Nuclear reactor not necessary

Nuclear reactor not necessary

By James Clark

SYDNEY — Greenpeace held a public meeting dockside of theRainbow Warrior on March 24 to raise the profile of opposition to another nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights in Sydney.

Speaking were Jean McSorley, long-time Greenpeace anti-nuclear campaigner, and Genevieve Rankin, a Sutherland Shire councillor. Both speakers emphasised the need for broad-based support from the environment movement if the proposal for another reactor is to be overturned.

The Reactor Review Committee, set up to determine whether Australia needs another nuclear reactor, is hearing evidence from the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, its suppliers and the military, as well as groups and concerned individuals opposed to the reactor.

ANSTO claims that the Lucas Heights facility is not only safe but essential for Australia's credibility as an industrial nation, for scientific research and for production of medical isotopes.

However, ANSTO admitted at the review hearing that there are other technologies which can make isotopes of the same quantity and purity as those produced by reactors. A cyclotron can produce the isotopes required for medical use without the waste problems of spent fuel rods, of which there are already 1500 at Lucas Heights.

As Councillor Rankin put it, "We will not win this campaign from Sutherland. We have the resources, people and a lot of energy, but against all the resources of the nuclear industry, and they are determined to get their new and better reactor in Australia.

"They are getting a much bigger hearing at the review, and unless the environment movement takes the issue seriously and gives support on this issue, we will lose the argument."

There has been little public discussion of whether nuclear technology should be a scientific research priority at the cost of other, more socially useful, research projects — it's up to the environment movement to generate that discussion.

From GLW issue 94