Tuesday, 30 January, 2007

ABC News Online

Federal Science Minister Julie Bishop has shut down Australia's first nuclear reactor.

The 50-year-old HIFAR reactor in Sydney's south is being decommissioned to make way for a new research reactor called OPAL.

Ms Bishop paid tribute to the contribution of the reactor to Australian medicine and industry.

She says it is not everyday that you turn off a reactor.

"It was a very exciting moment, quite emotional actually," she said.

"We were inside the HIFAR reactor, there was a countdown, I pushed a red button and formally declared the HIFAR reactor shut down."

Staff past and present gathered to mark the occasion saying a new reactor was long overdue.

ANSTO chief executive Dr Ian Smith says he expects the new reactor to be up and running by April, despite some teething problems in the commissioning phase.

"This is simply a leak of light water coolant into the heavy water, this doesn't constitute a safety hazard," he said.

The Wilderness Society's nuclear spokeswoman, Imogen Zethoven, says the Federal Government should say where it is planning to dump radioactive waste from the decommissioned site.

"We don't believe that the dismantled reactor should be shifted across Australia, through local communities, past people's homes and put in someone's backyard that doesn't want it," she said.

"We actually think that the reactor, now that it's shut down, should stay where it is and be managed locally."