Jay Weatherill tours Onkalo, world’s most advanced nuclear waste disposal facility in Finland

SA would need to see a nuclear waste storage repository fully functioning before building one at home the Premier has said, after touring the world’s most advanced facility in Finland.

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PREMIER Jay Weatherill has indicated it could be at least five years before SA reaches a point of no return in investigations toward setting up a high-level nuclear waste dump, and he would first like to see the disposal process completed elsewhere in the world.

Mr Weatherill has visited the most advanced high-level nuclear waste disposal facility in the world, located about three hours from Helsinki in Finland.

The Onkalo disposal site has been in planning for four decades, and engineers have already dug to 420 metres beneath the surface, from where they will fan out to construct underground corridors where waste from adjacent nuclear power stations will be buried.

However, the operators do not expect to be placing canisters of spent nuclear fuel into the bedrock until at least 2020 after an extended period of further testing and digging.

Mr Weatherill said Finland showed a strong example of how communities came to accept the technology, but SA would be wise to see nuclear disposal in full function before replicating it at home.

Premier Jay Weatherill walks through tunnels 420 metres below the ground at the Onkalo underground research facility in Finland. Pic: Calum Robertson

“I think it is more likely than not that SA would, if it chose to go down this path, not be in the stage of actually constructing or placing one of these canisters under the ground until is had already been demonstrated elsewhere in the world, particularly in Finland,” Mr Weatherill said. “What is clear is that this is long journey and there will be a series of steps that the community will have to take before a final decision is taken.

“There are many steps in the consent. One of the things we are asking of the (SA) community at the moment is to permit us to explore to that next stage.

“There is a very big decision to be made once appropriate investigations are undertaken about where such a facility would be.”

The Royal Commission found that even on a rapid time line, finding a site alone for an SA dump would take several years.

Onkalo is home to both a high-level nuclear disposal site that includes material from nuclear reactors, and a lower-level storage site that includes contaminated water filters and equipment like gloves which are used in the production of nuclear energy.

The dump site is within a nature reserve that also houses nuclear reactors that are responsible for about 20 per cent of the power delivered to Finland’s five and a half million people.

The technique used for burying high-level waste involves placing the long metallic assemblies that include uranium particles into lead canisters. The lead canisters are then placed within a copper casing and surrounded with water-absorbent bentonite clay before being settled within holes bored into the Finnish bedrock.

Posiva research co-ordinator Tumos Pere (in the white helmet) speaks to South Australian delegation members Bill Muirhead, John Mansfield, Jay Weatherill and Madeline Richardson at a storage hole in the tunnels 420 meters below the surface. Pic: Calum Robertson

Mr Weatherill has said he expects the State Government will likely decide to continue investigations into an expansion of the nuclear industry at the end of the year. However, than decision and any next steps come after a second citizens’ jury considers the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission findings and any possible concerns.

Last night, he said it was increasingly clear that such a huge decision could not be rushed if it were to be successful.

“This isn’t something that is going to be determined one way or another in one short period,” Mr Weatherill said.

“There are no shortcuts here. This is something that can’t be rushed. Slow and steady analysis and investigation of these matters is the only solution and we can only go as fast as the community is prepared to permit us to go.”

The Royal Commission found SA could conservatively make $100 billion in profits from disposing of waste from around the world.

Possible client nations could include earthquake-prone Japan and it’s Asian neighbours in South Korea and Taiwan, who have nuclear waste but very little uninhabited land under which to store it.

The Australian Federal Government is separately considering where to put the nation’s low-level waste, which is currently stored across hundreds of sites include the old Royal Adelaide Hospital.

The Finnish low-level is buried under the ground in silo-type structures that sink into the ground. It is first encased in steel drums that are crushed and loaded into concrete boxes.

Mr Weatherill said he believed “people are interested in imagining new futures for SA” and felt some responsibility for helping solve the world’s nuclear waste problem given a pre-existing involvement in the industry due to uranium mining at Olympic Dam.

“We have 25 per cent of the world’s uranium reserves we do in fact mine and export nuclear material which is used to create power,” he said. “It is sensible for us to ask ourselves if we can play a role in this nuclear fuel cycle and are we a place that, given this waste exists in the world, is an appropriate place to store this material.”