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Agenda item 4: Strengthening the Agency’s activities to nuclear science, technology and applications: Nuclear Technology review 2023

IAEA Board of Governors

Agenda item 4: Strengthening the Agency’s activities to nuclear science, technology and applications: Nuclear Technology review 2023

7 March 2023

Statement delivered by Ms Marina Francis, Alternate Resident Representative of Australia to the IAEA

 

Thank you, Chair.

Australia welcomes the opportunity to comment on the Director General’s draft Nuclear Technology Review for 2023.

Chair,

Nuclear technologies play an essential role in addressing many of the most pressing challenges of our time – across human health, agriculture, and the environment. This year, in 2023, we are celebrating 70 years since Australia began developing our nation’s nuclear science and technology capabilities. This was in recognition of the importance of the peaceful uses of the atom for global development. For more than 65 of those years, we have been a committed partner of the IAEA in promoting and providing access to the peaceful uses of nuclear technology within our own region, and to the world at large.

Innovation has also been a part of Australia’s rich nuclear history. The Innovation Precinct, nandin, located at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation – ANSTO – is integral to nuclear innovation and commercialisation in Australia. This Innovation Precinct fosters collaboration between Australian researchers, start-ups and industry across health, advanced manufacturing, agriculture, and food and nutrition.

Through effective collaboration and innovation, both within Australia and with the IAEA and its Member States, we look forward to continuing to expand the benefits derived from the peaceful uses of nuclear science and technology for decades to come.

Chair,

I’d like to speak to three key thematic areas within the Nuclear Technology Review 2023 that are of importance to Australia: radiopharmaceuticals and theranostics, radioactive waste management, and the marine environment.

Through the work of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, Australia continues to manufacture Lutetium-177 – a theranostic currently being used in Australian clinical trials to treat prostate cancer. The development of novel radiopharmaceuticals and theranostics to treat a variety of diseases including cancers is essential in improving worldwide patient outcomes, and we welcome ongoing efforts by the Agency in this field, including in the Indo-Pacific through the Rays of Hope initiative.

Chair,

Safe, secure radioactive waste management is critical in ensuring continued access to the peaceful uses of nuclear technology. Australia is continuing to develop a first-of-a-kind Synroc waste treatment facility. This facility will treat intermediate-level liquid waste derived from nuclear medicine production by immobilising it into a safe, non-retractable and highly durable solid form ready for final disposal. Australia reached a significant milestone for this project in October 2022, completing the construction of the Synroc facility building. Processing equipment is now being installed with operations expected to commence in 2025. We look forward to keeping the Board informed on this important development in the future.

Australia continues to serve as an IAEA Collaborating Centre for environmental science.  We are proud that our joint work on enhancing the use of advanced nuclear technologies, including isotopic, accelerator, and research reactor-based techniques, to respond to environmental challenges such as marine pollution. This work, supplemented by the IAEA’s NUTEC Plastics initiative, and broader programs for training, knowledge transfer and outreach is contributing to a sustainable marine environment.

Chair,

Modernising and maintaining the Agency’s nuclear applications laboratories is essential to increasing the IAEA’s capacity to respond to Member States’ needs in many of the areas addressed in the Nuclear Technology Review. To assist in this endeavour, Australia is pleased to make a pledge to support the completion of ReNuAL2, which will replace the ageing greenhouses at Seibersdorf.

Chair,

Let me reiterate Australia’s steadfast support for the Agency’s nuclear science and technology programs. With these comments, we take note of the draft Nuclear Technology Review 2023.