Forget Yucca Mountain

WHEN you hear the words ‘nuclear facility’, Chernobyl and Fukushima spring to mind.

So it’s no wonder many Aussies baulk at the thought of producing this radioactive material, let alone storing it in our backyard.

But this scenario will soon become a reality as the Commonwealth pushes ahead with plans to build our first nuclear waste dump — just where it is to be located remains the sticking point.

Well, not in our backyard, certainly mate !  Damn foreigners forcing their nuclear waste us on sensible coal-burnin' Aussies !

...at the end of next month around 28 steel canisters of reprocessed nuclear waste is set to return home from France and the government needs to find somewhere to put it.

Australia produces nuclear waste in the form of medical byproducts, and spent nuclear fuel from its research reactor. We don’t have the facilities to process it here, so it is sent offshore. Under international agreements, the processed material has to be returned to Australia and stored here.

But speaking of which...a dump for nuclear waste in Australia, huh ?  An almost entirely desertified island-continent...

...with an almost uninhabited interior and the vast majority of its population on the coast...

Why aren't we sending ALL our nuclear waste to Australia ?  C'mon guys, you know you need a second economic outlet as China's economy starts to stall and they don't want quite so much coal and cattle anymore.  Win-Win !

And while the storage facility will only house Australian nuclear waste, Mr O’Neill said Gindalbie was open to storing international waste if the government allowed.

“If we can meet the requirements and there is a profit in it and it can be undertaken safely and everybody was on side, then yes we would (be open to it),” he said.

At present, a Royal Commission is being held in South Australia to examine the feasibility of developing a nuclear storage facility which would house not only our waste but international waste.

There ya go !

*For any Americans reading this, I didn't bother identifying Australia on the maps, but it's the big island in the lower right...No, no, those are New Zealand...No, that's New Guinea.  The.  Big.  One.**

**Just kidding.  I would never mock anyone based on national stereotypes.  Ever.  Honest.***

*** But apropos of nothing, what's up with the Brits. and their terrible teeth ?