Under the cover of darkness a hush-hush load of spent nuclear rods went through Wollongong this week. The future of such shipments from Port Kembla is far from clear, reports BRETT COX

BEING a nuclear-free zone was working pretty well for Wollongong until 159 used fuel elements from the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor passed through its streets on Monday morning.

As expected, the political position adopted by many local governments back when it was trendy to do so in the 1980s proved meaningless.

The spent fuel elements arrived at Port Kembla Harbour around 1.30am via a convoy of trucks that were protected on their journey down the F6, on to Masters Rd and across to the port by 400 state and federal police in helicopters, cars, buses, rubber ducks and boats.

Every road and pedestrian bridge and all vantage points were patrolled by police.

Officially, the security job - estimated by the NSW Greens to have cost more than $240,000 - went perfectly. And indeed, there were no serious problems other than the publication on a website of the co-ordinates of the ship carrying the waste, the MV Lynx, as it sailed from the Illawarra coast.

But for police and port workers not used to such delicate cargo, the listing of the Lynx as the first of eight containers went aboard, the bumping of a truck by a container as the cargo was lifted, and the accidental passing of a road block on Mt Ousley by a Woolworths truck driver didn't pass without notice.

Just mentioning the word nuclear can turn some people green, and so the public concern surrounding the procedure was not unexpected.

Residents were keen to ask the "what if?" question when first notified a nuclear shipment would come through Wollongong.

Others were more comfortable with the procedure and argued the nuclear research and medical benefits meant handling nuclear waste was a necessary evil.

The Mercury has learned the MV Lynx, a purpose-built Danish vessel, is bound for Charleston, South Carolina, in the United States.

The nuclear waste will be transported from there - most likely by train - to the Savannah River Site, a nuclear materials processing centre located some 170km inland.

Marine sources have explained that for security reasons, the Lynx will not travel through the Panama Canal and will instead sail a longer route down and around Cape Horn, in southern Chile, notorious for rough seas.

Monday's shipment was the first nuclear waste to depart from Port Kembla, with the eight previous Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation shipments since 1963 leaving via Port Botany.

With the Obama administration presently indicating it may overturn a long-term policy of deep storage, the fuel elements from Lucas Heights will be stored at Savannah River in a holding area until a firm policy is decided upon.

It could take years.

Historically, spent fuel had always been recycled until President Jimmy Carter became concerned about proliferation in the late 1970s.

Over recent times, Yucca Mountain, a controversial site with a permanent storage facility deep below the Nevada desert, was being prepared for nuclear waste from Australia and around the world.

But Mr Obama's proposed budget has all but killed that $13.5 billion, 22 years-in-the-making project.

"The selection of Yucca Mountain has failed, the time for debate on this site is over, and it is time to start exploring new alternatives for safe, long-term solutions based on sound science," Mr Obama recently said.

In the past 40 years there have been some 7000 shipments, globally, of used nuclear fuel.

ANSTO sources its uranium from overseas, which is processed and delivered as fuel elements for its reactor.

ANSTO chief of operations Ron Cameron says fuel elements are not dangerous.

"They just come in on normal transport and could be picked up by hand," he said.

After Monday's shipment of the spent elements back out, there are no longer fuel elements left at Lucas Heights and the next shipment will not need to leave Australian shores for five years or longer. It may well go through Port Kembla, but it is too early to say.

"Uranium is a very well controlled material," Dr Cameron said. "And because this uranium originated in the US it has to go back there. We essentially buy it from them but the obligation remains that it goes back."

ANSTO does store radioactive materials classified as medium and low-level wastes. Both are expected to be eventually moved to a proposed permanent store for Commonwealth radioactive waste, possibly in the Northern Territory.

Dr Cameron says security arrangements surrounding the transportation of nuclear waste are far reaching.

"Nuclear material transport and storage comes under international guidelines so essentially people have to comply with those guidelines and the security arrangements," he said.

If there is a policy shift towards the reprocessing of fuel elements that come out of a reactor, potentially 95 per cent of the element is uranium that can be recycled.

Of the 5 per cent waste, 1 per cent is waste with a life of several hundred thousand years.

The storage issue is not just one for the US and Europe - it has become a pressing one for Australia too.

Unlike the most recent shipment through Port Kembla, which will remain in the US, past shipments have been sent overseas just for reprocessing and are due to return.

In 2011, the first shipment of Australia's reprocessed low and intermediate level waste is due back from Scotland and France and needs to be stored here, based on an agreement signed in the 1990s.

The Federal Government has committed to identifying a long-term storage location.

Where this will be will determine which port will be used for the shipment.

A spokesman for Federal Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson said the waste Australia needed to deal with had at one time been used by ANSTO, the CSIRO or hospitals around the country.

"Australia is the second biggest uranium exporter but it's important to make the point that if that uranium goes overseas and another country uses it (for nuclear fuel etc), it is their responsibility and not ours," he said.

Dr Cameron said the storage issue is one that cannot be ignored.

"Clearly every country has a responsibility for dealing with their own waste so you can't get away from that," he said.

Caption :Three photos: All over: The Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site won't be taking Australia's nuclear waste. US President Barack Obama is looking for alternatives. Changes: Barack Obama wants new nuclear waste solutions. Picture: REUTERS The departure: The MV Lynx at Port Kembla on Monday morning.