Royal Commissioner, Rear Admiral Kevin Scarce, delivered the report which made 12 recommendations after the SA government set up the Royal Commission on March 19 last year to investigate the potential for increasing the state’s participation in the nuclear fuel cycle.
The investigation covered expanded exploration, extraction and milling of minerals containing radioactive materials, the further processing of minerals and the processing and manufacture of materials containing radioactive and nuclear substances, the use of nuclear fuels for electricity generation, and the establishment of facilities for the storage and disposal of low to medium level radioactive and nuclear waste.
The report’s bottom line is that SA can safely increase its participation in nuclear activities, and while it is already managing some of the risks, it says the rest of them are also “manageable”
The report sees some new nuclear fuel cycle activities as viable, particularly disposing international used fuel and intermediate level waste which could provide “significant and enduring” economic benefits to the state’s community.
Such a waste disposal facility would generate more than $100 billion more than the costs, which include a $32 billion reserve fund for facility closure and ongoing monitoring over the 120-year lifecycle of the project.
The commission says the SA government should own and control the project so the state reaps all the benefits.
Social support
However, the report cautions that social consent is “fundamental” to undertaking any new nuclear project, and sufficient public support is needed to proceed with legislating, planning and implementing a project.
Local community consent is required to host a facility; and in the event that this involves regional, remote and Aboriginal communities, the consent processes “must account for their particular values and concerns”, the Commission said.
However, the Commission’s “firm conclusion” is that “this opportunity should be actively pursued, and as soon as possible”
The SA Chamber of Mines and Energy’s recent Reachtel Poll of 1575 respondents conducted in March revealed 26% opposed uranium mining, 30% oppose nuclear power for SA and 38% opposed a high-level waste facility.
Commonwealth resources minister Josh Frydenberg stressed that the SA Royal Commission was a separate and distinct initiative to the Australian government’s process to establish a National Radioactive Waste Management Facility which would store Australian generated, low and intermediate level waste only, that is currently held on an interim basis at over 100 sites around Australia.
“It cannot and will not be built to store radioactive waste generated overseas or high level waste,” he said.
“A re-elected Turnbull government stands ready to work with the South Australian government if they choose to pursue any new economic opportunities in this area that create jobs and growth.”
While Scarce’s tentative findings in February prompted outrage from anti-nuclear activists and some disquiet in the broader community, he has long maintained that identifying a suitable site was outside his purview.
Scarce, a former SA governor, had previously indicated that his final report would make the same broad conclusions as his interim submission, but that he would need to address community concerns over safety, including during the transportation of waste, with South Australia likely to become the hub for the world’s spent nuclear fuel.
His report concluded that “the risk of an accident occurring that could breach a cask of used fuel and cause radiation to be released is very low”
“If a cask was lost at sea and was irrecoverable, there is potential for some members of the public consuming locally sourced seafood to receive a very small dose of radiation,” the report acknowledges.
In a list of recommendations, the commission urges the state government to pursue “simplification of state and federal mining approval requirements for radioactive ores” to streamline approval processes and ensure “full costs of decommissioning and remediation with respect to radioactive ore mining projects are secured in advance from miners”
It also urges the government to remove state prohibitions on the licensing of further processing activities, “to enable commercial development of multilateral facilities as part of nuclear fuel leasing arrangements” – and to push for similar removals at a federal level.
The report also recommends pursuing the removal of federal restrictions on nuclear power generation – “to allow it to contribute to a reliable, low-carbon electricity system, if required”, albeit finding that it was not commercially viable at the moment but this situation could change.
“Nuclear power may be necessary, along with other low carbon generation technologies,” the commission reported.
“It would be wise to plan now to ensure that nuclear power would be available should it be required.”
The commission report was bullish about the economic benefits of a waste dump, with its modelling estimating such a facility would grow the gross state product by “an additional 4.7% – or $6.7 billion – by 2029-30”, adding 9600 full-time jobs to the workforce.
SA pPremier Jay Weatherill told media yesterday that any repository required broad – and specific – community consent, saying a “comprehensive community engagement process” would be outlined soon.
“This will help the Government form its response to the report,” he said, adding that response would be delivered to Parliament by year’s end, but pleaded with his constituents to “keep an open mind, appraise themselves of the findings within the report and for as many of them as possible to participate in this important debate about SA’s future”
Opposition Leader Steven Marshall also welcomed the report and Scarce’s work on the issue, which he said “laid the ground work for a substantive community debate regarding the recommendations contained in the report”
The Australian Conservation Foundation said the nuclear waste facility plan was “dangerous and divisive and could turn remote SA into a permanent radioactive waste zone”
“The Royal Commission’s final report is deeply disturbing in what it says and what it fails to acknowledge,” ACF campaigner Dave Sweeney said.
He said the “exaggerated economic benefits and under-analysed risks detailed in an Australia Institute critique of the commission’s tentative findings in February have not been adequately addressed by today’s final report”
He urged Weatherill not to use the “flawed” report to advance an “irreversible and highly adverse” nuclear dump plan.
“The essential pre-conditions for storing high level international radioactive waste – bipartisan federal support and broad national community consent – are both missing,” Sweeney said.
Industry response
Minerals Council of Australia executive director – uranium Daniel Zavattiero said attempts by some to tarnish the Commission were both “futile” and “desperate”, adding that the “clear neutrality of this Royal Commission demands that serious attention be paid to its finding and recommendations”
SACOME was confident the public now had the facts to decide the state’s further involvement in the nuclear fuel cycle, particularly as the Commission confirmed the low carbon potential of nuclear power.
“These facilities are engineered to a high standard and are capable of holding nuclear waste indefinitely with no movement to the outside environment,” SACOME CEO Jason Kuchel said.
“I have seen this process first hand and am confident that this industry could be managed exceptionally well in South Australia.
But the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association found the report supportive of natural gas in the low-carbon economy of the future.
Given the report found that nuclear energy would not be commercially viable to supply baseload electricity to the South Australian subregion of the National Electricity Market from 2030, the earliest date for its possible introduction, it focused on renewable energy and gas, and found a new large power plant is not needed in SA.
The report found it is unlikely that Australia could fully decarbonise its electricity sector by 2050 by relying on renewables alone, and would need combined cycle gas turbines.
