Dutton stated a small modular reactor creates a can of coke each year needs clarifying (SMH – 19 Dec 2024)

Peter Dutton has been attacked by the Labor Government for suggesting that a small modular reactor produces 1 coke can, worth of waste in a single year. Chris Bowen jumped on this comment suggesting the waste was 27,000 coke cans.

Instead, as the energy minister, you would expect him to be more helpful in the energy debate. The volume of nuclear fuel in a coke can, refers to the total volume of fuel that a person would use in their lifetime.

The key take-away from this issue, is that nuclear fuel has very high energy density, this is due to a nuclear reaction of an atom producing some 20,000 times the energy of a chemical reaction. As a result, the fuel that is needed, and the waste that is produced is miniscule compared with fossil fuel.

Putting this in perspective, all the spent nuclear waste in the world would fill a volume about the size of the MCG.