Royal commission into nuclear will open a world of possibilities
Our preliminary work indicates that when existing, unspent national budgets allocated to managing this material are added up, we quickly reach a sum in excess of A$100 billion.
In a soon-to-be-published paper, we find simple, robust dry-cask storage is now a demonstrated, reliable and recognized solution for holding this material. It can be quickly, readily implemented by South Australia. Importantly, such a facility would mean the material is retrievable, to enable the extraction of further value through recycling.
A modest storage facility of, say, 40,000 MtHM, would be quickly subscribed by our trading partners for near-term revenues in the tens of billions of dollars for Australia. That’s just the beginning.
A nuclear state
In two published, open-access and peer-reviewed papers, one of us (Barry), along with our colleague Professor Corey Bradshaw and other international authors, highlight the potential for commercial demonstration of metal-fuelled, metal-cooled fast reactors in electricity production by 2020.
The reactors and the associated recycling facilities can re-use 99 percent of the spent nuclear fuel material as energy. The revenue from spent fuel imported into Australia by nuclear partners could bankroll these facilities. The electricity could, in principle, be a free commodity for South Australians to share — a virtual side effect from a process that is already vastly profitable.
How much energy could this represent? In preliminary work we find that the 40,000 MtHM of material would provide Australia with electricity for over two centuries via a mature fleet of fast reactors with fuel recycling. The subsequent flow of waste material would be minimal (perhaps 50 MtHM per year), with an easily manageable half-life of just thirty years.
South Australia to the world
A secure, multinational destination for spent fuel, located in a politically and geologically stable country such as Australia, would spur more rapid expansion of current generation reactors. This would displace coal as the fuel of choice in rapidly growing economies.
While boosting South Australia’s uranium industry, a bold initiative like this would also deliver urgently needed cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, improvements in air-quality and sparing land for biodiviersity preservation and food security from coal mining, hydro dams and biofuels.
As the world then transitions to the next-generation fast reactors (and probably other advanced nuclear fission technologies), we will already be leaders in this new global standard in nuclear, ready to re-sell material that we have recycled into new metal fast-reactor fuel.
Our sleeper advantage is our clean slate.
If the nuclear states of the U.S, U.K., France or Japan were commencing developments in the nuclear fuel cycle now, with no historical hindrance or inertia based on established policies, practices and technological path dependencies, and all benefits of knowledge, learning and experience over the past sixty years, what type of nuclear fuel cycle would they design and operate?
That is the envious position South Australia finds itself in in 2015, with a closing window to capitalize on the advantage.
This is a big decision, and one we need to make together. A Royal Commission will provide South Australians with the foundation we need to move forward to greater prosperity in confidence and collaboration, and with the potential to take a leadership role in displacing fossil fuels worldwide.
Ben Heard is Doctoral student at University of Adelaide; Barry W. Brook is Professor of Environmental Sustainability at University of Tasmania. This story is published courtesy of The Conversation (under Creative Commons-Attribution/No derivatives).