It’s one of Australia’s best known natural icons — should we transport uranium across it?
Australia is ramping up its production of uranium, and this week Queensland’s uranium implementation committee released a report calling for an end to the 24-year ban on transporting uranium through the World Heritage-listed Great Barrier Reef.
Queensland Mining Minister Andrew Cripps has yet to comment specifically on the committee’s recommendations. Queensland Greens Senator Larissa Waters, who is against uranium mining in general, says the risks are too high to allow shipping of uranium through one of Australia’s most celebrated natural features. “Shipping safety standards are not yet tight enough … with the potential for an accident or spillage,” she told Crikey.
Australia currently exports around 10,000 tonnes of uranium per year, with the Australian Uranium Association expecting this figure to almost quadruple by 2030. This could put a significant amount of pressure on existing exportation channels.
Emeritus Professor Ray Frost from Queensland University of Technology, who says mining uranium for nuclear energy is a far safer option than coal-fired power stations, suggests transporting uranium is less risky than transporting, say, fertiliser or aluminium. He points out the coral of the Great Barrier Reef, composed primarily of calcium carbonate, has the potential to absorb such heavy metals as uranium should a spill occur.
However, Dr Gordon Southam from the University of Queensland’s school of earth sciences says “the potential to spill uranium ore in ocean environments would represent an environmental liability”.
The potential for an accident (and accidents in uranium shipping are rare), however, is not the only concern, as the UNESCO World Heritage Centre has advised against shipping in general through the reef. Uranium mining exploration is currently taking place near the Mary Kathleen mine, located on the Selwyn Range between Mt Isa and Cloncurry. The closest major port to the mine is Townsville.
Port of Townsville acting chief executive officer Ranee Crosby says the port is not actively pursuing the uranium trade, though the organisation has “provided general information to the government about how the product could be handled and exported safely”.
Mined uranium is crushed and ground in order for the useful material to be extracted, before being concentrated and shipped. This in turn leaves behind tailings, which are semi-neutralised before being deposited for storage, generally classified as low-level radioactive waste. Tailings can contain the decay products of natural uranium, including radium 226, which has a half life of 1600 years. Spillage of tailings into the surrounding environment does occasionally occur, with damaging environmental consequences.
However, there are no recorded occurrences of spillage while shipping uranium. In 2011, Canadian exporter Cameco lost a number of barrels in the ship’s hold, and although no uranium ore concentrate made its way to the sea, the clean-up was estimated to cost about CAD$8 million.
Thanks Tim. A few things that I’d be interested in knowing if you were thinking of a follow up:
– what kind of ships is Uranium shipped in ? What are the safety statistics for that kind of ship, regardless of cargo ?;
– what exactly is proposed to be shipped (ore ? yellowcake ? enriched metal ?) ? How radioactive will it be ? Will it be soluble in water ?
– what modelling of an accident has been done ? What sort of plume could be expected and what would be the consequences for marine life within the plume ? What effect would an accident have on tourism ? Would an exclusion zone be declared ?
– what are the alternative routes and comparative shipping costs ? Who will profit from shipping through the reef rather than around it ? How much will they save ?
Considering that there will be a traffic around the world of energy and power equipment anyway, it is appropriate to compare the risks to the alternative energy sources.
According to web.ead.anl.gov, “One ton of natural uranium … is equivalent to burning 16,000 tons of coal or 80,000 barrels of oil.” Other sites indicate the gas equivalent as 340 million cubic feet of methane. Storage for wind or solar requires lead-acid batteries, so there is an equivalent traffic in lead oxide.
As natural uranium, it is not particularly radioactive, but it is still, like lead oxide, a heavy metal poison. Of the above, a spill of liquefied natural gas is probably the least offensive to the Great Barrier Reef, however it is certainly the most dangerous to the public in a port. Coal would be pretty inoffensive to the cleanup workers, however it has the highest toll of killing miners during accidents or subsequent black lung disease. Obviously, oil is most offensive to birdlife. In the long run, it is the hydrocarbons of oil, gas, coal whose wastes are destroying the greenhouse, and thereby threatening the entire environment including the corals of the Great Barrier Reef.
Thanks Andybob and Roger for thoughtful comments, a rarity for a subject that normally attracts shrill and emotional comments.
On a scale of risk to the Barrier Reef, shipping accidents would have to be very tiny in comparison to other risks. Climate change, pollution from fresh water run off, dredging spoil, and invasive pests could be many 1000 times greater. Many millions of tonnes of dredging spoil is being dumped at sea right now as the extra shipping channel is cut for Gladstone’s LNG industry.
In trying to fight for the Barrier Reef it is foolish to waste effort on areas of low risk(modern ships sinking)that take attention away from far more serious risks. (I am assuming that only secure low level material would be shipped)
At the Barrier Reefs current rate of decline we will be lucky if there is any living reef left by the time they start shipping this product.
The main dangers to the reef are rising sea temperatures, sever weather events such as cyclones and fertilizer run off from farms.
Unless these issues are addressed immediately the Barrier Reef doesn’t stand much of a chance of surviving more than 20 years and there goes 1 billion a year in tourist dollars alone. Not to mention the collapse of most of the tourist industry