dv said:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/01/matt-canavan-announces-nuclear-waste-dump-location-in-south-australia
Matt Canavan announces nuclear waste dump location in South Australia
Farm on Eyre Peninsula volunteered by owner to house low and medium risk waste
A farming property on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula will become a nuclear waste dump, the federal government has announced, but opponents of the facility are making a last-bid ditch to stop it.
On Saturday the federal resources minister, Matt Canavan, said 160 hectares of the Napandee property in Kimba would host Australia’s radioactive waste, the vast majority of which comes from the production of nuclear medicine and is held across more than 100 sites.
Just make it clear that we only accept civilian nuclear waste.
Not military nuclear waste. Last I heard, there was more military nuclear waste than civilian nuclear waste.
As for production of nuclear medicine, “ANSTO can deliver over 10,000 patient doses of nuclear medicines to more than 250 Australian and New Zealand hospitals and medical centres”. The radiation from these doses decays fast – in weeks not years.
https://www.ansto.gov.au/business/products-and-services/health/health-products
List of radiochemicals from ANSTO. https://www.ansto.gov.au/business/products-and-services/health/product-list
There is a network of cyclotrons around Australia producing radiochemicals. From 1997 https://www.abc.net.au/science/kelvin/files/s366.htm
“20-25% of nuclear medicine procedures in Australia use cyclotron-produced isotopes, and this proportion has been growing steadily since the 1970s. Many of these cyclotron-produced isotopes come from the National Medical Cyclotron in Sydney. Australia also has a second, smaller cyclotron, adjacent to the Austin Hospital in Melbourne.”
Also from same 1997 article “spent fuel rods currently stored at Lucas Heights. These highly radioactive fuel rods have been accumulating since HIFAR first began operating in the late 1950s. Seven hundred fuel rods are to be shipped to the United States for indefinite storage. The remaining 1300 fuel rods will be shipped to Scotland for reprocessing, with the reprocessing wastes returned to Australia in 10 to 20 years time.”
This could include reprocessing wastes returned from Scotland. The timing is right.