Last week’s tech and science news was dominated by the Opposition and its extremely ambitious plan to roll out seven nuclear reactors in Australia. It was an announcement of , fuzzy on timeframes and absent the costings. But, amid all the talk, several people have reached out to me with the same question: “Sydney already has a nuclear reactor?” Yes, Sydney has a nuclear reactor, but not the sort you might be thinking of.
I didn’t realise the reactor in Lucas Heights, Sydney wasn’t more widely known about! But if we’re going to be talking about nuclear power from now until the next federal election, we may as well explain what that existing reactor is actually for. So let’s chat about it. Australia’s only nuclear reactor is called OPAL, a truncation of Open Pool Australian Lightwater.
It’s located in Lucas Heights, Sydney, in the city’s south-east. It sits on the same grounds as the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), but it is a nuclear power plant. The site was originally , but OPAL in its current form wouldn’t get started until 2007.
Today, there are only 70 reactors in the world quite like OPAL. that’s designed to process low-enriched uranium. It’s currently undergoing an upgrade this year.
The Lucas Heights nuclear reactor is used for a range of purposes, including the production of materials for nuclear medicine, research, and other industrial purposes. Again, it is used for power generation. The reactor’s primary p.
