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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-09-23 Daily Xml
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Grievance Debate

NUCLEAR POWER

Mrs PENFOLD (Flinders) (15:33): The time has come when nuclear power and the Australian people are ready to go forward to provide plentiful clean energy and water for Australia and the world. My observations appear to be supported by a recent Advertiser poll in which 79 per cent of respondents agreed that nuclear power was the way to go in the future. Certainly, according to Independent Weekly reports, the Rudd government is using taxpayer funds to find out how to make nuclear a more acceptable power source.

South Australia has copious quantities of uranium and even more thorium available to build fourth generation large nuclear reactors that could provide Australia with clean power and burn up existing nuclear waste from Australia and overseas. A recent ABC science report drew my attention to the advances in nuclear technology and prompted me once again to draw attention to the need for our state to be part of nuclear solutions for power, water and waste.

Instead of exporting uranium, taking the money and washing our hands of any responsibility for technology, South Australia can and should lead the world in nuclear research and development of fourth generation reactors. Until now, it would have been difficult to bring the Australian public with any government attempts to move in this direction. However, despite the Premier's public opposition to a nuclear plant in South Australia, the very fact that his government has scrapped the two mine policy, approved the Four Mile mine, and the Honeymoon mine is coming into production, clearly shows that we have moved on from past thinking.

While replacing Port Augusta Power Station and putting a reactor there could be seen as the obvious site, I would like to see the first reactor built in the Maralinga prohibited area and used in part to further clean it up. Some of the profits could go back to the displaced local Aboriginal people and also people and their families who were involved in, or affected by, the experiments without knowledge of possible future consequences and not protected from known consequences. These people have had the pain and should reap the gains of using uranium.

Maralinga has a number of advantages, as it is on the railway line that connects Australia north, south, east and west and can be connected to the port at Fowlers Bay. There is also a long, heavy duty airstrip available on-site. Uranium and nuclear waste can easily and safely be brought in from around Australia and overseas and processed, and the power can be connected into Australia's grid. A power transmission DC line across the Nullarbor would make our grid a truly national one, linking east to west.

Old technology reactors leave unburnt more than 99 per cent of the uranium fuel, wasting most of the potential energy and leaving a large quantity of long-lived waste that requires storage in safe remote repositories for thousands of years. However, in his article '4th generation nuclear power', Dr James Hansen stated:

There are two compelling alternatives to address these issues, both of which will be needed in the future. The first is to build reactors that keep the neutrons 'fast' during the fission reactions. These fast reactors can completely burn the uranium. Moreover, they can burn existing long-lived nuclear waste, producing a small volume of waste with a half-life of only several decades, thus largely solving the nuclear waste problem.

I reiterate that the benefits of fourth generation power plant—the uranium—can be completely burnt and assist with the nuclear waste problem, all at a massively reduced cost. Further, Dr Hansen states:

The other compelling alternative is to use thorium as the fuel in thermal reactors. Thorium can be used in ways that practically eliminate buildup of long-lived nuclear waste.

Dr Hansen identifies in his article the Integral Fast Reactor which has been built and tested in Idaho National Laboratory, stating that 'many enhanced safety features are included and have been tested, such as the ability to shutdown safely under even severe accident scenarios'. He also identifies the Liquid-Fluoride Thorium Reactor that that 'uses a chemically-stable fluoride salt for the medium in which nuclear reactions take place', going on to say:

Both the Integral Fast Reactor and the Liquid-Fluoride Thorium Reactor operate at low pressure, which alleviates much of the accident risk, and high temperatures enabling more of the reactor heat to be converted to electricity, unlike today's Light Water Reactors. Both also have the potential to be air cooled and use waste heat for desalinising water.

Being able to provide all the power and water we need to facilitate the mining industry in the north and west of South Australia, plus cleaning up the existing nuclear waste problem while reducing CO2 production may seem too good to be true, but I believe it is true.

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