AUSTRALIA: Uranium Exports May Boomerang

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Bob Burton

CANBERRA , Jun 25 2006 (IPS) - As a high-level committee appointed by Prime Minister John Howard is developing plans for a major expansion of the Australian nuclear industry, concerns are being raised that increased uranium exports, especially to China and India, will facilitate further proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Prof. Richard Broinowski from the University of Sydney’s Department of Media and Communications and former ambassador to Mexico, Korea and Vietnam, is alarmed at the government’s slipshod approach to uranium exports. “Our export controls have been so degraded that there is no prospect of being able to trace where our uranium ends up,” he said.

In a speech to a national mining industry conference in late May, Howard foreshadowed the need for “a comprehensive debate” about Australia’s involvement in all stages of the nuclear fuel cycle. His announcement followed a meeting in Washington a few weeks earlier with U.S. President George W. Bush, where the two discussed the U.S. government’s proposed Global Nuclear Energy Partnership.

The partnership proposal aims to facilitate a major expansion of nuclear power while attempting to address concerns about weapons proliferation by having uranium exporters ‘lease’ uranium to nuclear power companies and accept high level nuclear waste back for long-term storage.

Australian Greens Senator, Christine Milne, told the Senate on Wednesday that the Bush plan could see Australia becoming the global nuclear industry’s preferred location for a high-level nuclear waste dump. “Central to the global energy partnership of President Bush is to find a way of getting a high-level nuclear waste dump built that will take waste from the consortium. So it is not just the countries that you might export to; the whole consortium could negotiate to send the waste back here to Australia,” she said.

It is a plan that runs considerable political risks for Howard. In 1998, a leaked plan revealed a proposal by a British consortium, Pangea Resources, to establish a global nuclear waste dump in South or Western Australia. The plan ignited widespread opposition and forced the Howard government to distance itself from the proposal.

A new waste dump proposal would also face formidable legislative hurdles. In response to the anti-nuclear movement of the 1980’s provincial government in Australia have introduced legislation banning the transport, storage and disposal of high-level nuclear waste.

While there is strong community concern about nuclear proposals, major corporations see benefit in an expansion of the nuclear power industry. U.S.- based companies such as General Electric and Westinghouse are looking to sell nuclear reactors to China and India while Australian and Canadian uranium mining companies are hoping to land long-term supply contracts.

At present only three uranium mines operate in Australia, but all are subject to opposition from environmentalists. BHP-Billiton, which owns the Roxby Downs uranium mine in South Australia, is planning a trebling of the mine’s output, which would make it the world’s largest mine.

Rio Tinto operates the Ranger uranium mine in the Northern Territory, but it has a limited life-span. The company’s original plan was to shift to processing ore from the nearby Jabiluka mine surrounded by the world famous Kakadu National Park. However, this project was mothballed in 2003 after a groundswell of opposition from indigenous owners and environmentalists.

Earlier this year, Howard unveiled an agreement covering uranium exports to China when Premier Wen Jiabao visited Canberra. China, which currently has nine reactors and a further two under construction, plans to build as many as 30 nuclear plants. India has suggested it could build as many as 28 new nuclear reactors.

While both China and India are looking for sources of uranium, there are concerns about nuclear weapons proliferation with both countries.

China’s ambassador to Australia Fu Ying told a mining seminar in Melbourne in December 2005 that the country faced the prospect of a shortfall of uranium to sustain its civilian and military nuclear programmes.

For Broinowski, the implications are clear. “The supply of Australian uranium would simply free up China’s domestic supplies for use in its military programme,” he said.

The expansion of India’s nuclear programme faces major hurdles too. President Bush is facing an uphill battle to secure Congressional support to remove legislative bans on the sale of nuclear technology to India. Bush has agreed to having only 14 of India’s 22 nuclear reactors open to international scrutiny.

Howard has tentatively signalled support for the U.S. position. “I welcome the fact that for the first time, a lot of India’s nuclear capacity is going to be subjected to international inspection,” he said ahead of meeting in March with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

For others though, the agreement is far from reassuring. “The U.S. has failed to secure a firm commitment from India to stop producing fissile material for nuclear weapons for example à they are rewarding India for bad behaviour,” Broinowski warns.