Dump World's Nuclear Waste In Australia, Says Ex-PM Hawke 213
mdsolar writes: "[Former Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke said] Australia bore a responsibility to assist with the safe disposal of radioactive waste, given the ample space the country possesses. 'If Australia has – as we do – the safest remote locations for storing the world's nuclear waste, we have a responsibility to make those sites available for this purpose,' he said. Hawke based this conclusion on a 25-year-old report made by Ralph Slayter, whom the former prime minister appointed as Australia's first chief scientist back in 1989. According to Slayter's report, some of the remote reaches of the Northern Territory and Western Australia could provide apt dumping grounds for radioactive waste."
Transportation Hazards (Score:5, Informative)
geological stability (Score:4, Informative)
Re:remote doesn't equal secure (Score:5, Informative)
Nevada's got a fair number of fault lines. I know there was a lot of politics involved in Yucca mountain, but I do know that there are a number of real concerns in regards to fault lines and similar.
Real concerns? No...
There was a fault line discovered after the site was built. But it did not run under the storage facility. It an under a nearby area where waste was supposed to cool before storage. They moved this cooling area to avoid the fault line. There are earthquakes in the area, there are everywhere... Also keep in mind, the size of the seismic activity needed to harm the facility in any way would have to be so large that any hazardous waste leak that resulted from it would be more of an afterthought compared to the destruction from the quake itself.