Budget gives ANSTO more funding

The federal government last Tuesday announced $193 million for Australia’s nuclear agency, enabling expansion of its critical nuclear medicine production program as well as cutting-edge environmental, health and industrial research.

The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) undertakes its world-respected mandate over three campuses at Sydney’s Lucas Heights, the Australian Synchrotron in Melbourne and a Medical Cyclotron in Camperdown in inner Sydney.

The Budget includes $20.5 million to secure operation in 2016-17 of one of Australia’s most important pieces of science infrastructure, the Australian Synchrotron, against the backdrop of a strategic review that will pave a long-term, coordinated funding path for science infrastructure across the country.

“The synchrotron demonstrates some of the very best in applied science - it is a facility available to researchers so they can improve our lives,” said an ANSTO spokesperson.

“Its outputs include devising higher yield crops, new medicines, better manufacturing methods and improvements for the minerals industry, and this funding ensures this important work will continue. This is landmark national infrastructure that supports more than 4000 researcher visits and more than 900 experiments from across Australian industry and academia each year.”

The Budget also includes an allocation of $49.1 million over the Forward Estimates to deliver new infrastructure at ANSTO’s Lucas Heights campus.

“This funding secures our ability to continue to produce nuclear medicines needed by one in two Australians, provide insight into conditions such as heart disease, Alzheimer’s and cancer, understand the environment and partner with industries to solve their problems,” said the spokesperson.

$22.3 million over four years will allow ANSTO to extend and retrofit two existing waste storage facilities. Once a National Radioactive Waste Management Facility is established, the buildings will enable characterisation and packaging of waste that is then sent to that facility.

“There are three things happening in parallel here,” said the spokesperson.

“ANSTO has increasing domestic and global demand for our nuclear medicines, we need to increase capacity to safely manage associated by-products, and we need to prepare for the availability of national waste facility. This funding will allow us to do all three.

“While there has been welcome progress on the National Radioactive Waste Management Facility, if we don’t expand capacity at ANSTO now then we would reach maximum in 2017. This new funding will allow ANSTO to address this.

“Once the national facility is established, the new buildings will be used for waste preparation, so it is suitable to be transported to that national facility for long-term storage or final disposal. This means ANSTO will be able to consolidate and eventually reduce its on-site waste storage facilities.”

Another $26.8 million over four years has been allocated to pack, ship and return Australian waste being reprocessed in the UK no earlier than mid-2019.

“This funding will get planning underway to repatriate waste currently being stored at the Sellafield plant in the UK, after Australia sent spent fuel to the UK for treatment. Sellafield is expected to cease exports of customers’ waste in the next decade,” said the ANSTO spokesperson.

“The intention is the UK waste would be sent directly to the National Radioactive Waste Management Facility - but if it is not established by then, ANSTO has the expertise, skills and, subject to regulatory approval, capacity to store this container alongside the one coming from France this financial year.

“A single National Radioactive Waste Management Facility is in line with international best practice, and we welcome the reported encouraging response from landholders to the Minister’s call for voluntary nominations.”