NO NEW NATIONAL NUCLEAR REACTOR

 

The government has constructed the second reactor in suburban Sydney to replace the outdated Lucas Heights nuclear research reactor. The reactor is not used to generate nuclear power, but is a research reactor used to split atoms for scientific and medical purposes.

Viable alternatives mean that we do not need a new reactor. The government tells us that the new reactor is needed for production of crucial medicial isotopes for cancer patients. The real reason for the new reactor lies with government secret nuclear ambitions and strategic objectives.

The government tells us that we need a new reactor for medical isotopes, but most isotopes can be imported and many are already available from alternative accelerator (cyclotron) sources. ANSTO knows that we relied on imported isotopes and on local cyclotron production of isotopes from February to May 2000 when the reactor was shut down for maintenance.

The government also tells us that we need a new nuclear reactor in the national interest. Just exactly what do politicians mean by national interest? We see by wars like Iraq that they usually define this in the most warlike manner. They also define national interest as being the same as the interests of the big end of town, the large corporations.

The real reason for the reactor has very little to do with nuclear medicine, or the real national interest. This is an outright attempt at manipulating the public. In 1998 the Department of Fporeign Affairs and Trade submitted a seven page unreferenced document to the Senate Economic Reference Committee. " The Lucas Heights Reactor first and foremost serves national interest requirements."

Whose national interest is being served by this new reactor? Clearly not the local residents who are continually subjected to nuclear leaks. Cclearly not the residents of Sydney who are being put at risk of a terrorist attack. Clearly not the residents along nuclear transport routes who are being put at a real and severe risk of a transportation accident.

So just whose interests does the reactor serve? It serves the secret nuclear ambitions of the Howard government. Our government is secretly trying to maintain the nuclear capability that the original reactor was established for. The separation of reactors into being for peaceful uses of nuclear technology is a straight out lie.

Sir Phillip Baxter, head of the Australian Atomic Energy Commission, said in Quadrant in 1968, " Almost every action, every piece of research, technological development or industrial activity carried out in the peaceful uses of atomic energy could also be looked at as a step in the manufacture of nuclear weapons. There is such an overlap in the military and peaceful technologies in these areas that they are virtually none.”

The reactor maintains the knowledge in this country for the development of nuclear weapons and power. Maintain is the key word here. The current reactor existed for this purpose. Sir Phillip Baxter, head of the Australian Atomic Energy Commission, the forerunner of ANSTO wanted Australia to build 30 nuclear weapons a year by the year 2000 and to rely on nuclear power to the extent that France does today.

He didnt get his plan approved. As a gift from the British for nuclear testing in outback South Australia we where given Lucas Heights. When Australia signed the nuclear non proliferation treaty ( NNPT)about 35 years ago we formalerly relinquished our nuclear power and weapons ambitions. In fact the federal government gave up plans to build a nuclear power station at Jervis Bay because they feared it would be in breach of the NNPT.

Today the government doesn’t publicly discuss its nuclear ambitions. They are kept secret. But theyare every bit as real. The federal government was at the forefront of international efforts to get nuclear energy up as a clean green alternative to coal in the negotiation process for the Kyoto Protocol on Greenhouse Gases. The government denies in all official documents that they harbour any plans for nuclear power but they contradict this by pushing for it to be allowed at the international level. Why would a government without a secret agenda do this?

The government claims to be concerned with nuclear proliferation in international diplomatic forums, but is experimenting with technology in Sydney that givesenhances Australia’s the capacity to make our own nuclear Bombs. This process is known as sSilex. It is a dual uses civilian -military process for the enrichment of Uranium. It This is the same process that Iran is being investigated for possible breach of the NNPT by the International Atomic Energy Commission. Exactly what our government is doing with silex is secret:, they passed legislation against releasing information on it because they said that releasing information on it had national security and nuclear proliferation consequences.

The department of Foreign Affairs and Trade argues that the reactor gives us a seat on the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency. and that through this seat we can work toward nuclear non proliferation, as per our obligations under the NNPT. This is despite the fact that New Zealand, being Nuclear Free argues affectively for Nuclear Non Proliferation by diplomatic means. It is rather absurdb to suggest that a reactor which amounts to proliferation of nuclear technologies is needed to promote non proliferation at an international level.

Underlying the project is that having a nuclear reactor is the purpose of Supportings the nuclear alliance with the United States. Sharing our nuclear intelligence with the US helps us to be protected by there nuclear umbrella. This is in direct contradiction to the NNPT and Australia stated position of advocating complete nuclear disarmament.

In fact a nuclear reactor is exactly the opposite of what we need to be doing to promote nuclear non proliferation. It would be a great example to our region, and to the rest of the world if we shut the current (HIFAR) reactor, and didn’t replace it. We would be providing an important example that nuclear technologies aren’t necessarily.

A new reactor is a huge lost opportunity in terms of taking a leading role inof non-reactor technologies for medical, scientific, and industrial purposes. In national interest terms the focus should be on the most effective way to spend money for health and non proliferation purposes. A reactor certainly isn’t this.