Where should nuclear power stations and nuclear waste dumps be located, in Australia? In the heart of our largest city, Sydney.
Oh but what if there is an accident? Well if there is any, any, chance of an accident – then we must not have a nuclear power station or nuclear waste dump in Australia at all. Northern Australia is full of uranium, and under the ground is where it should stay. Exposure to too much radiation has devastating consequences and the problem lasts for many, many years.
It doesn’t matter where in Australia you are, there are people, animals, birds, plants and other organisms that would be adversely affected by nuclear radiation. And the remoter the area, the less affected by human settlement it is, so it is all the more worth protecting from pollution of any kind. The argument from capital city residents has been that nuclear industry should be located in remote areas, ‘where no-one lives’. As if it doesn’t matter that a pristine environment and remote area residents are put at risk. Capital cities are the most highly degraded environments in Australia and obviously it is smart to have any potentially polluting industry located right where the most people (and most people with power to do something about it if there’s a problem) have a vested interest in ensuring it is tightly run. ‘Out of sight out of mind’, in a remote area, is the very last place you’d locate any industry with potentially devastating pollution consequences. (How the mines have virtually got away with polluting north west Queensland, through leaking tailings dams and lead emissions, is a good example of what can happen.)
Nuclear power plants should only be located where:
- There are never any naturally occurring events such as earthquakes, floods, fires, tsunamis, cyclones, hurricanes, typhoons, tornadoes, massive snowstorms and volcanic eruptions.
- There are enough employable people who are absolutely perfect. I.e. they never make mistakes of any kind, are utterly incorruptible, even when under extreme stress (eg a child needing an expensive medical procedure that they can’t afford), and are guaranteed to never have a mental health issue.
I think that rules out the whole planet and the whole population?
Unfortunately for Australia, there are nuclear power plants planned a rock’s throw from our coast – in Indonesia, and also the Philippines. Guess where some of the world’s largest volcanic eruptions and earthquakes have occurred, within the last 200 years? During the dry season (March-Oct, approx), the prevailing winds in Western Australia’s West Kimberley region are from the east/south east; however during the wet season the winds generally blow from the west to north. A volcanic eruption decimating a nuclear power plant in Indonesia, during the wet season, could be catastrophic for our northern/northwestern coastline.
As for the business of the Australian Federal Government paying off an indigenous group to dump radioactive material on their land (Muckaty Station near Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory)…it’s such an appallingly low act it’s not even worth commenting on, other than to say: if the radioactive waste is of such a low level that it poses little risk, then keep it at Lucas Heights (Sydney). Or keep it near Rushcutters Bay, or Kirribili or Toorak. Don’t want it there? Remote area residents don’t want it on their back doorstep either.
I don’t know how some of these people can lay straight in bed at night. The bottom line is this: politicians tell people living in remote areas that the nuclear waste they want to dump is ‘very low grade and very unlikely to pose a health risk’. If that is so, why are they wanting to put it as far away from where they live themselves, as possible? The lack of logic would be laughable if it wasn’t such a serious issue.
Australians need to wake up and educate themselves, and realise that so often these issues are driven by vested interests – i.e. businesspeople who stand to profit handsomely. In this case, it is mining interests and those who would profit from the building of nuclear power plants. Plant variety rights, genetic modification of plants and carbon trading schemes are a other classic examples of issues pushed by vested interests. The people pushing these barrows are only interested in their own short-term interests (profit), they are not interested in the long term good nor the good of anyone other than themselves. Don’t swallow the ‘it’s for your own good’ argument – look the gift horse in the mouth. You’ll only find a mouthful of rotting gums.
If nothing else, read your insurance policies. Do they specifically rule out claims against personal or property damage that is nuclear-accident related? Why?
No insurance company or underwriters will touch it with a mile-long pole, because the potential cost of a nuclear disaster is unimaginably high.