Unanswered questions: what does ANSTO do with the high level nuclear waste canisters at Lucas Heights?

Michael Skeet Kilowsky Fight To Stop Nuclear Waste Dump In Flinders Ranges SA

April 30 I am enquiring if any good reader knows what happens to the Areva HL Reprocessed Nuclear Fuel stored in this very canister in temporary storage (shed) at Lucus Heights when the 40 year canister license runs out.. is the license renewed..or is the canister sent away to France or the UK for the fuel to be extracted and placed in another canister? Or will this transfer of fuel take place in Australia? and will it be transported back to Lucus Heights from possibly the proposed SA Nuke Dump site? I’m Curious.. I’d have asked the National Nuclear Waste Facility team.. but they seem too busy, often failing to reply at all to my questions and comments.

Gary See They’ve made an arbitrary date where waste has to leave Lucas Heights so they can argue for the first dump. The they’ll have intermediate level waste there that needs to move so that will be the argument for the next dump which will likely temporarily store high level waste so that makes the argument for the high level dump.

Once they have that they can go for new nuclear reactors and look at importing waste for money.
It’s just a low level waste dump though, they say

Barb Walker Therefore do we surmise there is no forward plan past a 40 year licence on a 10,000 year legacy?

Michael Skeet Kilowsky Yes Barb, my point exactly… how is a 40 year license acceptable for 10,000 years containment of this deadly shite.. how are they to transfer the waste continuously as licenses expire and/or deterioration of canisters becomes apparent? I’m keen to know..

Scott asks ANSTO chief questions about repatriation of nuclear waste from Europe

Barb Walker We as Australian citizens employ our government so we are all entitled to know the future of this. This youtube video from 2014 talks about 3 casks? Two of which were said to be returning to Aust in 2016, and yet only one returned?
Now we are told the next shipment from England will be returned to Australia in 2020 -21 and shipped directly to the ‘new’ facility.

Steve Dale They probably hope to drill bore holes and drop the 23 shiny stainless steel canisters down them (note the empty canister shown in picture on the left). They already have an incredibly expensive and secure facility to hold that stuff there at Lucas Heights – why don’t they want to keep it there? It’s just seems to be a Trojan Horse for their dreams of a profitable world wide nuclear waste dump.

Barb Walker I think you are right on track there, Steve. And the medical reasoning for nuclear waste is not so convincing anymore. People are becoming more aware of the increased use of cyclotrons and how much safer and cleaner they are.
I agree, nuclear waste dumps are the trojan horse of the nuclear industry, pushing vunerable communities into believing it is for ‘the good of all’ with bribes and bullshit. A waste host town will just be that. A town that hosts deadly poison for hundreds and (probably) thousands of years. There’ll be no end to it.

Gary See There will be a proposal for an intermediate level facility and then a high level one after that.

At least that is the plan as far as I understand it. https://www.facebook.com/groups/344452605899556/