-
[dramatic music]
-
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.
-
[alarm blaring]
-
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.
-
(ad) 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
important 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
kind of 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 it's, uh, 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.
-
[Music]
-
(George) Behind the nuclear industry's
sense of urgency lies an enterprise
-
situated in Britain's beautiful
Lake district in Cambria.
-
[music]
-
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 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.
-
[Music]
-
(George) BNFL's got a problem.
After America, Britain has
-
the largest stockpile of high-level
radioactive waste in the world.
-
[Music]
-
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 that 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.
-
(Lord Tombs) That is probably the way in
which international development of take—
-
(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."
-
[People shouting]
-
(George) Jobs and profits are one thing
-
-- the politics of the nuclear debate
another thing entirely.
-
[People chanting]
-
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 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 (26 March 1999):
Now I can see
-
a scenario developing in future where
countries that supply 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.
-
Peter George: Are there doors open?
Is there interest?
-
Voss: 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 Minchin: The only way this could
advance, in fact, is if a state government
-
um, 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.
-
Peter George: Senator Minchin has said to
us, to Four Corners, "We will not become a
-
dumping ground for the world's nuclear
waste."
-
Voss: Mmm-hmm.
-
George: Premier Court has said, "We don't want
to be the dump for other countries' waste."
-
Now those seem pretty clear policies,
don't they?
-
Voss: Yes.
-
George: Do you see any door open at all
under those circumstances?
-
Voss: Taken at face value, those words
would say absolutely there's no door open.
-
George: So why not pack up and go away
under those circumstances?
-
Voss: 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.
-
[This is the sedimentary basin area
that we're looking at, and we
-
wanted to go and look in more detail at
what this terrain looks like in particular]
-
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.
-
Peter George: So how much more money,
-
how much more time are you prepared
to put into this before you actually have
-
to make a decision?
-
Voss: Well first up that's not
my decision,
-
that's, that's the decision of the
board of directors.
-
George: Mmm, but you speak for Pangea,
you must know what the view is?
-
Voss: 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.
-
(Pentz) In terms of predictability from one
place to another, do we got any more feel
-
from that, and some of these particular
areas you've started to look at?
-
(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.
-
(Pentz): 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.
-
(Minchin): 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.
-
(Lawrence): 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.
-
[dramatic jazz music]