Expect weapons-grade NIMBYism as leaders fight over where to store AUKUS nuclear waste

Where should Australia store the waste created by its investment in nuclear-driven submarines? It’s a question no-one knows the answer to yet — although we do know a couple of places where the radioactive waste won’t be stored. As the search for a solution continues, expect politicians to try to kick the radioactive can further down the road — and expect some weapons-grade NIMBYism from state and territory leaders if they’re asked to help out. 

In August last year, plans to build a new nuclear waste storage facility in Kimba in South Australia were scrapped. As Griffith University emeritus professor and nuclear expert Ian Lowe put it in a Conversation piece, “the plan was doomed from the start” — because the government didn’t do adequate community consultation before deciding on the spot. 

Resources Minister Madeleine King acknowledged as much when she told Parliament the government wouldn’t challenge a court decision that sided with traditional owners in Kimba, who opposed the dump: “We have said all along that a National Radioactive Waste Facility requires broad community support … which includes the whole community, including the traditional owners of the land. This is not the case at Kimba.”

Kimba wasn’t even supposed to store the high-level waste that will be created by AUKUS submarines — it was meant to store low-level and intermediate-level waste, the kind generated from nuclear medicine, scientific research, and industrial technologies. As King told Parliament, Australia already has enough low-level waste to fill five Olympic swimming pools, and enough intermediate-level waste for two more pools. 

Where the waste from AUKUS will go is a question without answer. Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles said in March last year the first reactor from a nuclear-powered submarine won’t have to be disposed of until the 2050s. He added the government will set out its process for finding dump sites within a year — which means Marles has until March this year to spill the details. 

“The final storage site of high-level waste resulting from AUKUS remains a mystery,” ANU environmental historian Jessica Urwin told Crikey. “Considering the historical controversies wrought by low- and intermediate-level waste disposal in Australia over many decades, it is hard to see how any Australian government, current or future, will get a high-level waste disposal facility off the ground.”

In his comments last year, Marles gave a hint as to the government’s intentions: he said it would search for sites “on the current or future Defence estate”. 

One such Defence estate site that’s been the focus of some speculation is Woomera in South Australia. “A federal government decision to scrap plans for a nuclear waste dump outside the South Australian town of Kimba has increased speculation it will instead build a bigger facility on Defence land at Woomera that could also accommodate high-level waste from the AUKUS submarines,” the Australian Financial Review reported last year. 

Urwin said such a proposal could trigger local opposition as well.

“Due to Woomera’s proximity to the former Maralinga and Emu Field nuclear testing sites, and therefore its connections to some of the darkest episodes in Australia’s nuclear history, communities impacted by the tests and other nuclear impositions (such as uranium mining) have historically pushed back against the siting of nuclear waste at Woomera,” she said.

Australian Submarine Agency documents released under freedom of information laws in December last year show there is little appetite among state leaders to help solve the conundrum.

A briefing note to Defence secretary Greg Moriarty informed him that “state premiers (Victoria, Western Australia, Queensland, and South Australia) [have sought] to distance their states from being considered as potential locations”. 

“The Victorian and Western Australian premiers have suggested that the waste should go to South Australia due to the majority of jobs from the nuclear‐powered submarine program going to Port Adelaide, and Queensland’s government has noted that nuclear waste dumps are banned in the state,” the note read. “The South Australian premier argued that the decision on a waste location should be informed by the best interest of the nation’s security and by the science.”

Also in December, ABC News reported the HMAS Stirling defence base south of Perth was being eyed as a potential site for nuclear waste storage. But WA Premier Roger Cook told reporters it was far from a done deal: “Around the issue of low-level radioactive waste, well obviously we have significant capability in that, particularly in South Australia, but that will be an issue that will be decided into the future.”

Urwin said it was likely future proposals for dump sites would continue to face community and political resistance. 

“I think dealing with the waste produced by AUKUS will prove even more complicated than previous attempts to dispose of Australia’s nuclear waste — the higher level the waste, the higher the stakes,” she said. 

“Whatever solution the government and experts find to disposing of or storing the waste created by AUKUS, it needs to come with broad community support, garnered through extensive consultation and deliberation.”

Would you, under any circumstances, allow nuclear waste to be stored near your community? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.