Professor Ian Lowe

Emeritus Professor of Science, Technology and Society at Griffith University and former President of the Australian Conservation Foundation. He was a member of the Royal Commission's Expert Advisory Committee

今回の調査で重大な発見は、核燃料サイクル活動の開発が成功するには、地域の同意が不可欠であるという点です。

レポートでは、今のところウラン鉱山が南オーストラリアにそれほど寄与していないことが示されました。Roxby Downsが世界最大のウラン生産地であるにもかかわらず、南オーストラリアに入る使用料は国民一人当たり年間約４＄にすぎません。委員会は地域のウラン処理にはほとんどメリットがないとして、原子力は経済的に実現不可能であると判断しています。

一方で、南オーストラリアは日本、台湾、韓国などからの放射性廃棄物の受入れ施設の建設を検討すべきとの提案をしています。委員会では、この選択は高い収益が見込まれると言っていますが、それは、日本などが廃棄物処分に多くの費用をかけるだろうという曖昧な仮定に基づいたものといえます。オーストラリア研究所による分析は、これらの仮定や結論には疑問が残るとしています。

原文

"The crucial finding of the Royal Commission is that community consent would be essential to the successful development of any nuclear fuel cycle activities. It says “Long-term political decision-making, with bipartisan support at both state and federal government levels, would be a prerequisite”. It is difficult to see how bipartisan support at both levels would be achieved for South Australia being more deeply involved in the nuclear industry.

It notes that uranium mining currently contributes relatively little to South Australia. Despite Roxby Downs being one of the largest uranium producers in the world, its royalties are about $4 a year for each South Australian. The Commission sees little prospect of local processing of uranium and correctly observes that nuclear power is not economically feasible. The Switkowski report in 2007 found that significant public subsidies would be needed to make nuclear power economic in Australia.

The most serious proposal in the Commission’s tentative findings is that SA should consider setting up shop as a destination for radioactive waste from countries like Japan, Taiwan and South Korea. The Commission believes that this could be a profitable operation, but that belief is based on generous assumptions about the willingness of those countries to pay for the removal of their waste. Independent analysis by The Australia Institute questions those assumptions and concludes the operation would probably not be profitable. The Commission also notes “there are no operating models for the commercial transfer of used fuel for disposal. Any proposal to store and dispose of used fuel in South Australia would require agreements between customer countries and both the federal and state governments”. That is a big hurdle, as is the acknowledgement that “any development would require sophisticated planning and consent-based decision-making, acknowledging the particular interests and experiences of regional, remote and Aboriginal communities.

So the report gives a red light for nuclear power, a tentative amber light for expanding uranium mining, a red light for further processing of uranium for export, then a very tentative and heavily qualified amber light for the SA State government’s concept of setting up as the destination for east Asia’s radioactive waste."

Associate Professor Mark Diesendorf

Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies at the University of New South Wales.

委員会の報告書は、南オーストラリアにおいて、原子力発電が商業的に実現不可能であるとしています。ただし、海外由来の高・中レベル放射性廃棄物の管理と処理を受け入れることについては可能性を見出すものになっています。これらを受け入れる場合には、地上にある使用済み核燃料の中間貯蔵施設と地下の最終処分場を組み合わせる想定とのことです。ただし、収益性の根拠は強固ではなく、原子力発電所の所有国がもつ暫定貯蔵施設に保管された廃棄物量に基づくといえるでしょう。なお、報告書では、地下処分施設の建設と管理に成功した国がまだないという事実には触れられていません。

原文

"The Royal Commission’s report acknowledges that nuclear electricity is not commercially viable in South Australia. However, it expresses great enthusiasm for the management and disposal of overseas-produced high-level and intermediate level nuclear wastes in South Australia. It supports a combination of above-ground interim storage of dry casks together with underground ‘permanent’ storage. The rationale for this economically risky scheme is slender, being based on the quantities of wastes held in temporary storage by countries with nuclear power stations. The report is not troubled by the fact that no country, not even the USA, has so far succeeded in building and operating an underground waste dump.

It fails to address the points raised by the Australia Institute, questioning, for example, why nuclear countries would pay to export their wastes when it may be cheaper to manage them at home. The economic analysis justifying this scheme is a single 2016 study, most of whose assumptions are not stated in the Commission’s report. The Commission discusses the alleged benefits of this scheme, while failing to acknowledge the economic risks of Australia managing high-level wastes for hundreds of thousands of years by means of unproven technologies and social institutions."