[dramatic music]

Deep beneath the West Australian outback

lies the germ of an idea.

A dream about 
making the world a safer place

that's gone beyond just the dreaming.

(man) "We have a very specific goal,
dispose of nuclear wastes,

pull out the nuclear weapons
and get them out of the way."

Jim Voss envisages a catacomb
500 metres beneath his feet

that would keep safe forever

one of the most toxic poisons
known to humankind.

(Voss) "Australia has the opportunity

to use its democratic forces

to say this is something
we should be doing for the world.

[alarm blaring]

For half a century,
the problem of nuclear waste disposal

has dogged the world,
and one company called Pangea,

backed by big money and influence,
wants to bury it in Australia.

You'll find a great deal 
of enthusiasm in the United States,

and I suspect around the world.

They have backing from incredible people
within government and industry.

(ad) <i>To make the world a safer place
for the people we love...</i>

Tonight, Four Corners
goes inside the company called Pangea.

We examine a scheme
that's provoked accusations of secrecy

and back-door influence peddling,

a scheme that forces Australia

to confront its role
in the nuclear world.

(ad) <i>Australia will make
our world a safer place</i>

We're not interested in nuclear power

and we're not interested in being
the world's nuclear waste dump.

♪ (music) ♪

(Voss) We're just headed out
here into the desert.

(man) What you're looking for, 
of course

is the most remote areas 
you can find, right?"

(Voss) Well, in part.

The geology is far more important 
than the remoteness.

Pangea's Jim Voss 
and scientist Charles McCombie

took Four Corners on the long trip

from Perth, 340 kilometres
north east of Kalgoorlie,

to the edge of the Great Victoria Desert.

(McCombie) The flatness, even more 
important than how it looks on the surface

if you look out at the horizon 
it's all very flat.

This is one of the flattest areas
in the world and that's a real key issue

to the– what we call a high isolation site

(helicopter blades whirring)

Latitude 28 south, longitude 123 east.

(whirring continues)

Out in this area 
the size of Western Europe

lies a patch of ground 
20 kilometres square

that they believe could house 
a repository for up to 20 percent

of the world's nuclear waste.

Out here you find pangea rock -- 
very old, very stable --

the geology from which 
the company gets its name.

(McCombie) And in the basin area
and where we're on the edge now,

it's 300 to 800 million years 
of quiet build-up of sediments.

So this is one of the most 
stable geological areas

that you'll find in the world.

But it's not just science. 
Politics are just as crucial

in dealing with radioactive waste 
and nuclear disarmament

and that's what makes Australia 
more attractive than Argentina,

Namibia, and China, 
where pangea rock is also found.

(Voss) Well, it's the political stability
that we're concerned about.

Australia's tradition 
in democratic principles,

Australia's environmental activism 
is vital to us. Australia's role

in the international community 
for disarmament for all sorts of weapons

nuclear, land mines, chemical weapons,
very important facets to us for Australia

Behind Pangea stand 
three international organisations.

The huge British government-owned 
nuclear conglomerate, BNFL

British Nuclear Fuels Limited, 
which owns 80 percent

a Canadian company 
called Golder Associates

world experts in toxic waste management

and Nagra, a Swiss organisation 
responsible for finding

a nuclear waste dump
for Switzerland's nuclear industry.

(advertisement) <i>The simple fact 
is that more than 30 countries</i>

<i>use nuclear power.</i>

Pangea originally planned 
to launch its scheme on Australians

last month, with a 9 million dollar
war chest for advertising and promoting

a scheme it knew would meet 
an incredulous public

and skeptical politicians.

Those plans fell apart in December
last year, when the British arm

of Friends Of The Earth 
got hold of the video

Pangea prepared for the launch 
and sent it to Australia.

(Pangea promotional video) <i>Above all, 
Pangea will provide the world</i>

<i>with a safe solution 
to the disposal of nuclear materials.</i>

(man) Oh, it arrived in 
an unmarked brown envelope

on my desk, and I had no idea 
where it came from. I felt that this

should not be sprung on Australians in a
kind of hole-in-the-wall secret underhand way

but they should learn as soon as possible 
what was being planned for them.

(Pangea promotional video)
<i>Before any responsible country</i>

<i>would send their waste for disposal, 
they must be certain</i>

<i>not only that the respository is safe, 
but also that its safety must be seen</i>

<i>to be clearly and rigorously regulated.</i>

(Voss) We were of course, disappointed. 
It was our intention to roll Pangea out

in a very public and planned manner,
to give everybody an opportunity to debate.

(woman) "My question is to 
Senator Minchin, Minister for Resources -"

The response to the video was immediate. 
Opponents were appalled

at the idea of a nuclear dumping ground.

(woman) " ... Will he rule out completely 
any involvement of his government

in setting up an international nuclear 
waste repository in Australia?"

The Federal Government 
moved to distance itself.

(Senator Minchin) "And the Government
has absolutely no intention of accepting

the radioactive waste of other countries.
The policy is clear - "

In the following months, 
the Industry and Resources Minister's line

has hardened.

(Senator Minchin) "There may be 
other countries that

in far less fortuitous 
economic circumstances than Australia

that do decide they want to accept 
international nuclear waste.

Well that's their business, 
and that may be one way

in which those countries 
with a waste problem deal with it.

But Australia won't be that nation 
that accepts the waste."

But Pangea's plans for the outback 
are a reminder of Australia's part

in the nuclear world:
an exporter of uranium,

part of the American nuclear umbrella 
and a leading advocate of disarmament.

What Pangea is doing 
is putting together a growing network

of international 
and Australian businessmen,

scientists and policy makers who believe 
that Australia should also have a role

to play in resolving one of the 
nuclear age's most pressing problems:

what to do with the stockpiles 
of nuclear waste

that have been growing now 
for half a century.

It's a debate they say 
that Australia has to have

one that can't be dodged forever,
and one upon which Australians themselves

will eventually have to take a stand.

(indistinct lecturing)

Amongst those who believe Australia 
should play a role is the president

of the Australian Academy of Science 
who's personally backing Pangea

and will sit on 
its scientific review panel.

(professor) "I think it is important 
that they engage the Australian public

and engage the Australian public's 
representatives, namely the politicians

so that the politicians get 
as clear a view as it's possible to get

of what the proposal's really about. 
The existence of nuclear waste

is a world problem and Australia 
in this respect is part of the world

and if we can help reduce that danger 
by putting that particular problem to bed

that is great."

(Jenkins) "This industry thinking that 
it can solve its problems by shifting them

to some remote place, 
and also onto future generations

and that makes one quietly angry."

♪ (ominous music) ♪

The creeping poison of nuclear waste 
began with the advent of the nuclear age

more than half a century ago, 
but it took three decades

before governments 
began to take it seriously.

In 1943, the 2,000 citizens of Hanford 
and neighbouring Bluff Cliffs

in the northwest US state of Washington 
got 30 days notice to move out

when the top-secret Manhattan Program 
to build the first atomic bomb

got underway.

They never came back.

Fifty-six years later, what's left behind
is abandoned, no longer top secret

but still deadly.

1,400 square kilometres
of poisoned land, a wilderness

of dumped nuclear waste 
from the reactors

that produced plutonium 
for bombs and warheads

fodder for 30 years of cold war.

(construction machinery)

The detritus lies scattered and buried.

(more machinery)

A clean-up's underway, 
but it'll take 50 years

at a cost of five and a half 
million dollars every single day.

David Pentz first came to Hanford 
in the '80s at the behest

of the American government.

A specialist in waste disposal,

Pentz spent three years investigating 
whether the contaminated site

might become the world's first permanent 
dump for highly radioactive waste.

It didn't work,
because the geology

proved too complex, 
and it's not yet worked

anywhere else in the world.

(Pentz) "I think total costs, probably 
we've spent in the world today,

is certainly in excess of $20 billion,
and we obviously don't have a repository

licenced repository,
anywhere in the world."

Pentz went home to Seattle, 
but the idea of a disposal site

deep underground did not go away.

He nagged at the problem 
and it nagged at him.

Pentz was chairman of Golder Associates,
the industrial waste experts

and under its umbrella in March 1997, 
he set up Pangea Resources Limited.

(Pentz) "We see ourselves as an ambassador
of a problem, a world problem,

and we think Australia should 
at least talk about it and consider it

in a rational sense 
because of, that we at least,

and I think you will find 
others in the world

believe that Australia 
has an incredible opportunity

to help the world, 
and if you want to call that

as being good neighbourly, so be it.

To me it's, uh, good neighbourly 
doesn't put enough dimension

on the challenge that the world faces.

From modest offices 
in the high-tech part of Seattle

that is home to Microsoft, 
Pentz is working to ensure

the idea doesn't die.

(woman) "Mr. Pentz, I have Australia
and the UK on the line

- for the conference call."
- "Thank you very much."

(Pentz) "I could say our tactics 
are absolutely a disaster, unequivocally.

I would say however our tactics 
were not of our own making, right?"

(George) "So in retrospect, the secrecy 
with which you've cloaked your proposal

has been a mistake?"

"Yes I think that, and some people, 
and I have questioned myself

whether that was right."

(George) "Because one of the great 
criticisms of the whole nuclear industry

and all the, in it's history,
has always been its secrecy, hasn't it?"

"Absolutely, and that's tied 
both sides of the nuclear industry.

Obviously on the weapons side 
and even on the commercial side.

I couldn't agree with you more."

- (man) "Hello, David."
- (Pentz) "Well hi, Jim! Welcome aboard!"

Pentz still runs about 60 people
around the world, some half of them

contracted on a part-time basis. 
Amongst them, Ralph Stoll

a former US nuclear submarine commander.

(Stoll) "It looks like, there's a reason
to go to Washington next week,

to follow up with some of these ideas."

In Australia, Jim Voss is looking 
for new ways to open doors for Pangea.

(Voss on phone) "The Pangea papers were
right where we wanted them, that is

presenting where we stand 
in our feasibility studies."

(Pentz) "Yeah."

There's no shortage of funds. 
Pangea had a $40 million budget this year

but much of it won't now get spent 
because the political heat in Australia

has delayed plans for exploration 
in Western Australia.

(George) "So if the government is saying,
no, it's against our policy

why pursue it?
Why not just go away?"

(Pentz) "Because the idea 
of an international repository

and the benefits 
it will bring the world is real.

We think we have begun to see how we
could put the genie back into the bottle

and, you know, ideas 
of this size ...

don't go away."

♪ (music) ♪

From Seattle, Pentz and Stoll 
are on the move across the continent.

"I have, I think received 
a very good response

both in and outside of the government
to the concept that Pangea represents."

♪ (solemn music) ♪

"I wonder if these ...
kinds will work with Pangea."

In the 18 months since 
Ralph Stoll's first visit to Washington

Pangea's briefed officials 
in the US State Department, the Pentagon

the Department of Energy, 
and presidential advisers

in two powerful arms of American security,
the National Security Council

and the National Security Agency.

And to reach the administration's 
highest political levels, Pangea's hired

a big-hitter lobbyist, the man slated

to run Vice President Al Gore's 
presidential campaign next year.

And Pangea's struck a chord 
that shifts its focus

from a commercial venture,

to play to America's 
strategic preoccupation

with growing stockpiles 
of nuclear warheads.

"The world has a serious problem 
with nuclear waste.

There are thousands and thousands 
of tons of it, and thousands of tons more

coming on-line each year, so to speak, 
as well as many thousands of tons

that are derivative 
from former nuclear weapons programs,

and these have to be stored 
safely and securely for thousands of years

and the world simply doesn't 
have a solution to this

and as long as this waste 
is stored in an imperfect fashion

which it is now, virtually everywhere, 
it represents something of a threat."

Until the end of last year, 
Jan Lodal was responsible

for running nuclear policy 
for the Pentagon.

"I think that the American government 
is likely to be very attracted

to the possibility of such a site, 
and it will also see the attractiveness

of Australia's location."

At Washington's Georgetown University, 
Pangea has another influential ally

in President Clinton's special adviser 
for disarmament, who's concerned

about bombs or the raw material 
falling into the hands

of rogue states and terrorist groups.

"In the United States, 
we are very concerned

about what is generally called 
in the literature the loose nuke problem.

We are working with the Russians 
in a very cooperative way,

but still there are hundreds of tons, 
when it only takes a few kilograms

to make a bomb, there are hundreds 
of tons of this material

inadequately protected. 
That's what we wanna take care of too.

♪ (western music) ♪

♪ <i>On the trail you'll find me lopin',
while the spaces are wide open</i> ♪

♪ <i>in the land of the old AEC, yee-hoo</i> ♪

♪ <i>why, the cedar is attractive,
and the air is radioactive</i> ♪

♪ <i>oh, the Wild West is 
where I want to be</i> ♪

♪ <i>'mid the sagebrush and the cactus
I'll watch the fellas practice</i> ♪

♪ <i>droppin' bombs through 
the clean desert breeze, ah-ha</i> ♪

(bomb explosion)

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.

In pursuit of superiority 
over the Russians,

America detonated 928 bombs 
at the Nevada test site,

a hundred of them above ground.

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.

(explosions, wind, breaking glass, planes)

The Cold War legacy is 
100,000 nuclear warheads around the world.

Disarmament talks call 
for a reduction to 4,000 in 10 years.

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.

"They cloak it as 
a nuclear non proliferation

and arms control proposal, 
but when you look at the fine print

it really is, at this point in time
at least, a bail-out

for the nuclear industry and 
for the plutonium industry in particular."

"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."

"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."

"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."

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.

"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."

Like Pangea, Jim Niggemeyer believes 
the answer lies beneath his feet.

(Niggemeyer) 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.

(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.

(Niggemeyer) And you'll notice
as we go down

you'll see uh, ties of fairly heavy steel
around the tunnel.

That's to hold up the rock and
give us general support.

(George) 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.

The people of Nevada have already 
decided: they don't want it.

But they know they're up against 
powerful nuclear interests.

(Reid) They do it in a number of ways. 
One is through fear and the distribution

of bad 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 lobbyists money can buy. (laughs)

(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.

And if the Americans have problems 
finding a place for their nuclear waste,

imagine the problems across the Atlantic.

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 rouse.

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.

(Blowers) 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.

(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.

(Blowers) 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.

(Voss) 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.

(George) And yet if you do provide a 
solution to the problems that are there

today, the problem of nuclear waste...

(Voss) Yes...
(George) You end up do you not,

justifying the continued existence 
of the nuclear industry?

(Voss) Under some circumstances one could 
interpret that. Remember that our...

(George) One suspects the nuclear industry
will interpret it exactly that way.

(Voss) They can interpret it as they like.

[Music]

(George) Behind the nuclear industry's 
sense of urgency lies an enterprise

situated in Britain's beautiful 
Lake district in Cambria.

[music]

It's called Sellafield.

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 it's 
BNFL that's behind Pangea.

(Bonser) 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.

[Music]

(George) BNFL's got a problem.
After America, Britain has

the largest stockpile of high-level 
radioactive waste in the world.

[Music]

It sits quietly in canisters 
beneath the water,

cooling down for years
before it can be touched.

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.

(Bonser) 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.

(George) So in no case would 
British nuclear waste

end up in a repository in Australia?

(Bonser) 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.

(George) On the River Esk, a few
kilometres south of Sellafield,

Martin Forwood checks radiation levels.

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.

(Forwood) They haven't changed at all. 
They're still the murky

deceitful company that they always were.

(Bonser) 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.

(George) Martin Forwood, like most 
British environmentalists,

believes 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.

(Forwood) 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.

(George) To London, where BNFL's woes 
have not endeared it to

its owner, the British government.

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.

(Tombs) 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.

(Lord Tombs) That is probably the way in
which international development of take—

(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.

(Tombs) 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.

(George) Do you think perhaps those
a little politically insensitive

-- the government owned body in Britain...
(Tombs) ...Not at all...

(George) ...Should be
investigating in Australia?

(Tombs) 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.

(George) Whether BNFL is doing 
Australia a favour with

its Pangea proposal is a moot point.

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.

Pangea chose one of the Liberal Party's
favoured economic modellers

to assess its figures.

(Voss) Access Economics has estimated 
that this leads to about a

1% increase in the gross domestic product
and that brings another 50,000

jobs just from economic development,
economic stimulation.

(Minchin) 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.

(Lawrence) 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."

[People shouting]

(George) Jobs and profits are one thing

-- the politics of the nuclear debate 
another thing entirely.

[People chanting]

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.

Senator Nick Minchin, Minister 
for Industry &amp; 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.

Peter George: But Pangea's 
been at work on this area too.

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.

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".

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?

Senator Nick Minchin, Minister for 
Industry &amp; 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

Footage - Pangea advertisement:
"There's no safer place in the

world to make the world a safer place"

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.

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."

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.

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 long term commitment

to this proposal.

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.

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.

Though the Resources Minister also rejects
Pangea -- the company thinks the state is

nevertheless sending mixed signals.

Colin Barnett (26 March 1999):
Now I can see

a scenario developing in future where 
countries that supply 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.

Peter George: Are there doors open?
Is there interest?

Voss: 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.

Senator Minchin: The only way this could
advance, in fact, is if a state government

um, 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.

Peter George: Senator Minchin has said to
us, to Four Corners, "We will not become a

dumping ground for the world's nuclear
waste."

Voss: Mmm-hmm.

George: Premier Court has said, "We don't want
to be the dump for other countries' waste."

Now those seem pretty clear policies,
don't they?

Voss: Yes.

George: Do you see any door open at all
under those circumstances?

Voss: Taken at face value, those words
would say absolutely there's no door open.

George: So why not pack up and go away
under those circumstances?

Voss: 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.

[This is the sedimentary basin area
that we're looking at, and we

wanted to go and look in more detail at
what this terrain looks like in particular]

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.

Peter George: So how much more money,

how much more time are you prepared
to put into this before you actually have

to make a decision?

Voss: Well first up that's not
my decision,

that's, that's the decision of the
board of directors.

George: Mmm, but you speak for Pangea,
you must know what the view is?

Voss: 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.

(Pentz) In terms of predictability from one
place to another, do we got any more feel

from that, and some of these particular
areas you've started to look at?

(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.

But succeed or fail, it's an uncomfortable
reminder that Australia is, after all,

a part of the nuclear world
and its problems.

(Pentz): 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.

(Minchin): 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.

(Lawrence): 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.

Peter George: If it fails in Australia,
Pangea says it'll turn its focus to Argentina.

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.

[dramatic jazz music]