Australia’s rocky nuclear past and uncertain future

Federal nuclear policies and South Australia’s royal commission

While a dramatic expansion of Australia’s nuclear infrastructure is not on the cards, there has been a gradual shift in favor of a pro-nuclear policy in Australia over the past decade, as demonstrated by a series of federal government activities and decisions by the country’s two major political parties. This shift has been relatively small and its impact has been limited (primarily due to changes of government and Australian responses to the Fukushima nuclear disaster), but its roots can be found in a 2006 nuclear review that was undertaken during Prime Minister John Howard’s Liberal administration. (In Australia, the word “liberal” refers to liberating the economy, limiting government intervention, and cutting taxes and social programs; Liberal Party politics are what Americans term “conservative.”) The review explored the advantages of expanding Australia’s nuclear footprint and concluded that restrictions on Australia’s uranium sector should be lifted; it said that nuclear power would be “a practical option for part of Australia’s electricity production” if public opposition could be overcome (Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, 2006).

Although the Australian Labor Party (ALP) strongly criticized the 2006 review while it was out of power, after it was back in the halls of government it softened its position. The new Kevin Rudd government maintained Labor’s hostility to nuclear energy development, but in 2007 voted to overturn a previous Labor policy that had restricted the size of Australia’s uranium mining industry; this decision freed Australian state governments to make their own decisions about uranium mining and production. In 2011, the ALP made a further policy change under Julia Gillard’s leadership, voting to overturn Australia’s ban on exporting uranium to India. By September 2014, this decision allowed for the signing of a civilian nuclear cooperation deal between India and Australia under the premiership of the current Liberal prime minister, Tony Abbott. (Although the deal’s details are still being finalized, the Abbott government favors its “early conclusion.”)

While these developments at the federal level are noteworthy and show a growth in bipartisan support for further exploiting Australia’s uranium reserves, they are limited in scope, and generated only short-lived controversy. The recent launch of the royal commission, however, has been more headline-grabbing, and may prove more contentious.

On the state level, South Australia has had a colorful and widely-publicized change of heart about nuclear energy policy. The state’s former (Labor) premier, Mike Rann, was an outspoken anti-nuclear campaigner, who famously waged a successful legal battle to stop a federal plan to site a radioactive waste dump near the Woomera Prohibited Area in South Australia—the largest land-based weapons-testing range in the world (Australian Defense Department, 2015). But the state’s current premier, Jay Weatherill—also of the Labor party—has no such qualms. Although Weatherill says he personally doubts whether a strong business case can be made for developing nuclear energy due to the vast infrastructure costs, he is keen to explore the full range of commercial opportunities that the nuclear fuel cycle could offer South Australia. Some of his enthusiasm may be being driven by nervousness about the future of South Australia’s economy following the imminent shutdown of its automobile manufacturing sector, although South Australia treasurer and resources minister Tom Koutsantonis denies that this is a factor (Australian Associated Press, 2015; Hagemann, 2015).

The federal government has enthusiastically backed South Australia’s royal commission, with prime minister Tony Abbott describing it as “a gale of common sense.” In a concrete demonstration of its support, Abbott pledged the cooperation of federal government agencies to assist the royal commission in evaluating four areas of the fuel cycle: uranium exploration, extraction, and milling; processing and manufacturing of radioactive and nuclear substances; electricity generation from nuclear fuels; and the management, storage, and disposal of nuclear and radioactive waste (Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission, 2015).

But while significant, this support does not signal the emergence of a formal, bipartisan consensus on Australia’s nuclear future. Even though the royal commission has been set up as an independent, nonpartisan organization to provide a comprehensive look into the pros and cons of expanding Australia’s nuclear infrastructure, the federal Labor party has not backed it, and has reaffirmed its opposition to nuclear energy in Australia—despite rogue exceptions such as Weatherill (Nadin, 2015). So, although the commission might be causing a fizz of excitement among pro-nuclear domestic and international audiences—and trepidation among others—concrete change is far from guaranteed. There could well be some further expansion of the uranium mining sector, depending on market demand and community support, and it is also possible that the long-standing problem of where to store Australia’s radioactive waste could finally be resolved. But the loud voices calling for more ambitious change are likely to be disappointed, because the more far-reaching proposals are likely to end up firmly back on the shelf.

A cautious, fearful Australian public

The country’s most significant obstacle to nuclear expansion is probably Australian public opinion. Beyond the small pro-nuclear lobby, the Australian public is extremely wary of nuclear technology in general—a fact that is seared into the consciousness of the political elite in Canberra, the nation’s capital. Over the past 60 years, a serious trust deficit has grown between the nuclear industry and the Australian people due to a series of blunders and abuses; this history has left a legacy that has bred widespread cynicism toward all things nuclear. Those calling for Australia to exploit opportunities related to the nuclear fuel cycle often rail against this cynicism, arguing that it is outdated, not grounded in fact, and holding Australia back from exploiting its natural advantages in the nuclear sphere. They wish the Australian public would “move on” and hope that a cool-headed debate based on recent scientific research will encourage a change of heart. But they are asking a lot.

The negative perceptions of the nuclear industry are rooted in one of the bleakest episodes in Australian history: the green light given by the government to allow the United Kingdom to conduct 12 nuclear tests on Australian territory in the 1950s. Most of these nuclear weapons tests took place at Maralinga in South Australia, without the consent of local aboriginal communities and with scant concern for their welfare (Nelson, 1992). While Australian proponents of nuclear expansion feel exasperated when they see this decades-old issue raised again and again, any attempt to understand the country’s deeply divided nuclear debate needs to begin with an awareness of the anger and shame attached to this episode—the callousness, incompetence, and ignorance of which was exposed by a royal commission in 1985. A long-term contamination problem means that Maralinga remains etched in the public consciousness more than 60 years later: As recently as 2002, Australian nuclear engineer and whistleblower Alan Parkinson declared on Australian national radio that “[the clean-up operation at] Maralinga was a cheap and nasty solution that wouldn’t be adopted on white-fellas’ land” (Green, 2012).

The pattern of behavior that allowed the Maralinga abuses to occur has been evident in Australia’s uranium mining sector, and in particular at Australia’s largest uranium mine, Ranger, which is located in World Heritage-listed Kakadu National Park. In the 1970s, the traditional aboriginal owners of the land opposed the development of the mine, due to fears of contamination and doubts over the rehabilitation of the land, which is close to unique historical sites that are visited by thousands of domestic and international tourists each year. Amid strong local opposition, and a powerful ethical case not to mine uranium in Kakadu, the federal government legislated for the development of the mine—a decision which continues to provoke local sensitivities and to shock visitors to Kakadu.

Despite this unhappy legacy, the nuclear industry has continued to push forward plans to develop further mines in the area, which is rich in high-grade uranium deposits, sparking national and international campaigns to prevent a repeat of the 1976 Ranger decision. So far, these efforts have succeeded, but the Ranger mine remains in the national spotlight due to security breaches, a 2013 radioactive spill (which caused slurry containing ground uranium ore and sulfuric acid to spill into the site’s processing area), and the controversial 2014 Annual Report of the mine operator, Energy Resources of Australia (ERA). The latter questioned whether ERA can afford to rehabilitate the Ranger site and if not, whether the mine’s majority shareholder, Rio Tinto, will take responsibility for the rehabilitation work (Stevens, 2015).

As independent studies have confirmed, these and other disturbing legacies from overseas (especially revelations of government and industry complacency and incompetence) frame the context of any discussion of Australia’s nuclear future (Stehlik, 2010: ii). This is difficult to change, partly due to the actions of the uranium mining sector, which has been trying to build trust but often seems to shoot itself in the foot: The lack of certainty over the rehabilitation of the Ranger mine is a case in point.

But there are other reasons why opinion is slow to change, including the fact that those trying to shift the debate in Australia are mostly older white males, whose arguments, even when presented as rational and evidence-based, have limited appeal across Australia’s diverse population. This might seem a controversial point, but it is widely accepted among the Australian expert community as a significant barrier to change. ¹

Over the last decade, proponents have used scientific studies that present nuclear energy as a low-carbon, climate-friendly alternative to fossil fuels to try to cast the nuclear debate in a more positive light in Australia (Brook and Wigley, 2013; Krieg, 2014). The strategy has been to steer public focus away from past mistakes and to emphasize the potential for Australia’s nuclear industry to help reform Australia’s emissions-intensive electricity sector and assuage the discomfort that some (especially younger) Australians feel over their country’s status as the world’s largest exporter of coal (Geoscience Australia, 2015; U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2011). ² An online survey conducted by researchers at the Risk Frontiers research center at Australia’s Macquarie University in 2010 suggested that the debate might have started to shift in this direction, if only minimally. (It also found that Australians prefer to look to renewable energy technologies to reduce their country’s massive carbon footprint (Bird et al., 2014).) According to a 2012 survey by the same research group, however, the Fukushima disaster stopped any positive reevaluation of nuclear technology dead in its tracks: Earlier signs of a slight shift toward “reluctant acceptance” of nuclear technology as a potential future energy source had gone, and concerns over the health risks posed by nuclear technologies had increased (Bird et al., 2014).

Australia’s radioactive waste storage problem

The most likely outcome of the royal commission is that it will raise the public profile of nuclear issues in Australia for a couple of years, sparking serious debate over its more moderate proposals and provoking controversy over the rest. If it does nothing else, it will hopefully raise awareness of the urgent need to resolve Australia’s ongoing radioactive waste problem: the lack of a permanent national facility to store and dispose of the low- and intermediate-level waste that has built up over 60 years of defense, medical, and mining activities. Winning public support for a plan to build a national waste facility is not an easy task (it has failed in the past) and would be a very significant outcome, ending decades of uncertainty. It might sound like a modest contribution to international onlookers, but the reality is that the commission is unlikely to achieve much more. Those concerned about competition from Australia, with all its natural advantages, entering the nuclear energy field need not worry. Equally, those hoping to benefit from a nuclear bonanza down under had better rein in their expectations.

The nuclear and radioactive waste issue offers the perfect illustration of how international perceptions of what might be possible in Australia clash with the reality on the ground. The idea of siting an international waste repository in Australia—which has been circulating for decades, and might have received some impetus from official US pressure on Australia to help find a safe and secure waste storage site ³ —has never been a serious prospect, despite efforts by influential advocates such as South Australian Senator Sean Edwards and former Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke to drum up support. ⁴

Beyond Australia’s shores, the idea is welcomed by experts and commentators who see it as a potential solution to the serious waste problem faced by many countries. In fact, one energy pundit recently congratulated Australia for “stepping up to earn a major fortune dealing with [the world’s nuclear waste], while the United States and many other industrialized nations are dithering over how to deal with their[s]” (McDonald, 2015). But such comments fail to take into account the extreme sensitivities of the Australian public over plans to develop a permanent site to host its own radioactive waste, let alone the notion of transporting and storing high-level nuclear waste from other countries. The reality, despite the enthusiasm and spin of a small group of wealthy business leaders, scientists, and politicians, is that Australia’s relationship with the nuclear fuel cycle has always been rocky, and is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future.