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Deep beneath the West Australian outback
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lies the germ of an idea.
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A dream about
making the world a safer place
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that's gone beyond just the dreaming.
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(man) "We have a very specific goal,
dispose of nuclear wastes,
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pull out the nuclear weapons
and get them out of the way."
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Jim Voss envisages a catacomb
500 metres beneath his feet
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that would keep safe forever
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one of the most toxic poisons
known to humankind.
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(Voss) "Australia has the opportunity
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to use its democratic forces
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to say this is something
we should be doing for the world."
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For half a century,
the problem of nuclear waste disposal
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has dogged the world,
and one company called Pangea,
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backed by big money and influence,
wants to bury it in Australia.
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"You'll find a great deal
of enthusiasm in the United States,
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and I suspect around the world."
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"They have backing from incredible people
within government and industry."
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(ad) To make the world a safer place
for the people we love...
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Tonight, Four Corners
goes inside the company called Pangea.
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We examine a scheme
that's provoked accusations of secrecy
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and back-door influence peddling,
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a scheme that forces Australia
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to confront its role
in the nuclear world.
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Australia will make
our world a safer place
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"We're not interested in nuclear power
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and we're not interested in being
the world's nuclear waste dump."
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♪ (music) ♪
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(Voss) "We're just headed out
here into the desert."
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(man) "What you're looking for,
of course
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is the most remote areas
you can find, right?"
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(Voss) "Well, in part.
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The geology is far more important
than the remoteness."
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Pangea's Jim Voss
and scientist Charles McCombie
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took Four Corners on the long trip
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from Perth, 340 kilometres
north east of Kalgoorlie,
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to the edge of the Great Victoria Desert.
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(McCombie) "The flatness, even more
than how it looks on the surface,
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if you look out at the horizon
it's all very flat.
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This is one of the flattest areas
in the world and that's a real key issue
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to the -- what we call a high isolation site."
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(helicopter blades whirring)
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Latitude 28 south, longitude 123 east.
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(whirring continues)
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Out in this area
the size of Western Europe
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lies a patch of ground
20 kilometres square
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that they believe could house
a repository for up to 20 percent
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of the world's nuclear waste.
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Out here you find pangea rock --
very old, very stable --
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the geology from which
the company gets its name.
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(McCombie) "And in the basin area
and where we're on the edge now,
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it's 300 to 800 million years
of quiet build-up of sediments.
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So this is one of the most
stable geological areas
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that you'll find in the world."
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But it's not just science.
Politics are just as crucial
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in dealing with radioactive waste
and nuclear disarmament
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and that's what makes Australia
more attractive than Argentina,
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Namibia, and China,
where pangea rock is also found.
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(Voss) "Well, it's the political stability
that we're concerned about.
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Australia's tradition
in democratic principles,
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Australia's environmental activism
is vital to us. Australia's role
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in the international community
for disarmament for all sorts of weapons
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nuclear, land mines, chemical weapons,
very important facets to us for Australia"
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Behind Pangea stand
three international organisations.
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The huge British government-owned
nuclear conglomerate, BNFL
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British Nuclear Fuels Limited,
which owns 80 percent
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a Canadian company
called Golder Associates
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world experts in toxic waste management
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and Nagra, a Swiss organisation
responsible for finding
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a nuclear waste dump
for Switzerland's nuclear industry.
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(advertisement) The simple fact
is that more than 30 countries
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use nuclear power.
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Pangea originally planned
to launch its scheme on Australians
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last month, with a 9 million dollar
war chest for advertising and promoting
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a scheme it knew would meet
an incredulous public
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and skeptical politicians.
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Those plans fell apart in December
last year, when the British arm
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of Friends Of The Earth
got hold of the video
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Pangea prepared for the launch
and sent it to Australia.
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(Pangea promotional video) Above all,
Pangea will provide the world
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with a safe solution
to the disposal of nuclear materials.
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(man) "Oh, it arrived in
an unmarked brown envelope
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on my desk, and I had no idea
where it came from. I felt that this
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should not be sprung on Australians
in a hole-in-the-wall secret underhand way
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but they should learn as soon as possible
what was being planned for them."
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(Pangea promotional video)
Before any responsible country
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would send their waste for disposal,
they must be certain
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not only that the respository is safe,
but also that its safety must be seen
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to be clearly and rigorously regulated.
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(Voss) "We were of course, disappointed.
It was our intention to roll Pangea out
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in a very public and planned manner,
to give everybody an opportunity to debate."
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(woman) "My question is to
Senator Minchin, Minister for Resources -"
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The response to the video was immediate.
Opponents were appalled
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at the idea of a nuclear dumping ground.
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(woman) " ... Will he rule out completely
any involvement of his government
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in setting up an international nuclear
waste repository in Australia?"
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The Federal Government
moved to distance itself.
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(Senator Minchin) "And the Government
has absolutely no intention of accepting
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the radioactive waste of other countries.
The policy is clear - "
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In the following months,
the Industry and Resources Minister's line
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has hardened.
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(Senator Minchin) "There may be
other countries that
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in far less fortuitous
economic circumstances than Australia
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that do decide they want to accept
international nuclear waste.
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Well that's their business,
and that may be one way
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in which those countries
with a waste problem deal with it.
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But Australia won't be that nation
that accepts the waste."
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But Pangea's plans for the outback
are a reminder of Australia's part
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in the nuclear world:
an exporter of uranium,
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part of the American nuclear umbrella
and a leading advocate of disarmament.
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What Pangea is doing
is putting together a growing network
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of international
and Australian businessmen,
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scientists and policy makers who believe
that Australia should also have a role
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to play in resolving one of the
nuclear age's most pressing problems:
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what to do with the stockpiles
of nuclear waste
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that have been growing now
for half a century.
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It's a debate they say
that Australia has to have
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one that can't be dodged forever,
and one upon which Australians themselves
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will eventually have to take a stand.
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(indistinct lecturing)
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Amongst those who believe Australia
should play a role is the president
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of the Australian Academy of Science
who's personally backing Pangea
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and will sit on
its scientific review panel.
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(professor) "I think it is important
that they engage the Australian public
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and engage the Australian public's
representatives, namely the politicians
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so that the politicians get
as clear a view as it's possible to get
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of what the proposal's really about.
The existence of nuclear waste
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is a world problem and Australia
in this respect is part of the world
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and if we can help reduce that danger
by putting that particular problem to bed
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that is great."
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(Jenkins) "This industry thinking that
it can solve its problems by shifting them
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to some remote place,
and also onto future generations
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and that makes one quietly angry."
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♪ (ominous music) ♪
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The creeping poison of nuclear waste
began with the advent of the nuclear age
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more than half a century ago,
but it took three decades
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before governments
began to take it seriously.
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In 1943, the 2,000 citizens of Hanford
and neighbouring Bluff Cliffs
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in the northwest US state of Washington
got 30 days notice to move out
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when the top-secret Manhattan Program
to build the first atomic bomb
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got underway.
They never came back.
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Fifty-six years later, what's left behind
is abandoned, no longer top secret
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but still deadly.
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1,400 square kilometres
of poisoned land, a wilderness
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of dumped nuclear waste
from the reactors
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that produced plutonium
for bombs and warheads
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fodder for 30 years of cold war.
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(construction machinery)
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The detritus lies scattered and buried.
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(more machinery)
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A clean-up's underway,
but it'll take 50 years
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at a cost of five and a half
million dollars every single day.
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David Pentz first came to Hanford
in the '80s at the behest
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of the American government.
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A specialist in waste disposal,
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Pentz spent three years investigating
whether the contaminated site
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might become the world's first permanent
dump for highly radioactive waste.
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It didn't work,
because the geology
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proved too complex,
and it's not yet worked
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anywhere else in the world.
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(Pentz) "I think total costs, probably
we've spent in the world today,
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is certainly in excess of $20 billion,
and we obviously don't have a repository
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licenced repository,
anywhere in the world."
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Pentz went home to Seattle,
but the idea of a disposal site
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deep underground did not go away.
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He nagged at the problem
and it nagged at him.
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Pentz was chairman of Golder Associates,
the industrial waste experts
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and under its umbrella in March 1997,
he set up Pangea Resources Limited.
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(Pentz) "We see ourselves as an ambassador
of a problem, a world problem,
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and we think Australia should
at least talk about it and consider it
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in a rational sense
because of, that we at least,
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and I think you will find
others in the world
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believe that Australia
has an incredible opportunity
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to help the world,
and if you want to call that
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as being good neighbourly, so be it.
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To me, good neighbourly
doesn't put enough dimension
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on the challenge that the world faces.
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From modest offices
in the high-tech part of Seattle
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that is home to Microsoft,
Pentz is working to ensure
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the idea doesn't die.
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(woman) "Mr. Pentz, I have Australia
and the UK on the line
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- for the conference call."
- "Thank you very much."
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(Pentz) "I could say our tactics
are absolutely a disaster, unequivocally.
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I would say however our tactics
were not of our own making, right?"
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(George) "So in retrospect, the secrecy
with which you've cloaked your proposal
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has been a mistake?"
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00:13:24,319 --> 00:13:28,789
"Yes I think that, and some people,
and I have questioned myself
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whether that was right."
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(George) "Because one of the great
criticisms of the whole nuclear industry
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and all the, in it's history,
has always been its secrecy, hasn't it?"
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"Absolutely, and that's tied
both sides of the nuclear industry.
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Obviously on the weapons side
and even on the commercial side.
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I couldn't agree with you more."
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- (man) "Hello, David."
- (Pentz) "Well hi, Jim! Welcome aboard!"
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00:13:52,988 --> 00:13:57,318
Pentz still runs about 60 people
around the world, some half of them
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00:13:57,318 --> 00:14:02,317
contracted on a part-time basis.
Amongst them, Ralph Stoll
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00:14:02,317 --> 00:14:05,387
a former US nuclear submarine commander.
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00:14:05,387 --> 00:14:10,407
(Stoll) "It looks like, there's a reason
to go to Washington next week,
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00:14:10,407 --> 00:14:12,888
to follow up with some of these ideas."
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00:14:12,888 --> 00:14:18,278
In Australia, Jim Voss is looking
for new ways to open doors for Pangea.
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00:14:18,278 --> 00:14:23,447
(Voss on phone) "The Pangea papers were
right where we wanted them, that is
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00:14:23,447 --> 00:14:27,237
presenting where we stand
in our feasibility studies."
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(Pentz) "Yeah."
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00:14:28,667 --> 00:14:33,767
There's no shortage of funds.
Pangea had a $40 million budget this year
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00:14:33,767 --> 00:14:38,021
but much of it won't now get spent
because the political heat in Australia
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00:14:38,021 --> 00:14:42,179
has delayed plans for exploration
in Western Australia.
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00:14:42,179 --> 00:14:46,180
(George) "So if the government is saying,
no, it's against our policy
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00:14:46,180 --> 00:14:49,630
why pursue it?
Why not just go away?"
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00:14:51,039 --> 00:14:57,569
(Pentz) "Because the idea
of an international repository
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00:14:57,569 --> 00:15:02,723
and the benefits
it will bring the world is real.
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00:15:02,723 --> 00:15:12,073
We think we have begun to see how we
could put the genie back into the bottle
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and, you know, ideas
of this size ... don't go away."
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♪ (music) ♪
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00:15:30,768 --> 00:15:36,078
From Seattle, Pentz and Stoll
are on the move across the continent.
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00:15:36,078 --> 00:15:39,638
"I have, I think received
a very good response
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00:15:39,638 --> 00:15:44,398
both in and outside of the government
to the concept that Pangea represents."
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00:15:44,398 --> 00:15:48,390
♪ (solemn music) ♪
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00:16:05,879 --> 00:16:10,769
"I wonder if these ...
kinds will work with Pangea."
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00:16:10,769 --> 00:16:14,886
In the 18 months since
Ralph Stoll's first visit to Washington
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00:16:14,886 --> 00:16:19,826
Pangea's briefed officials
in the US State Department, the Pentagon
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00:16:19,826 --> 00:16:23,415
the Department of Energy,
and presidential advisers
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00:16:23,415 --> 00:16:28,445
in two powerful arms of American security,
the National Security Council
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00:16:28,445 --> 00:16:32,685
and the National Security Agency.
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00:16:32,685 --> 00:16:36,970
And to reach the administration's
highest political levels, Pangea's hired
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00:16:36,970 --> 00:16:39,840
a big-hitter lobbyist, the man slated
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00:16:39,840 --> 00:16:44,909
to run Vice President Al Gore's
presidential campaign next year.
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00:16:44,909 --> 00:16:47,719
And Pangea's struck a chord
that shifts its focus
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00:16:47,719 --> 00:16:49,689
from a commercial venture,
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00:16:49,689 --> 00:16:53,169
to play to America's
strategic preoccupation
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with growing stockpiles
of nuclear warheads.
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"The world has a serious problem
with nuclear waste.
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There are thousands and thousands
of tons of it, and thousands of tons more
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coming on-line each year, so to speak,
as well as many thousands of tons
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that are derivative
from former nuclear weapons programs,
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and these have to be stored
safely and securely for thousands of years
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and the world simply doesn't
have a solution to this
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and as long as this waste
is stored in an imperfect fashion
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which it is now, virtually everywhere,
it represents something of a threat."
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Until the end of last year,
Jan Lodal was responsible
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for running nuclear policy
for the Pentagon.
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"I think that the American government
is likely to be very attracted
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to the possibility of such a site,
and it will also see the attractiveness
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of Australia's location."
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At Washington's Georgetown University,
Pangea has another influential ally
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in President Clinton's special adviser
for disarmament, who's concerned
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about bombs or the raw material
falling into the hands
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00:18:06,429 --> 00:18:09,379
of rogue states and terrorist groups.
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"In the United States,
we are very concerned
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about what is generally called
in the literature the loose nuke problem.
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00:18:15,809 --> 00:18:18,529
We are working with the Russians
in a very cooperative way,
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but still there are hundreds of tons,
when it only takes a few kilograms
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to make a bomb, there are hundreds
of tons of this material
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00:18:26,458 --> 00:18:30,968
inadequately protected.
That's what we wanna take care of too.
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♪ (western music) ♪
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♪ On the trail you'll find me lopin',
while the spaces are wide open ♪
256
00:18:39,873 --> 00:18:45,233
♪ in the land of the old AEC, yee-hoo ♪
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♪ why, the cedar is attractive,
and the air is radioactive ♪
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00:18:50,733 --> 00:18:56,193
♪ oh, the Wild West is
where I want to be ♪
259
00:18:56,193 --> 00:19:01,503
♪ 'mid the sagebrush and the cactus
I'll watch the fellas practice ♪
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♪ droppin' bombs through
the clean desert breeze, ah-ha ♪
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00:19:06,673 --> 00:19:12,143
(bomb explosion)
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99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
If nuclear disarmament was 'the peace dividend' from the end of the cold war, then the problem of dealing with today's unwanted nuclear bombs is 'the peace headache'.
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In pursuit of superiority over the Russians, America detonated 928 bombs at the Nevada test site -- a hundred of them above ground.
264
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The tests took 40 years to conduct, but the combined time for all those explosions amounts to a mere 60 seconds -- a minute of the most destructive power created by humankind.
265
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The Cold War legacy is 100,000 nuclear warheads around the world.
266
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Disarmament talks call for a reduction to 4,000 in 10 years.
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Pangea reckons it can help disarmament by burying plutonium from decommissioned warheads -- a claim questioned by critics who say nothing in the plans ensure it can never be retrieved.
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Paul Leventhal, Nuclear Control Institute:
They cloak it as a nuclear non proliferation and arms control proposal, but when you look at the fine print it really is a -- at this point in time, at least, a bail-out for the nuclear industry and for the plutonium industry in particular.
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Robert Gallucci, Whitehouse Adviser on Disarmament:
These need not be inconsistent at all. So I think that it is a commercial enterprise, but the potential for a very positive impact on international security is very real.
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Paul Leventhal, Nuclear Control Institute:
That's the rhetoric. That's the broad brush, but the fine strokes indicate that this spent fuel will be put underground on a retrievable basis so that countries that want to get it out can.
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Robert Gallucci, Whitehouse Adviser on Disarmament:
The fact that there may be retrievability doesn't bother me, provided of course the retrievability is something that were very easily monitored and prevented, if the international community wished to prevent it -- and if you had a remote site in Australia, I think you could assure that.
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Peter George:
Fifty kilometres from the Nevada test site lies Yucca Mountain, and a stark reminder that America, like the rest of the world, has a growing problem with commercial waste. 10,000 tons is created globally each year.
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Jim Niggemeyer, Yucca Mountain Project:
The alternative is the stuff right now sitting in swimming pools and the basement of power plants in metropolitan areas. What's that going to do to our future generations? We can't make this stuff go away.
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Peter George:
Like Pangea, Jim Niggemeyer believes the answer lies beneath his feet.
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Jim Niggemeyer, Yucca Mountain Project:
So for me, this I think is safe for hundreds of thousands of years. I don't see any other alternative that gets us beyond tens of years.
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Peter George:
Fifteen kilometres of tunnel lie inside Yucca Mountain. It represents America's and the world's best bet yet for a nuclear waste dump. But it's not a good bet at all.
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The Yucca Mountain project's cost the US $10 billion so far -- and it will be at least two years before the US government decides whether it's safe to go ahead.
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The people of Nevada have already decided -- they don't want it. But they know they're up against powerful nuclear interests.
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Senator Harry Reid, Democrat, Nevada:
They do it in a number of ways. One is through fear and the distribution of that information, false information. What they do is say we need to get it outta here, and then everybody here'll be safe. And so that's the game they've played, and they've done a good job. They have done a good job with their government relations work here in Washington, they've got the best lobbyist money can buy.
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Peter George:
If the nuclear industry does get its way -- this is what an underground nuclear repository would look like. Kilometres of tunnels containing steel and concrete canisters -- radiating heat for hundreds of years; their contents deadly for tens of thousands of years.
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And if the Americans have problems finding a place for their nuclear waste -- imagine the problems across the Atlantic.
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Europe's denser population and smaller land mass have left the problem of getting rid of waste from nuclear power stations mired in political, social and scientific rows.
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Nowhere more so than Britain - where a decade-long search for an underground waste dump has collapsed in utter failure after costing half a billion dollars.
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Prof. Andy Blowers, Radioactive Waste Management Committee:
Well in one sense, there is some urgency, 'cause I think it would be true to say that to do nothing is not an option at the present time because wastes are accumulating in every country.
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Peter George:
A member of the British government's radioactive waste management committee, Professor Andy Blowers brings a critical eye to bear on the nation's nuclear industry.
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Prof. Andy Blowers, Radioactive Waste Management Committee:
On the other hand, the kind of urgency that the industry puts forward, I think, is an urgency that is backing their own particular interests. They do need a solution to this intractable problem of nuclear waste. If they get the solution which appears to be acceptable, then that. to a high degree, will underpin the future of the nuclear industry as they perceive it.
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Jim Voss, General Manager, Pangea:
We're not motivated by providing the opportunity for new nuclear plants in the future. We're motivated by providing a solution to the problems that are there today.
Q: And yet if you do provide a solution to the problems that are there today, the problem of nuclear waste...
A: Yes...
Q: You end up do you not, justifying the continued existence of the nuclear industry?
A: Under some circumstances one could interpret that. Remember that our...
Q: One suspects the nuclear industry will interpret it exactly that way.
A: They can interpret it as they like.
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Peter George:
Behind the nuclear industry's sense of urgency lies a enterprise situated in Britain's beautiful Lake district in Cumbria.
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It's called Sellafield.
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It's owned by BNFL, British Nuclear Fuels, one of the world's most powerful commercial nuclear conglomerates, and it has only one shareholder -- the British government, and its BNFL that's behind the Pangea.
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David Bonser, British Nuclear Fuel Ltd:
BNFL have looked at a number of different ideas and thoughts about how to deal with nuclear waste, and this Pangea concept in my view is the strongest I've seen. It's technically extremely well founded and has a very good and explainable safety case. I think those things are extremely important. Of course the real unknown is whether that will be accepted and welcomed once it's been explained and properly debated.
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Peter George:
BNFL's got a problem. After America, Britain has the largest stockpile of high-level radioactive waste in the world.
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It sits quietly in canisters beneath the water -- cooling down for years before it can be touched.
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What's more, it's not just British waste - a big part of BNFL's business is reprocessing nuclear fuel rods from power stations in other parts of the world. But reprocessing produces radioactive waste, too -- and BNFL's customers around the world don't know what to do with their waste either.
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David Bonser, British Nuclear Fuels Ltd:
Some of those customers will look for an international repository rather than a national repository and so we feel that where there's a unique and potentially very valuable solution to what is a worldwide problem that as a global nuclear company we would wish to be involved in that.
Q: So in no case would British nuclear waste end up in a repository in Australia?
A: Well of course in the very long term, that's a matter for government policy rather than a commercial company, and we will always work within the UK government policy.
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Peter George:
On the River Esk, a few kilometres south of Sellafield, Martin Forwood checks radiation levels.
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The plant's reputation for radioactive leaks followed by cover-ups and allegations of leukemia clusters and pollution of the Irish Sea have spawned deep mistrust amongst environmentalists and local opposition groups.
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Martin Forwood, Cumbrians Opposed to Radioactive Environment:
They haven't changed at all. They're still the murky deceitful company they always were.
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David Bonser, British Nuclear Fuels Ltd:
We need to build confidence, we need to build trust. We'll accept we've made mistakes and try to put them right. We operate in a number of different countries on a number of different sites and we try to adopt that open approach towards what we do wherever we operate, and we would do just the same in Australia.
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Peter George:
Martin Forwood, like most British environmentalists, believe BNFL should abandon plans for underground dumps and be forced to keep its waste on site until safer ways are found to deal with it.
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Martin Forwood, Cumbrians Opposed to Radioactive Environment:
The industry's option which is to push it underground, very much out-of-site, out-of-mind, has so many flaws in it that it would be crassly wrong, I believe, on behalf of future generations to allow that to go ahead. The second point -- I think I've already mentioned that it would not be right, it would be immoral, in our view, to land a country -- let's say Australia, with everybody else's waste problems. That would be wrong.
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Peter George:
To London, where BNFL's woes have not endeared it to its owner, the British government.
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The latest investigation into radioactive waste -- a select committee of the House of Lords -- concluded last month that underground repositories are still the best bet.
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Lord Tombs, House of Lords:
But since it will take 24 years even to open a deep geological disposal, you need to start now, because procrastination is the thief of time, and that 24 years can stretch into 50, 60, sometime, never, and it's a problem of such magnitude that it has to be tackled.
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Peter George:
Lord Tombs believes Britain will have to dispose of its own waste at home -- but says BNFL has every right to explore the Pangea idea for other countries' wastes.
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Lord Tombs, House of Lords:
Well it could well be because there are nuclear reactors in the far east for which may provide a market for Australia. I'm not qualified to comment on that. All I'm saying is I don't think the UK's a very good prospect for the reasons I've outlined.
Q: Do you think perhaps those a little politically insensitive -- the government owned body in Britain...
A: ...Not at all...
Q: ...Should be investigating in Australia?
A: No I would put it in a way which may, you may not appreciate. I would say that they have enormous expertise which Australia doesn't, and by helping Australia to develop possibilities that they're actually helping Australia, which I'm all in favour of.
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Peter George:
Whether BNFL is doing Australia a favour with its Pangea proposal is a moot point.
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Pangea's backers say a mining state like Western Australia already has the expertise to build a port, a railway line into the desert and the catacomb to handle the waste. Investments that would give the state an economic shot in the arm -- a $6 billion jolt in start-up costs alone -- $200 billion to Australia over 40 years.
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Pangea chose one of the Liberal Party's favoured economic modellers to assess its figures.
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Jim Voss, General Manager, Pangea:
Access Economics has estimated that this leads to about a 1 per cent increase in the gross domestic product and that brings another 50,000 jobs just from economic development, economic stimulation.
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Senator Nick Minchin, Minister for Industry and Resources:
I mean you might as well suggest that Australia take the world's prison population -- you know we've got plenty of space, why not build a great big prison in Alice Springs and take all the world's prisoners? Well you know that's, that's ridiculous. So is this proposal.
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Dr. Carmen Lawrence, MP for Fremantle, Labor:
The amount of money being talked about is mind boggling, and it might be in the future -- particularly if there are further economic problems flying out of what's happened in Asia that some Australian government somewhere might say 'Well let's have a look at this'.
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Peter George:
Jobs and profits are one thing -- the politics of the nuclear debate another thing entirely.
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The Government's already faced with the passions aroused by the go-aheads for the Jabiluka and Beverley uranium mines, by its own search for a dump for Australia's low-level and intermediate nuclear waste, and by plans for a new nuclear research reactor at Sydney's Lucas Heights. To add Pangea to the menu would seem cause political indigestion.
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Senator Nick Minchin, Minister for Industry & Resources:
Q: Is your policy determined on the science of the matter, the environmental issues of the matter, or the simple politics of it?
A: Well it's a combination. I mean the position of the Australian community is critical and as I say, I don't think there's any basis on which the community is prepared to accept this.
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Peter George:
But Pangea's been at work on this area too.
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While proposals to replace the old Lucas Heights reactor are causing controversy, Pangea believes Australian antagonism to nuclear issues is not as deep rooted as it seems.
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Peter George:
Over 18 months, Pangea's spent a quarter of a million dollars on polling by the Liberal Party's own pollster Mark Textor whose report warns Pangea that most Australians are ill-informed and afraid of nuclear issues. But crucially, the report goes on to say: "as long as people's safety concerns can be satisfied, and we cannot over-emphasise the importance of the magnitude...of this task," people could see the benefits of a nuclear waste dump.
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Jim Voss, General Manager, Pangea:
There's about 35 per cent of the populous believes that Pangea may well be in the national interest. A very solid 25-28 per cent are absolutely convinced that it wouldn't be in the nation's best interest. The group in the middle are asking the fundamental question of why? Why dispose of this material? Why now? Why Australia?
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Senator Nick Minchin, Minister for Industry & Resources:
I've, as you know, been involved in the professional side of the Liberal Party for 14 years. I did a lot of polling myself. I'd have to say I know all the tricks of the trade and I know you can get any result you like depending on the way you ask the question
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Footage - Pangea advertisement:
"There's no safer place in the world to make the world a safer place"
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Peter George:
For now, Pangea's advertising campaign is on hold; plans to start field studies this year are postponed, but with so much money behind it, Pangea and those who support it believe time can be used to advantage.
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Footage -- Pangea advertisement:
"...And a kilometre under a remote dessert in Australia is a gigantic non-porous rock that hasn't moved for millions of years, and won't for millions more."
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Prof. Brian Anderson, Australian National University:
I certainly believe there's a chance for the proposal to get off the ground. I'm not sure of the time scale, but this is a problem that's going to be with us for a very very long time and you know -- governments change and, and politicians, Ministers change and our relationships with other countries change so to imagine that we could continue to maintain an attitude that we're not even going to look at the proposal -- I don't think that's sustainable.
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Dr. Carmen Lawrence, MP for Fremantle, Labor:
If any illustration was needed of the fact that you can't dispose safely of waste -- it's the Pangea proposal. I've actually learned of this proposal in some detail. I made it my business to find out about it. They are serious, they are well-funded,...they're people who've worked around the mining industry for a very long time and I think it would be foolish of anybody -- government or people such as me opposed to what they're proposing to underestimate their their long term commitment to this proposal.
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Peter George:
Faced with closed doors at a federal level, Pangea's strategy has focused on Perth, where it thinks political opposition may be softer and divisions may exist.
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While no member of the West Australian government would speak to Four Corners, Premier Richard Court recently ruled out the Pangea proposal -- though in 1994 he did support a national dump for low and medium-level waste in the state's gold fields.
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Though the Resources Minister also rejects Pangea -- the company thinks the state is nevertheless sending mixed signals.
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Colin Barnett, WA Resources Development Minister(26 March 1999):
I can see a scenario developing in future where countries that sell uranium will share some of the obligations for disposing of the waste but that in the first instance is an issue for the Australian government, and I think Australia as a signatory to the non-proliferation treaty needs to be part of the international debate about uranium.
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Jim Voss, General Manager, Pangea:
Q: Are there doors open? Is there interest?
A: I don't think overtly there is or there is any evidence there is not. There's a long educational process that would have to be done before we'd be, we'd know whether there really are doors open.
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Senator Nick Minchin, Minister for Industry & Resources:
The only way this could advance, in fact is if a state government decided that it would like to entertain this proposition and grant the relevant state approvals for such a project to proceed. But it's not going to go anywhere without the Commonwealth authorising the importation of the materials.
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Jim Voss, General Manager, Pangea:
Q: Senator Minchin has said to us,
A: Mmm....
Q: ...To Four Corners -- we will not become a dumping ground for the world's nuclear waste.
A: Mmm-hmm.
Q: Premier Court has said We don't want to be the dump for other countries' waste.
A: Mmm-hmm.
Q: Now those seem pretty clear policies don't they?
A: Yes.
Q: Do you see any door open at all under those circumstances?
A: Taken at face value, those words would say absolutely there's no door open.
Q: So why not pack up and go away under those circumstances?
A: It's as I said to you a moment ago, the, if you, you have to turn this on it's ear. If they've said yes today, would it be any more meaningful to us in the long term? If our board and our investors would like us to move forward and to try to turn a no into a yes on a bipartisan basis, then that's what we'll do.
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Peter George:
Ten days ago, Pangea representatives from Britain and the United States flew in to Melbourne for a two-day strategy meeting, while last week in Perth -- Pangea hosted a dozen Australian and international scientists for a first private meeting of its scientific review board.
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Jim Voss, General Manager, Pangea:
Q: So how much more money, how much more time are you prepared to put into this before you actually have to make a decision?
A: Well first up that's not my decision, that's, that's the decision of the board of directors.
Q: Mmm, but you speak for Pangea -- you must know what the view is?
A: In the broader sense the sometime during this calendar year there will be a decision as to what course of action to take next -- which country, which course, which strategy.
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Peter George:
Pangea's strategy has brought about its own undoing, opening it to the same accusations of secrecy that has dogged the nuclear industry from birth.
336
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But succeed or fail, it's an uncomfortable reminder that Australia is, after all, a part of the nuclear world and its problems.
337
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David Pentz, Chairman, Pangea:
At the present moment Australia provides a significant quantity of uranium to the world. If in fact there is a repository it's kind of like womb to tomb. So to say that Australia is not a nuclear power state is correct right, but it is in the nuclear fuel cycle.
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Senator Nick Minchin, Minister for Industry and Resources:
It does not then follow that Australia is required to receive back all that waste material, and I really do think countries have to take a very responsible approach when they enter into the business of generating their electricity by nuclear power.
339
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Dr. Carmen Lawrence, MP for Fremantle, Labor:
Australia is putting itself I think, in a difficult position by continuing to expand the nuclear industry by as the current government is doing expanding the mining of uranium in this country. We are in a sense placing ourselves in some position of obligation to the disposal of those wastes.
340
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Peter George:
If it fails in Australia, Pangea says it'll turn its focus to Argentina.
341
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But it's the unique combination of geology, political stability and international credentials that first brought Pangea to Australia -- credentials which have put Australia in the nuclear limelight and will continue to do so as concern about nuclear waste and nuclear disarmament grows into the next century.