by Gareth Hughes
We live in Nuclear Free New Zealand right? Well, kinda. The New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act established NZ’s nuclear free zone but as it stands allows uranium ore concentrate, or yellowcake, to enter NZ.
ERMA, the Environmental Risk Management Authority have approved to routinely, through to 2014, tranship yellowcake stored in drums through the Ports of Auckland, Tauranga, Nelson and Napier from Australia en route to the United States and other nations.
It’s a type of powder that then gets turned into either fuel rods or enriched uranium for different uses. It is radioactive, but not massively so and ERMA has approved the shipments saying the risks are extremely low.
The risks locally probably are smaller than say oil tankers, or the plutonium MOX shipments through the Tasman, but on principal I oppose the transhipments. I believe it undermines New Zealand’s proud nuclear free history and the blood, sweat and tears of activists in the 80s who fought to entrench our nuclear free status on the world stage.
New Zealand shouldn’t be part of the nuclear supply chain and to allow the raw minerals needed for nuclear generation and possibly weapons.
Uranium mining has big impacts on Australian communities. The act of mining itself is contentious, as is the controversial practise of trucking yellowcake past schools. I also worry for the downstream impacts when it is time to dispose of the used uranium. There is still no safe, long term way to treat nuclear waste.
As New Zealand hosts the Nuclear Suppliers Group meeting in Christchurch this week, on the back of NZ’s proud nuclear free status, we should ask ourselves are we really nuclear free if we allow yellowcake in?
Published in Environment & Resource Management by Gareth Hughes on Mon, June 21st, 2010
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on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
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aaah Gareth – a small reactor near Lower Hutt? – since the sixties – have yet to lay my hands on it’s thrumming turbine, but other readers have previously confirmed this info.
May be we have to get down orf the White Horse here…
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@Mark
“GNS Science in Lower Hutt has been member of AINSE since 1995 and uses the Australian facilities to complement its own research in isotope and nuclear sciences. While it does work in some areas of nuclear science, mainly based on two particle accelerators, >>it does not have a nuclear reactor<< ." (emphasis added)
http://www.gns.cri.nz/nic/
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(Donning flame suit…) I can’t really see a problem with allowing yellowcake through New Zealand ports providing it does not clear customs and it is handled safely. It isn’t going to make much difference whether we allow it through our ports or not and if it does pass through our ports, then at least we can ensure that the ships and shipments are safe.
Trevor.
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research & medical uses of nuclear material have been ongoing in our universities, DSIR/CRI’s and hospitals for decades, not a matter at issue. Had an x-ray, CAT-scan or MRI lately?
Trev
(reaching for the flamethrower…)
The problem with allowing trans-shipping of nuclear production materials is that we then enter into the global transport machinery for nuclear power and weapons, not to mention the global toxic transport of nuclear waste, much of which is shipped through the pacific to Japan for reprocessing.
Safe? Yep, as safe as global shipping of oil tankers…
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Uranium mining has big impacts on Australian communities. The act of mining itself is contentious, as is the controversial practise of trucking yellowcake past schools. I also worry for the downstream impacts when it is time to dispose of the used uranium. There is still no safe, long term way to treat nuclear waste.
1. impact = profits + new townships – some old ones may die but many jobs are created within the new ones
2. A big mountain range cavern is a pretty awesome way to dispose of Nuclear waste…and it’ll work well enough I reckon- or burying it in the outback of Aussie and Nevada – there are plenty of uninhabitable places to store nuclear waste in
Frankly I’m fine with the raw materials being shipped through NZ as long as it stays behind the fences of customs
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Since the big guys aren’t making lots of new weapons the principle use of this stuff is for power.
Which means that it displaces power from fossil fuels.
I go along with Green thinking with respect to nuclear weapons. The rest is… not so easy for me to follow. I don’t agree with any more expansion of the meaning of “nuclear free”.
Particularly now when the most likely scenario is that owing to the fossil fuels we won’t HAVE a port there in a couple of hundred years.
BJ
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Trev, not exactly a test of your suit, but: I don’t believe that ERMA gets to change the safety arrangements; only to rubber-stamp them. If we said no, then exactly the same arrangements would be used, but a different ship, going on a different route, would carry the same drums.
Stephen, I don’t know about Australian uranium mining, but oil mining in Africa has been on the news recently, and it does not create jobs for the locals. It uses imported labourers, who are cheap and have done the same kind of work before, and imported food, because they don’t trust the local sources.
BJ, after the end of nuclear power, due to peak uranium, we need to know where the energy will come from to reprocess the last of the spent fuel. If it’s fossil fuel, that casts some doubt on the project. Also, I’m inclined to think that fission power is about delaying the inevitable.
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But Maritime NZ can at least ensure that the ship is safe and the cargo secure.
Trevor.
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That worries me that they are mining uranium in New Zealand. That could have such devastating effects for such a beautiful country.
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“New Zealand shouldn’t be part of the nuclear supply chain and to allow the raw minerals needed for nuclear generation and possibly weapons.”
“I also worry for the downstream impacts when it is time to dispose of the used uranium. There is still no safe, long term way to treat nuclear waste.”
Agree, agree. I was shocked to hear the above news.
Allowing Yellowcake through NZ ports implicates New Zealand in the nuclear industry. And the disposal of the waste is a serious issue. Whatever the yellowcake is for, allowing this to stopover here is against nuclear free policy, to my mind. NZ is tacitly agreeing to nuclear power and waste.
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Lots of Uranium in the wind today around the nuclear suppliers group conference in Christchurch. The big suits are here with their (our?) scowling security guards. Not much fun for my work mates as they have to deal with the security people to get parking coupons. Media are banned: of course. These people do nothing to allay my suspicions about this industry; I can smell the stench of of secrecy, big money and corruption from here.
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