Oscar Archer reports that the entrenched Australian anti-nuclear narrative has crumbled. A federal senator proposes a bold plan for a next-generation nuclear industry in South Australia. Australia does not generate power with nuclear reactors but its single research reactor, operated by ANSTO, is a world-class multi-purpose facility which this year is set to triple its production of medical isotopes. As Senator Edwards pointed out that Australia is already a nuclear nation. The Federal Government runs the reactor in suburban Sydney, 40 km from downtown. The proposal would be to establish a world-first service to accept and store spent nuclear fuel at a site in South Australia, at a price intended to be attractive to the many countries with substantial accumulated waste management funds but no finalized strategy. With the strong emphasis placed on complete recycling of the spent fuel, this is likely to be handled by a sodium-cooled fast reactor of the type exemplified by the PRISM Integral Fast Reactor from GE Hitachi, which would consume all spent fuel.
The new professional sector created and income stream produced would be a boon for the state, but is intended as merely the first stage of the plan. The inherent and engineered safety systems of this design have been described by the Argonne engineers in detail and in brief. It has enjoyed support from a core of pro-nuclear South Australians for some years, most notably the distinguished biologist Professor Barry Brook. In December he and co-author Professor Corey Bradshaw stressed its importance in a paper focusing on ecological sustainability. Seventy-four other distinguished conservation scientists were signatories in a supportive open letter to environmentalists - aka nuclear adversaries. Combined with the purpose-built electro-refinery through which fuel material is pyroprocessed, recycled and fabricated into novel alloy fuel.
Original URL: http://theenergycollective.com/actinideage/2207061/nuclear-australia-through-new-prism
Managed & Built by I2M Consulting, LLC | © 2010-
