Should Malaysia bear the burden of Australian radioactive waste?

The radioactive waste generated by an Australian-owned rare earth extraction factory in Malaysia has generated a firestorm of controversy. The factory – the world’s largest – is owned by Lynas Corporation, and will extract rare earths from materials shipped in from Western Australia.

The factory is at Gebeng, near the city of Kuantan in Malaysia. The population of the metropolitan area is about 700,000. The factory is located very near to the South China Sea.

At full capacity, it will be the world’s largest rare earth extraction plant: about 22,000 tonnes of rare earth elements per annum will be extracted from material shipped in all the way from Mount Weld, Western Australia.

The wastes from production will include radioactive thorium and uranium and their radioactive decay products such as radium and radon. The wastes will not be shipped back to Australia for safe disposal since Australian authorities have explicitly refused to accept them.

Lynas has been granted a temporary operating license (TOL) for two years, and a generous 12-year tax exemption. But the project lacks an International Atomic Energy Agency-recommended long-term waste management plan, and there is no “permanent disposal facility” (PDF) for the wastes.

Critics are alarmed by the fact that no Detailed Environmental Impact Assessment (DEIA) has been done, no long term waste management plan exists. Meanwhile, wastes are to be stored temporarily onsite.

Lee Bell of the National Toxics Network estimated (based on the experience of China) that 22,500 tonnes of radioactive waste (containing water) will be produced per annum. Non-radioactive wastes include:

191.25 tonnes of fluoride compounds

292.50 tonnes of flue dust particulates

between 216 million cubic metres to 270 million cubic metres of waste gas (containing nitrous oxides, carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide, hydrofluoric acid, dust concentrate and sulphuric acid)

1,687,500 cubic metres of acidic wastewater.

-miningaustralia.com.au