Mixed motives in South Australia's nuclear waste import plan

Or so it would seem.

There is another, quieter, message. When you read the Royal Commission's reports, you find that, while the major aim is for a nuclear waste business, in fact, the door is kept open for other parts of the nuclear fuel chain. It recommended:

• Remove existing prohibitions on nuclear power generation
• Monitor developments in new nuclear reactor designs for future consideration

Nuclear power may be necessary, along with other low-carbon generation technologies. It would be wise to plan now to ensure that nuclear power would be available should it be required ....This is likely to include consideration of small modular reactor (SMR) designs, but exclude for the foreseeable future fast reactors and other innovative designs because the generating capacities of SMRs would be attractive to integration in smaller markets, such as in South Australia and in off-grid applications.

Nowhere in the NFCRC report, do they make a link between establishing the waste repository and planning for nuclear reactors. It is as though the two projects are not related. But they are.

The clearest explanation of this came early in 2015, just as the NFCRC was starting, in an ABC Radio National talk by Oscar Archer. He outlined a plan:

Australia establishes the world's first multinational repository for used fuel - what's often called nuclear waste. This is established on the ironclad commitment to develop a fleet of integral fast reactors ...The development of the intermediate repository and the first reactors is funded by our international partners......

By unblocking the back end of the nuclear fuel cycles for our international partners and customers, rapid development in conventional Generation III+ nuclear technology receives a strong boost …

Each PRISM "power block", or set of twin reactors, adds 622 megawatts of saleable zero-carbon generation to Australia which further improves the revenue position. .......The transition to PRISM world-wide is under-way on the back of Australia's pioneering embrace of this technology with support of key partners.

Archer's plan is significant because it illustrates a very important point about South Australia's nuclear waste plan - IT SOLVES A GLOBAL NUCLEAR INDUSTRY PROBLEM. Both in 'already nuclear' countries, especially America, and in the so far non nuclear counties, such as in South Asia, the nuclear industry is stalled because of its nuclear waste problem. In America, the "new small nuclear", such as the PRISM, technologies (Power Reactor Innnovative Small Module) cannot even be tested, without a definite waste disposal solution. But, if South Australia provided not only the solution, but also the first setting up of new small reactors, that would give the industry the necessary boost.

The NFCRC is not recommending Oscar Archer's plan.

However, the significance remains. Once Australia has set up a nuclear waste importing industry, the nuclear reactor salesmen of USA, Canada, South Korea, will have an excellent marketing pitch for South Asia, as the nuclear waste problem has been removed from their shores.. And South Asia is exactly the market that the NCRC has in its sights. The NFCRC eliminated most of the EU, Russia, China, North America as customers. This was explained by Dr Tim Jacobs, of Jacobs Engineering, (financial reporters to the NFCRC), at the recent hearing of the South Australian Parliamentary Joint Committee on Findings of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission .

Globally, the 'conventional' nuclear reactor business is struggling, The ever escalating costs of USA's nuclear reactors being built, of France's Flamanville reactor, and most notable lately, Britain's Hinkley C nuclear fiasco, have cast a gloom over 'big nuclear reactors'

However, this is quite good news for the 'small nuclear' lobby. In the USA, the charge is led by Bill Gates, and a bunch of billionaires, who work to get governments, and taxpayer funding to support their novel nuclear reactor projects. In Britain, the nuclear charity (yes, it has charity status!) the Alvin Weinberg Foundation , and 33 new nuclear companies are practically ecstatic at the news that Teresa May's government is having doubts about Big Nuclear.

Australia has its own cadre of small nuclear enthusiasts. These individuals have, in a short period of time, achieved world recognition as advocates for the various types of new small nuclear reactors. On the international scene, leading lobbyists are the Breakthrough Institute, with their Ecomodernist Manifesto. (They put in a submission to South Australia's NFCRC), and Australian lobbyists Barry Brook and Ben Heard.