Wednesday 24 May 2006
ABC Victoria
Reporter: Irene Scott

The Australian institute of public policy has flagged fives sites in Australia for a nuclear waste dump; Portland is on the list.

Is Portland a likely candidate for the site of Australia's first nuclear waste facility?

Before all the residents of Portland start building nuclear safe bunkers, there is one thing we must stress; there still has been no official decision whether or not Australia will even be accepting nuclear waste, so any discussion of a site for a waste facility is, at this time, hypothetical.

However, with that in mind, the Prime Minister has made it clear that Australia will develop a nuclear power facility in the coming decades and has opened discussion into the feasibility of this industry.

We hypothesised on the program last week that Victoria could develop a waste facility to generate further income for the state. However, considering there is still strong debate into where a toxic waste facility should be built, surely the debate into the location of a nuclear waste facility would be just as vicious.

Dr Clive Hamilton, Australian institute of public policy, claims that if Australia is serious about the Nuclear industry, then now was the time to investigate sites for a waste facility.

Check list for a nuclear waste site: 1- Water supply 2- Near an existing electricity grid 3- near a major electrical load centre 4- Good port facilities

The public policy think tank pointed to several sites within Australia including Port Stephens, the Central Coast, the area south of Wollongong, Western Port in Melbourne, the Sunshine Coast in QLD and Portland.

Could Portland, a tiny, western Victorian seaside hamlet become home to Australia's first nuclear waste facility?

"I dare say there's a pretty strong development lobby group in Portland that could be cheering." Dr Hamilton says. "On the other hand, I don't think there would be too many people who would welcome a (nuclear) power plant in their backyard or even within several kilometres of it."

"But the reality is that if we're going to have nuclear power in Australia, the plant's going to need to be on the coast, and that's we're the majority of Australians want to live. So it's going to be hard to find places that are a long way from populated areas."

So if it's a reality, how do we decide which parcel of prime coastal property should house the nuclear no-no.

"We consulted a number of energy experts and asked them what the criteria are for the siting of a nuclear power plant. There are four or five main ones; first of all you need very large volumes of water to cool the nuclear reactor both in it's normal operation and if there's an emergency. So that means in Australia it needs to be near the coast."

"Secondly you need to be near major transmission lines. In other words, you need to be near the existing grid, the national electricity market, otherwise you'd have to build major infrastructure to connect up to the grid which would add a lot of cost."

If the government is serious about developing a nuclear industry in Australia then Portland would be looking like a very attractive prospect

"You also need to be close to a major load centre. In other words, a big demander of electric power. Of course in Portland you've got a huge one down there with the smelter."

"It also needs good port facilities because it's likely that the fuel rods that would power the station would be imported by sea and then would need to be transported either on those huge low loaders they use or possibly by train."

"So Portland meets all of those criteria very well. I would have thought that if the government is serious about developing a nuclear industry in Australia."

And serious is exactly what the Government is. They've set up a committee to explore the industries feasibility for Australia and the Democrats are calling for a Senate inquiry. Economically this could be highly beneficial to Australia, but is it the direction we should be heading?

Some senior ministers have been speaking very strongly in favour of, not just a debate, but for nuclear power itself

"We don't take strong stand one way or another." Dr Hamilton says. "I think we're economists mostly and we tend to focus on the economics of it and I think that nuclear power is probably a pretty expensive way to go if we want reduce our greenhouse gases. There are much cheaper, and dare I say it, much safer ways of doing it with renewable energy."

"For a while some of the commentators were saying that it was a bit of a shadow play the Government was engaged in, but it is looking a bit hairy now with the Prime Minister on several occasions saying we need a serious debate and setting up this internal inquiry."

"Some senior ministers have been speaking very strongly in favour of, not just a debate, but for nuclear power itself. With some even talking about 15 years or so we would expect to have some sort of nuclear power plants cropping up in Australia."

"I think we need to take this seriously, and we've entered this debate… by saying 'lets have an honest debate and not talk about nuclear power in the abstract, because we're going to have a nuclear industry in Australia and we're going to have to put the nuclear power plant somewhere'."