SA is the best place in the world to take advantage of a nuclear industry explosion | Alexander Downer

South Australia could be helping the world become carbon free without plunging us back into the dark ages, but activists can’t see common sense, writes Alexander Downer.

If ever there was an example of bipartisanship it’s AUKUS, the plan to build a new generation of nuclear powered submarines in Adelaide.

After all, it sounds visionary to promise such a huge and technologically sophisticated project for South Australia.

This promise has all the verisimilitude of net zero by 2050.

That too sounds visionary. But to achieve either of these objectives will require hard and often unpopular decisions.

There is no doubt AUKUS will be both technologically and financially challenging and it’s debatable that we can meet those challenges for a reasonable price.

But whether we do or not, Australia will certainly acquire several nuclear powered submarines over the next few years even if they’re built in the US or the UK. And that raises an unpopular question. Where will we store the nuclear waste? This is a great opportunity for South Australia.

Back in 2015, Jay Weatherill commissioned the former governor Kevin Scarce to chair a Royal Commission into South Australia’s role in the nuclear fuel cycle.

He concluded that not only does South Australia have the geology and the space for the storage of low level nuclear waste but that storage could be a repository for high-level waste.

Kevin Scarce’s Royal Commission estimated South Australia could earn tens of billions of dollars from a nuclear storage facility if it serviced not just Australia but other parts of the world.

After all, whatever you think about the adoption of nuclear power in Australia, nuclear power worldwide is a reality.

TELL US WHY IN THE COMMENTS

Nuclear waste has to be stored somewhere and it’s best for global security for that waste to be stored somewhere which is geologically stable, remote from densely populated communities, is politically predictable and stable and operates in a secure environment.

There’s nowhere else on earth that meets those criteria like South Australia.

At the moment, nuclear waste in Europe and Asia is stored near civil populations and is vulnerable to security risks.

The financial benefits for the state would be enormous.

For a relatively small investment in a publicly owned storage facility, SA would earn enough money to transform our hospitals and aged care facilities, upgrade our roads and build new public facilities such as a desperately needed concert hall.

Kevin Scarce Going Nuclear Sky News. Picture: Sky News

Former South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill. Picture: Tait Schmaal

Given the failure of the latest proposal for low level waste storage near Kimba, no one should underestimate how difficult this issue can be politically.

My guess is Jay Weatherill would’ve embraced the Scarce Royal Commission’s recommendations had he been able to get bipartisan support for them.

But at that time, the then opposition Liberal Party came out and stridently rejected the recommendations arguing that support from them was “hard right”.

Knowing Kevin Scare as I do, I’m not sure I would call him “hard right”.

What is more, it’s just common sense that instead of low-level waste being stored around 100 small sites in Australia almost all of which are in major cities including Adelaide, it would be better to store that waste in a remote part of the state.

But given that we do have to store the nuclear waste from the submarines as well as find storage for low level nuclear waste from hospitals and universities, it makes sense to maximise the opportunity and reopen the debate about nuclear waste storage.

When the current federal government is asked where it would store the waste from AUKUS submarines, they say it will be on federal land at a site yet to be determined.

What is more, the government’s legislation makes provision for Australia to store waste from the British and American nuclear submarines.

So far politicians state and federal have repeatedly back tracked on the issue of nuclear waste in the face of a hurricane of abuse from far left political activists.

That we still haven’t even settled on a tiny site for low level waste is testament to the fecklessness of the political class.

But don’t underestimate the common sense of the general public.

Nuclear waste including from our hospitals should be safely disposed of. Add to that the AUKUS program and surely it’s common sense to store – at a price – waste for our allies.

So back to net zero. Far left activists love that.

But short of catapulting humanity back to the Middle Ages – which might not be a vote winner. – many countries will resort to near zero emissions nuclear power. Wind and solar are intermittent so they’ll want base load power without emissions.

More nuclear power stations are being built all around the world for that reason.

That’s why the price of uranium has gone from below $30/kg to nearly $100/kg over the past five years.

So even if you’re ideologically opposed to nuclear power, wouldn’t it make sense for South Australia to contribute to a safer world by using its natural advantages – and profiting from it as well?

It’s just common sense.

Alexander Downer was foreign affairs minister from 1996-2007, and high commissioner to the United Kingdom from 2014-18.