Last month, the South Australian Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission recommended that the state government develop a business venture to store a large fraction of the world’s high- and intermediate-level nuclear power station wastes in South Australia. It proposes to do this by first building an interim above-ground store, to be followed by permanent underground repository.

But the commission’s recommendation is based on several debatable assumptions, including:

• an economic analysis that purports to show huge profits with negligible commercial risk
• the notion that social consent could be gained by “careful, considered and detailed technical work”
• the argument that Australia, as a net exporter of energy, has an ethical responsibility to help other countries lower their carbon emissions by means of nuclear power.

Read the full article on The Conversation.