While the South Australia Royal Commission into the Nuclear Fuel Cycle continues its hearings, the federal government has made its own inroads into the nuclear debate.
Resources Minister Josh Frydenberg recently announced six locations where Australia's low-level nuclear waste could be stored long term, as opposed to the short-term warehousing used by Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) or shipping nuclear waste to Europe (only to see it shipped back).
The sites to be considered are at Sallys Flat in NSW, Hale in the Northern Territory, Cortlinye, Pinkawillinie and Barndioota in South Australia and Oman Ama in Queensland. 
However, the storage sites will only store the waste from Australia's burgeoning nuclear medicine industry and from the activities at ANSTO's Lucas Heights reactor.
The Commonwealth's storage project is limited in scope compared with the South Australian royal commission, which is charged with investigating activities relating to exploration and extraction of minerals, processing of minerals and the manufacture of radioactive matter, use of nuclear fuels for electricity generation and the storage and disposal of radioactive and nuclear waste.
While the royal commission and the nuclear waste storage projects are different, they both highlight the need for a waste repository solution as opposed to warehousing.
Adrian Paterson, chief executive of ANSTO, says the storage debate is further advanced in engineering and science circles than it is politically.
With 140 nuclear engineers already operating in Australia, he says the storage projects are world-leading.
"We have the Synroc project, through which we can process the liquid nuclear waste from our nuclear medicine programs."
Synroc, emanating from an ANU research project at Lucas Heights in the late 1970s, mimics the oldest rock forms on our planet and absorbs the nuclear waste into it, leaving the waste unable to be accessed.
"Synroc creates highly stable waste forms - you can't get at it again."
Paterson says the Synroc project will probably dovetail with the other science and engineering breakthrough of deep drilling in the unconventional gas extraction industry. "With some of the deep drilling being achieved in shale gas wells, we can drop these Synroc waste forms into the deep shafts and fill the shafts with concrete."
Paterson says Australia has a chance to build a sustainable nuclear industry because whereas some countries had embarked on nuclear power policies without permanent waste solutions, Australia was investigating a nuclear power industry when some of the waste solutions were already available.
"We have the expertise in this country already," Paterson says. "The social licence is an issue, but the science and technology is not."
The Business Council of Australia says it "welcomes the consultative approach being taken by the federal government to establish a new, dedicated facility to store radioactive materials", chief executive Jennifer Westacott says. "The government's process of considering voluntarily nominated potential sites, with comprehensive consultation with communities from those locations, should provide confidence that Australia can store its low to mid-level radioactive waste products appropriately and safely into the future.
"Nuclear waste products, ranging from medical gloves to radioactive materials, are currently stored in more than 100 locations around Australia, including some hospitals and other medical facilities. It is timely that a new, dedicated facility that can safely store all of these materials for decades to come is identified."
Westacott says Australians benefit from the nuclear industry, including treatments for cancers and other serious diseases. "We must also take responsibility for storing the waste products from those procedures in the safest and most reliable way possible."