ARPANSA regulates a number of nuclear installations and prescribed radiation facilities.

Regulation of these facilities requires significant and specialised resources. Licence applications are invariably large and complex, as are any subsequent safety submissions. Assessment of these applications and submissions requires coordination among technical experts from across the agency and on occasion involves the use of external consultants. Compliance monitoring activities such as planned inspections also demand significant regulatory resources.

The Open Pool Australian Lightwater (OPAL) reactor

The OPAL reactor is a 20 Megawatt water cooled research reactor. It is Australia’s only operating research reactor and is located at the ANSTO Lucas Heights site in Sydney. It provides a variety of benefits to the community including production of radioisotopes for nuclear medicine and neutron scattering research.

Australian nuclear medicine molybdenum-99 facility

The Australian Nuclear Medicine Molydenum-99 Facility (ANM Mo99) is a purpose-built radiopharmaceutical production facility at the ANSTO Lucas Heights site in Sydney. Operation of this facility ensures the supply of Mo-99 for the Australian market and also has the capacity to export Mo-99 to contribute to the future global supply.

Interim Waste Store

The Interim Waste Store at ANSTO’s Lucas Height site in Sydney is a purpose-built temporary storage facility to house intermediate level solid radioactive waste returning from France and the UK following reprocessing of spent fuel from the former HIFAR research reactor.

SyMo

ANSTO is in the process of constructing the SyMo facility which is intended to utilise SYNROC technology to immobilise waste from ANSTO’s Mo-99 production processes.

Australian Synchrotron

The Australian Synchrotron facility located in Melbourne, Victoria is used for research and development in the areas of advanced materials, biomedical science, defence, agriculture, food technology, environmental science, minerals, nano-technology, oil and gas, pharmaceuticals and scientific instruments.

Little Forest Legacy Site

The Little Forest Legacy Site is a site that was used for the near surface burial of low-level radioactive waste between 1960 and 1968.

ANSTO Intermediate Level Waste Capacity Increase Facility

ARPANSA received an Application from the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) to prepare a site for a Nuclear Installation, known as the ANSTO Intermediate Level Waste Capacity Increase (ILWCI) Facility, at its Lucas Heights site in NSW.

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