Australia's Overflowing Nuclear Waste Dumps

Deep beneath the West Australian outback

lies the germ of an idea.

A dream about
making the world a safer place

that's gone beyond just the dreaming.

(man) "We have a very specific goal,
dispose of nuclear wastes,

pull out the nuclear weapons
and get them out of the way."

Jim Voss envisages a catacomb
500 metres beneath his feet

that would keep safe forever

one of the most toxic poisons
known to humankind.

(Voss) "Australia has the opportunity

to use its democratic forces

to say this is something
we should be doing for the world."

For half a century,
the problem of nuclear waste disposal

has dogged the world,
and one company called Pangea,

backed by big money and influence,
wants to bury it in Australia.

"You'll find a great deal
of enthusiasm in the United States,

and I suspect around the world."

"They have backing from incredible people
within government and industry."

(ad) To make the world a safer place
for the people we love...

Tonight, Four Corners
goes inside the company called Pangea.

We examine a scheme
that's provoked accusations of secrecy

and back-door influence peddling,

a scheme that forces Australia

to confront its role
in the nuclear world.

Australia will make
our world a safer place

"We're not interested in nuclear power

and we're not interested in being
the world's nuclear waste dump."

♪ (music) ♪

(Voss) "We're just headed out
here into the desert."

(man) "What you're looking for,
of course

is the most remote areas
you can find, right?"

(Voss) "Well, in part.

The geology is far more important
than the remoteness."

Pangea's Jim Voss
and scientist Charles McCombie

took Four Corners on the long trip

from Perth, 340 kilometres
north east of Kalgoorlie,

to the edge of the Great Victoria Desert.

(McCombie) "The flatness, even more
than how it looks on the surface,

if you look out at the horizon
it's all very flat.

This is one of the flattest areas
in the world and that's a real key issue

to the -- what we call a high isolation site."

(helicopter blades whirring)

Latitude 28 south, longitude 123 east.

(whirring continues)

Out in this area
the size of Western Europe

lies a patch of ground
20 kilometres square

that they believe could house
a repository for up to 20 percent

of the world's nuclear waste.

Out here you find pangea rock --
very old, very stable --

the geology from which
the company gets its name.

(McCombie) "And in the basin area
and where we're on the edge now,

it's 300 to 800 million years
of quiet build-up of sediments.

So this is one of the most
stable geological areas

that you'll find in the world."

But it's not just science.
Politics are just as crucial

in dealing with radioactive waste
and nuclear disarmament

and that's what makes Australia
more attractive than Argentina,

Namibia, and China,
where pangea rock is also found.

(Voss) "Well, it's the political stability
that we're concerned about.

Australia's tradition
in democratic principles,

Australia's environmental activism
is vital to us. Australia's role

in the international community
for disarmament for all sorts of weapons

nuclear, land mines, chemical weapons,
very important facets to us for Australia"

Behind Pangea stand
three international organisations.

The huge British government-owned
nuclear conglomerate, BNFL

British Nuclear Fuels Limited,
which owns 80 percent

a Canadian company
called Golder Associates

world experts in toxic waste management

and Nagra, a Swiss organisation
responsible for finding

a nuclear waste dump
for Switzerland's nuclear industry.

(advertisement) The simple fact
is that more than 30 countries

use nuclear power.

Pangea originally planned
to launch its scheme on Australians

last month, with a 9 million dollar
war chest for advertising and promoting

a scheme it knew would meet
an incredulous public

and skeptical politicians.

Those plans fell apart in December
last year, when the British arm

of Friends Of The Earth
got hold of the video

Pangea prepared for the launch
and sent it to Australia.

(Pangea promotional video) Above all,
Pangea will provide the world

with a safe solution
to the disposal of nuclear materials.

(man) "Oh, it arrived in
an unmarked brown envelope

on my desk, and I had no idea
where it came from. I felt that this

should not be sprung on Australians
in a hole-in-the-wall secret underhand way

but they should learn as soon as possible
what was being planned for them."

(Pangea promotional video)
Before any responsible country

would send their waste for disposal,
they must be certain

not only that the respository is safe,
but also that its safety must be seen

to be clearly and rigorously regulated.

(Voss) "We were of course, disappointed.
It was our intention to roll Pangea out

in a very public and planned manner,
to give everybody an opportunity to debate."

(woman) "My question is to
Senator Minchin, Minister for Resources -"

The response to the video was immediate.
Opponents were appalled

at the idea of a nuclear dumping ground.

(woman) " ... Will he rule out completely
any involvement of his government

in setting up an international nuclear
waste repository in Australia?"

The Federal Government
moved to distance itself.

(Senator Minchin) "And the Government
has absolutely no intention of accepting

the radioactive waste of other countries.
The policy is clear - "

In the following months,
the Industry and Resources Minister's line

has hardened.

(Senator Minchin) "There may be
other countries that

in far less fortuitous
economic circumstances than Australia

that do decide they want to accept
international nuclear waste.

Well that's their business,
and that may be one way

in which those countries
with a waste problem deal with it.

But Australia won't be that nation
that accepts the waste."

But Pangea's plans for the outback
are a reminder of Australia's part

in the nuclear world:
an exporter of uranium,

part of the American nuclear umbrella
and a leading advocate of disarmament.

What Pangea is doing
is putting together a growing network

of international
and Australian businessmen,

scientists and policy makers who believe
that Australia should also have a role

to play in resolving one of the
nuclear age's most pressing problems:

what to do with the stockpiles
of nuclear waste

that have been growing now
for half a century.

It's a debate they say
that Australia has to have

one that can't be dodged forever,
and one upon which Australians themselves

will eventually have to take a stand.

(indistinct lecturing)

Amongst those who believe Australia
should play a role is the president

of the Australian Academy of Science
who's personally backing Pangea

and will sit on
its scientific review panel.

(professor) "I think it is important
that they engage the Australian public

and engage the Australian public's
representatives, namely the politicians

so that the politicians get
as clear a view as it's possible to get

of what the proposal's really about.
The existence of nuclear waste

is a world problem and Australia
in this respect is part of the world

and if we can help reduce that danger
by putting that particular problem to bed

that is great."

(Jenkins) "This industry thinking that
it can solve its problems by shifting them

to some remote place,
and also onto future generations

and that makes one quietly angry."

♪ (ominous music) ♪

The creeping poison of nuclear waste
began with the advent of the nuclear age

more than half a century ago,
but it took three decades

before governments
began to take it seriously.

In 1943, the 2,000 citizens of Hanford
and neighbouring Bluff Cliffs

in the northwest US state of Washington
got 30 days notice to move out

when the top-secret Manhattan Program
to build the first atomic bomb

got underway.
They never came back.

Fifty-six years later, what's left behind
is abandoned, no longer top secret

but still deadly.

1,400 square kilometres
of poisoned land, a wilderness

of dumped nuclear waste
from the reactors

that produced plutonium
for bombs and warheads

fodder for 30 years of cold war.

(construction machinery)

The detritus lies scattered and buried.

(more machinery)

A clean-up's underway,
but it'll take 50 years

at a cost of five and a half
million dollars every single day.

David Pentz first came to Hanford
in the '80s at the behest

of the American government.

A specialist in waste disposal,

Pentz spent three years investigating
whether the contaminated site

might become the world's first permanent
dump for highly radioactive waste.

It didn't work,
because the geology

proved too complex,
and it's not yet worked

anywhere else in the world.

(Pentz) "I think total costs, probably
we've spent in the world today,

is certainly in excess of $20 billion,
and we obviously don't have a repository

licenced repository,
anywhere in the world."

Pentz went home to Seattle,
but the idea of a disposal site

deep underground did not go away.

He nagged at the problem
and it nagged at him.

Pentz was chairman of Golder Associates,
the industrial waste experts

and under its umbrella in March 1997,
he set up Pangea Resources Limited.

(Pentz) "We see ourselves as an ambassador
of a problem, a world problem,

and we think Australia should
at least talk about it and consider it

in a rational sense
because of, that we at least,

and I think you will find
others in the world

believe that Australia
has an incredible opportunity

to help the world,
and if you want to call that

as being good neighbourly, so be it.

To me, good neighbourly
doesn't put enough dimension

on the challenge that the world faces.

From modest offices
in the high-tech part of Seattle

that is home to Microsoft,
Pentz is working to ensure

the idea doesn't die.

(woman) "Mr. Pentz, I have Australia
and the UK on the line

- for the conference call."
- "Thank you very much."

(Pentz) "I could say our tactics
are absolutely a disaster, unequivocally.

I would say however our tactics
were not of our own making, right?"

(George) "So in retrospect, the secrecy
with which you've cloaked your proposal

has been a mistake?"

"Yes I think that, and some people,
and I have questioned myself

whether that was right."

(George) "Because one of the great
criticisms of the whole nuclear industry

and all the, in it's history,
has always been its secrecy, hasn't it?"

"Absolutely, and that's tied
both sides of the nuclear industry.

Obviously on the weapons side
and even on the commercial side.

I couldn't agree with you more."

- (man) "Hello, David."
- (Pentz) "Well hi, Jim! Welcome aboard!"

Pentz still runs about 60 people
around the world, some half of them

contracted on a part-time basis.
Amongst them, Ralph Stoll

a former US nuclear submarine commander.

(Stoll) "It looks like, there's a reason
to go to Washington next week,

to follow up with some of these ideas."

In Australia, Jim Voss is looking
for new ways to open doors for Pangea.

(Voss on phone) "The Pangea papers were
right where we wanted them, that is

presenting where we stand
in our feasibility studies."

(Pentz) "Yeah."

There's no shortage of funds.
Pangea had a $40 million budget this year

but much of it won't now get spent
because the political heat in Australia

has delayed plans for exploration
in Western Australia.

(George) "So if the government is saying,
no, it's against our policy

why pursue it?
Why not just go away?"

(Pentz) "Because the idea
of an international repository

and the benefits
it will bring the world is real.

We think we have begun to see how we
could put the genie back into the bottle

and, you know, ideas
of this size ... don't go away."

♪ (music) ♪

From Seattle, Pentz and Stoll
are on the move across the continent.

"I have, I think received
a very good response

both in and outside of the government
to the concept that Pangea represents."

♪ (solemn music) ♪

"I wonder if these ...
kinds will work with Pangea."

In the 18 months since
Ralph Stoll's first visit to Washington

Pangea's briefed officials
in the US State Department, the Pentagon

the Department of Energy,
and presidential advisers

in two powerful arms of American security,
the National Security Council

and the National Security Agency.

And to reach the administration's
highest political levels, Pangea's hired

a big-hitter lobbyist, the man slated

to run Vice President Al Gore's
presidential campaign next year.

And Pangea's struck a chord
that shifts its focus

from a commercial venture,

to play to America's
strategic preoccupation

with growing stockpiles
of nuclear warheads.

"The world has a serious problem
with nuclear waste.

There are thousands and thousands
of tons of it, and thousands of tons more

coming on-line each year, so to speak,
as well as many thousands of tons

that are derivative
from former nuclear weapons programs,

and these have to be stored
safely and securely for thousands of years

and the world simply doesn't
have a solution to this

and as long as this waste
is stored in an imperfect fashion

which it is now, virtually everywhere,
it represents something of a threat."

Until the end of last year,
Jan Lodal was responsible

for running nuclear policy
for the Pentagon.

"I think that the American government
is likely to be very attracted

to the possibility of such a site,
and it will also see the attractiveness

of Australia's location."

At Washington's Georgetown University,
Pangea has another influential ally

in President Clinton's special adviser
for disarmament, who's concerned

about bombs or the raw material
falling into the hands

of rogue states and terrorist groups.

"In the United States,
we are very concerned

about what is generally called
in the literature the loose nuke problem.

We are working with the Russians
in a very cooperative way,

but still there are hundreds of tons,
when it only takes a few kilograms

to make a bomb, there are hundreds
of tons of this material

inadequately protected.
That's what we wanna take care of too.

♪ (western music) ♪

♪ On the trail you'll find me lopin',
while the spaces are wide open ♪

♪ in the land of the old AEC, yee-hoo ♪

♪ why, the cedar is attractive,
and the air is radioactive ♪

♪ oh, the Wild West is
where I want to be ♪

♪ 'mid the sagebrush and the cactus
I'll watch the fellas practice ♪

♪ droppin' bombs through
the clean desert breeze, ah-ha ♪

(bomb explosion)

If nuclear disarmament
was the peace dividend

from the end of the Cold War,
then the problem of dealing

with today's unwanted nuclear bombs
is the peace headache.

In pursuit of superiority
over the Russians,

America detonated 928 bombs
at the Nevada test site,

a hundred of them above ground.

The tests took 40 years to conduct,
but the combined time

for all those explosions
amounts to a mere 60 seconds

a minute of the most destructive power
created by humankind.

(explosions, wind, breaking glass, planes)

The Cold War legacy is
100,000 nuclear warheads around the world.

Disarmament talks call
for a reduction to 4,000 in 10 years.

Pangea reckons
it can help disarmament

by burying plutonium
from decommissioned warheads

a claim questioned by critics
who say nothing in the plans

ensure it can never be retrieved.

"They cloak it as
a nuclear non proliferation

and arms control proposal,
but when you look at the fine print

it really is, at this point in time
at least, a bail-out

for the nuclear industry and
for the plutonium industry in particular."

"These need not be inconsistent at all.

So I think that
it is a commercial enterprise

but the potential for
a very positive impact

on international security is very real."

"That's the rhetoric.
That's the broad brush

but the fine strokes indicate
that this spent fuel

will be put underground
on a retrievable basis

so that countries
that want to get it out, can."

"The fact that there may be
retrievability doesn't bother me

provided, of course,
the retrievability is

something that were very easily
monitored and prevented

if the international community
wished to prevent it

and if you had
a remote site in Australia,

I think you could assure that."

Fifty kilometres from
the Nevada test site

lies Yucca Mountain,
and a stark reminder that America

like the rest of the world,
has a growing problem

with commercial waste.

10,000 tons is created globally each year.

"The alternative is the stuff
right now sitting in swimming pools

and the basement of power plants
in metropolitan areas.

What's that going to do
to our future generations?

We can't make this stuff go away."

Like Pangea, Jim Niggemeyer believes
the answer lies beneath his feet.

(Niggemeyer) So for me,
this I think is safe for

hundreds of thousands of years.
I don't see any other alternative

that gets us beyond tens of years.

(George) Fifteen kilometres of tunnel
lie inside Yucca Mountain.

It represents America's
and the world's best bet yet

for a nuclear waste dump.
But it's not a good bet at all.

(Niggemeyer) And you'll notice
as we go down

you'll see uh, ties of fairly heavy steel
around the tunnel.

That's to hold up the rock and
give us general support.

(George) The Yucca Mountain project's
cost the US $10 billion so far

and it will be at least two years
before the US government

decides whether it's safe to go ahead.

The people of Nevada have already
decided: they don't want it.

But they know they're up against
powerful nuclear interests.

(Reid) They do it in a number of ways.
One is through fear and the distribution

of bad information, false information.

What they do is say
we need to get it outta here,

and then everybody here'll be safe.

And so that's the game they've played,
and they've done a good job.

They have done a good job with
their government relations work

here in Washington, they've got
the best lobbyists money can buy. (laughs)

(George) If the nuclear industry
does get its way,

this is what an underground
nuclear repository would look like.

Kilometres of tunnels containing
steel and concrete canisters,

radiating heat for hundreds of years;
their contents deadly

for tens of thousands of years.

And if the Americans have problems
finding a place for their nuclear waste,

imagine the problems across the Atlantic.

Europe's denser population and smaller
land mass have left the problem of

getting rid of waste from
nuclear power stations

mired in political, social,
and scientific rouse.

Nowhere more so than Britain,
where a decade-long search

for an underground waste dump has
collapsed in utter failure

after costing half a billion dollars.

(Blowers) Well in one sense, there is
some urgency, 'cause I think

it would be true to say that to do nothing
is not an option at the present time

because wastes are accumulating
in every country.

(George) A member of the
British government's

radioactive waste management committee,
Professor Andy Blowers

brings a critical eye to bear
on the nation's nuclear industry.

(Blowers) On the other hand, the kind of
urgency that the industry puts forward,

I think, is an urgency that is backing
their own particular interests.

They do need a solution to this
intractable problem of nuclear waste.

If they get the solution which appears to
be acceptable, then that,

to a high degree,
will underpin the future of

the nuclear industry as they perceive it.

(Voss) We're not motivated by providing
the opportunity for

new nuclear plants in the future.

We're motivated by providing a solution
to the problems that are there today.

(George) And yet if you do provide a solution
to the problems that are there today,

the problem of nuclear waste...

(Voss) Yes...
(George) You end up do you not,

justifying the continued existence
of the nuclear industry?

(Voss) Under some circumstances one could
interpret that. Remember that our...

(George) One suspects the nuclear industry
will interpret it exactly that way.

(Voss) They can interpret it as they like.

(George) Behind the nuclear industry's
sense of urgency lies an enterprise

situated in Britain's beautiful
Lake district in Cambria.

It's called Sellafield.

It's owned by BNFL, British Nuclear Fuels,
one of the world's most powerful

commercial nuclear conglomerates,
and it has only one shareholder :

the British government, and it's
BNFL that's behind the Pangea.

(Bonser) BNFL have looked at a number of
different ideas and thoughts about

how to deal with nuclear waste, and this
Pangea concept in my view

is the strongest I've seen.

It's technically extremely
well founded and

has a very good and explainable
safety case.

I think those things are
extremely important.

Of course the real unknown is whether
that will be accepted and welcomed

once it's been explained
and properly debated.

(George) BNFL's got a problem.
After America, Britain has

the largest stockpile of high-level
radioactive waste in the world.

It sits quietly in canisters
beneath the water,

cooling down for years
before it can be touched.

What's more, it's not just British waste.
A big part of BNFL's business is

reprocessing nuclear fuel rods from power
stations in other parts of the world.

But reprocessing produces
radioactive waste, too,

and BNFL's customers around the world don't
know what to do with their waste either.

(Bonser) Some of those customers will
look for an international repository

rather than a national repository
and so we feel that

where there's a unique and potentially
very valuable solution to

what is a worldwide problem

that as a global nuclear company we would
wish to be involved in that.

(George) So in no case would
British nuclear waste

end up in a repository in Australia?

(Bonser) Well of course in the
very long term, that's a

matter for government policy
rather than a commercial company,

and we will always work within
the UK government policy.

(George) On the River Esk, a few
kilometres south of Sellafield,

Martin Forwood checks radiation levels.

The plant's reputation for radioactive
leaks followed by cover-ups

and allegations of leukemia clusters and
pollution of the Irish Sea

have spawned deep mistrust
amongst environmentalists

and local opposition groups.

(Forwood) They haven't changed at all.
They're still

the murky deceitful company
they always were.

(Bonser) We need to build confidence,
we need to build trust.

We'll accept we've made mistakes
and try to put them right.

We operate in a number of different
countries on a number of different sites

and we try to adopt that
open approach towards

what we do wherever we operate,

and we would do
just the same in Australia.

(George) Martin Forwood, like most
British environmentalists,

believes BNFL should abandon plans
for underground dumps and

be forced to keep its waste on site
until safer ways are found to deal with it.

(Forwood) The industry's option which is
to push it underground,

very much out-of-site, out-of-mind,
has so many flaws in it that

it would be crassly wrong, I believe,
on behalf of future generations

to allow that to go ahead.
The second point--

I think I've already mentioned that it
would not be right, it would be immoral,

in our view, to land a country--
let's say Australia,

with everybody else's waste problems.
That would be wrong.

(George) To London, where BNFL's woes
have not endeared it to

its owner, the British government.

The latest investigation into
radioactive waste--

a select committee of the House of Lords--

concluded last month that underground
repositories are still the best bet.

(Tombs) But since it will take 24 years
even to open a deep geological disposal,

you need to start now, because
procrastination is the thief of time,

and that 24 years can stretch into
50, 60, sometime, never,

and it's a problem of such magnitude
that it has to be tackled.

(George) Lord Tombs believes Britain will
have to dispose of its own waste at home,

but says BNFL has every right to
explore the Pangea idea

for other countries' wastes.

(Tombs) Well it could well be because there
are nuclear reactors in the far east

for which may provide a
market for Australia.

I'm not qualified to comment on that.

All I'm saying is I don't think
the UK's a very good prospect

for the reasons I've outlined.

(George) Do you think perhaps those
a little politically insensitive

-- the government owned body in Britain...

(Tombs) ...Not at all...

(George) ...Should be
investigating in Australia?

(Tombs) No I would put it in a way which
may, you may not appreciate.

I would say that they have enormous
expertise which Australia doesn't,

and by helping Australia to develop
possibilities that they're actually

helping Australia, which
I'm all in favour of.

(George) Whether BNFL is doing
Australia a favour with

its Pangea proposal is a moot point.

Pangea's backers say a mining state
like Western Australia already has

the expertise to build a port,
a railway line into the desert,

and the catacomb to handle the waste.

Investments that would give the state
an economic shot in the arm--

a $6 billion jolt in start-up
costs alone--

$200 billion to Australia over 40 years.

Pangea chose one of the Liberal Party's
favoured economic modellers

to assess its figures.

(Voss) Access Economics has estimated that
this leads to about a

1% increase in the gross domestic product
and that brings another 50,000

jobs just from economic development,
economic stimulation.

(Minchin) I mean you might as well
suggest that Australia take

the world's prison population--

you know we've got plenty of space, why
not build a great big prison

in Alice Springs and take
all the world's prisoners?

Well you know that's, that's ridiculous.
So is this proposal.

(Lawrence) The amount of money being
talked about is mind boggling,

and it might be in the future,
particularly if there are further economic

problems flying out of what's
happened in Asia that some

Australian government somewhere might say
"Well let's have a look at this."

(George) Jobs and profits are one thing

-- the politics of the nuclear debate
another thing entirely.

The Government's already faced with
the passions aroused by the go-aheads

for the Jabiluka and Beverley
uranium mines,

by its own search for a dump
for Australia's low-level and intermediate

nuclear waste, and by plans for a new

nuclear research reactor at Sydney's
Lucas Heights.

To add Pangea to the menu would
seem cause political indigestion.

Senator Nick Minchin, Minister for Industry & Resources:
Q: Is your policy determined on the science of the matter,

the environmental issues of the
matter, or the simple politics of it?

A: Well it's a combination. I mean the

position of the Australian
community is critical

and as I say, I don't think there's

any basis on which the community
is prepared to accept this.

Peter George:
But Pangea's been at work on this area too.

While proposals to replace the old Lucas Heights reactor

are causing controversy, Pangea believes

Australian antagonism to nuclear issues is not

as deep rooted as it seems.

Peter George:
Over 18 months, Pangea's spent a quarter

of a million dollars on polling by the

Liberal Party's own pollster Mark Textor

whose report warns Pangea that most
Australians are ill-informed and afraid of

nuclear issues. But crucially, the report

goes on to say: "as long as people's
safety concerns can be satisfied,

and we cannot over-emphasise the
importance of the magnitude

...of this task,"

People could see the benefits of a nuclear waste dump.

Jim Voss, General Manager, Pangea:
There's about 35 per cent of the

populous believes that Pangea may
well be in the national interest.

A very solid 25-28 per cent
are absolutely convinced

that it wouldn't be in the nation's
best interest.

The group in the middle are asking the
fundamental question of why?

Why dispose of this material?

Why now? Why Australia?

Senator Nick Minchin, Minister for Industry & Resources:
I've, as you know, been involved in

the professional side of the
Liberal Party for 14 years.

I did a lot of polling myself.

I'd have to say I know all the
tricks of the trade

and I know you can get any result you like

depending on the way you ask the question

Footage - Pangea advertisement:
"There's no safer place in

the world to make the world a safer place"

Peter George:
For now, Pangea's advertising

campaign is on hold; plans to start

field studies this year are postponed,

but with so much money behind it, Pangea

and those who support it believe time
can be used to advantage.

Footage -- Pangea advertisement:
"...And a kilometre under a remote dessert in Australia is a gigantic non-porous rock that hasn't moved for millions of years, and won't for millions more."

Prof. Brian Anderson, Australian National University:
I certainly believe there's a chance for the proposal to get off the ground. I'm not sure of the time scale, but this is a problem that's going to be with us for a very very long time and you know -- governments change and, and politicians, Ministers change and our relationships with other countries change so to imagine that we could continue to maintain an attitude that we're not even going to look at the proposal -- I don't think that's sustainable.

Dr. Carmen Lawrence, MP for Fremantle, Labor:
If any illustration was needed of the fact that you can't dispose safely of waste -- it's the Pangea proposal. I've actually learned of this proposal in some detail. I made it my business to find out about it. They are serious, they are well-funded,...they're people who've worked around the mining industry for a very long time and I think it would be foolish of anybody -- government or people such as me opposed to what they're proposing to underestimate their their long term commitment to this proposal.

Peter George:
Faced with closed doors at a federal level, Pangea's strategy has focused on Perth, where it thinks political opposition may be softer and divisions may exist.

While no member of the West Australian government would speak to Four Corners, Premier Richard Court recently ruled out the Pangea proposal -- though in 1994 he did support a national dump for low and medium-level waste in the state's gold fields.

Though the Resources Minister also rejects Pangea -- the company thinks the state is nevertheless sending mixed signals.

Colin Barnett, WA Resources Development Minister(26 March 1999):
I can see a scenario developing in future where countries that sell uranium will share some of the obligations for disposing of the waste but that in the first instance is an issue for the Australian government, and I think Australia as a signatory to the non-proliferation treaty needs to be part of the international debate about uranium.

Jim Voss, General Manager, Pangea:
Q: Are there doors open? Is there interest?
A: I don't think overtly there is or there is any evidence there is not. There's a long educational process that would have to be done before we'd be, we'd know whether there really are doors open.

Senator Nick Minchin, Minister for Industry & Resources:
The only way this could advance, in fact is if a state government decided that it would like to entertain this proposition and grant the relevant state approvals for such a project to proceed. But it's not going to go anywhere without the Commonwealth authorising the importation of the materials.

Jim Voss, General Manager, Pangea:
Q: Senator Minchin has said to us,
A: Mmm....
Q: ...To Four Corners -- we will not become a dumping ground for the world's nuclear waste.
A: Mmm-hmm.
Q: Premier Court has said We don't want to be the dump for other countries' waste.
A: Mmm-hmm.
Q: Now those seem pretty clear policies don't they?
A: Yes.
Q: Do you see any door open at all under those circumstances?
A: Taken at face value, those words would say absolutely there's no door open.
Q: So why not pack up and go away under those circumstances?
A: It's as I said to you a moment ago, the, if you, you have to turn this on it's ear. If they've said yes today, would it be any more meaningful to us in the long term? If our board and our investors would like us to move forward and to try to turn a no into a yes on a bipartisan basis, then that's what we'll do.

Peter George:
Ten days ago, Pangea representatives from Britain and the United States flew in to Melbourne for a two-day strategy meeting, while last week in Perth -- Pangea hosted a dozen Australian and international scientists for a first private meeting of its scientific review board.

Jim Voss, General Manager, Pangea:
Q: So how much more money, how much more time are you prepared to put into this before you actually have to make a decision?
A: Well first up that's not my decision, that's, that's the decision of the board of directors.
Q: Mmm, but you speak for Pangea -- you must know what the view is?
A: In the broader sense the sometime during this calendar year there will be a decision as to what course of action to take next -- which country, which course, which strategy.

Peter George:
Pangea's strategy has brought about its own undoing, opening it to the same accusations of secrecy that has dogged the nuclear industry from birth.

But succeed or fail, it's an uncomfortable reminder that Australia is, after all, a part of the nuclear world and its problems.

David Pentz, Chairman, Pangea:
At the present moment Australia provides a significant quantity of uranium to the world. If in fact there is a repository it's kind of like womb to tomb. So to say that Australia is not a nuclear power state is correct right, but it is in the nuclear fuel cycle.

Senator Nick Minchin, Minister for Industry and Resources:
It does not then follow that Australia is required to receive back all that waste material, and I really do think countries have to take a very responsible approach when they enter into the business of generating their electricity by nuclear power.

Dr. Carmen Lawrence, MP for Fremantle, Labor:
Australia is putting itself I think, in a difficult position by continuing to expand the nuclear industry by as the current government is doing expanding the mining of uranium in this country. We are in a sense placing ourselves in some position of obligation to the disposal of those wastes.

Peter George:
If it fails in Australia, Pangea says it'll turn its focus to Argentina.

But it's the unique combination of geology, political stability and international credentials that first brought Pangea to Australia -- credentials which have put Australia in the nuclear limelight and will continue to do so as concern about nuclear waste and nuclear disarmament grows into the next century.