The Virtual Repository of Radwaste Information

Programme and Institutions: Management of L/ILW: Management of HLW/Spent Fuel: References:

Australia

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Programme and Institutions
Although Australia does not have a commercial nuclear programme, it is an important player on the nuclear stage, as a major supplier of uranium.

There are 2 research reactors at the New South Wales headquarters of the Australian National Science Organisation (ANSTO), at the Lucas Heights Science and Technology Centre in Sydney. These are the 10 Mw High Flux Australian Reactor (HIFAR), operational since 1958, and the 100 Kw MOATA, which ceased operation in May 1995 [Levins et al 1996]. ANSTO was established in 1987.

On 3 September 1997, the Minister for Science and Technology announced the proposal to construct and operate a replacement pool-type research reactor at Lucas Heights to replace the 40 year old HIFAR, which was shut down in 2005. A budget of A$286 million (in 1997 dollars) was identified to cover the cost of the replacement reactor [ANSTO 1999].

Environment Australia's EIS Guidelines for the proposal were released in their final form in January 1998. Prior to this, Draft EIS Guidelines were publicly exhibited and 117 submissions were taken into account before the release of the Final EIS Guidelines.

Following public review the Final EIS was prepared based on the comments received. Formal approval to go ahead with a licence application was given in a government statement on 31 March 1999, followed by an application for a Site Authorisation by ANSTO, granted in late August 1999. ANSTO announced in July 2000 that a contract for the construction of the reactor had been signed with the Argentine company INVAP [UI 18/07/00]. The OPAL LEU reactor, with a rated power of 20MW, went critical in August 2006, and was officially opened in April 2007 [read more on ANSTO website].

Under new arrangements contained in the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Act, which came into force on 5 February 1999, the regulatory body for nuclear issues in Australia became the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA), replacing the Nuclear Safety Bureau and the Australian Radiation Laboratory.

Following the consultation process outlined above, which had culminated in publication of a favourable review of the Preliminary Safety Analysis Report by an IAEA expert panel in July 2001 [IAEA 2001], ARPANSA issued a construction licence for the Replacement Reactor to ANSTO in April 2002 [ARPANSA 2002]. The lawfulness of the licencing decision was challenged by Greenpeace in the Federal Court, but on 13 September 2002 the Court affirmed the decision and dismissed with costs the application for judicial review [ARPANSA 2002].

During assessment of the construction licence ARPANSA had requested that limited site investigations be carried out by ANSTO. These had resulted in the identification of previously unknown faulting in the proposed development area. However, following additional, more extensive, investigation, it was concluded that the faulting is not capable of causing sufficient ground movement to necessitate alteration of the existing seismic design for the proposed reactor [ARPANSA Nuclear Safety Committee 2002].

Construction work officially began on 11th April 2002 with development of the building anchorage system [ANSTO 2002]. Following satisfactory compliance with a number of additional conditions relating to the original siting licence, ARPANSA formally surrendered its control over the licence in July 2003 [ARPANSA 2003]. An operation licence was issued by ARPANSA on 14th July 2006.

Management of L/ILW
A near-surface disposal site for LLW is currently operational, at the Mt. Walton East Intractable Waste Disposal Facility, but this only accepts waste originating in Western Australia (Harries and Veitch 1998). It was originally planned that this would also include 7000 tonnes per annum of thorium hydroxide from a proposed rare-earth facility, but this has since been abandoned. Organochlorines have also been dumped at the site.

Other L/ILW is located at as many as 50 sites in Australia [Davoren et al 1997], with roughly 50% of these at ANSTO's Lucas Heights site in Sydney. This includes over 6000 drums of solid wastes and material from the HIFAR reactor experiments, which were in storage as of mid-2005. LLW is stored in a special unit within the reactor's controlled zone, there is currently space for around 100 more drums, although restacking is likely to be carried out [NSC 2005].

Commonwealth land at Woomera in South Australia is used to store large quantities of low-level and some intermediate-level waste on a temporary basis. Some of the waste is stored in a concrete bunker while other waste in drums is stored in a large hangar [ARPANSA 2003b].

In total there are some 3,500 m³ of L/ILW in storage [ARPANSA 2003b], which increases nationally at the rate of approx. 60 m³ per year [Bureau of Resource Sciences 1998]. Unconditioned ILW is stored in below ground concrete lined pits at Lucas Heights and some 1675 m³ of LLW and beryllium oxide was disposed of at Lucas Heights prior to 1968, in the Little Forest Burial Ground [ARPANSA 2003b]. The Department of Defence holds some 60m³, mainly luminous dials and radium sources, and approx. 100m³ of sealed sources are held in the various States [Davoren et al 1997].

The long-lived ILW inventory stood at around 500 m³ in 2003 [ARPANSA 2003b] and is increasing by some 3m³ per year [DEST 2002]. Approx. 5 m³ of long-lived ILW will be generated by decommissioning of the HIFAR reactor and there will be around 100m³ from activities in the various States, as well as some 165 m³ of thorium concentrates derived from monazite sand processing. Intermediate level waste is stored in a steel frame structure, clad with steel sheet, with a row of reinforced glass windows set high in the walls, covering a thick concrete base laid on to bedrock [NSC 2005].

Until July 2004 plans were well underway to identify a potentially suitable site for a near-surface LLW repository (see below). The Federal Government had also made an in-principle decision to have a national ILW store in 1996, following a Senate inquiry into waste management. This decision was supported by the Commonwealth/State Consultative Committee on the Management of Radioactive Waste, a body which has representatives from all States and Territories, in 1997. A consultation document was issued in July 2001 [DISR 2001], and after taking public comments into account it was announced in 2002 that the store would be sited on Commonwealth land, at a location to be decided [DEST 2002]. A National Store Advisory Committee was established to advise the government on the siting process.

Following assessment of Commonwealth land around Australia the National Store Advisory Committee submitted a short-list of sites to the Federal Government for further consideration. No sites in South Australia were identified as being highly suitable for the national store. Accordingly, early in May 2003, the Federal Government ruled out South Australia as an option in the Government’s nationwide search for a suitable site for the national store.

Following further assessment of possible sites in other parts of Australia, the Federal Government intended to announce a short-list for further investigation. However, following abandonment of the LLW repository site (see below) in July 2004, the government announced its intention to co-locate the ILW store with a repository for LLW from Lucas Heights, at a site to be selected, but which would be on Commonwealth-owned land [Prime Minister 14/07/04]. Speculation began immediately following this announcement that sites could include offshore islands etc, but a shortlist was never published. In January 2005 there was a suggestion that Nauru was being considered, but again this was dismissed following strong opposition. By June 2005 suggestions that a suitable site could be found in Northern Territories led state officials to rule this out, as far as they were concerned at least.

As discussed below, a number of sites in the Northern Territories have since been identified as having potential and are under examination, despite opposition from the NT government. Following passage of legislation in the NT parliament to prohibit waste transport to any of the sites, the federal government moved to override this and all other State and public opposition. The Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Bill 2005 and the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management (Related Amendments) Bill 2005 were introduced on 13th October 2005 and received Commonwealth Assent on 15th December 2005 following a Senate hearing into the issue [Australian Senate 2005]. This effectively allows the federal government to proceed unfettered by NT opposition.

The Department of the Environment and Heritage and ARPANSA agreed in May 2006 to a joint environmental assessment and siting licence process. This is expected to reduce the time required for these processes by around six months.

Disposal Concept for L/ILW:
The L/ILW repository (now abandoned, see below) was to be located on a site measuring approximately 1.5 by 1.5 kilometres. Most of this area would have been a buffer zone around the repository disposal trenches. The disposal trenches would be located near the centre of the site, within a 100 by 100 metre area. The trenches would have a maximum depth of 15-20 metres. The waste was to be disposed of in steel or concrete drums. Support buildings were to be located adjacent to the trenches [DEST 2003b].

It was expected that because of the low generation rate in Australia, disposal would take place in several discrete campaigns. Between these the facility was to be closed and a temporary cover installed [Harries and Veitch 1998].

It is not yet clear whether a similar concept will be employed at whatever site is selected for the new repository.

Repository Site Selection:
In 1988, Northern Territory expressed interest in hosting a shallow repository, following government appeals for volunteers. A study, completed in 1989, supported the idea, but estimated the cost at $5600 per m³. By 1991, Northern Territory had decided that it no longer wanted to proceed.

Consequently, a 'Draft Code for the Disposal of Low and Intermediate Level Waste' was produced in 1991, for comments and criticisms. The Code stated that it is assumed that any facility would be constructed in a relatively remote, arid region. Any facility would be a near-surface engineered type.

Following a public comment period on the 'Draft Code', the Federal Government launched a site selection study in June 1992 to identify those areas of Australia which might be potentially suitable for locating a repository.

In September 1992 the NSW Land and Environment Court instructed ANSTO to remove more than half of the waste stored there within 3 years, or as soon as a national repository is available. It was after this decision that the Federal Government made ANSTO exempt from State planning and environmental laws, but has promised that the waste will still be moved.

In October 1992 the Department of Primary Industries and Energy (DPIE) published a discussion paper on repository siting criteria [National Resource Information Centre 1992]. The criteria were subdivided into those regarded as being important from a radiation health perspective and non-radiological factors that are also significant. It was stated from the outset that a potential site might not necessarily comply with all of these criteria. However, there should, it was suggested, be compensating factors in the design of the facility to overcome any deficiency in the physical characteristics of the site.

Using the selection criteria described in the paper, several areas of arid outback land were highlighted as potentially suitable. These included several areas of Western Australia, Roxby Downs in South Australia, Broken Hill in NSW and in the Tanami Desert in Northern Territory. The report used as many as 18 criteria, such as rainfall, rock type, bedrock geology, distance to rail/road, population density etc. to home in on possible areas. A second discussion document was then issued in July 1994. It described how Phase 1 had resulted in the identification of 8 potential areas for further study [DPIE 1994]:

1. Billa Kalina, including the Woomera Rocket Base (South Australia)
2. Bloods Range (Northern Territory)
3. Everard (South Australia)
4. Jackson (Western Australia)
5. Maralinga (South Australia)
6. Mount Isa (Queensland)
7. Olary (South Australia/New South Wales)
8. Tanami (Northern Territory)

The application of the selection criteria was described, as was the fact that whilst 5 of the sites were selected solely by use of these, 3 had been chosen because of recommendations by the public or by local jurisdictions. The 8 regions had areas ranging between 11,000 and 67,000 Km², and were typified by low population density, low rainfall (less than 500mm), only local aquifers and low levels of agricultural use [Davoren et al 1997].

Phase 3 of the project began after further public consultation and submissions. Local communities were invited to take part in discussions, and even offer their areas for investigation.

In May 1995 concerned politicians in the Senate announced an inquiry into the problems associated with nuclear waste in general, and which took place during 1995. The federal authorities did not take part in the inquiry, but delayed the siting work until after the inquiry reported. 'No Time to Waste' was published by the Senate on 30 April 1996, and recommended, i.a., that an above-ground storage facility should be developed which could take ALL types of radioactive waste. The government responded by saying that developing storage facilities for long-lived ILW at any repository site would enable wastes derived from overseas reprocessing of spent fuel (see below) to be returned, and should be welcomed. They continued to suggest that a disposal facility, rather than a storage one, should still be sought for LLW and short-lived ILW. It was following this inquiry that work began on the National ILW Store Project (see above).

The government subsequently restarted the search for a disposal facility, and conducted detailed studies of the 8 identified areas, to highlight the one with the largest areas of potential suitability, using both a descriptive methodology involving application of the selection criteria identified in earlier Phases, as well as the use of an analytical program, ASSESS, to graphically apply these criteria across the selected regions.

The result of this work, together with that from local consultations was published in a 3rd 'Public Discussion Paper' in February 1998 [ANSTO 1999]. The Billa Kalina region in South Australia was identified as having the greatest potential suitability. Public comments and submissions were requested by end-March 1998. Following an initial desk study of existing information and some supplementary shallow drilling a preferred site plus two backups were to be identified. It was intended to carry out limited drilling at as many as 18 possible locations, beginning March/April 1999, with one chosen for detailed investigation, taking into account public comments etc. Preliminary drilling took place at 6 potential sites, but protracted negotiations with Aboriginal leaders at the other 12 caused delay in selecting the remainder.

Responsibility for siting and developing the facility passed to the newly-established Department of Industry, Science and Resources in 1999. In October 1999 the Minister announced that only the 6 identified sites up to that time would actually be examined [DISR 22/10/99], due to the problems in negotiating additional access. Following a Regional Consultative meeting later that month, it was announced that in fact 2 of the 6 were being withdrawn due to concerns by the public and authorities as to their suitability. One was inside the Woomera Prohibited Area (WPA), an active military range, and another was within an area of concern for a group of Aboriginals, near a community of 1000 people called Andamooka [DISR 18/11/99].

In late May 2000, the Minister next announced that an additional site within the Woomera Prohibited Area had been identified. Following shallow drilling at this and the remaining 4 original sites, 3 were selected for more work in August 2000 [DISR 14/08/00] following consultations with local people. One was within the WPA, the others were east of the road between Woomera and Roxby Downs. All are in stony desert. In January 2001 the government announced that Site 52a at Evetts Field West within the Woomera Prohibited Area had been selected as preferred site, and that it and 2 alternatives (known as sites 45a and 40a) would be subjected to an EIA process [DISR 24/01/01]. The final EIS and associated public comments were submitted to the Ministry for Environment and Heritage in late 2002.

The State government in South Australia had meanwhile passed legislation to ban the development of a storage facility within the State for ILW and HLW [The Age, Melbourne, 16/11/00], and the issue continued to be problematic, with Site 52a, on land occupied by the defence department, seemingly being abandoned in late 2002, with continued opposition reported to the process from Western Mining, the owner of Site 40a [Greenleft Weekly 02/04/03].

On 9th May 2003 the repository siting EIS was formally approved by the federal Environment and Heritage Ministry, and on the same day the sponsoring ministry, (now the Department for Education, Science and Training), announced the choice of Site 45a as the preferred repository location. DEST claim that this site is most suitable for a number of reasons, including:
• better security;
• a less environmentally sensitive access route; and
• more saline water which has no pastoral use.

In addition, proposed civilian launch activities at Woomera might have affected Site 45a, but would not affect Site 40a [DEST 2003b].

DEST originally estimated that it would take approx. 6 months to submit a site and licence and receive approval from ARPANSA to proceed. The South Australian government attempted to force a Federal Court review of the plan, but this was defeated in December 2003. An IAEA Expert panel visited the proposed site in early 2004 to assist ARPANSA in assessing the licence application. The panel's draft report, released on 30th January 2004, praised the environmental impact statement and selection process, but questioned some aspects of the DEST safety assessment methodology. The full report was added to the ARPANSA website in May 2004.

In association with the licencing process, ARPANSA held a 2-day public forum in February 2004. A transcript was made available, as were the reports of the 2 independent panellists. These raised a number of areas of concern, not least DEST's ability to manage the contractors who would operate the facility. One report, by Professor Ian Lowe, even questioned whether the need for the repository had been adequately demonstrated, or whether the waste conditioning currently carried out by ANSTO, at it's Lucas Heights reactor site, is compromised by the lack of agreed waste acceptance criteria.

The federal government moved in early 2004 to enact a compulsory purchase order for the land area of the proposed site to pre-empt a proposal by the South Australia government to designate the area a State park, in an attempt to prevent development. The State government appealed against this order and this was upheld by a federal court on 24th June 2004. Subsequently, on 14th July 2004, the Prime Minister announced that the proposed site was to be abandoned [Prime Minister 14/07/04]. Furthermore, responsibility for radioactive waste management is to pass to the State in which it is generated, although the federal government will remain responsible for material from Lucas Heights. The government called on ARPANSA to work with the State governments to develop safe and satisfactory working practices incorporating international best practice.

As noted earlier, the federal government also announced that any future repository for Lucas Heights wastes will be co-located with the national ILW store, at a site yet to be selected.

On 15th July 2005, the government announced 3 candidate sites for a waste management facility in the Northern Territories, at Mount Everard and Harts Range near Alice Springs and at Fishers Ridge near Kathleen [DEST 2005]. All are on Defence Department land. Site suitability studies were to begin immediately with a final selection made in mid-2006. In the event, this date has continued to slip, and no recommendation has been made to date (November 2007).

The facility will only handle wastes from federal facilities, primarily the new ANSTO reactor at Lucas Heights. Separate licences for siting, construction and operation will be sought from ARPANSA before planned operations begin in late 2011. This was in response to earlier criticism when DEST applied for all three concurrently for the original site in South Australia. If none of the 3 sites is considered suitable for a repository, a long term LLW store will be developed in addition to that for ILW.

In a subsequent development, on 25th May 2007, DEST announced that the Northern Land Council had nominated an area of the Muckaty Station (also in NT) as a potential site, in return for an A$12 million benefits package. This will now be examined to determine its suitability, although several members of the Indigenous landowners group have called for the nomination to be abandoned [The Age 29/10/07 ].

Management of HLW/Spent Fuel
It is policy in Australia that spent fuel from the HIFAR and MOAT reactors is to be reprocessed in France or at Dounreay in the UK. HIFAR has 25 fuel elements in its core at any given time, and uses around 37 fuel elements annually.

In 1963, some UK-origin fuel elements from HIFAR were shipped to Dounreay for reprocessing. The last shipment (of 114 elements) took place in April 1996, leaving up to 900 still potentially to be returned [ARPANSA 2003b].

ANSTO had hoped to ship at least 450 elements of spent fuel back to the United States, although in May 1994, the US DOE temporarily took ANSTO off the list of reactor operators who would be granted an "urgent relief shipment" of HEU to the US, meaning that they had to wait until 1995 or later for a decision on what to do with the fuel. An Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on the repatriation was completed by end-February 1996, and in May 1996 the US DOE agreed to accept the material. There was been public opposition to DOE's repatriation plans in the US, but shipment of 240 elements took place in April 1998 [UI newsbrief 14/04/98].

The announcement in June 1998 of the decision to progressively close the reprocessing facility at Dounreay and not to accept any new future contracts meant that ANSTO had to look to COGEMA in France for reprocessing of any HIFAR spent fuel which is not accepted by the US in the future. A contract was announced in late April 1999 to cover up to 1,300 assemblies from HIFAR and future arisings from the replacement reactor [ARPANSA 2003b], but not the fuel being sent back to the US [NF 29/11/99].

Despite some opposition in France to the shipment of the spent fuel to La Hague, the first shipment of 308 assemblies arrived in France in January 2000, and another 360 fuel assemblies were sent to France in September 2001. However security issues caused a shipment in early 2003, to be postponed [SMH website 30/04/03]. The latest left for France in late November 2004 [ABC 22/11/04]

A dry-store has also been built in Tasmania, to house small amounts of various isotopes from medical and research sources.

As discussed elsewhere, formal approval to go ahead with a replacement for HIFAR was given in a government statement in 1999, and ANSTO announced in July 2000 that a contract for the construction of the reactor had been signed with the Argentine company INVAP. ARPANSA issued a licence to construct the reactor on 5 April 2002. An operating licence was issued on 14^th July 2006 and OPAL first went critical on the 12^th August 2006.

The OPAL facility incorporates an interim fuel storage pond, adjacent to the reactor pool, to accommodate spent fuel. This removes the need for any transport of spent fuel around the Lucas Heights Science and Technology Centre and will enable the existing dry store for HIFAR spent fuel, comprising 7 concrete and steel flasks, to be decommissioned when fuel is shipped overseas (see below).

The spent fuel from the replacement reactor will be stored at the Lucas Heights Science and Technology Centre for only as long as necessary to meet operational requirements. For this reason, the spent fuel pond will have a capacity to hold only spent fuel accumulation over ten years of operation.

The spent fuel management strategy for the replacement reactor is linked to that for HIFAR spent fuel. As explained above this involves shipping spent fuel overseas for reprocessing and conditioning the resulting waste into long-lived intermediate level waste. This will be returned to Australia in a form suitable for placement in the national radioactive waste storage facility discussed elsewhere.

Disposal Concept for HLW/spent fuel:
As long ago as 1991, a consortium of Australian companies was reported to be studying the feasibility of developing a national, or even international, repository for high level waste, with the wastes being immobilised in an artificial glass called SYNROC, which was developed by an Australian geochemist, AE Ringwood, in the 1970's.

The partners were CRA Ltd, Western Mining Corporation, Energy Resources of Australia Ltd, Broken Hill Pty Ltd, ANSTO and the Australian National University in Canberra. (The licence on SYNROC is actually held by an Adelaide Consulting firm, Nuclear Waste Management (NWM))

It was suggested by the consortium that the SYNROC technology, if adopted, could be used to encapsulate spent fuel and HLW from abroad, for disposal in an Australian repository [Laverov et al 1998].

Development of SYNROC to immobilise a number of waste streams at Hanford, in the USA, is presently underway, and it was announced in August 1998 that a new form of SYNROC is to be used for immobilisation of surplus weapons-grade plutonium at a new facility to be built at the Savannah River site [ANSTO 1999]. This follows 4 years of collaborative research with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, also in the US.

ANSTO also claim to have signed agreements with other countries. IGEM and SIA Radon in Russia, for example, have reportedly conducted bench-tests of various SYNROC formulations, and say that design of a demonstration pilot-plant is currently underway [Laverov et al 1998].

News broke in December 1998 that an international company known as Pangea Resources (developed with support from BNFL in the UK), was attempting to obtain approval to develop a commercial storage and disposal facility for all types of high-active wastes, somewhere in Western Australia. Pangea had also short-listed other areas in China, Argentina and south-west Africa. Pangea extolled the benefits of a so-called 'High Isolation Site', with low topography and internal drainage [Miller et al 1999].

Australia had been identified as offering the desired combination of stable geology and stable social structures. Pangea originally focused on extensive regions in the states of South Australia and Western Australia which could meet the technical requirements. This included the Officer Basin, which contains flat-lying Pre-Cambrian and Cambrian sedimentary formations. It was intended that the further siting process would be conducted in liaison with the State and Federal Governments in Australia [McCombie et al 1999].

Pangea established an International Technical Review Group and contracted with an Australian management group to begin project scheduling work, but following intense opposition from the federal government and the Australian public downgraded its efforts in late 1999, eventually abandoning efforts to site the facility altogether.

Pangea ceased to exist in early 2002. It was replaced by ARIUS, the Association for Regional and International Underground Storage, in February 2002.

References
ABC News Online 22/11/04

ARPANSA 2002; Annual Report 2001/02, September 2002

ARPANSA Nuclear Safety Committee 2002; Minutes of Seismic Briefing held on 27 September 2002

ARPANSA Nuclear Safety Committee 2005; REPORT ON THE ANSTO APPLICATION FOR A LICENCE TO OPERATE A REPLACEMENT RESEARCH REACTOR, Addressing The Plan for Maintaining Effective Control of the Facility and Conduct of Operations and Management of Spent Fuel and Radioactive Waste. September 2005

ARPANSA 2003; Annual Report of the Chief Executive Officer for 2002-2003. Published October 2003

ARPANSA 2003b; Australian National Report to the IAEA Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management

Australian Senate 2005; A hearing of the Employment, Workplace Relations Committee, November 2005

Bureau of Resource Sciences 1998; ‘A Radioactive Waste Repository for Australia. Site Selection Study - Phase 3 Regional Assessment’. Publ. by Bureau of Resource Sciences, Canberra (February 1998)

Davoren PJ et al 1997; ‘Site selection process for an Australian national low-level radioactive waste repository’. In: Proceedings of an International Symposium on Experience in the Planning and Operation of Low Level Waste Disposal Facilities. Vienna, 17-21 June 1996, p167. Publ. by IAEA

Department of Education, Science and Training 2002; ‘The National Store Project: A Report Responding to Public Comment’. April 2002

Department of Education, Science and Training 2003b; ‘Site 40a’. From DEST website 20/05/03

Department of Education Science and Training 2005; 'About Locations, Assessment and Approval'. from DEST website July 2005

Department of Industry, Science and Resources Press Release 22/10/99

Department of Industry, Science and Resources Press Release 18/11/99

Department of Industry, Science and Resources Press Release 14/08/00

Department of Industry, Science and Resources Press Release 24/01/01

Department of Primary Industries and Energy 1994; ‘A Radioactive Waste Repository in Australia: Site selection study - Phase 2’. Publ. by the National Resource Information Centre.

Greenleft Weekly 02/04/03

Harries JR and SM Veitch 1998; ‘Site selection for the proposed Australian National Near-Surface Repository’. In: Proceedings of DisTec'98, an International Conference on Radioactive Waste Disposal. September 9-11, 1998. Hamburg, Germany p99. Publ. by KONTEC

IAEA 2001; EXPERTS MISSION TO REVIEW THE PSAR OF THE RRR FOR ARPANSA. FINAL REPORT, 10 July 2001

Laverov N et al 1998; Collaborative studies of HLW forms at SIA Radon and IGEM RAS. In: Proceedings of 8th International Conference on HLW Management, Las Vegas, May 11-14 1998 p613. Publ. by ANS

Levins DM et al 1996; ANSTO's Radioactive Waste Management Policy Preliminary Environmental Review. ANSTO/E728 (May 1996).

McCombie C et al 1999; THE PANGEA INTERNATIONAL REPOSITORY: A TECHNICAL OVERVIEW. Presented at WM'99, Tucson AZ, March 1-4 1999

Miller I et al 1999; High-Isolation Sites for Radioactive Waste Disposal: A fresh look at the challenge of locating safe sites for radioactive repositories. Presented at WM'99, Tucson AZ, March 1-4 1999

National Resource Information Centre 1992; ‘A Radioactive Waste Repository for Australia: Methods for Choosing the Right Site. A discussion paper’. (October 1992).

NuclearFuel 29/11/99

Office of the Australian Prime Minister 2004; Press Release 14th July 2004

SMH News 2003; ‘Nuclear rods raise security concerns for Sydney’. 30/04/03

The Age, Melbourne, 16/11/00

The Age, Melbourne, 29/10/07

Uranium Institute newsbrief 14/04/98

Uranium Institute newsbrief 18/07/00