For decades, Australia has sold uranium – but said no to nuclear reactors. That’s set to change, whether in nuclear submarines or even in plans for power plants.
Äspö Hard Rock Laboratory in Sweden, where KBS-3 repository technologies have been tested.
Anna Storm
Spent nuclear fuel remains dangerous for so long that languages can disappear and humanity’s very existence cannot be guaranteed. So how do we communicate information about repositories into the future?
Now that plans for a national radioactive waste management facility near Kimba in South Australia have been abandoned, what next? Let’s learn from our mistakes.
Packaging excavated radioactive materials at the Hanford site in Washington state.
USDOE
Nuclear weapons production and testing contaminated many sites across the US and exposed people unknowingly to radiation and toxic materials. Some have gone uncompensated for decades.
An independent assessment of Japan’s plan to release treated radioactive wastewater into the Pacific Ocean, nearly 12 years after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, finds it safe and reasonable.
An undersea tunnel is under construction to release wastewater from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.
Kimimasa Mayama
Artillery shelling, stressed-out technicians and power supply disruptions increase the chances of catastrophe at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest.
Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, points to the training facility hit by Russian artillery at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
AP Photo/Lisa Leutner
The world held its collective breath as Russian troops battled Ukrainian forces at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. The battle is over and no radiation escaped, but the danger is far from over.
Drink up: carrot juice contains a small amount of radioactive potassium.
Africa Studio / shutterstock
Experts in nuclear power and nuclear medicine worry that fears of radiation will keep us relying on fossil fuels for longer.
Groundwater is used for irrigation and drinking water, but those wells are rarely more than one kilometre deep. A huge volume of salty water exists as much as 10 kilometres below the Earth’s surface.
(Shutterstock)
Groundwater is the second-largest store of water on Earth. Governments and industry use groundwater reservoirs to store waste, but it may also have environmental functions that haven’t been revealed.
A protest against dumping nuclear waste in South Australia in 2015.
AAP Image/ Warwick Goodman
Radioactive waste from nuclear medicine facilities will be trucked to and buried near the South Australian town of Kimba. But this decision still faces a range of hurdles.
During the Cold War, the US built nuclear weapons at a network of secretive sites across the nation. Some are still heavily polluted and threaten public health today.
The OPAL reactor at Lucas Heights in Sydney produces radioactive materials for medicine and manufacturing.
AAP Image/Tracey Nearmy