A federal Senate inquiry into the plan for a new nuclear research reactor in Sydney has heard evidence about a string of problems surrounding the project in the past fortnight.

Numerous government departments made submissions in support of the proposed reactor, including the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), the department of industry, science and resources, the so-called radiation protection agency, the department of foreign affairs and the so-called Australian safeguards and non-proliferation office. The inquiry also heard evidence from numerous critics of the plan for a new reactor, including Greenpeace, the Australian Conservation Foundation, the Medical Association for the Prevention of War, and the Sutherland Shire Environment Centre Council.

The Liberal Party senators on the Senate inquiry - Ross Lightfoot and Grant Chapman - were a constant source of amusement. I am told that Chapman appeared to be asleep during hearings on October 25. Lightfoot - notorious for describing Aborigines as the lowest end of the colour spectrum when he was first appointed as a senator representing Western Australia - wavered between aggressive questioning of opponents of the reactor plan about their qualifications and sources of income, to complete disinterest. Lightfoot’s tactic of grilling opponents of the reactor plan on their qualifications backfired with Garry Smith, Sutherland Shire Council’s senior environmental scientist:

Senator Lightfoot: Dr Smith, could you tell us what your qualifications are.

Dr Smith: “I have a Bachelor of Science from the University of Sydney, a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Western Australia and a Master of Planning from the University of Technology Sydney. I am currently the honorary chair of environmental science at the University of Wollongong and I am on the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) committees. ... As Director of the New South Wales Cancer Council Carcinogenesis Research Unit at the University of New South Wales for 10 years, I used radionuclides very frequently - imported and local. For the last nine years I have been attending the ANSTO site four times a year and, based on my scientific, biochemical and toxicity academic qualifications, I have been participating on that Committee. I was appointed by the Commonwealth government to the Probabilistic Safety Assessment Committee and the Seismic Hazard Committee  on the basis of my expertise rather than my affiliation with the council.”

Smith told the Senate hearing:

“Frankly, based on the evidence I have seen over many years and on the evidence presented in the EIS process, this [reactor] proposal is an ill-judged proposal. The benefits are highly inflated for this proposal. I have a serious concern that it is a Commonwealth bureaucracy attempting to promote a development under loose Commonwealth laws and very poor accountability criteria. It is not even producing a design at the EIS stage for a major hazardous facility. The economics are questionable as two totally independent and highly eminent economists have advised us - highly questionable.”

“In a scenario where a Commonwealth government does not ask the right questions, does not allow testing of information at a public inquiry - as would occur overseas - and where two unsuccessful tenderers raise the same types of questions about the proposal that we have been raising for over eight years, I think to move ahead with this proposal is ill judged and highly risky commercially, on safety grounds and on nuclear waste management grounds. That is my professional opinion on this proposal.”

Dozens of medical organisations and doctors submitted form letters arguing the specious case that a new reactor is required for isotope production. The president of the Association of Physicians in Nuclear Medicine, Barry Elison, was asked to comment on reports that he did not know that the Lucas Heights HIFAR reactor was shut down from February to May for maintenance. “I’m not sure if I said that”, was his curious response.

The submissions from doctors and medical organisations were notable for their numerous factual errors, stemming from the fact that doctors have no direct involvement in radioisotope production and most have little or no knowledge of the subject. The medical submissions also made numerous misleading assertions, a reflection of the vested interest of sections of the medical profession in an ongoing supply of subsidised isotopes from ANSTO. As Garry Smith told the inquiry, the assertions made to justify a new reactor for isotope supply “seem very much unaccompanied by evidence”.

Just to give a few examples of the errors in the medical submissions from Volume 1 of written submissions:
* Dr. McCarthy says ALL therapeutic isotopes are reactor produced. Wrong. Therapeutics such as iodine-125 and palladium-103 are produced in cyclotrons.
* a medical physicist by the name of Martin Carolan says that molybdenum-99 (which decays to form technetium-99m, used in about 75% of all nuclear medicine procedures) “could” be imported; apparently he doesn't know that molybdenum-99 already is imported, by Nycomed Amersham from Europe on a weekly basis, by ANSTO from South Africa on a regular / semi-regular basis, and by ANSTO from South Africa and Canada during HIFAR reactor shut-downs.
* Dr. Daunt is concerned that without a new reactor the isotope strontium-87 for the secondary bone cancer therapy will not be available. In fact, it's strontium-89 not strontium-87 (more precisely, strontium-89 chloride, marketed as Metastron), and it has never been produced by ANSTO because it is patented by Nycomed Amersham and is imported into Australia. Also, it's not for therapy but for palliation (pain relief), although to be fair, some define therapy to include palliation.
* Dr. Chatterton says without a new reactor in Australia we would be dependent on one overseas reactor (in Canada) for molybdenum-99. Nonsense, there are numerous overseas reactors irradiating targets to produce fission-product molybdenum-99. As the International Atomic Energy Agency said in IAEA Technical Document 1065, April 1999: "The present installed processing capacity [for molybdenum-99] is substantially larger than the demand (of about 6000 Ci per week (6-day precalibrated)), and the capacity for irradiation of targets is even higher. The large demand for Mo-99 has given it an 'industrial scale production' status." Chatterton has been one of the most vocal medical supporters of a new reactor - and he hasn't got his basic facts right. This issue of molybdenum-99 production is not a minor or tangential issue: on the contrary, about two-thirds of ALL nuclear medicine procedures around the world use technetium-99m drawn from imported molybdenum-99.
* Dr. Bibbo and Dr. Cain said in their Senate submission, “At present, there are no alternative modalities to nuclear medicine and it is envisaged there will not be in the future.” Rubbish. Compare that comment with this from Dr. A.F. Jacobson, "Nuclear medicine and other radiologic imaging techniques: competitors or collaborators?", European Journal of Nuclear Medicine, Vol.21(12), pp.1369-1372: "The future holds the potential for many unpleasant battles between competing imaging specialists as the need to obtain the maximum information in the minimum time and at the lowest cost intensifies. The applications of the radionuclide technique are not as broad as those of ultrasound, CT, or MRI, and this places great demands on the practitioners of our specialty to remain vigilant in the competition to retain a role in diagnostic imaging evaluations."

Some of the most interesting submissions to the Senate inquiry came from nuclear engineers including ex-ANSTO stock. Alan Parkinson, a nuclear engineer with over 40 years experience, including experience at ANSTO’s predecessor the Australian Atomic Energy Commission (AAEC) said in his Senate submission that he is “pro-nuclear and has no concerns about the construction of a new reactor at Lucas Heights”. However he provides detailed, first-hand evidence to substantiate damning claims about the competence, honesty and openness of the Department of Industry Science and Resources (DISR): “[DISR’s] record in project management and their lack of understanding of radiation and other technical subjects, as demonstrated publicly in recent months, leaves very much to be desired.”

Parkinson also provided ample evidence in support of his criticisms of the “independent regulator”:  “The newly formed Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) also has not performed particularly well in its first major assignment - the Maralinga project. Unless their performance as regulators improves, then the new reactor project will be a trail of compromises as is the case on the Maralinga project.”

Collins-class reactor

The choice of the Argentinean company Invap to build the proposed new Lucas Heights reactor was “risky” according to ex-ANSTO engineer Tony Wood, who likened Invap to “the new boy on the block”.

Wood told the Senate inquiry, “... the literature does not support the minister’s [Nick Minchin] claim that INVAP has a ‘solid track record’. It is not that it has a poor track record. It has no track record on the reactor of significance - that is, a 20-megawatt reactor. My fairly long exposure to the engineers of Technicatome, Siemens and Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd leads me to the view that the INVAP choice, though possibly a good choice, was a risky one. When considered against the backdrop of the Collins submarine project, where we again chose to forsake experienced vendors in favour of the new boy on the block, I might even suggest that the decision was courageous.”

Another pro-nuclear Trojan horse to make a submission to the Senate inquiry was Dr Robert Turtle, a fellow of the Institution of Engineers Australia and a member of the Australian Nuclear Association. Turtle said he “strongly supports” the construction of a new reactor but he objects to the selection of Invap for the following reasons:
- “The Australian Contract is believed to be the largest contract undertaken by Invap. This violates financial and management criteria of prudential and sustainable development.”
- “It is not considered sound financial or management practice for an Organisation to undertake work greater than say 25-30% of its normal annual turnover. It is additionally imprudent to advance the scale and scope of work by large increments. Invap appears to be violating both these areas. ... Such companies are poorly placed to meet contingencies which arise, largely because of their lack of experience.”
- it has proved difficult or impossible to obtain Invap’s financial reports and accounts even though it is a government-owned agency.

Siemens, the German company which competed for the reactor project but lost, said in its Senate submission that Invap was the least experienced of the four short-listed tenderers. Siemens said the Australian government had allocated too little funding and that only a “highly subsidised” offer could comply with all performance and safety specifications and still come in on-budget.

Technicatome, the losing French tenderer for the reactor project, said in its written Senate submission:
- that ANSTO’s assessment of tenders was “mainly based on scientific calculations, and not on proven experience as asked by the tender documentation”;
- that ANSTO’s approach of having separate assessors working on different aspects of the assessment may have led to insufficient consideration of “the overall consistency of the concept proposed for the reactor, where the overall optimum is not the sum of each local optimum”;
- that ANSTO’s separate assessment of fuel and reactor issues was surprising “considering the strong dependence of both matters when designing a high performance reactor”; and
- that the reliance on theoretical assessment of performance parameters overlooks the “many technological reasons to decrease the neutron flux transmission at the point of use compared to the theoretical levels”.

Technicatome said, “We were surprised that the tender process ... led to the selection of the competitor which is generally considered to be the least experienced. For example, as far as we know none of the reactors built so far by the winning competitor have ... cold or hot sources or neutron guide hall installed, silicide fuel or containment.”

At a Senate inquiry hearing in Canberra on October 9, ANSTO admitted that it had not even visited Invap’s head office in Argentina. The May 16 Bulletin summarised a leaked report from a bureaucrat in Minchin’s department which describes a working tour of overseas research reactors. The report discusses taxi rides in Indonesia, wine making in Korea, the pyramids and a museum in Egypt, and the usual tourist haunts in France and Canada. As for the  research reactors, “I’m obviously at the foot of a very steep learning curve”, the bureaucrat said.

Numerous concerns about the operations of Invap were raised by Dr. Raúl Montenegro, Professor of Evolutionary Biology at the National University of Cordoba, in his written submissions to the inquiry and in his phone link-up with the senators. Montenegro’s concerns span Invap’s experience, safety and performance records, and Invap’s ability to fulfill agreements it made during the reactor contracting process in relation to spent reactor fuel.

So why was Invap chosen? On paper, it probably had the best bid - but there’s a huge question as to whether it can meet performance and safety specifications. Perhaps Invap’s bid is subsidised or underwritten by the Argentinean government, an advantage which other tenderers may not have enjoyed.

Waste

Part of the reasoning for Invap’s selection is likely to relate to promises made about spent fuel. It may be necessary to use silicide fuel in the proposed new reactor until an alternative fuel type is available. Siemens said in its Senate submission, “It has been suggested to [Siemens] at the formal debriefing meeting that the successful tenderer has mitigated the risk to ANSTO should more than approximately two cores be required.”

One of the possibilities for spent fuel from the proposed new reactor is that it would be sent to Argentina for conditioning and then returned to Australia as long-lived intermediate-level waste for indefinite storage. However, Argentina’s constitution precludes the importation of radioactive waste. Invap may (or may not) be able to circumvent the constitution by defining spent fuel as something other than radioactive waste. Montenegro believes the reactor contract between Invap and ANSTO is null and void because of the constitutional breach. Another difficulty is that Argentina may not have the facilities to treat spent fuel.

Secrecy

Montenegro has received four letters from Invap threatening legal action and urging him to stop disseminating comments “injurious” to Invap. Montenegro has drawn this matter to the attention of the Australian Senate inquiry, in the hope that public scrutiny of Invap’s tactics will allow for an open, public debate.

The situation is no better in Australia. Several opponents of the new reactor plan have been threatened with defamation suits. A senior government bureaucrat has publicly gloated about the government’s decision “to starve the opponents of oxygen ... just keep them in the dark completely.”  Similarly, a Department of Industry, Science and Resources briefing document said there is “no point in consulting with potential/hypothetical recipients of a new reactor.”

ANSTO staff are also feeling the heat.  ANSTO “Staff Representing Truth in Science” said in their March 3 letter that “ANSTO management appears to be endeavoring to muzzle staff comments external to the organisation”. Even the president of the Australian Nuclear Association has recently complained about the “culture of secrecy” at ANSTO.

In October, the Sydney Morning Herald was told by ANSTO that it would cost $7099.78 to obtain two pages of information about the tender decision-making process following a freedom of information application. Greenpeace was told by ANSTO that it would have to pay $6,809.25 for 22 pages of information and that almost 1300 pages of relevant information would not be made available at any price.

The federal government claims to have conducted a study on potential siting options around Australia but refuses to release the study. The reactor contract is secret. Spent fuel reprocessing contracts are secret. Calls for an independent public inquiry into the reactor issue - from the Sutherland Shire Council, the 1993 Research Reactor Review, the Senate Economics References Committee, and many other organisations and individuals - have been ignored. The establishment of a “Community Right to Know Charter” has been stone-walled by ANSTO for several years.

Tony Wood told the Senate inquiry, “If I had to sum up my concerns in one sentence, it would be that for the first time in my long association with the AAEC and ANSTO I do not feel comfortable with what the organisation is telling the public and its own staff.” An ANSTO engineer with 25 years experience said in 1997, “(It is an) unfortunate state of affairs that dear old ANSTO, which lives off taxpayer's money, is feeding us all this propaganda and very little objective information.” On DISR’s handling of the Maralinga “clean-up”, Alan Parkinson says, “A very disturbing feature of the Maralinga project is the lack of openness about what was done. Even those who might be the future custodians of the land have not been kept truthfully informed on the project.”

To get copies of the written submissions to the Senate inquiry (hundreds of pages), it should be possible to get them free-of-charge by contacting the inquiry secretariat:
Dr. Kathleen Dermody, Inquiry Secretary,
The Senate, Parliament House, Canberra ACT 2600.
Ph (02) 6277 5755, Fax (02) 6277 3122
E Mail: <lucasheights.sen@aph.gov.au>

Transcripts of the Senate inquiry public hearings can be found at <www.aph.gov.au/hansard/senate/commttee/comsen.htm>

For a summary of the May 2001 final report of the Senate Committee, click here.