In the cold deep waters of Rosyth Harbour lie the dormant hulks of Britain\u2019s decommissioned nuclear submarines.<\/p>\n
One of the shells lashed to the dock here is HMS Dreadnought, Britain\u2019s first nuclear-powered submarine. It was commissioned in 1963, retired in 1980<\/a>, and has spent decades longer tied to a harbour than it ever did in service. The spent nuclear fuel removed from its reactor remains in temporary storage.<\/p>\n For decades the UK has sought a solution to the nuclear waste its fleet of submarines generates. After decades of fruitless search there are \u201congoing discussions\u201d but still no place for radioactive waste to be permanently stored.<\/p>\n Similarly, in the US \u2013 the naval superpower which controls a vast landmass and which has run nuclear submarines since the 1950s \u2013 there is still no permanent storage<\/a> for its submarines\u2019 nuclear waste.<\/p>\n More than a hundred decommissioned radioactive reactors sit in an open-air pit in Washington state, on a former plutonium production site the state\u2019s government describes as \u201cone of the most contaminated nuclear sites<\/a> in the world\u201d.<\/p>\n This is what becomes of nuclear-powered submarines at the end of their comparatively short life.<\/p>\n A nuclear-powered submarine can expect a working life of three decades: the spent fuel of a submarine powered by highly enriched uranium can remain dangerously radioactive for millennia. Finland<\/a> is building an underground waste repository to be sealed for 100,000 years.<\/p>\n Decommissioned Royal Navy nuclear submarines lie alongside in Rosyth dockyard in Scotland. Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell\/Getty Images<\/p>\n For Australia\u2019s proposed nuclear-powered submarine fleet there is, at present, nowhere for that radioactive spent fuel to go. As a non-nuclear country \u2013 and a party to the non-proliferation treaty \u2013 Australia has no history of, and no capacity for, managing high-level nuclear waste.<\/p>\n But Australia is not alone: there is no operational site anywhere on Earth for the permanent storage of high-level nuclear waste.<\/p>\n \u2018Australia shall be responsible \u2026 \u2019<\/p>\n Documents released under freedom of information laws<\/a> show that, beginning in the 2050s, each of Australia\u2019s decommissioned Aukus submarines will generate both intermediate- and high-level radioactive waste: a reactor compartment and components \u201croughly the size of a four-wheel drive\u201d; and spent nuclear fuel \u201croughly the size of a small hatchback\u201d.<\/p>\n The Australian Submarine Agency says the exact amount of high-level waste Australia will be responsible for is \u201cclassified\u201d.<\/p>\n Sign up: AU Breaking News email<\/a><\/p>\n Because Australia\u2019s submarines will run on highly enriched uranium (as opposed to low enriched uranium \u2013 which can power a submarine but cannot be used in a warhead) the waste left behind is not only toxic for millennia, it is a significant proliferation risk: highly enriched uranium can be used to make weapons.<\/p>\n The eight nuclear-powered<\/a> submarines proposed for Australia\u2019s navy will require roughly four tonnes of highly enriched uranium to fuel their sealed reactor units: enough for about 160 nuclear warheads<\/a> on some estimates.<\/p>\n The spent fuel will require military-grade security to safeguard it.<\/p>\n The problems raised by Australia\u2019s critics of Aukus<\/a> are legion: the agreement\u2019s $368bn cost; the lopsided nature of the pact in favour of the US; sclerotic rates of shipbuilding in the US and the UK, raising concerns that Australia\u2019s nuclear submarines might never arrive; the loss of Australian sovereignty over those boats if they do arrive; the potential obsolescence of submarine warfare; and whether Aukus could make Australia a target in an Indo-Pacific conflict.<\/p>\n US, Australian and British flags fly alongside a US nuclear-powered submarine at HMAS Stirling in Western Australia. Photograph: Richard Wainwright\/AAP<\/p>\n All are grave concerns for a middle power whose security is now more tightly bound by Aukus to an increasingly unreliable<\/a> \u201cgreat and powerful friend\u201d.<\/p>\n But the most intractable concern is what will happen to the nuclear waste.<\/p>\n It is a problem that will outlive the concept of Australia as a nation-state, that will extend millennia beyond the comprehension of anybody reading these words, that will still be a problem when Australia no longer exists.<\/p>\n And it cannot be exported.<\/p>\n The Aukus agreement expressly states that dealing with the submarines\u2019 nuclear waste is solely Australia\u2019s responsibility.<\/p>\n \u201cAustralia shall be responsible for the management, disposition, storage, and disposal of any spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste \u2026 including radioactive waste generated through submarine operations, maintenance, decommissioning, and disposal,\u201d Article IV, subclause D<\/a> of the treaty states.<\/p>\n As well, should anything go wrong, at any point, with Australia\u2019s nuclear submarines, the risk is all on Australia.<\/p>\n The time horizon for political decision makers is typically four or five years: the time horizon of what we\u2019re talking about is four or five hundred thousand years<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Prof Ian Lowe<\/p>\n \u201cAustralia shall indemnify \u2026 the United States and the United Kingdom against any liability, loss, costs, damage or injury \u2026 resulting from Nuclear Risks connected with the design, manufacture, assembly, transfer, or utilization of any Material or Equipment, including Naval Nuclear Propulsion Plants,\u201d subclause E<\/a> states.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018Nuclear Risks\u2019,\u201d the treaty states, \u201cmeans those risks attributable to the radioactive, toxic, explosive, or other hazardous properties of material.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018Decide and defend\u2019<\/p>\n An emeritus professor at Griffith University\u2019s school of environment and science, Ian Lowe, tells Guardian Australia that the government\u2019s regime for storing low-level nuclear waste is a \u201cshambles\u201d. He says the government\u2019s \u201cdecide and defend\u201d model for choosing a permanent waste storage site has consistently failed.<\/p>\n \u201cYou currently have radioactive waste from Lucas Heights, from Fishermans Bend, and from nuclear medicine and research all around Australia, just stored in cupboards and filing cabinets and temporary sheds,\u201d Lowe says.<\/p>\n An anti-nuclear protest on the lawns of Parliament House in Canberra this year. Photograph: Lukas Coch\/AAP<\/p>\n \u201cThe commonwealth government has made three attempts to establish a national facility \u2013 it\u2019s a repository if you\u2019re in favour of it, it\u2019s a waste dump if you\u2019re opposed \u2013 and on every occasion there\u2019s been local opposition, particularly opposition from Indigenous landowners, and on each of those three occasions \u2026 the proposal has collapsed.\u201d<\/p>\n Most of Australia\u2019s low-level and intermediate nuclear waste \u2013 much of it short-lived medical waste \u2013 is stored at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation facility in Lucas Heights in outer Sydney. Lowe says the nuclear safety regulator, ARPANSA, does a commendable job in protecting the public but the facility was never intended to be permanent.<\/p>\n Australia has been searching for a permanent site for nuclear waste for nearly three decades.<\/p>\n Its approach \u2013 derided by Lowe as \u201cdecide and defend\u201d: where government chooses a place to put radioactive waste and then defends the decision against community opposition \u2013 has failed in Woomera, in central South Australia<\/a>, in the late 1990s, then Muckaty station in the Northern Territory, then on farmland near Kimba, again in SA<\/a>.<\/p>\n The federal court ruled against the Kimba plan in 2023, after a challenge from the traditional owners, the Barngarla people, who had been excluded from consultation.<\/p>\n Flasks of nuclear waste stored below ground at Sellafield in the UK. Photograph: Christopher Thomond\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Lowe, the author of Long Half-Life: The Nuclear Industry in Australia<\/a>, says the complexities and risks of storing high-level nuclear waste from a submarine are factors greater than the low- and intermediate-level waste Australia now manages.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Breaking News Australia<\/p>\n Get the most important news as it breaks<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n \u201cThe waste from nuclear submarines is much nastier and much more intractable,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd because they use weapons-grade highly enriched uranium there is the greater security issue of needing to make sure that not only do you need to protect against that waste irradiating people and the environment, you must also ensure that malevolent actors, who have in mind a malicious use of highly enriched uranium, can\u2019t get their hands on it.\u201d<\/p>\n Australia\u2019s decision to use highly enriched uranium to power its submarines, as opposed to low enriched uranium (reactors would need refuelling each decade), is a \u201cclassic case of kicking the can down the road and creating a problem for future generations\u201d, Lowe argues.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the short term, it\u2019s better to have highly enriched uranium and a sealed reactor that you never need to maintain during the life of the submarine. But at the end of the life of the submarine, you have a much more serious problem.\u201d<\/p>\n The high-level nuclear waste from Australia\u2019s submarines will be hazardous for \u201chundreds of thousands of years,\u201d Lowe says.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are arguments about whether it\u2019s 300,000 or 500,000 or 700,000 years, but we\u2019re talking a period at least as long as humans have existed as an identifiably separate species. The time horizon for political decision makers is typically four or five years: the time horizon of what we\u2019re talking about is four or five hundred thousand years, so there\u2019s an obvious disconnect.\u201d<\/p>\n Inside \u2018Trench 94\u2019<\/p>\n The US and the UK have run nuclear-powered (and nuclear-armed) submarines for decades.<\/p>\n In the UK, 23 nuclear submarines have been decommissioned, none have been dismantled, 10 remained nuclear-fuelled. Most are sitting in water in docks in Scotland and on England\u2019s south-west coast.<\/p>\n The US naval reactor disposal site in Washingon state known as \u2018Trench 94\u2019. Photograph: US Department of the Navy\/Wikipedia<\/p>\n The first submarine to be disposed of \u2013 the cold war-era HMS Swiftsure was retired from service in 1992<\/a> \u2013 will be finally dismantled in 2026. Keeping decommissioned nuclear subs afloat and secure costs the UK upwards of \u00a330m a year<\/a>.<\/p>\n There is still no site for permanent storage of their radioactive waste: there has been \u201cprogress and ongoing discussions<\/a>\u201d, the defence minister, Lord Coaker, told the House of Lords last year, but still no site.<\/p>\n The UK has about 700,000 cubic metres of toxic waste, roughly the volume of 6,000 doubledecker buses. Much of it is stored at Sellafield in Cumbria, a site described by the Office for Nuclear Regulation says<\/a> as \u201cone of the most complex and hazardous nuclear sites in the world\u201d.<\/p>\n Finland is building the world\u2019s first permanent underground repository for highly radioactive nuclear waste beneath a nuclear power plant. Photograph: Sam Kingsley\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n In the US, contaminated reactors from more than 100 retired submarines are stored in \u201cTrench 94\u201d \u2013 a massive open pit at the Hanford nuclear site in Washington state. Spent nuclear fuel<\/a> is also sent to the Idaho National Laboratory and sites in South Carolina and Colorado. Hanford is designed to last 300 years but the site has a chequered history of pollution and radiation leaks. Washington state describes it as \u201cone of the most contaminated nuclear sites<\/a> in the world\u201d.<\/p>\n It is creepy, controversial, costly, contaminating, and leading to vastly decreased security and options for regional and global peace<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Dave Sweeney, ACF<\/p>\n Finland is the first country to devise a permanent solution. It is building an underground facility 450 metres below ground, buried in the bedrock of the island of Olkiluoto<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Onkalo \u2013 Finnish for cave or cavity \u2013 facility has taken more than 40 years to build (the site was chosen by government in 1983) and has cost \u20ac1bn. It is now undergoing trials.<\/p>\n \u2018A Trojan horse\u2019<\/p>\n In March 2023<\/a> Australia\u2019s defence minister, Richard Marles, said high-level nuclear waste would be stored on \u201cdefence land, current or future\u201d, raising the prospect that a site could be identified and then declared \u201cdefence land\u201d. A process for establishing a site<\/a> would be publicly revealed \u201cwithin 12 months\u201d, he said. That process has not been announced nor a site identified.<\/p>\n Australia will require a site for high-level nuclear waste from the \u201cearly 2050s\u201d, according to the Australian Submarine Agency. Senate estimates<\/a> heard last year that there have been no costings committed for the storage of spent fuel. And preparing a site for storing high-level radioactive waste for millennia will take decades.<\/p>\n Guardian Australia sent a series of questions to Marles\u2019 office about the delayed process for selecting a site. A spokesperson for the Australian Submarine Agency responded, saying: \u201cThe government is committed to the highest levels of nuclear stewardship, including the safe and secure disposal of waste.<\/p>\n \u201cAs the Government has said, the disposal of high-level radioactive waste won\u2019t be required until the 2050s, when Australia\u2019s first nuclear-powered submarine is expected to be decommissioned.\u201d<\/p>\n The spokesperson confirmed that Australia would be responsible for all of the spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste generated from the Aukus submarines<\/a>: it would not have responsibility for intermediate- or high-level radioactive waste \u2013 including spent fuel \u2013 from the US, UK or any other country<\/a>. No permanent storage site had been identified for low-level radioactive waste, which would include waste from foreign submarines.<\/p>\n The government has consistently said it will engage extensively with industry, nuclear experts and affected communities<\/a> to build a social licence<\/a> for a permanent storage site.<\/p>\n