A nuclear waste jobs bonanza for regional South Australia?

Previous governments said that waste would be sent to the facility just once every 3 - 5 years. For example, the government said in 2003 that waste would be transferred to the facility just once every five years: "It is considered for planning purposes that an average period of 5 years between campaigns will be appropriate" (Volume III of DEST application to ARPANSA, Ch.9, 'Waste - Transfer and Documentation', p.5).

In a recent attack on me for questioning its estimate of 45 jobs, the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science said it was unable to locate any previous government documents regarding periodic, campaign-based plans. The federal government can't find federal government documents? Seriously?

The government says that it wants continuous operation of the repository (for reasons unexplained) rather than a periodic, campaign-based approach. But even so, the government only plans to shift waste to the facility once or twice each year according to a 2016 document. A July 2018 government document states: "This facility will be an operational facility and not as some have suggested, a minimally crewed warehouse to be opened once or twice a year." But it is the government itself which says that waste will only be transported to the facility once or twice each year!

Broader economic impacts

The government is promising a $31 million compensation package for the community around the chosen site for the waste facility. The government is preying on people's worst instincts, asking them to put their own short-term interests ahead of the interests of future generations. The compensation amounts to a little over $100,000 each year over the 300-year lifespan of the waste facility. That amount of money would impact on the life of an individual or a family - but it will do next to nothing to improve a regional community.

And of course the funding won't be spread evenly over 300 years - it will likely be gone within a decade and future generations will see none of it.

The $31 million includes "up to $3 million for indigenous skills training and cultural heritage protection." As the Australia Institute notes in a recent report, that sum is not much greater than the amount of money cut from the Aboriginal Drug and Alcohol Council in Port Augusta earlier this year, and it is negligible compared to cuts in recent years such as the May 2017 cut of $147 million over four years from Indigenous Business Australia, or the May 2014 cut of $534 million over four years from indigenous programs.

The Australia Institute also questions construction cost estimates: "An earlier announcement had the construction cost at $100 million, with a workforce of 15 people. A year later both the construction cost and workforce have tripled - to $325 million and 45 people - without any change in the basic scope of the project."

As with the job estimates, the estimated construction cost is wildly divergent when compared to overseas facilities. The Australia Institute report states::

Canada is planning a radioactive waste storage facility at Chalk River, Ontario, that is orders of magnitude bigger ... The proposed Canadian facility is more than one hundred times larger, more complex with its underground storage and ancillary facilities, yet its planned construction cost is just CAD$215 million (AUD$222 million), with a CAD$5.5 million operating cost (AUD$5.7 million). ...

The economic puzzle here is how a facility one hundred times smaller, with fewer ancillary functions, costs 50% more to construct and operate? Either these costs are orders of magnitude too high, or the proposed radioactive waste storage facility is orders of magnitude larger than required to handle Australia current and foreseeable future radioactive waste over the next century."

It's entirely plausible that 45 jobs will be maintained while the backlog of approximately 6,700 m3 of radioactive waste is transported to one of the proposed sites in SA and processed. Beyond that, it is entirely implausible.