[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) To make the world a safer place for the people we love...
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) Australia will make our world a safer place
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) The simple fact is that more than 30 countries
use nuclear power.
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) Above all, Pangea will provide the world
with a safe solution to the disposal of nuclear materials.
(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) Before any responsible country
would send their waste for disposal, they must be certain
not only that the respository is safe, but also that its safety must be seen
to be clearly and rigorously regulated.
(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) ♪
♪ On the trail you'll find me lopin', while the spaces are wide open ♪
♪ in the land of the old AEC, yee-hoo ♪
♪ why, the cedar is attractive, and the air is radioactive ♪
♪ oh, the Wild West is where I want to be ♪
♪ 'mid the sagebrush and the cactus I'll watch the fellas practice ♪
♪ droppin' bombs through the clean desert breeze, ah-ha ♪
(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 & 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 & 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]