Communist Web Sunday 26th March 2000 9.30pm gmt No nuclear reactor! Opposition to the Federal Government's proposed new nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights, in Sydney's southern suburbs, is growing in the lead up to a rally on March 26. The Mayor of Sutherland Shire Council, Councillor Ken McDonell, said last week, "The momentum behind our call for an open and public inquiry to lift the cloak of secrecy that has shrouded this entire decision is now nation- wide and the Federal Government will ignore it at its peril". The President of the NSW Local Government Association, Clr Peter Woods, has also warned the Federal Government that councils across Sydney would support blockades of the site if construction went ahead in 2002. Since the Government's decision to build a new nuclear reactor was announced in 1997, opposition has been building and no convincing arguments have been put in favour of the proposal. The Government has argued that the reactor will provide much-needed medical isotopes for medical research as well as neutron scattering for the purpose of studying the structure of matter. Greenpeace responded by saying that new discoveries in ways to produce medical isotopes (used in the treatment of cancer and other illnesses) mean funding a new nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights is uneconomic and unnecessary. Research in the US has shown that particle accelerators known as cyclotrons can produce the isotopes using electricity instead of uranium at a fraction of the cost of a new reactor. To produce the isotopes, only two or three cyclotrons would be needed at a cost of $16 million each, compared to the $300-$500 million to be spent on a new reactor. The main concern about the reactor is the high-level radioactive waste that it produces. Lucas Heights already has a large store of nuclear waste - a nuclear waste dump... http://www.billkath.demon.co.uk/cw/non/non.html
