Economics Committee - Thursday 23rd October

Senator LUDLAM-I might just perhaps continue on the line that Senator Eggleston was pursuing. Can
you confirm for us that you do not think that your referral under the EPBC Act for the nuclear materials store should qualify as a nuclear action and be caught under EPBC?

Dr Cameron-That is correct. There is a requirement under the act to define whether or not it is a
controlled action under the act. Our judgement is that because of the nature of what we are doing it would not be a controlled action, but, nevertheless, we have to put our submission, and that determination is made by the department. The department has notified us that it agrees with us that it is not a controlled action.

Senator LUDLAM-Why would the construction of a nuclear materials store not be, in your view, a
nuclear installation under the act?

Mr McIntosh-There are two things to be satisfied under the act. For it to be a controlled action, it must be a nuclear action and it must be likely to have a significant impact on the environment. We said that it was a nuclear action but because of the controls in place it was unlikely to have a significant impact on the environment, and the department of the environment has agreed with that assessment. So we are not disputing it is a nuclear action; what we are saying is it is a nuclear action but not a controlled action.

Senator LUDLAM-Is it not the case, though, that while you are consolidating the storage of nuclear
materials in the new store that is yet to be built you will be moving waste materials into places where they have not been stored before? Is that not a consequence? Did I misread what you have said before?

Dr Cameron-No, that is correct; but, of course, we manage radioactive waste and nuclear materials on our site every day of every year, so there are inevitably movements across our site. The determination under the act was whether there was any likelihood of an environmental impact. With the controls which we have in place, there has never been, and there is not likely to be, any environmental impact, and that was an argument which was accepted.

Senator LUDLAM-Can you give us a bit of a sense of the costs, or the annual maintenance and running costs of the new reactor?

Dr Cameron-Yes. The annual operating costs are around $10 million.

Senator LUDLAM-What were the costs of the shutdown? Have you quantified the overall costs of the
10- or 11-month shutdown of the reactor?

Dr Cameron-Yes, we have. Those total costs amount to approximately $14.4 million. However, of that amount, $4 million relates to the costs of importing isotopes; about $4.3 million relates to the cost of new fuel, which is still a contractual issue that we are dealing with between ourselves and the reactor vendor; and about $6 million is related to the loss of income that we might have had if the reactor had been operating and we had been producing isotopes.

Senator LUDLAM-So what is the status of your negotiations with INVAP over cost recovery and liability
issues?

Dr Cameron-Well, those are being conducted under the contract. The contract has the appropriate
remedies and processes that we have to follow for dealing with notification of defects, discussion with the reactor vendors and how that goes, and we have followed the contract and sought appropriate legal advice on doing that. Clearly, initially our view was that the principal aim for us was to resolve the issues as soon as possible. Now the issues of the fuel are resolved, we still are working with the reactor vendor on the issue of the seepage that we discussed earlier, but we are well into the process of negotiation. Those are obviously commercial negotiations, but we will be applying the terms of the contract rigorously.

Senator LUDLAM-Do you have an expected time when those negotiations will be concluded?

Dr Cameron-We would expect that certainly within this financial year we will complete those.

Senator LUDLAM-Okay. Just moving on, can you give us an idea of the current status timelines and
plans for the decommissioning of the former HIFAR reactor on the site?

Dr Cameron-Yes, the process with the HIFAR reactor is it was shut down in January time. We then went through the first stage, which was to remove the fuel and heavy water and some of the other rigs. At that point, really it does not constitute a reactor anymore. We had to apply for changing from an operating licence to a possession and control licence. We made that application to the regulator for a possession and control licence. That possession and control licence has recently been granted. A possession and control licence allows us to what we would call get the reactor into safe enclosure, and that is a process that we are going through now. When that has been done, then we will apply for a licence to decommission it.

Senator LUDLAM-Decommission means demolition-cutting the building up and-

Dr Cameron-Yes, that will be restoration essentially to a greenfield site.

Senator LUDLAM-Okay. Great. What became of the fuel and heavy water from the HIFAR reactor when that was removed?

Dr Cameron-The fuel is removed and then it is actually spent fuel. Under our contract with the United
States, that spent fuel will go back to the United States and there will be no waste returned to Australia. We are planning that final shipment for next year, so next year the final lot of HIFAR fuel will have gone from the site. So there will be no more spent fuel from the HIFAR reactor on the site. The heavy water is in the process of the negotiations with Argentina. We have arranged that they will take the heavy water from the HIFAR reactor. They have a plant in Argentina where they can repurify it and, therefore, reuse it.

Senator LUDLAM-When do you expect that last shipment to go out to the United States?

Dr Cameron-It will go out next year. For reasons of security I am not at liberty to disclose the actual date, but it will be in the first half of next year.

Senator LUDLAM-And it is the case that the material that is sent to the United States-we are not
contracted to return any of the spent fuel that might have gone to France or to Scotland-is contracted to return?

Dr Cameron-Yes, that is correct. This is American-obligated uranium. Because it is American-obligated uranium, the spent fuel goes to the United States, and there is no waste to return to Australia.

Senator LUDLAM-So if we could go back perhaps to where we began, do you believe that you have the capacities and facilities to manage the waste and the other associated radioactive materials on site indefinitely?

Dr Cameron-We can make provision to do that, but currently our existing radioactive waste store
probably has about two years left in terms of capacity. So we are looking at a number of methods to make better use of that capacity. We are doing some supercompaction, and that will reduce our waste volumes, but at some point we will have to decide whether there is a need to build another building.

Senator LUDLAM-In terms of the capacity that you are freeing up or you are proposing to free up with
the new facility that was announced last month, how much more time much does that weigh?

Dr Cameron-That essentially gives us about two years.

Senator LUDLAM-Does ANSTO have first jurisdiction over the nuclear materials that are returned to
Australia from France or from other parties?

Dr Cameron-The material returned from France and the UK is waste from the reprocessing of spent fuel that was sent overseas from ANSTO, so therefore it is ANSTO's waste material.

Senator LUDLAM-And can I just confirm, apart from the material that is scheduled to be sent to the
United States, there is no other spent fuel on site at this time; everything has been sent overseas?

Dr Cameron-In terms of the HIFAR reactor, with this next shipment, all that waste will go overseas. We had another small reactor called Moata, which was a reactor which we used for experiments and some irradiations. There is some spent fuel from that reactor as well. We intend to ship that as well next year. In addition, of course, OPAL is beginning to produce spent fuel. Each time we shut down we change about one or two fuel elements. The intention is that all that will go in a shipment to the United States for the first 10 years of operation.

Senator LUDLAM-Is the OPAL fuel American obligated, or was that eventually to return to Australia?

Dr Cameron-No, that is American-obligated uranium.

Senator LUDLAM-So the fuel from OPAL is not intended to remain in Australia eventually once it has
been reprocessed?

Dr Cameron-Let me just explain that. The Americans have an arrangement called the foreign research reactor take-back program. That program was due to expire, I think, in 2006, and it was extended for 10 years. So up to 2016 that allows for all spent fuel from our reactor to go back to the United States. After 2016 it will either be extended again or we will have to look for alternative arrangements.

Senator LUDLAM-We had better move on. We have a fairly short time. Has ANSTO been involved in
discussions about siting for a nuclear waste facility in the Northern Territory or elsewhere?

Dr Cameron-ANSTO has had a role for a number of years in providing advice to the relevant department on issues to do with criteria that might need to be satisfied for siting, design of nuclear waste stores, issues to do with management of nuclear waste and what you need to do in terms of packaging or repackaging. So we provide technical advice to the department on those issues.

Senator LUDLAM-And it is your understanding that the nuclear waste facility that is intended there
would be for a store for intermediate-level waste but also a long-term repository for the old reactor core and the spent fuel after it is returned?

Dr Cameron-Yes. Government policy, both the previous government and the existing government, is that it will be co-located-a radioactive waste repository and an intermediate-level waste store.

Senator LUDLAM-When are you anticipating the return of the fuel from France?

Mr McIntosh-Can we just go back to the previous question? It is a store for the intermediate-level waste, including the returned waste from the spent fuel, which would be co-located with a low-level waste repository. There is no proposal for a repository for the reprocessing waste.

Senator LUDLAM-There is no proposal for a repository for the reprocessed waste returned from France?

Dr Cameron-The waste returned from France will go to the intermediate-level waste store.

CHAIR-Senator Forshaw.

Senator FORSHAW-Have you concluded?

Senator LUDLAM-No, actually. However, I will come back afterwards.