Tellus’ Sandy Ridge is a first for Australia – our nation’s only licensed and operational waste disposal facility for low-level radioactive waste – but our story continues to create interest internationally.
Last week our CEO Nate Smith and Technical Director Bill Miller were in Japan, where they were provided the opportunity to participate in the 8th International Forum on the Decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station.
Tellus is the first Australian organisation to have participated in the Forum.
We presented Tellus’ disposal facility siting, design and operational experience from Sandy Ridge and Chandler, and were met with considerable interest about our technical and social licence successes, and how our experience can be applied in Japan.
The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station (1F) suffered one of the world’s worst nuclear accidents in 2011 when 3 of the 6 reactors on the site suffered meltdowns when all power was lost power after the site was inundated by a tsunami following a major off-shore earthquake.
Power station decommissioning is a major on-going technical challenge for Japan. It may take several decades to complete and will require technical and community support to succeed. The Forum is an annual event to inform the local community and engage with radioactive waste experts on decommissioning progress over two days.
Decommissioning at 1F is creating huge volumes of waste, ranging from the melted fuel in the reactors to lightly contaminated soils. For example, an interim storage facility adjacent to the nuclear power station holds 15 million cubic metres of lightly contaminated soil from remediation of the land, houses and schools that were evacuated at the time of the accident. The Japanese are yet to identify a permanent disposal pathway for this waste.
Given the trials of finding a geographically feasible waste disposal site in Japan acceptable to local communities, we appreciated the opportunity to share with our close regional partners how building trusted relationships with communities and regulators has helped Tellus address Australia’s radioactive waste challenge.
