ASA nuclear waste at HMAS Stirling & Later Weapons Grade HEU Storage

The Australian Submarine Agency (ASA) has released "Australian Submarine Agency completes environmental reporting baseline assessment at HMAS Stirling"

on August 30, 2026 at https://www.asa.gov.au/news/australian-submarine-agency-completes-environmental-reporting-baseline-assessment-hmas-stirling

 

United States Navy Virginia-class submarine USS Minnesota alongside Fleet Base West at HMAS Stirling. Photographer: ABIS Connor Morrison (Image from here). 

---

The Australian Submarine Agency has completed another milestone activity with the release of its first Radiological Environmental Monitoring Program Baseline Assessment for HMAS Stirling.

As responsible stewards of naval nuclear propulsion technology, the Australian Submarine Agency (ASA) is committed to protecting our people, the public and the environment from the harmful effects of ionising radiation. 

ASA conducted a radiological environmental monitoring baseline assessment over a 12-month period during 2024 at HMAS Stirling. This assessment establishes the environmental radiological baseline at Stirling prior to the commencement of increased Nuclear-Powered Submarine (NPS) visits by the UK and US under Submarine Rotational Force West (SRF-West). 

“I am pleased to release our inaugural Radiological Environmental Monitoring Program baseline assessment for HMAS Stirling. This report is the culmination of 12 months of sampling and analysis to characterise the site (and surrounds) that will be the home of Australia’s Nuclear Powered Submarines. This baseline assessment establishes a clear, evidence-based understanding of existing levels of radioactivity in the local environment. This baseline is a reference point for future comparisons,“ Director General Australian Submarine Agency VADM Jonathan Mead said.

This baseline assessment will be used to inform the continuous Radiological Environmental Monitoring Program at HMAS Stirling. Results collected through this program will be compared on an annual basis to the levels established in the baseline. 

The ASA is committed to ensuring that the NPS program meets the highest standards of environmental protection and provides transparency of results to foster confidence in the community.

-----------------------------------------------

Nuclear Stewardship and Waste
[much more detailed ASA website with numerous hyperlinks]

at https://www.asa.gov.au/aukus/nuclear-stewardship-and-waste

Official ASA Report "HMAS Stirling Radiological Environmental Monitoring (REMP): Baseline Assessment:  December 2023 to November 2024 at 

https://www.asa.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/2026-08/HMAS%20Stirling%20Radiological%20Environmental%20Monitoring%20Program%20-%20Baseline%20Assessment.pdf

Resources

• Stewardship Waste Fact Sheet [of 2 pages] (pdf, 619.41 KB) 
  
  at  https://www.asa.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/2025-10/Stewardship_Waste_Fact_Sheet.pdf
  
  Which includes:
  
  "Where will Australia store and dispose of radioactive waste?"
  
  "No decision has been made on a location within Australia for the disposal of radioactive waste from nuclear-powered submarines. Further technical work and consultation is required to determine preferred disposal pathways. Operational radioactive waste will be stored on Defence sites in Australia.
  
  Defueling Australia’s nuclear-powered submarines is not expected to occur for decades. However, the complexity of the task means that early planning will be important.
  
  As an initial step, Defence and the ASA - working with relevant agencies including the Australian Radioactive Waste Agency - has undertaken a review to inform the process by which the Government will identify locations in the current or future Defence estate that could be suitable to store and dispose of intermediate-level waste and high level waste, including spent fuel. The outcomes of the review will inform a more detailed process which will include consultation and engagement with community and Indigenous groups, and consideration of wider social license and economic implications."
  
  "What facilities will be required for managing 
  [Highly Enriched "Weapons Grade" Uranium (HEU)] radioactive waste [of the US, UK and later Australia]?
• 
  "The storage and disposal of radioactive waste from Australia’s nuclear-powered submarines will require:
  
  • Facilities and highly-trained people to remove radioactive waste and spent fuel.
  
  • Transport in sealed and secure containers to storage or disposal facilities.
  
  • Purpose-built facilities for interim storage and permanent disposal of radioactive waste, including spent fuel.
  
  • Social license earned and sustained with local and regional communities."
• --------------------------------

AI Google Background

Question "Do nuclear submarines produce HEU and Plutonium waste" :

[Answer]

Yes, nuclear submarines produce spent highly enriched uranium (HEU) and generate plutonium as a byproduct inside their sealed reactor cores. [1, 2]

Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) Waste

Weapons-Grade Fuel: Many naval reactors use HEU (often enriched well above 20% and up to 80%) so they can run for decades without refueling. [1, 2, 3]
Spent Fuel Legacy: When a submarine is decommissioned, the remaining fuel inside the reactor is still heavily enriched. [1]
Proliferation Risk: This spent HEU is classified as high-level radioactive waste. Because it remains weapons-usable, it requires military-grade security during storage and disposal. [1, 2, 3]

Plutonium Generation

Byproduct Creation: During nuclear fission, some of the non-fissionable uranium-238 inside the fuel absorbs neutrons and transforms into plutonium. [1]
Contained in the Matrix: This plutonium is not extracted or separated into a loose waste stream. It remains permanently trapped inside the solid metal and ceramic structure of the spent fuel elements within the reactor core. [1]
Disposal: Instead of individual chemical waste, the entire reactor compartment or sealed core is removed intact during decommissioning and managed as high-level radioactive waste [in practice FOREVER]. [1, 2]

Japan’s New Sub-Launched Hypersonic Missile Plan Marks New Era in Indo-Pacific Deterrence

By

Steve Balestrieri

  "Japan’s New Submarine-Launched Hypersonic Missile Plan Mark a New Era in Indo-Pacific Deterrence and China Is Watching Closely" of August 28, 2026

https://www.19fortyfive.com/2026/08/japans-new-submarine-launched-hypersonic-missile-plan-mark-a-new-era-in-indo-pacific-deterrence-and-china-is-watching-closely/

Shortest Way for Australia to develop Nuclear Weapons: Hire 1,000s of Israelis.

Can the Trump/Hegseth regime presiding over formerly trustworthy America now be trusted to endanger its own nuclear safety in order to protect its allies like Ukraine, NATO, Australia and free Asia nations against nuclear aggressors? Instead the new US is a potential future threat to Canada, Denmark-Greenland and even resource rich Australia.

South Korea has ample conventional submarine protection in its tiny geo-strategic region, but it shares a long land border with nuclear armed North Korea. It is only a nuclear armed South Korea that could deter North Korea from nuclear blackmail. Hence South Korea is building nuclear powered submarines as apex nuclear weapon deterrent platforms against North Korea.

Against nuclear armed North Korea, China and Russia Japan has retained tonnes of weapons usable Plutonium and has retained a $multi-billion Enriched Uranium-Plutonium reprocessing factory.

As nuclear weapons proliferate to Australia's north over the next 20 years Australia only has those 2 decades to build our own nuclear capability in time. 

Here's another view based on the old "US will defend us" assumption. A no-change hope that nuclear weapons will not proliferate to our north in South Korea, Japan or maybe to Taiwan.
---

The shortest, cheapest way for Australia to develop nuclear explosives and weapons would be to hire 1,000s of Israelis to build a "Dimona style complex" along with missiles of all types designed to carry nuclear war-heads. All of these activities could occur in Australia's ample desert areas (vastly larger than the Negev).

This would be useful in a future Australian nuclear deterrent situation where Australia is under medium-long term threat from the usual suspects: 

A.  China of course if Chinese expansionism did not stop at Taiwan. "Regional security analysts and Taiwanese officials warn that China's strategic ambitions would expand to neighboring Indo-Pacific nations, key maritime choke points, and global technological supply chains if Beijing annexed Taiwan. [1, 2]"

and 

B.  Suspects now include a continuation of constant aggressive American expansionist war making. Trumpism in the extreme aims at making Canada the 51st state and maybe Australia the 52nd.

Trumpism breaks traditional U.S. foreign policy molds by rejecting long-term military entanglements while simultaneously deploying aggressive, transactional, and extraction-focused force. 

"Though early Trumpism was frequently characterized as "isolationist" due to its skepticism of nation-building and traditional alliances like NATO, the philosophy evolved toward what critics call a "new imperialism" or "nationalist interventionism". [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

The foreign policy framework of Trumpism can be understood across several dimensions:

Direct, Resource-Driven Force Over Long-Term Wars

Unlike the neoconservative "forever wars" or liberal internationalist "nation-building" interventions of past decades, Trumpism rejects prolonged military occupations. Instead, it favors hyper-kinetic, unilateral actions designed to achieve immediate, tangible economic or resource benefits: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Resource Seizure: Trumpist military strategy openly embraces resource extractivism—such as seizing oil fields—as a legitimate objective of military deployment, breaking from previous eras where interventions were justified through the export of democracy or human rights. [1, 2]"

Early Singapore Involvement: Australia's "We Will Build an ICBM" Threat Yielded AUKUS Pillar 1

Singapore and Gilmore Space Technologies

Adam Gilmour (above) CEO, Co-Founder of Gilmour Space Technologies with ERIS Block 1, Australia's dual-use capable rocket. ERIS has the classic ICBM size and shape (eg. like a Minuteman III) especially in tonnage at launch. The shape also includes ERIS not having strap-on boosters that would impede each Eris  being placed in ICBM silos. (Photo Gilmour Space via Byron Bay's The Echo, March 1, 2024).

See SubMatt's holdings on Gilmour Space.

Historical Backgound on Singaporean Involvement

Adam Gilmour lived in Singapore for many years and initially established a presence there alongside Australia in 2012. [1, 2, 3]

Early Support: The company received an early non-equity government grant from Singapore’s National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Cluster (NAMIC) for 3D-printed rocket fuel research. [1]

See Forbes' article of October 27, 2017 "Why an Australian Space Entrepreneur Chose Tiny Singapore to Build a Rocket Factory"
[As at 2017 - Adam Gilmour an Australian entrepreneur has chosen Singapore as his base to build his own space startup and carve out a niche of his own...[Adam Gilmour's] rocket factory was located near Changi airport in Singapore,...he [Gilmour] ran an open-plan facility buzzing with activity and packed with futuristic-looking prototypes...his engineers were busy testing a new 3-D printer, which makes rocket fuel in record time. ...“We are working on low-cost small satellite launch vehicles to take satellites with masses up to 400 kilogram to orbit. This capability is matched by few other providers in the industry and we plan to be the cheapest in the market” he explained.]

Perhaps Singapore got cold feet being seemingly involved with a rocket series steadily growing into a potentially aggressive ICBM sized rocket/missile. Also there was insufficient land area in tiny Singapore for safe rocket launch pad facilities or for flight tests. 

This may have meant the Gilmour Program was encouraged to move to Australia. Australia having large areas to test - including in future the militarised Woomera Rocket Range.

Relocation: Operations and R&D moved entirely to Australia, with its headquarters and manufacturing based on the Gold Coast, Queensland. [1, 2] [2017–Present: While core manufacturing and R&D shifted firmly to Queensland, Australia (with headquarters in Yatala/Gold Coast) the company maintained strategic technological collaborations and R&D links in Singapore before Gilmour Space fully scaled as an Australian sovereign launch provider.]

---------------------------------

Australia has since the 2000s been revisiting nuclear deterrence weapon options, including long range strike platforms. ICBMs based in central Australia could hit Beijing. The dual use Eris 1 rocket at 23m tall and total 34 tonnes mass at liftoff is more than coincidently the size of a US Minuteman III ICBM at 18.3m and total 36 tonnes.

Missile carrying nuclear powered submarines (particularly versatile Virginia Block V and VI - SSGNs) could also hit Beijing and/or Shanghai with SLBMs or SL(Hypersonic)HMs. 

Australian Threat

By 2022 an Australian (Aus) bargaining threat to the US was established. Unless the US and/or UK made SSNs available to Aus, Aus could build thermonuclear warheads affixed to "Gilmour" ICBMs. China being the usual potential target. 

The US (the aging Biden regime, at least) reacted with AUKUS Pillar 1. The UK (SSN owning junior partner) wanted (or was persuaded) to join this deal. This is, in part, because UK nuclear powered submarine tech and Trident II missile availability to the UK heavily relies on the US.

SILEX makes Australia HEU Capable

The primary stage for an Australian thermonuclear weapon is a fission bomb which Australia could produce using the SILEX process yielding 95% HEU. This would be the trigger for a "secondary" Deuterium–TRITIUM fusion bomb.

Deuterium is extracted by separating heavy water (D₂O) from ordinary water and then isolating the deuterium gas. This is all within Australian scientific-industrial capabilities. Deuterium–TRITIUM fusion (D-T fusion) is a type of nuclear fusion in which one deuterium (2H) nucleus (deuteron) fuses with one tritium (3H) nucleus (triton) giving one helium-4 nucleus.

As a dual-use cover Australia could build CANDU (Canadian Deuterium Uranium) reactors to generate large amounts of electricity (for Aus large cities). This is while simultaneously producing TRITIUM through neutron capture in CANDU reactor's  heavy-water moderator and coolant.

A major problem is the US has called Australia's nuclear bomb blackmail bluff with promised SSNs only likely to emerge mid 2040s onwards. So the US remains Australia's extended deterrence nuclear guardian. But could the likes of a Trump, Hegseth or their America First successors ever be trusted to sacrifice San Francisco to protect Sydney from "Shanghai-Beijing's" nuclear capability?

Fortunately/Unfortunately? Australia, having spent $Billions in up front deposits to the US and UK submarine industrial bases, has lost its SSN bargaining power. 

This is indicated by Australia's Defence Industry Minister, Pat Conroy's only passing threat in July 2026 where he stated the Submarine Rotational Force-West (SRF-West) rotation of US submarines through HMAS Stirling in Western Australia would conclude in 2032 unless what? Delivery of the first US SSN to the RAN in 2032 was implicit. This has led to delayed SSN transfer to Australia. This may be forcing Australia to return to nuclear weapon intentions.

Why India wants German submarines

Here and above is a great Deutsche Welle (DW) News video Uploaded 16 Jun 2026 with the commentary: 

India plans an $8Billion submarine deal with Germany for six German-designed Type 214 diesel-electric with PEM AIP submarines under Project‑75(I for India). They are to be built in India. This video examines the geopolitical stakes—rising tensions with China and Pakistan, India’s push for self-reliance, and Germany’s strategy in the Indo-Pacific. It’s more than weapons—it's about power, technology transfer, and new security ties.

A DW Update: Dear users, we owe you an apology: at 5:29 in this video we showed an incorrect graph. Sorry for the mistake! According to SIPRI estimates for 2025, defense spending is: China $336 billion, India $92.1 billion, and Pakistan $11.9 billion. See https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/f...

Click on the following to take you straight to those issues: 00:00 Invisible power: how submarines shape global geopolitics 00:21 India's $8 billion submarine deal with Germany explained 01:04 India vs China vs Pakistan: the Indo-Pacific naval arms race 02:33 What makes the Type 214 submarine a game-changer 03:19 Inside Germany's AIP technology: stealth under the sea 04:23 How a small Swedish sub "sank" a US aircraft carrier 05:28 China's navy dominance and the Pakistan submarine alliance 07:40 India's shift away from Russian weapons: a new era? 10:31 Why Germany is sharing its most guarded submarine tech 11:14 Berlin's Indo-Pacific strategy: countering China through India 14:37 Risks ahead: self-reliance, deterrence and the cost of an arms race