advice (while conveniently ignored).
However, here we have a topic that is equally emotionally loaded, with experts divided on even the basic facts - looks like a tough ride to me but maybe one worth having.
A complete list of expert comments and further information on the Royal Commission's 'Tentative Findings' is provided by the Australian Sciene Media Centre and can be accessed here
Community protest against the transport of nuclear waste to the Gorleben intermediate storage facility
...
Planned at the end of 1973, a salt dome in the area of Germany's Lower Saxony was to become a repository for all types of radioactive waste. While the site selection was claimed to be based on geoscientifically sound evidence, it appears now that political and economic pressures were also considerable drivers.
In fact, for decades many geologists have contended that the Gorleben salt dome would not be a safe final repository for high-level nuclear waste, while the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology kept its position that Gorleben was a viable proposition.
In 2000 the community concerns led to a moratorium on the establishment of a permanent waste facility, while the above-ground intermediate storage for spent-fuel elements remained in place; every year high-level nuclear waste is transported to the site accompanied by considerable police presence.
In 2010, the moratorium was again lifted, but in 2013 new legislation was put in place providing a framework for a renewed search and selection of a suitable site for a permanent storage facility.
An estimated $1.7 billion has so far been invested in exploring the Gorleben site.
