Who Will Take the Radioactive Rods from Fukushima?

By Yoichi Shimatsu

The inability of Tepco or the government to pay for nuclear waste disposal puts the financial liability squarely on its partner companies and suppliers, including GE, Toshiba, Hitachi, Kajima Construction and especially the sources of the uranium, CAMECO and Rio Tinto and the governments of Canada and Australia. A fundamental rule of both capitalism and civil law is that somebody has to pay.

URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25064

The decommissioning of the Fukushima 1 nuclear plant is delayed by a single problem: Where to dispose of the uranium fuel rods? Many of those rods are extremely radioactive and partially melted, and some contain highly lethal plutonium.

Besides the fissile fuel inside the plant's six reactors, more than 7 tons of spent rods have to be removed to a permanent storage site before workers can bury the  Fukushima facility under concrete. The rods cannot be permanently stored in Japan because the country's new waste  storage centers on the northeast tip of Honshu are built on unsuitable land. The floors of the Rokkasho reprocessing facility and Mutsu storage unit are cracked from uneven sinking into the boggy soil.

Entombment of the rods inside the Fukushima 1 reactors carries enormous risks because the footing of landfill  cannot support the weight of the fuel rods in addition to the reactors and cooling water inside the planned concrete containment walls. The less reactive spent fuel would have to be kept inside air-cooled dry casks. The powerful earthquakes that frequently strike the Tohoku region will eventually undermine the foundations, causing radioactive wastewater to pour unstoppably into the Pacific Ocean. The rods must therefore go to another country.

American Bad Faith

Under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), signed by Japan in 1970, Washington's negotiators stipulated that used nuclear fuel from Japanese reactors must by law be shipped to the United States for storage or reprocessing to prevent the development of an atomic bomb. Washington has been unable to fulfill its treaty obligations to Tokyo due to the public outcry against the proposed Yucca Mountain storage facility near Las Vegas.

A panel convened by the Obama administration has just recommended the set up of a network of storage sites across the United States, a controversy certain to revive the anti-nuclear sentiments during the upcoming election campaign. The American nuclear industry has its own stockpile of more than 60,000 tons of spent fuel - not counting waste from reactors used for military and research purposes - leaving no space for Fukushima's rods inside the Nevada disposal site, if indeed it is ever opened.

To Continental Asia

The Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) has allocated 1 trillion yen ($12 billion) in funds for nuclear waste disposal. Areva, the French nuclear monopoly, has teamed up with Tepco to find an overseas storage site. So far, the Tepco-Areva team have quietly contacted three Asian countries - Kazakhstan, China and Mongolia -- to set up a center for "reprocessing", a euphemism for nuclear dump site.

Among the threesome, China was the top choice for the Japanese nuclear establishment, which has confidence in Beijing's ability to safeguard nuclear secrets from its citizenry and even from the top leaders. Japan's space agency, which keeps 24-hour satellite observation over every nuclear-related facility in China, possesses the entire record of radiation leaks there. Since Beijing withholds this sort of data from the public, the Japanese side felt it had the necessary leverage in talks with Chinese nuclear officials.

Though the nuclear-sector bureaucrats were initially eager to receive bundles of yen, the proposal was blown away by the salt craze that swept over China. Within a couple of weeks of the Fukushima meltdowns, millions of shoppers emptied supermarket shelves on rumors that iodized salt could prevent radiation-caused thyroid cancer. The Chinese public is rightfully fearful of health-related scandals after discoveries of melamine in milk, growth hormones in pork, pesticides in vegetables, antibiotics in fish and now radioactive fallout over farmland.

A nuclear disposal deal would require trucks loaded with radioactive cargo to roll through a densely populated port, perhaps Tianjin or Ningbo, in the dead of night. There is no way that secret shipments wouldn't be spotted by locals with smart phones, triggering a mass exodus from every city, town and village along the route to the dumping grounds in China's far west. Thus, the skittishness of the ordinary Chinese citizen knocked out the easiest of nefarious plans.

Principle of Industrial Recovery

A more logical choice for overseas storage is in the sparsely populated countries that supply uranium ore to Japan, particularly Australia and Canada. As exporters of uranium, Canberra and Ottawa are ultimately responsible for storage of the nuclear waste  under the legal principle of industrial recovery.

The practice of industrial recovery is already well-established in the consumer electronics and household appliances sectors where manufacturers are required by an increasing number of countries to take back and recycle used television sets, computers and refrigerators.

Under the principle, uranium mining giants like Rio Tinto and CAMECO would be required to take back depleted uranium. The cost of waste storage would then be factored into the export price for uranium ore. The added cost is passed along to utility companies and ultimately the consumer through a higher electricity rate. If the market refuses to bear the higher price for uranium as compared with other fuels, then nuclear power will go the way of the steam engine.

Australian and Canadian politicians are bound to opportunistically oppose the return of depleted uranium since any shipments from Fukushima would be met by a massive turnout of "not-in-my-backyard" protesters. The only way for Tokyo to convince  the local politicos to go along quietly is by threatening to publish an online list of the bribe-takers in parliament who had earlier backed uranium mining on behalf of the Japanese interests.

Nuclear's Cost-Efficiency

The question then arise whether nuclear power, when long-term storage fees are included, is competitive with investment in renewable energy such as wind, solar, hydro and tidal resources. Renewable energy probably has the edge since they don't create waste. Natural gas remains the undisputed price beater wherever it is available in abundance. In a free market without hidden subsidies, nuclear is probably doomed.

In a lapse of professionalism, the International Atomic Energy Commission (IAEA) has never seriously addressed nuclear-waste disposal as an industrywide issue. Based on the ration of spent rods to reactor fuel inside U.S. nuclear facilities, there are close to 200,000 metric tons of high-level nuclear waste at the 453 civilian nuclear-energy plants worldwide. Yet not a single permanent storage site has ever been opened anywhere.

The Fukushima 1 dilemma shows that the issues of cost-efficiency and technological viability can no longer be deferred or ignored. Ratings agencies report that Tepco's outstanding debt has soared beyond $90 billion, meaning that it cannot cover future costs of storing spent rods from its Kashiwazaki and Fukushima 2 nuclear plants. The Japanese government's debt has soared to 200 percent of GDP. Neither entity can afford the rising cost of nuclear power.

The inability of Tepco or the government to pay for nuclear waste disposal puts the financial liability squarely on its partner companies and suppliers, including GE, Toshiba, Hitachi, Kajima Construction and especially the sources of the uranium, CAMECO and Rio Tinto and the governments of Canada and Australia. A fundamental rule of both capitalism and civil law is that somebody has to pay.

Last Stop

Since Australia and Canada aren't in any hurry to take back the radioactive leftovers, that leaves Japan and treaty-partner United States with only one option for quick disposal- Mongolia.

Ulan Bator accepts open-pit mining for coal and copper, which are nothing but gigantic toxic sites, so why not take the melted-down nuclear rods? Its GDP, ranked 136 among the world's economies, is estimated to be $5.8 billion in 2010. Thus, $12 billion is an unimaginable sum for one more hole in the ground.

Not that Mongolia would get the entirety of the budget, since the nuclear cargo would have to transit through the Russian Far East. Unlike the health-conscious Chinese, the population of Nakhodka or Vladivostok are used to playing fast-and-loose with radioactive materials and vodka.

Even if the mafia that runs the Russian transport industry were to demand a disproportionate cut, Mongolia's 3 million inhabitants would be overjoyed at gaining about $2,000 each, more than the average annual income, that is if the money is divided evenly after the costs of building the dump.

Realistically, the Mongolian people are unlikely to receive a penny, since the money will go into a trust fund for maintenance costs. That's because $12 billion spread over the half-life of uranium - 700 million years - is equivalent to $17 in annual rent. That doesn't even cover kibble bits for the watchdog on duty, much less the cooling system. Not that anyone will be counting since by the time uranium decays to a safe level, fossils will be the sole remnant of human life on Earth.

Illusory, shortsighted greed will surely triumph in Mongolia, and that leaves a question of moral accountability for the rest of us. Will the world community feel remorse for dumping its nuclear mess onto an ancient culture that invented boiled mutton, fermented mare's milk and Genghis Khan? For guilt-ridden diplomats from Tokyo and Washington wheedling the dirty deal in Ulan Bator, here's the rebuttal: Did the national hero, the Great Khan, ever shed any tears or feel pangs of guilt? There's no need for soul-searching. A solution is at hand.

Yoichi Shimatsu, former editor of the Japan Times Weekly, is a Hong Kong-based environmental writer and also Editor-at-large at the 4^th Media, China.

"A Matter of Integrity": Dr. Doug Rokke

"A Matter of Integrity"

author: Doug Rokke, PhD

War must be considered obsolete. Officials refuse to comply with regulations. Citizens of the world must speak out. The human cost is increasing. Our leaders have abandoned our nation's and the world's citizens.

A matter of integrity by Doug Rokke, PhD "YOU ARE GOING TO WAR" - those words echoed through my mind, bringing back memories of my Vietnam experiences, as I sat down in my physics research laboratory at the University of Illinois after receiving a telephone call from the Lieutenant Colonel I worked for in the Army Reserve during November 1990. I knew this would happen after Iraq invaded Kuwait during August 1990. I just did not know when my activation order would arrive. Anyway, on Thanksgiving Day 1990 I would be on my way to war again just as I was on Thanksgiving Day of 1969. Twenty-one years to the day after going to Vietnam for the 2nd time, I was going back to war. Today, I am a disabled and retired Army Reserve Medical Service Corps officer who specialized in nuclear medicine; and nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare operations (NBC); intelligence; medical operations; and emergency field medicine as a former enlisted combat medic. When Gulf War 1 started during August 1990, I was initially assigned to teach nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare (NBC) operations to 4th US Army personnel. I was finally ordered to active duty and sent to Saudi Arabia with the order "to bring them home alive". That was quite a contrast from my duties during Vietnam as a Bomb Navigation Hard-Hat on B-52's when my job was to ensure weapons systems were optimized to kill. Astonishingly I had deployed to South East Asia on Thanksgiving Day 1969 and then again for Gulf War 1 on Thanksgiving Day 1990. I was sent to Saudi Arabia as the theater health physicist assigned to the 12th Preventive Medicine (P.M.) Command professional staff. The 12th P.M. was in charge of all Preventive Medicine within the combat theater. Basically we were the public health department. I also was assigned to three special operations teams: Bauer's Raiders, the Depleted Uranium Assessment team, and the Captured Equipment team. Medicalcare for casualties delayed Today, 17 years since the completion of Desert Storm, with 1994 and 1999 combat actions in the Balkans, and with Gulf War 2 (Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom) ongoing, I am frustrated that the required medical care for "all" (combatants and noncombatants) casualties and environmental remediation of all contamination still is delayed, denied, or for many cases ineffective. As of May 2007 over 408,000 of our nations sons and daughters have applied for lifetime VA medical care and a pension as result of combat-military service related injuries, illnesses, and wounds (www.va.gov "May 2007 GWVIS report). Medical problems (ICD -9 diagnoses) that have been verified in over 300,000 DNBI casualties between FY 2002 and December 31, 2007 (Analysis of VA Health Care Utilization Among US Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) Veterans; Operation Enduring Freedom; Operation Iraqi Freedom; VHA Office of Public Health and Environmental Hazards; VA; January 2008) include: Infectious and Parasitic Diseases, Malignant Neoplasms, Benign Neoplasms, Diseases of Endocrine/Nutritional/Metabolic Systems, Diseases of Blood and Blood Forming Organs, Mental Disorders, Diseases of Nervous System/Sense Organs, Diseases of Circulatory, Disease of Respiratory System, Disease of Digestive System, Diseases of Genitourinary System, Diseases of Skin, Diseases of Musculoskeletal System/Connective System, Symptoms, Signs and Ill Defined Conditions, and Injury/Poisonings. An April 6, 2008 Army Times report written by Kelly Kennedy "Reservists confused about disability benefit eligibility" reveals that too many injured and ill warriors have been given administrative discharges and have not been told that they are eligible for medical disability. Sadly US Air Force Colonel Kenneth Cox verified that Department of Defense medical officials deliberately delayed and denied medical diagnosis of traumatic brain injury ("Colonel: Pentagon delayed brain injury exams"; By Gregg Zoroya - USA Today; Posted: Tuesday Mar 18, 2008 8:08:48 EDT ) Commanders were warned Since 1991 authors of numerous Department of Defense reports have stated that medical and tactical commanders were unaware of the probable NBC-E (WMD) exposures and never told about the adverse medical and environmental consequences of these exposures. They were told! They were warned! We recommended immediate and long-term medical care. We identified the probable threats and expected adverse health and environmental consequences in written messages and during courses we taught. These courses included the 3rd US Army Medical Command (MEDCOM) & 3rd US Army Central Command (Arcent) Medical Management Of Chemical And Biological Casualties Course ( http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/), the NBC-E Defense Refresher Course, the COMBAT LIFESAVER COURSE, and the Decontamination Procedures Course. We taught these courses to over 1200 persons assigned to individual units and those assigned to the theater command staff between December 1990 and February 1991. I gave the threat briefing specifically identifying the anticipated NBC-E exposures and taught the NBC-E Defense Refresher Course, the Combat Lifesaver Course, and Decontamination Procedures Course between December 1990 and February 25, 1991. We also discussed preventive medicine issues such as food and water borne illnesses, endemic diseases, and hazardous materials exposure issues. Therefore, most unit commanders, medical staff, specified individuals at all levels knew what to expect and how to respond to any given incident! Uranium munitions still being used Uranium munitions are still being used during ongoing combat actions causing air, water, soil, and food contamination with consequent adverse health effects even though the United Nations Sub-commission on Human Rights has ruled DU munitions are an illegal weapon. Recently uranium weapons contamination as a result of US Army operations has been confirmed at two locations in Hawaii after initial denials ( http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/08/ap_hawai). During the summer of 1991, the United States military had collected artillery, tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles, conventional and unconventional munitions, trucks, etc. at Camp Doha in Kuwait. As result of carelessness this weapons depot caught fire with consequent catastrophic explosions resulting in death, injury, illness and extensive environmental contamination from depleted uranium, conventional explosives, and unconventional munitions. Recently the emirate of Kuwait required the United States Department of Defense to remove the contamination. Consequently, over 6,700 tons of contaminated soil sand and other residue was collected and has been shipped back to the United States for burial by American Ecology at Boise Idaho. When Bob Nichols, an investigative journalist, and I contacted American Ecology we found out that they had absolutely no knowledge of US Army Regulation 700-48, US Army PAM 700-48, US Army Technical Bulletin 9-1300-278, and all of the medical orders dealing with depleted uranium contamination, environmental remediation procedures, safety, and medical care. They had never heard of US Environmental Protection Agency guidelines for dealing with mixed - hazardous waste such as radioactive materials and conventional explosives byproducts. (reference "Approaches for the Remediation of Federal Facility Sites Contaminated with Explosives or Radioactive Wastes", EPA/625/R-93/013, September 1993). The shipment across the ocean, unloading at Longview, Washington State port, transport by rail, and burial in Idaho endangers not only the residents of these areas but poses a significant agricultural threat through introduction of pests, microbes, etc. foreign to our nation. Contamination in our own backyard Sadly the known adverse health and environmental hazards from uranium weapons contamination are in our own backyard. The EPA has listed the former Nuclear Metals- Starmet uranium weapons manufacturing site in Concord Ma. On EPA's Superfund National Priority List because it poses a significant risk to public health and the environment. Consequently the community in which our nation was born on April 18, 1775 is now the location of America's own closed dirty bomb factory that will endanger the health and safety of the descendants of our original patriots- "the Minutemen". Unbelievably, US Department of Defense officials continue to refuse to comply with their own written directives requiring immediate medical care "Medical Management of Army Personnel Exposed to Depleted Uranium (DU)" Headquarters, US Army Medical Command 29 April 2004 and the previous directive "Medical Management of Unusual Depleted Uranium Casualties", DOD, Pentagon, 10/14/93 and still refuse to complete thorough environmental clean up as required by US Army Regulation 700-48, Logistics, "Management of Equipment Contaminated With Depleted Uranium or Radioactive Commodities", Headquarters, Department of the Army, Washington, D.C., 16 September 2002 and Department Of The Army Technical Bulletin 9-1300-278: Guidelines For Safe Response To Handling, Storage, And Transportation Accidents Involving Army Tank Munitions Or Armor Which Contain Depleted Uranium (Headquarters, Department Of The Army, July 1996). Basically United States military personnel have illegally disposed of tons of solid radioactive waste in other nations then ignored the consequences. The primary US Army training manual: STP 21-1-SMCT: Soldiers Manual of Common Tasks states "NOTE: (Depleted uranium) Contamination will make food and water unsafe for consumption." [Task number: 031-503-1017 "RESPOND TO DEPLETED URANIUM/LOW LEVEL RADIOACTIVE MATERIALS (DULLRAM) HAZARDS"]. This acknowledgment indicates that uranium munitions should never be used because food and water contamination will affect all individuals for eternity. The critical fact is that the contaminated food and water can never be made safe for consumption. The toxicity of uranium munitions is also acknowledged by Army leaders. Assistant Army Secretary Walker, in a December 1992 memorandum ordered the Director of the US Army Environmental Policy Institute, AEPI, as mandated by the US Senate, to figure out how to reduce the toxicity of depleted uranium. The AEPI director stated in the final report that "No available technology can significantly change the inherent chemical and radiological toxicity of DU. These are intrinsic properties of uranium." (AEPI Executive Summary, June 1995). A internal Department of Defense briefing conducted by Colonel J. Edgar Wakayama also confirmed the known and serious adverse health and environmental effects ( link to www.traprockpeace.org) Concerns continue The continuing concerns regarding known adverse health and environmental effects of depleted uranium, confirmed inadequate preparation of military personnel, and preliminary findings of the AEPI study resulted in the creation of the US Army Depleted Uranium Project. On August 1, 1994 I was recalled to active duty as the Director of the US Army Depleted Uranium Project in response to congressional inquiries and the June 8, 1993 order from the Deputy Secretary of Defense to: 1. Provide adequate training for personnel who may come in contact with depleted uranium equipment. 2. Complete medical testing of personnel exposed to DU contamination during the Persian Gulf War. 3. Develop a plan for DU contaminated equipment recovery during future operations. The DU project and review of previous research reinforced our original 1991 conclusions and recommendations that: 1. All DU contamination must be physically removed and properly disposed of to prevent future exposures. 2. Specialized radiation detection devices that detect and measure alpha particles, beta articles, x-rays, and gamma rays emissions at appropriate levels from 20 dpm(cpm) up to 100,000 dpm (cpm) and from .1 mrem/ hour to 75 mrem/ hour must be acquired and distributed to all individuals or organizations responsible for medical care and environmental remediation activities involving depleted uranium / uranium 238 and other low level radioactive isotopes that may be present. Standard equipment will not detect contamination. 3. Medical care must be provided to all individuals who did or may have inhaled, ingested, or had wound contamination to detect mobile and sequestered internalized uranium contamination. 4. All individuals who enter, climb on, or work within 25 meters of any contaminated equipment or terrain must wear respiratory and skin protection. 5. Contaminated and damaged equipment or materials should not be recycled to manufacture new materials or equipment. Since 1991 numerous DOD and VA directives ( http://www.spidersmill.com/gwvrl/) based on the previous directives and then the findings and recommendations of the AEPI study and DU Project have required medical care and environmental clean up. However even though DOD, VA, and UN officials know what should be done, visual evidence, photographic and video tape evidence, on site radiological measurements, personal experience, and published reports verify that: 1. Medical care has not been provided to all DU casualties. 2. Environmental remediation has not been completed. 3. Individuals are not wearing respiratory or skin protection. 4. Contaminated and damaged equipment and materials have been recycled to manufacture new products. 5. Training and education has only been partially implemented. 6. Contamination management procedures have not been distributed and implemented. The unceasing efforts by senior US Department of Defense, US Army, US Department of Energy, US Department of Veterans Affairs, British, Canadian, Australian, and United Nations officials to prevent acknowledgment of these problems and their refusal to accept responsibility must be stopped. Colonel Robert Cherry, US Army retired and formerly the Pentagon's Senior Radiation Protection officer, has sent out emails stating thatHe [Dr. Rokke] was not the director of the 'US Army depleted uranium project'. No such project with that name ever existed" This and other lies by senior Department of Defense officials are designed to sustain use of uranium munitions and avoid liability for adverse health and environmental effects by discrediting and destroying any of us who attempt to ensure DOD officials comply with their own existing medical care and environmental remediation requirements. Officials refuse to comply with regulations US, Israeli, Australian, Canadian, and British officials have arrogantly refused to comply with their own regulations, orders, and directives that require United States Department of Defense officials to provide prompt and effective medical care to "all" exposed individuals. Reference: Medical Management of Unusual Depleted Uranium Casualties, DOD, Pentagon, 10/14/93, Medical Management of Army personnel Exposed to Depleted Uranium (DU) Headquarters, US Army Medical Command 29 April 2004, and section 2-5 of US Army Regulation 700-48. Sadly after the Israeli use of uranium munitions during their combat actions in Lebanon Israeli officials must also provide medical care to all casualties and clean up all environmental contamination. United States Department of Defense officials simply refuse to clean up dispersed radioactive Contamination as required by Army Regulation- AR 700-48: "Management of Equipment Contaminated With Depleted Uranium or Radioactive Commodities" (Headquarters, Department Of The Army, Washington, D.C., September 2002) and US Army Technical Bulletin- TB 9-1300-278: "Guidelines For Safe Response To Handling, Storage, And Transportation Accidents Involving Army Tank Munitions Or Armor Which Contain Depleted Uranium" (Headquarters, Department Of The Army, Washington, D.C., JULY 1996). Specifically section 2-4 of United States Army Regulation-AR 700-48 dated September 16, 2002 requires that: 1. "Military personnel 'identify, segregate, isolate, secure, and label all RCE' (radiologically contaminated equipment)." 2. "Procedures to minimize the spread of radioactivity will be implemented as soon as possible." 3. "Radioactive material and waste will not be locally disposed of through burial, submersion, incineration, destruction in place, or abandonment" and 4. "All equipment, to include captured or combat RCE, will be surveyed, packaged, retrograded, decontaminated and released IAW Technical Bulletin 9-1300-278, DA PAM 700-48" (Note: Maximum exposure limits are specified in Appendix F). Leaders conceal contamination lists DOD leaders are not showing the congressionally mandated depleted uranium training tapes to military personnel. These three video tapes: (1) "Depleted Uranium Hazard Awareness", (2) "Contaminated and Damaged Equipment Management", and (3) "Operation of the AN/PDR 77 Radiac Set" are essential to understanding the hazards from the use of uranium weapons and management of uranium weapons contamination. DOD leaders must show these tapes to all military personnel involved in the use of uranium weapons and the consequent management of uranium contamination. The previous and current use of uranium weapons, the release of radioactive components in destroyed US and foreign military equipment, and releases of industrial, medical, research facility radioactive materials have resulted in unacceptable exposures. Therefore, decontamination must be completed as required by US Army Regulation 700-48 and should include releases of all radioactive materials resulting from military operations. Citizens of the world must speak up We can not continue to ignore the consequences of depleted uranium weapons use that include adverse health and environmental effects. No person or nation has the right to disperse tons of radioactive toxic waste throughout any other or their own nation then ignore adverse health and environmental effects. There is one question that US, British, and Australian officials refuse to answer. That is: What right do they have to willfully disperse radioactive materials into any nation then refuse to clean the contamination and refuse to provide medical care for all exposed individuals? Consequently, all citizens of the world must raise a unified voice to force the leaders of those nations that have used depleted uranium munitions to recognize the immoral consequences of their actions and assume responsibility for medical care of all individuals exposed to uranium contamination and the thorough environmental remediation of all uranium contamination left as a result of combat and peacetime actions. My source of frustration is that today our warnings, requests for medical care, and requests for environmental remediation were and are still ignored! Why should I or anyone continue to try to obtain medical care and completion of environmental remediation when United States, British, Canadian., Australian, United Nations, and NATO officials do not care because they continue to deny what has occurred to avoid liability for economic and political reasons. Coalition forces applied technology during battle without considering the potential and expected adverse consequences of our actions. The United States shipped WMD agents including anthrax to Iraq, released toxic chemicals during combat actions, used depleted uranium munitions, and now our leaders ignore these facts in order to avoid liability. We have contaminated the earth! Our actions have resulted in and continue to cause serious adverse health and environmental effects! The personal cost for trying to finish my assigned mission and to make our leaders take care of the troops has been rejection, lost jobs, family turmoil, missing and probably destroyed medical and personnel records, and medical problems. I and hundreds of thousands of other warriors now receive delayed or inadequate medical care. We served our nation and thus earned optimal medical care for service-connected wounds, injuries, and illnesses. But instead, we have been abandoned! We have been raped! I now experience retaliation from Department of Defense and Department of Veterans Affairs officials because I refused to comply with the March 1991 Los Alamos memorandum ( http://www.traprockpeace.org/twomemos.html) to ensure depleted uranium can always be used during US Department of Defense combat or peacetime actions because at the same time a memorandum from an officer at the Defense Nuclear Agency cited serious health effects. But I am not alone. Anyone who demands medical care and environmental remediation faces ongoing and blatant retaliation. War must be considered obsolete Today, war must be considered obsolete because we can not deal with either the adverse health or environmental consequences caused by destroying a nation's infrastructure thus releasing toxins that affect all combatants and noncombatants. We can not deal with the adverse health and environmental effects of the weapons we use to destroy the targets - a nation's infrastructure. The human cost of war is staggering. According to the May 2007 VA GWVIS report, at least 407,911 Gulf War 1, Balkans Conflict, Afghanistan, and Gulf War 2 US military combat veterans who are wounded, ill, or injured must fight for the medical care they earned while serving our nation. The most recent US Department of Veterans affairs casualty report: Analysis of VA Health Care Utilization Among US Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) Veterans; Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF); Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF); VHA Office of Public Health and Environmental Hazards; January 2008 reveals that over 299,000 US combat veterans have serious medical problems related to toxic exposures that mirror the same medical problems diagnosed by Operation Desert Storm combat veterans. Sadly, medical care is still ineffective for both groups because the diagnosed medical problems are a result of deliberate United States actions or failure to act. For example, are reporting serious neurological problems. These problems are probably a function of both pesticide exposures, troops wearing flea collars, and uranium toxicity. But, those and other exposures are ignored. Although we have hundreds of thousands of US casualties the actual casualty count also includes hundreds of thousands of noncombatants, primarily children, woman, and the elderly of nations we attacked. Health problems are not limited to US warriors but affect all exposed individuals. World-wide estimates exceed 2 million casualties while over 1,000,000 of America's finest are wounded or ill, thousands have died, including too many of my friends. Consequently, as one of the individuals asked many times to clean up a mess, it is frustrating when United States Department of Defense and United States Department of Veterans Affairs officials do not implement the programs we developed to protect our earth and treat all casualties. The human cost is increasing Our nation's sons and daughters answered our nation's call that in too many cases included combat operations that were conducted without justification. Too many have died and continue to die while others who were injured, exposed to toxic compounds, and became sick have been abandoned by our Nation's leaders as has happened throughout history. Sadly the majority of casualties are classified as "disease and non-battle injuries" and are the direct result of our own actions or failures. The human cost is increasing because many got sick and died after they returned home and that number is still increasing at this time. Our leaders knew what happened and is happening! However, these same DOD, DA, VA leaders still keep denying what has occurred and will not implement the programs we designed to resolve the serious health and environmental issues. Numerous orders and military regulations specifying medical care for depleted uranium exposures have been ignored and continue to be ignored. These requirements always will be ignored. This is about avoiding liability for observed adverse health and environmental problems caused by combat and peacetime military actions. When political correctness and avoiding economic costs are used to determine what medical care is provided, to whom medical care is provided, when care is provided, and what environmental remediation is completed then we, warriors and civilians alike, lose. Our leaders have decided to ignore the problems hoping that they will just go away. Their objective is to avoid liability for adverse health and environmental consequences of their willful actions and war. Recently, the Department of Defense has instituted the "wounded warrior" program to begin resolution of the serious and lingering delay, denial of, and delivery of ineffective medical care to our nation's ill, wounded, and injured warriors. If our nation's leaders had not abandoned ill, injured, wounded, and deceased warriors resulting from Department of Defense actions since the early days of WW2 (atomic test veterans); Cold War (Project Shad); Vietnam War (Agent Orange); Desert Storm, Iraqi Freedom, Enduring Freedom (Depleted uranium, chemical agents, biological agents, immunizations, hazardous materials, pesticides, RF beam weapons, etc.) then we would not have the hidden and abandoned casualties that we have today with a staggering toll. Although the wounded warrior program staff are helping they still refuse to help resolve the fundamental problems - policy decisions to deny and delay prompt and effective medical care, retaliation efforts, and destruction-altering of records. Our leaders have abandoned our nation's and the world's citizens Our leaders have abandoned our nation's and the world's citizens and consequently I believe they are ignoring President Lincoln's immortal words spoken during his Gettysburg Address: "It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under GOD, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that the government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." Today as a combat veteran and patriot; I pray that GOD will answer my and others call for intervention and thus guide our leaders to finally provide the necessary medical care to all casualties and to complete the environmental remediation required to restore our precious resources. I will never cease my efforts to do what is right for GOD and the citizens of the world because this has become "A MATTER OF INTEGRITY". Although I have been a "warrior in battle" today I must be a "warrior for peace". The three questions that each of us must ask are: 1. When will United States Department of Defense and Department of Veterans Affairs officials acknowledge the adverse health and environmental effects of military operations then provide prompt and effective medical care to all military and civilian casualties? 2. When will they finally clean up all environmental contamination in order to mitigate future adverse health and environmental effects? 3. When will the citizens of the world demand an end to this nightmare and find a way to live together in peace?• Today, I am retired from the US Army Reserve with a 60% VA disability. My objectives throughout my military career were to research, write procedures, write education and training programs, teach, and evaluate programs to improve combat readiness, complete environmental remediation, and provide medical care for all casualties. I was assigned, accepted, and then completed various dangerous missions. These included: (1) planning, conducting, and evaluating military medical operations, (2) making sure everyone was prepared for expected use of weapons of mass destruction, (3)cleaning up the hazardous materials and uranium contamination, (4)developing the US Army environmental compliance and education programs, (5) serving as the Depleted Uranium Project Director, (6) serving as Director of the US Army's Edwin R. Bradley Radiological Laboratories, (7) developing, teaching, and evaluating civilian and military emergency WMD response programs, (8) researching and developing the US Department of Defense's environmental remediation and education program for Formerly Used Defense Sites. Doug Rokke © 2006, Current Concerns, www.currentconcerns.ch, Phone +41-44-350 65 50, Fax +41-44-350 65 51

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address: http://www.currentconcerns.ch

Australia Radioactive house 'unfit to live in'

Source: ABC
The house is being labelled 'a radioactive waste dump'.

The New South Wales Government is under pressure to compensate and apologise to residents living on radioactive land in Sydney's north.

A Sydney couple bought the waterfront property at Hunters Hill from the Health Department seven years ago.

Uranium processing was carried out on the site a century ago, and independent testing shows some soil samples are 350 times more radioactive than what is considered safe.

The Government has carried out its own tests in the past and has repeatedly said the site is not dangerous.

But the property's owners are using the new results to press the Government to buyback the property and pay compensation.

The lawyer representing the owners, Nicholas Brunton, says the Government can expect an approach today.

"The Government's declined to even do any more further testing of the site, they believe it's within safe levels," he said.

"We want to show them the report, we'll be doing that today, and then we want to sit down and negotiate an acceptable outcome in a fair and equitable manner."

Mr Brunton says the results show the site is totally unfit for human habitation.

"It was a much more comprehensive survey," he said.

"The Government only took a brief one-day screening survey, which they admit is not a comprehensive risk assessment.

"Soil samples indicate radiation above normal background levels of up to 350 to 400 times, so the results are far more significant."

'Appalling injustice'


A woman whose parents both died of cancer while living near the old uranium smelter says it is time the Health Department ended the cover-up.

Katie McGrath, who lived near the property in Hunter's Hill in the 1970s, says she is not surprised independent testing has uncovered dangerous levels of radiation.

Ms McGrath says the truth has been withheld from residents.

"We'll never get our childhood back or the lives that we might have lived, but we do owe it to our parents to bring to light the appalling injustice that has occurred here," she said.

"It's time this cover-up was ended and we received a formal apology from the Department of Health, and it's also time they raised the issue of compensation to all the residents affected."
Radioactive 'hotspots'

The Health Department bought two other radioactive blocks on the same street in the late 1970s.

Local Liberal MP Michael Richardson says it should also buyback the couple's property.

"Number 11 is really where the hotspots were," he said.

"They reckon in the 1980s they took radioactive material from number 11 and dumped it on numbers seven and nine, but clearly they didn't get it all or anything like it all.

"We always suspected that number 11 would be highly radioactive and these tests have actually borne that out."

An Upper House inquiry into the risks for residents starts next week.

The ABC has been told no-one from the Health Department is available to comment on the issue.

http://www.bigpond.com/news/national/content/20080625/2285313.asp

Uranium is a problem of discrimination: Hiroaki Kiode

K: You claim that: "The problem of nuclear power

plants is a problem of discrimination."

K: Most nuclear power plants ― the case of Onagawa is like this as well ― are built in sparsely populated areas with the aim of supplying power to large cities. In places, such as those in Australia and the U.S., where uranium is being dug up to power nuclear power plants, it is often the case that aboriginal people are the ones affected.

It is not well-known, but there were once uranium mines in Japan as well. In 1950 at a place called Ningyotoge in Okayama Prefecture a uranium deposit was discovered, but after 10 years they only managed to dig up 85 tons [of uranium]. The soil in that region is now contaminated, and the issue has gone to court.

g: Wherever you look, at various different places around the world, the industry of nuclear power is connected to discrimination. America, Australia, Canada... is there any kind of international solidarity movement connecting the victims suffering from various kinds of discrimination across the world?

K: I believe there are some loose connections, but there are close to none of these.

In various places, native populations are used as cheap labour, and on top of this their land is being contaminated. Even so, horizontal connections linking these kinds of victims across the world are not strong.

*snip*

g: What is your outlook for the future?

K: From here on, my position will not change.

Compared to the history of this planet, the existence of humans is a very new thing.

The use of electric power only started after the industrial revolution, just 200 years ago.

If we don't change the way we think, there is no question that we will destroy ourselves.

Changing a way of thinking is also about how much you can recognize about other problems.

If you think about the problem of nuclear power,

you become aware of many other problems as well.

I think of the issue of nuclear power as grounds not for "opposition" (反対)

but for "resistance" (抵抗).

This is because, as I mentioned earlier,

the problem of nuclear power is a problem of discrimination.

Among the people in the movement against nuclear power plants,

there are many people who "break with nuclear power generation",

in other words they adopt a lifestyle which does not require nuclear power.

In its own way, I think that this is good.

However, I am thoroughly and absolutely resisting nuclear power.

n order not to be crushed by the government or large organizations,

it is necessary to resist.

I think that if people see that, of the entire world population,

one quarter of all humans are consuming nearly all of the world's energy,

and that, in Japan, as a result of nuclear power,

some people are suffering,

then I think that people's judgements and actions will change a bit.

~ Hiroaki Koide

Australia uranium mining - con'td

An even bigger hole - Update

By John Busby

Oct/10/2007

Headquartered in Australia, BHP Billiton has just issued its Annual Report for 2007 in which its plans for the Olympic Dam copper, gold silver and uranium mine expansion as an open pit in South Australia are discussed. The company is a global player in minerals, oil and gas extraction, but although it has another big copper mine, Escondida in Chile, Olympic Dam is its only uranium mine. Currently operating as an underground mine, Olympic Dam was acquired from WMC under the watch of the leaving CEO Chip Goodyear, now passing the leadership to chemical engineer Marius Kloppers, who has appointed Graeme Hunt as President for Uranium and Olympic Dam development, perhaps to be his greatest misfortune. The rise in the spot price of uranium, which might have added value to the take-over investment in WMC has turned into a disadvantage. The production in the current Olympic Dam underground mine has fallen (and continues to fall) and in order to fill the deficit in supply and fulfil forward selling contracts BHP Billiton is having to buy expensive product on the open market, while earning only the previously negotiated price. Readers of "The big hole" (1) will know that the expansion project is subject to a pre-feasibility and feasibility study, which is expected to take four years ending in 2009, after which four years of overburden excavation will proceed the extraction of the first uranium in 2014. Part of the pre-feasibility study has been to find the extent of the deposits by drilling. Total resource The drilling results, now included in the 2007 Annual Report (2), indicate a total resource of 7,738 million tonnes of mixed ore containing 67 million tonnes of copper (0.87% grade), 1.9 million tonnes of uranium (0.029% grade U3O8 *), 2,320 tonnes of gold (0.30 grams/tonne) and 12,460 tonnes of silver (1.61 grams/tonne). What must be understood is that to obtain its metal contents this huge amount of ore has to be extracted, milled and chemically processed and that it occurs below 350 metres of overlying rock. Around two to three times the quantity of the ore body will have to be mined and set to one side of the open pit, so that ore extraction can continue unhindered by excessive overburden. But the low grades of all the constituents of the combined ore must be disappointing to the company, in particular those of the gold and the uranium. The gold content in South African mines lies between 8 to 10 grams per tonne and costs US$ 12,000/kg to extract. Gold deposits of 0.30 grams/tonne (0.3 ppm) alone would in comparison require the mining and milling of 27 times the amount of ore, while the extraction process yield would drop. The costs of extracting gold from such a deposit could well exceed the current price of gold of US$ 23,000/kg. When considering further investment in processing equipment to produce uranium from ore stocks and tailings as remnants of an exhausting mine, as at the Ranger mine in the Northern Territory of Australia, the economic cut-off grade was taken as 0.08% U3O8. In the case of the Rössing mine, in production in Namibia since 1976, the ore grade is now only around 0.035% U3O8. Production has continued ever since, dropping only recently in 2006 to 3,077 tonnes U from 3,147 tonnes U in 2005 and plans to extend its production to 2021 are under consideration.(3) This must be somewhat incongruous to the part-owners of Ranger and Rössing, Rio Tinto, which is seemingly applying different economic cut-off criteria when considering extensions to the two existing mines. For comparison, there is no current project under review to open a new mine based on a sole uranium deposit in the same order as the ore grade (of 0.029% U3O8) in the case of the combined ore in the Olympic Dam total resource. This is an important consideration when contemplating the viability of other potential projects in Australia if there are no co-products in a combined ore augmenting the low uranium ore grades averaging 0.045%.(4) In the case of the Olympic Dam expansion the components of the combined ore are extracted by means of an extremely complex set of chemical processes, needing vast quantities of chemicals, water and energy. Moreover the product yield of such processes is never 100%, so the contents of the ore body will not be fully recovered. It turns out that the uranium, far from being an asset, contaminates the copper and has to be removed from it before it can be sold. If exported there would be nuclear proliferation issues as access to uranium could be achieved by separating it from the copper. No wonder the company has cautiously reminded investors that the expansion is substantial and requires the completion of the feasibility study and board approval. Combined ore The officially claimed ore grades anticipated in November 1983 for the Olympic Dam underground mine project were 2.5% copper, 0.08% uranium, 0.60 g/tonne gold and 6.0 g/t silver. Construction commenced in 1986 and the first combined ore was milled in June 1988, 11 years after the first drilling in 1975. Production of uranium began at 910 tonnes in 1988-89, rising to a peak of 4,500 tonnes in 2000, dropping to 2,867 tonnes in 2002, but reaching a second peak of 4,370 tonnes in 2004. It is now in rapid decline with only 3,382 tonnes produced in 2006.(5) Production of the co-products of copper, gold and silver has declined in parallel. The fall in production is linked to the halving of the ore grades over the last few years of operation, so that when its continuation as an open pit was proposed the anticipated ore grades were 1.0% copper, 0.04% U3O8, 0.45 g/t gold and 2.2 g/t silver. Although the total resource is now considered to be much bigger than before, leading to even greater media excitement, the ore grades are even lower at, 0.87% copper, 0.029% U3O8, 0.30 g/t gold and 1.61 g/t silver, calling into question the viability of the open pit method, not least because the ore body occurs below 350 metres of rock. Extraction efficiencies The extraction of the co-products from the combined ore is an extremely complex chemical operation.(6) Inevitably such processes do not have a 100% yield. The supplies include process water, ammonia, diesel, frother, oxygen, cyanide, hydrogen peroxide, nitric acid, caustic, ferrous sulphate, coke, zinc dust, silica flux, nitre and as reagents, cobalt and guar gum. Sulphuric acid is made on site from sulphur dioxide resulting from the copper sulphide smelting, but may require augmentation. The historical extraction efficiencies were: Copper ca. 90% Uranium ca. 65% Gold ca. 56.5% Silver ca. 54.4% This means that around 10% of the copper and 35% of the uranium ends up in the tailings pond.(7) The extraction efficiency for the much reduced grades will be worse and the company is reviewing the chemical processes needed, perhaps with a view to restoring the yields by the introduction of more advanced processes. However, applying the above extraction efficiencies to the contents of the combined ore at the grades now anticipated, the mining and milling of 40 million tonnes per annum (as was originally intended) would produce around:- 320,000 tonnes of copper 6,440 tonnes of uranium (7,600 tonnes U3O¬8) 6,780 kg gold 35,000 kg silver To restore the anticipated uranium production of 15,000 tonnes a year (U) would mean that the combined ore mined and milled would have to be increased to amount to 93 million tonnes a year instead of 40 Mt/y, though the copper production would increase to 744,000 tonnes. Because of the lower ore grades of the constituents in the combined ore and other processing factors, it is possible that the uranium extraction efficiency will decline to 40-50% a year, in which case at 40 Mt/y the production would be 4,900 t/y U (5,800 t/y U3O¬8) and to restore the anticipated production to 15,000 t/y U would require the mining and milling of 122 million tonnes per year. Implications The reduction in ore grades requires a correspondingly inverse increase in the amount of ore to be mined and milled for the same metal production. It also means that the amount of overburden to be removed increases by the same multiplier. Two decades ago the diesel needed for the excavators and haultrucks would have been relatively cheap, but now Australia is a net importer of diesel, now refined from crude oil priced at US$ 80+. One of the advantages of nuclear power is claimed to be its immunity to rising fuel costs and its role as an alternative to liquid fuels for transport by the electrolysis of water for the production of hydrogen. If however, its uranium based fuel is dependent on a doubling or tripling of the amount of diesel needed to produce it, its immunity will be lost. From 2009 to 2013, when the primary overburden will be removed and displaced, the price of diesel can only be conjectured. Based on the above analysis it is possible that the Olympic Dam expansion may not go ahead, certainly not at the anticipated uranium production rate of 15,000 tonnes per annum. Depending on the price of copper futures in 2014 as set in 2010, it may go ahead on the basis of a restricted copper production of 300,000 tonnes per annum, with a moderate uranium production of 5,000 tonnes a year. Most likely the ore from the open pit, if it goes ahead, will simply be transferred to the existing processing plant, as by then the underground mine will be approaching exhaustion. Whether this moderate continuation of its mining activities would justify the initial investment in overburden removal is somewhat doubtful. It would be as well in the meantime to warn that the nuclear "renaissance" - if relying on Australian uranium supplies - may well stall. "The big hole" has got bigger, but its size is nothing to that into which the politicians and bullish media will sink when it fails to go ahead, particularly as its uranium product has been "sold" already to the Chinese, the Indians and the Russians. If new fleets of nuclear power stations are to be built on the huge and pretentious projections claimed for the Olympic Dam expansion by politicians and journalists and if the BHP Billiton board indeed turns the project down (as it probably will) there will be much aggravation. (1) The big hole (2) http://www.bhpbilliton.com/bbContentRepository/bhbpannualreport07.pdf (3) http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/uprod.html (4) http://pmc.gov.au/publications/umpner/docs/commissioned/ISA_report.pdf (5) http://www.uic.com.au/emine.htm (6) http://odx.bhpbilliton.com/docs/OreProcessingFlowDiagram.pdf (7) Extraction efficiencies are derived from an analysis of quarterly and annual reports of WMC (1988 to 2005) and BHP Billiton (2005 to 2007) by Gavin Mudd, Monash University, Melbourne. * Uranium is shipped as triuranium octoxide (U3O8) or "yellow cake" in drums. The uranium content is found by multiplying the yellow cake weight by 0.848.

recent Australian URANIUM assessments

The big hole

By John Busby

Feb/13/2007

There are now many countries, including the UK, intending to build a new fleet of nuclear power plants, to replace those nearing the end of their operating lives or to expand their current fleet. After many years of doing little, the world is invited by a nuclear lobby to embrace a "nuclear renaissance". It claims that nuclear power is characterised by zero or extremely low carbon emissions and that it offers security of electrical supply. Both claims are bogus; carbon dioxide is emitted from every element of the nuclear fuel cycle except the actual fission in the reactor and the world is running out of its fuel, uranium; a reality the lobby fails to embrace. Lots of uranium? The interest in nuclear generation by so many nations has been engendered by a panic. This was caused by the momentary turning off of the gas through Ukraine and the oil through Belarus by Putin's Russia. The panic is warranted, as Russia consumes internally 70% of its natural gas production and with economic growth from a low base, it will soon need all of its gas and probably all of its oil for itself. Its neighbour, China, will take up any surplus oil and as OPEC throttles its production to maintain a crude oil price hike, the rest of the world knocks at the door of the Kremlin, where President Putin is regaining state control of Russian energy assets. But is there a plentiful supply of uranium to fuel the world's existing fleet of reactors, the needed replacements and an expanded nuclear sector? The industry claims that after the currently mined uranium ores of a commercial grade have been exhausted, the earth's crust, hypothetically, possesses an adequate supply of very low concentrations to provide sustainable energy for decades. It is also claimed that once the uranium is gone, even though there is plenty, the introduction of breeder reactors in association with chemical processing and plutonium fuel manufacture would extend the life of nuclear power for centuries. That this claim can be dismissed is the subject of another's work.[1] The claimed low carbon emissions and the potential for the alleviation of climate change by the expansion of nuclear power are subject to dispute. Even if it were carbon free, the contribution of nuclear power to global energy demand is so trivial (at 6% of primary thermal energy or 2½% as electrical energy) that its current contribution to a reduction in carbon emissions is negligible. Worse still, the extraction of uranium from ultra low ore grades would require the processing of inversely larger quantities of material so that the mining and milling energy input together with the energy inputs in the subsequent fuel nuclear fuel cycle exceeds that derived from it. The claim of the nuclear lobby, that there is an abundance of available uranium in the earth's crust, is an attempt to persuade gullible politicians that nuclear energy has a future against a background of falling primary mining production. source: uic.com.au Two countries supply half of the currently mined uranium: Canada and Australia. Canada possesses extremely rich ores and has historically produced the most uranium from a succession of mines. Each one has built up its production, which has levelled off and then declined until the mine is closed. The initiation of the latest in the series, Cigar Lake, has been delayed due to flooding. This may well mean that the overall Canadian production in 2007 will be lower than in 2006.Australia claims to have the largest uranium reserves and aims to be the world's biggest producer. Indeed, some believe it should build its own fleet of nuclear stations, whereas at the moment it has only a pilot reactor. World attention focuses on the Olympic Dam mine expansion in South Australia, which is the subject of a feasibility study by its owners, BHP Billiton. Australia's uranium mines There are three operating mines in Australia, Ranger in the Northern Territory, Olympic Dam and Beverley in South Australia. A fourth, Honeymoon, is about to start production in South Australia.[2] Ranger produced the most uranium up until 2004-5 when it peaked at 4,700 tonnes (5,544 tonnes U3O8), but mining is scheduled to be closed at the end of 2008. The managing company ERA is 68% owned by Rio Tinto which judges the economics of its mines by the "head cut-off grade", by which is meant the grade of the ore presented for milling after much of the waste rock has been separated. Below this grade the mine is deemed to be uneconomic. Recent uranium price rises allowed Rio Tinto to revise the Ranger head cut-off grade down from 0.12% to 0.08%, which will allow the processing of ore stocks and tailings to continue until 2014.[3] Nearby Jabiluka mine is under "care and maintenance" and will not re-open without permission from its traditional owners. The second biggest producer, Olympic Dam, is an underground mine, from which uranium is a co-product with copper, silver and gold. Its uranium production also peaked in 2004-5 at 3,690 tonnes (4,356 tonnes U3O8) and is now set in a rapid decline. In 2006 production was reduced to 2,877 tonnes (3,393 tonnes U3O8). Because of this, the owners, BHP Billiton, have launched a pre-feasibility study into its expansion as an open pit mine. Beverley is an in-situ leaching operation in which chemicals are injected into the ground to dissolve the uranium in the orebody. The uranium is then stripped from the solution by an ion-exchange process and the residual liquid returned underground. Production at Beverley passed its peak in 2004-5 at 900 tonnes (1,064 tonnes U3O8). It is clear from a rudimentary study of the production figures that Australian uranium production will continue to stagnate unless and until the Olympic Dam project (scheduled to start in 2014) passes its feasibility study and goes ahead. The Olympic Dam expansion Since Olympic Dam underground mine is on the downward slope of its Hubbert production "bell-curve", its previous owners, WMC, began to study the potential to expand into an open pit. Prospects of expanding its production to 500,000 tonnes of copper and 15,000 tonnes of uranium oxide per annum attracted the attention of BHP Billiton and it became the new owner. The company is engaged in a serious and expensive feasibility study to support (or otherwise drop) the massive investment in mine development and infrastructure required.[4] Unfortunately the project has caught the attention of the politicians who have already promised some of its output to China and India, to the possible detriment of the Australian uranium's customers in the US, Europe, Korea and Japan. A final result of the feasibility is not expected until 2009, followed by 4 years of mine development, until production can begin in 2014. If the company then declines to proceed, it will be under enormous political pressure, nationally and internationally to nevertheless go ahead, not least if the Chinese have initiated building a fleet of nuclear power plants relying on Australian supplies. The Chinese have already requested permission to mine for their own uranium in Australia and may insist in taking over the project. An Australian Broadcasting Corporation reporter, Hayden Cooper interviewed the South Australian premier Mike Rann with Roger Higgins, BHP's Base Metals director in November 2005 when the first intimations of the size of the Olympic Dam expansion emerged.[5] The orebodies occur between 350 metres and 1 km down, so that to start the open pit a hole 3 km by 3 km by 350 m down will be excavated and the spoil set to the side, before the first copper and uranium ores are reached. BHP anticipate that the initial excavation will take 4 years to remove 3 cubic kilometres of rock. The scale of the excavation can be seen in the aerial picture[6] of the Escondida copper mine in Chile, which it is expected to rival. The most interesting aside from this interview was that Mike Higgins stated that "Without the copper and the other products, gold and silver, there wouldn't be a mine here". The uranium ore grade at Olympic Dam is around 0.04%, so it can be concluded that the other uranium deposits in Australia, with an average grade of 0.045% would only be viable in association with other products. Unless the prospecting finds other more remunerative co-products, further uranium mining projects in Australia can be ruled out. Olympic Dam's infrastructure Water The current underground mine and ore processing requires a 12 billion litres/annum water supply, which comes from two well fields in the Great Artesian Basin. An additional 44 billion litres of water a year (120 megalitres/day) will be required for the expansion and it is proposed to build a seawater desalination plant at Port Bonython, North East of Whyalla on the Upper Spencer Gulf. This will require the laying of a 330 km pipeline and associated pumping. The desalination plant will require 35 MW electricity supply. South Australia is Australia's driest region and uses recycled water for crops. Recent rains have not entirely replenished the acquifers. Uranium mining might not enjoy a high priority for energy-consuming desalination if farmers continue to suffer the consequences of the recent severe drought. Electricity The expansion will require the building of a 275 KV transmission line providing 400 MW of electricity or a gas pipeline to supply a power station. Transport An 80 km rail extension is planned from Pimba to transport of over 2 million tonnes per annum of materials and products. Port facilities will be extended. The Roxby Downs airport will have to be moved. Town Roxby Downs will be extended to cater for an additional 5,000 inhabitants and a temporary construction camp for 3,000 workers for 3-4 years will be built. Although the infrastructure capital expenditure may be raised by public bodies, the costs of using the facilities will be reflected in the product prices. Energy capital Energy will be required for the prospecting and development of the mine and its processing plant as well as its infrastructure requirements. However, the main input will be the excavation of the open pit, which will require predominantly diesel for the drilling of holes for explosives, the side-loading excavators and the haul trucks. Australia is a net importer of diesel equivalent to around 100 PJ, which at 38.66 GJ/m3 is 2.6 million m3 or 2.17 million tonnes diesel imported per annum. The excavation of 3 cubic kilometres of rock and depositing it around the hole would require around 6.6 million tonnes of diesel alone over the four years, or 1.65 million tonnes per annum. This single project would increase Australia's diesel imports by 70% over the four years. There are other energy expenditures associated with the excavation of the hole, such as the manufacture of the explosives and the maintenance of the equipment and administration services. Other energy capital will be expended when building the desalination plant and water pipeline, the electricity transmission line, the rail connection, the moving of the airport and the building of the town extension and temporary accommodation and not least the manufacturing and transporting of the processing plant and its erection and commissioning on site. Energy consumption It is anticipated that around 40 million tonnes of ore will be mined and milled per annum, producing 500,000 tonnes of copper and 15,000 tonnes of uranium. Assuming a waste rock to ore ratio of 2½ : 1; some 100 million tonnes will be excavated and set aside as waste. To accomplish this some 600,000 to 700,000 tonnes of diesel per annum will be required. There will be added to this the process energy consumptions. As the ore contains all four co-products which are chemically separated, it will be difficult to attribute the various energy consumption to the products and the company's published environmental data refrains from doing so. As far as the non-uranium co-products are concerned the project feasibility study will have to compare costs and prices, taking into account the constant fluctuations in fuel and commodity prices. In the case of uranium, the task is somewhat easier as the energy inputs can be compared with the energy outputs over a subsequent nuclear fuel cycle. If it does go ahead, the Olympic Dam expansion will be uniquely viable. If the extraction of the copper and other co-products proves to be economic, it will compensate for the energy losses occasioned by mining and milling the low grade uranium ores. The future of Australian uranium mining Australia has played its part in inspiring a "nuclear renaissance", claiming to have the world's largest uranium reserves. It would appear, however, that this has to be tempered with caution. This Olympic Dam expansion is likely to be the last viable mine unless other prospects arise having equally valuable co-products. The University of Sydney ISA report (Integrated Sustainability Analysis) Figures 5.4 and 5.5 on page 95 provide a useful comparison of ore grades in Australia and Canada.[7] The low grades of ore in Australia compare unfavourably with those in Canada with 0.045% and 8% average grades respectively. Although economic "cut-off" grades may decline from the present 0.08% with rising uranium prices, it is unlikely that investment in mines with lower grades will take off. The Rio Tinto cut-off grade at the Ranger mine applies to existing ore stocks, judging that milling can continue for several years after the mine has closed. However, the criteria applied to a new venture would have to include the initial overburden removal and infrastructure capital. It seems highly unlikely that there will be investment in solely uranium mines with ore grades below 0.2%. The OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) argues differently, assuming that uranium prices rise add to extractable reserves. It is further argued that nuclear fuel costs are marginal and that the price of uranium has only a moderate effect on generating costs. Uranium is currently US$ 187/kg, whereas if the ore grade equated to the low grades of gold ores mined by similar open pit methods, the extraction costs would be similar around US$ 12,000/kg, at which level nuclear generation would certainly not be viable. There is an overall nuclear fuel cycle economic cut-off grade where uranium is the sole mined product. Australia needs to demonstrate what this is before it can claim that its uranium ore grades warrant investment. Uranium mining in Australia depends initially on the price of copper and how BHP Billiton judges its future price movements, but thereafter (and perhaps from now if the Olympic Dam expansion is turned down) it has an uncertain future if any at all. [1] Energy from Uranium , Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen. [2] http://www.uic.com.au/emine.htm [3] http://www.riotinto.com/media/media_releases_1305.asp [4] http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2005/s1497518.htm [5] http://www.bhpbilliton.com/bbContentRepository/2006112345802/ceda.pdf [6] http://odx.bhpbilliton.com/index.asp and http://odx.bhpbilliton.com/expansion/minedevelopment.asp [7] http://www.isa.org.usyd.edu.au/

BHP plans to expand Olympic Dam

AM - Friday, 4 November , 2005 08:20:00
Reporter: Hayden Cooper

PETER CAVE: BHP Billiton is planning to dig a massive crater a kilometre deep and three kilometres wide, in the middle of Australia's outback wilderness. The company is considering a major expansion of Olympic Dam in the far north of South Australia, to make it the world's largest uranium and copper mine.

Hayden Cooper reports from Olympic Dam.

HAYDEN COOPER: In the red dust of remote South Australia, BHP Billiton is drilling in search of a lucrative treasure.

Beneath the semi-arid scrub is a cocktail of silver, gold, copper, and uranium, a cache which BHP's Base Metals Chief Roger Higgins admits was the grand lure in the company's takeover of WMC Resources.

ROGER HIGGINS: The plan is that we'll turn this into one of the great open pit copper mines. We're quite confident of a good expansion project here. But the actual dimensions of that - the size and shape of that project - will probably take us a year or two to determine exactly, but we're quite confident there is a project here.

HAYDEN COOPER: The project is a $5 billion expansion, doubling copper production, quadrupling uranium output, and converting the mine from a network of underground tunnels, to a massive open pit.

But it'll still be two years before BHP Billiton decides whether to proceed, and it needs approval from federal and state governments, perhaps part of the reason why Premier Mike Rann is being given the royal treatment at Olympic Dam.

MIKE RANN: So we're basically standing above where the big open cut… so three kilometres by three kilometres, and a kilometre deep.

HAYDEN COOPER: Despite Labor's long-held caution of uranium mining, this is one project Mr Rann is desperate to secure.

MIKE RANN: What we're standing above now is essentially where there'll be, we believe, the world's biggest open cut mine, and also the biggest mixed ore body in the world. So we're talking about an ore body that's worth hundreds of billions of dollars… not hundreds of millions of dollars, but hundreds of billions of dollars.

HAYDEN COOPER: But opponents like the Australian Conservation Foundation's David Noonan say there's much more at stake if the expansion does go ahead.

DAVID NOONAN: This is to turn Roxby into the world's largest uranium mine. It's to turn South Australia into the uranium quarry for the world nuclear industry.

It will make South Australians responsible for much of the nuclear risk, much of the potential nuclear accidents such as Chernobyl, for the proliferation of potential nuclear terrorism and plutonium production right across the globe. That's certainly not good news for South Australia.

HAYDEN COOPER: BHP's Roger Higgins says valuable though it is, uranium is just a by-product, and he dismisses questions about the future of nuclear power in Australia.

ROGER HIGGINS: Without the copper and the other products, the gold and silver, there wouldn't be a mine here. So the uranium is a very important by-product, and that's the part of the nuclear energy cycle that we're in. And there is no policy in Australia for nuclear power, and we're not interested in seeing that change, and if it does, then we'll react to that at the time.

HAYDEN COOPER: In the meantime, as the drilling continues 24 hours a day, the company's geologists say so big is the resource that the challenge is not finding the ore body, but rather, finding where the ore body ends.

PETER CAVE: Hayden Cooper reporting from the Olympic Dam

2002 - Honeymoon uranium project in South Australia stalled
"With the Honeymoon project in SA unapproved and the Jabiluka site in Kakadu being rehabilitated it is time to cap, clean up and close this toxic trade," said ACF's Adelaide-based nuclear free campaigner, David Noonan at the time.

"Uranium is the asbestos industry of the 21st century -

the costs are simply too high".

2006 ACF's lobbying saves Great Artesian Basin
(Remember: the nuclear industry uses VAST AMOUNTS of water, huge, as does oil production!! Takes the LIFE right out of water.)

An agreement between the South Australian government and BHP Billiton that no additional artesian water will be used to service the Roxby Downs mine expansion was good news for the Great Artesian Basin - the largest underground water system in the world.

South Australian Premier Mike Rann announced the agreement in Adelaide on February, 17, saying that the government and BHP Billiton would now consider building a saltwater desalination plant in the Upper Spencer Gulf to supply the expanded mine's water needs.

The announcement "is a win for the Great Artesian Basin, the Murray River and the many thousands of concerned Australians who have urged the Government and the company to protect the Basin", said ACF Executive Director Don Henry.

Thousands of ACF's members and supporters wrote to both Premier Rann and BHP Billiton, urging them to dump plans for a fi ve-fold increase in water extraction - to over 150 million litres a day - that would have threatened the survival of the unique and fragile Great Artesian Basin springs. In an interview on ABC radio in Adelaide, Premier Mike Rann said, "I said I did not want the water being taken out of the River Murray. And also I had a very strong lobby from the environmental movement; hundreds and hundreds of letters. But also, the most effective lobbying campaign ever by Don Henry, of the Australian Conservation Foundation, who strongly argued about us issuing more licences to take water out of the Great Artesian Basin. So I've listened to the environmental movement. There will be no extra take out of the Great Artesian Basin."

ACF campaigner David Noonan took the victory as a chance to reiterate ACF's stance on uranium mining. "While this decision is good for the Great Artesian Basin, ACF is opposed to uranium mining," Noonan said. "With every gram of Australia's exported
uranium inevitably ending up as nuclear waste, this is an industry Australia should be getting out of, not expanding."

No Joy for Sydney in US Nuclear Waste Deal

A new radioactive waste deal between Australia and the US fails to cover the key threats posed by the planned new nuclear reactor in Sydney.

ACF has described a plan reported in the Australian newspaper to ship high-level waste to the US for storage as a partial and political short-term fix that will not reduce the threats posed by a new reactor at Lucas Heights.

"A nuclear reactor in our largest city is a daily nuclear threat to Sydney," said national nuclear campaigner Dave Sweeney. "Moving some of the radioactive waste offshore does not protect Sydney from the risks of an operating reactor or Australia from the risks of the rest of the waste."

ACF has called for the federal nuclear regulator, ARPANSA, to reject ANSTO's application for an operating license for the new reactor - a call supported by other national environment groups, local residents and the NSW government.

Large volumes of radioactive waste - currently stored at ANSTO's nuclear reactor site; set to be generated by a new reactor or due to come back to Australia after reprocessing in Europe - will not be covered by the US deal. There is no clear, proven and agreed plan for how or where to store these dangerous radioactive wastes.

"The costs and risks of the new Sydney reactor remain secret," said ACF campaigner David Noonan. "Details on health impacts, emergency procedures and security, sabotage and accident assessments are still confidential while ANSTO and the federal government are seeking backroom solutions to a long-term environmental threat."

According to a detailed Senate report the federal government has failed to provide a "clear and compelling" case for the Sydney reactor. The federal nuclear regulator is currently assessing an application for an operating license for the controversial plant.

"As in Australia, communities in the US are opposed to the dumping of nuclear waste," said David Noonan. "Instead of shipping this poison around the country and across the world we should be working to halt its production."

"The Sydney reactor is an unsafe and unnecessary facility situated in an inappropriate place and nothing about this US deal changes this radioactive reality."

A collection of 23 articles by David Noonan can be found below:

http://findarticles.com/p/search?qt=%22+David+Noonan%22&qf=hb4727