<
https://reneweconomy.com.au/nuclear-waste-management-could-add-billions-to-electricity-supply-costs/>
"Handling and storing nuclear waste could add significant costs to Australia’s
future energy bills, an inquiry has heard, with Canada set to spend $26 billion
to safely store depleted fuel from its reactors.
The cost and time to build nuclear power plants in Australia also remained a
mystery, two academics told the Nuclear Power Generation inquiry on Thursday,
including the demands of small modular reactors proposed for two states.
The testimony comes on the third hearing of the nuclear energy inquiry, created
in October after federal Liberal leader Peter Dutton announced plans to
establish nuclear power plants in seven Australian locations after the next
election.
But the details of an Australian switch from a renewable energy future to one
powered by nuclear plants remain unclear, with the inquiry set to probe
financial, technical, legal and environmental impacts of a change.
York University environmental studies Professor Mark Winfield told MPs the
Canadian experience had been a troubling and expensive one, with its seven
nuclear plants now reduced to four in operation.
Canada also faced a bill of $26 billion to handle, move and safely store wasted
nuclear fuel, he said, of which the country had three million bundles and
produced between 85,000 and 90,000 each year.
The bundles, he said, were about the size of a small log.
“It’s physically hot when it comes to the reactor, it’s also highly radioactive
when it comes out of the reactor, the swimming pools are supposed to be for the
first 50 years or so, while it cools down a bit,” Prof Winfield told the
committee.
“The nuclear waste management organisations planning assumption then is that
long-term management or disposal would need to occur on a time frame of a
million years.”"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
