by Currently in the process of porting mobile phones over to Telstra in preparation for the move to rural NSW. As is seemingly usual with any such endeavour I have thus far had three conversations with Telstra and two with iinet and my new Telstra Sim still doesn’t have my number associated with it. N’s phone may be even more problematic as her iinet number is also on my account. Grooving out to all kinds of exciting muzak.
I got into a meaningless internet argument about nuclear energy on Fbook this morning. I am not a smart man some days.
It got me thinking about the proposed nuclear waste dump in Australia. The first shipment of toxic shit is apparently already in the country.
Australia has quite a few very isolated, geologically stable regions, with next to no population. We are the ideal place to store the crap really, our democratic government is only mildly corrupt and the biome in the red centre is inhospitable at best. We could create places where no-one will ever want to go, even thousands of years hence as is described in this article I read years ago.
I think we should take everyone’s waste. With two conditions:
- They give us frankly massive amounts of money.
- They don’t get to make any more. With the exception of research and medical radiology.
We will take other countries waste because they have nowhere safe to keep it. But they must cease further production and pay royally for the disposal.
Of course this isn’t going to happen. They will build a municipal shed somewhere out of dodgy bros. concrete and put up some chain link. All profits to some private bidder for the contract. If we are lucky it won’t at least be adjacent to our artesian basin.
To add a cheery note on the end. Here is our current Shleich & freinds menagerie. They are much loved.
Finally some footage of the largest great white* ever filmed. You should count yourself lucky if you see sharks in the wild.
https://www.facebook.com/djreminisemusic/videos/10152972275603869/
https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10153621649200955
*Citation needed.
http://www.abc.net.au/indigenous/map/
https://www.environment.gov.au/water/environment/great-artesian-basin
If you look at the maps above it is hard to see which bit of Australia is unoccupied or not important to anyone. I agree that it would be difficult to live in the desert areas but people do and have for millenia.
The whole issue of nuclear waste dumping is at the core of my lifelong opposition to nuclear power.
Hence why my solution is only available on the condition that waste production is ceased. There are still very huge areas of land that are not in the catchment of our eastern artesian basin and it is possible to negotiate usage rites with native title owners that can be beneficial for generations to come provided negotiations happen in good faith. As I cynically note neither of these outcomes seem very likely at the moment.
I maintain that as one of the most geologically stable areas on earth our continent has some ideal areas for this purpose and the waste does need to be stored somewhere. As it stands at the moment millions of tons of the stuff are being kept in ludicrously inadequate facilities the world over. If we can help neutralise the problem, we should. But only if the producers agree to stop pumping the shit out.