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SA nuclear dump would boost GDP

Feb 09, 2015
Ziggy Switkowski with the Opal nuclear research reactor at Lucas Heights in Sydney in 2008 - he reported to the Howard Government on the benefits of embracing the nuclear industry.

Ziggy Switkowski with the Opal nuclear research reactor at Lucas Heights in Sydney in 2008 - he reported to the Howard Government on the benefits of embracing the nuclear industry.

A nuclear waste dump in outback South Australia could boost the entire country’s gross domestic product by one per cent, according to an industry advocate.

Ian Hore-Lacy, senior research analyst with the London-based World Nuclear Association, says the prospect of capitalising on an outback waste dump – previously so strongly opposed by the ALP that Mike Rann blocked a 2004 proposal in the Federal Court – “still makes sense to some significant degree, although perhaps not as much as then”.

“You’re looking at sacrificing three to four square kilometres of outback SA, which wouldn’t seem to be a big stretch for anyone who’s driven between Port Augusta and Alice Springs, and it would add about one per cent to Australia’s GDP – so that’s not insignificant,” he said.

But he says SA jumping feet-first into a major role in the nuclear fuel cycle wouldn’t kickstart the stalled expansion of Olympic Dam.

“I don’t think so, not at all,” he said, noting that BHP’s prospects were influenced by the price of commodities rather than transport costs to far-flung markets.

“Once the uranium’s mined and turned into uranium oxide concentrate, or yellowcake, it’s very portable for the amount of energy that’s in it (so) Olympic Dam will continue to export even if the customer were the SA Government … sending it overseas to be enriched is really not a big deal.”

For a self-proclaimed bold venture – establishing a Royal Commission into SA’s nuclear future – Premier Jay Weatherill’s latest gambit is mired in precedent.

“Basically what he seems to be doing is calling for a re-run of Ziggy Switkowski’s report from 2006,” said Hore-Lacy, an environmental scientist and former general manger of the Uranium Information Centre.

Switkowski, a former Telstra chief, was appointed by the Howard Government to report into Australia’s prospects for “Uranium Mining, Processing and Nuclear Energy”. He found a compelling case for increasing the production and sale of uranium and embracing nuclear power.

“The research was very carefully run and very wide-ranging, by a number of high-level people who didn’t have an axe to grind,” Hore-Lacy said.

But he recognises the symbolism of Weatherill – a left-winger historically implacably opposed to all things nuclear – igniting the debate, and says “doing it as a royal commission is likely to give it greater status”.

“It’s significant, but it was just a question of when the penny was going to drop rather than if it would drop,” Hore-Lacy said.

“This kind of thing needs to be led by Labor, like floating the currency (under Hawke/Keating in 1983) needed to be led by Labor – so it’s not seen as some right-wing conspiracy or something.

“Paul Keating brought in some sensible and important initiatives, which could only be brought in by a Labor Government; the same goes for nuclear power. If Australia is to introduce nuclear power it has to be done by a Labor Government.”

And if that happens, he believes the SA economy stands to benefit “hugely”.

“Since 2006, I think SA has become more closely linked with Victoria and the south-east grid, so anything that might be built in SA would be looking beyond SA for selling power; it would be looking at the whole market right up to at least Brisbane,” he said, arguing the “clean energy” case that nuclear power is the “only option” for providing carbon-free baseload electricity.

But Greens advocates are far from convinced.

Greens MLC Mark Parnell says any increased involvement in the nuclear fuel cycle “would damage SA’s ongoing march towards being a renewable energy powerhouse”, and slams the renewed debate as “a distraction from the real issues”.

“Our position is very simple and has been very consistent: Australia should be less involved in the nuclear cycle and not more,” he said.

“The industry is struggling for relevance, especially in the post-Fukushima age, and it’s managed to convince the Government to have a Royal Commission … we can’t see any value in this.”

Weatherill – who only a year ago himself described the nuclear debate as a “dangerous distraction” – has talked down the “economic viability” of nuclear power generation.

He told ABC Radio this morning that was “the least likely outcome of the Royal Commission”.

“I think what’s most likely is that will be regarded as not viable for either the state or the nation … it’s pretty unlikely that we’ll be seeing nuclear energy under any time line within your or my contemplation in either our state or our nation,” he said.

But Hore-Lacy says small-scale reactors are “much more prominent on the world scene than 10 years ago”.

“The advent of small reactors as a viable option is the one new thing from the previous (Switkowski) report; in other respects we’re pretty much in the same position as then,” he said.

Weatherill himself said the looming “threat of climate change” was the “single most important factor” that had opened his mind to the nuclear option, excluding for weapons.

But advocates have already been quick to pounce on the prospect of nuclear-powered submarines, with Family First Senator Bob Day declaring: “Expert opinion tells us that Australia needs 12 new submarines – 6 conventional, and 6 nuclear-powered — not nuclear-armed.”

“Nuclear submarines … have by far superior range and potency than diesel-powered conventional submarines like the Collins class… We could rotate our engineers and workforce through the UK to learn from them, with a view to eventually building those submarines here,” Day said.

Hore-Lacy concurs, noting that Switkowski’s contribution didn’t cover the domestic potential for nuclear powered subs, which would be “so vastly better than anything diesel for Australian conditions … it’s like chalk and cheese”.

But he says the high-profile debate about domestic enrichment has less economic heft.

“The basic situation is there’s a world oversupply on enrichment capacity, and it’s very hard to see any justification for Australian investment in enrichment capacity in under 10 years, minimum,” he said.

“That’s further off I think than nuclear power itself.”

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