Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

A simple nuclear reactor that is designed to power cities uses fuel rods. There are spent fuel rods, which are not the size of a can of Coke but are actually measured in tonnes, which will be produced each and every year from the moment that you operate that power station. They will need to be disposed of as soon as that occurs. If these reactors that the Leader of the Opposition is proposing for a civil nuclear industry are to have any impact at all on achieving zero net emissions by 2050, then we are talking about those reactors being in place in the 2030s and the 2040s, which means we're talking about tonnes of waste in the 2030s and the 2040s. We are talking about the need to dispose of our first spent nuclear reactor in the early 2050s.

Government members interjecting—

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