Nuclear Power and Information – theme for June 2011
In ancient times, the great philosopher Diogenes walked the streets of Athens in the daytime, with a lantern shining – he said that he was “looking for an honest man”, desperately trying to seek out the truth.
Diogenes would need a blooming blow torch, in Australia today, to cut through the crap of Australia’s worthy establishment figures talking up uranium, rare earths, and prospects for nuclear and nuclear waste industries.
Fortunately, Australia, and other countries, have some investigative journalists, and independent media, who follow in Diogenes passion for getting to the truth.
Their work is communicated to Australians, even sometimes in the mainstream media. Some intrepid journalists manage this. Others get their message across in independent media
News limited’s attack on Cate Blanchett does not reflect community’s attitude
Essential asked about trust in political coverage. Commercial radio was again the least trusted medium, with only 40% of voters saying they trusted it all or a lot, fewer than the 48% who said they had no trust or only a little trust. Newspapers fared better — 53% trusted them, better than commercial television, but still a distant third behind the ABC and SBS.
‘Carbon Cate’ and the confected outrage of News Limited, Crikey, 30 May 2011, by Bernard Keane News Limited’s hatchet job on Cate Blanchett hit all the right notes for this sort of confected outrage — indeed, it could be an exemplar of the form…….. interesting was the automatic connection made by News Ltd and its employee between the media outlet and the community.
Because a News Ltd editor was outraged, that necessarily meant the community was outraged, regardless of the fact that his employee couldn’t find any independent evidence of any outrage. Continue reading
France struggles to find an answer to its nuclear wastes
“No geologist can guarantee that there will never be water infiltration in the places intended for storage,”
Europeans Pursue Labyrinths of Nuclear Waste, NYTimes.com, By SUE LANDAU, June 2, 2011 BURE, FRANCE —……….France reprocesses its spent fuel, extracting plutonium and depleted uranium from the fuel rods, a process that leaves only a residue to be disposed of as nuclear waste. This residue, with a total volume of about 14,550 cubic meters, is a cocktail of radioactive elements with different chemical properties and half-lives. Containing some of the longest-lasting isotopes, it is the most dangerously radioactive waste. Continue reading
Rio Tinto’s ERA Ranger uranium mine doomed by Climate Change?
Today’s Australian newspaper covers the very drastic threat now posed to Kakadu National Park by by flooding and sea level rises.
These climate changes mean that Kakadu is further threatened by radioactive waste leaks from theRanger uranium mine.
ERA’s uranium mine is surely no longer viable, and it is high time that RioTinto closed it down permanently and stopped this charade of Northern Territory uranium mining having an economic future – Christina Macpherson
Kakadu treasures ‘at mercy’ of climate-change floods * Sid Maher : The Australian * June 03, 2011 KAKADU faces more flooding and a loss of freshwater flora and fauna as a result of sea-level rises caused by climate change.
A report released yesterday by the Climate Change Department predicts that over the next 20 to 60 years, there will be more large floods on the South Alligator River, which is in Kakadu National Park.
The predictions are based on models predicting 143mm of sea-level rise by 2030 and 700mm of sea-level rise by 2070…… Kakadu treasures ‘at mercy’ of climate-change floods | The Australian
They still don’t know how to clean up Rum Jungle’s uranium wastes
A RUM MATTER, Brisbane Times, Damien Murphy and Aaron Cook June 1, 2011 Still glowing in the dark after all these years, the Rum Jungle uranium mine, 100 kilometres south of Darwin, needs another $7 million report to find out how to clean it up 40 years after it closed. The Greens’ Scott Ludlam told the Senate the money would be spent over four years just to determine how to deal with the defunct uranium mine’s toxic legacy. “The government can’t tell us yet what the final cost will be. The multi-million-dollar, publicly funded assessment is just the beginning.
Forty years after this mine closed, it continues to be an environmental graveyard for the Northern Territory. How many decades and how many millions of dollars will it take to clean up Ranger mine, or Olympic Dam?” The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trailer finds its way out
Lynas rare earths company downplays toxicity of thorium wastes
doubts on the thorium content as claimed by Lynas, saying that claims that rare earth ore imported from Australia had a low thorium content were a way to downplay its significance.
Toxicologist T. Jayabalan agreed, saying supporters of the Malaysian project were using the term ‘low-level radiation’ in an attempt to allay fears, but the fact remains that it’s still a form of radiation and it is carcinogenic.
A Battle for Rare Earths – The Diplomat, 2 June 11“……One issue, however, has emerged that will test that goodwill with Australia. The battle is over rare earths, the toxic by-products it produces and the Malaysian home one Australian company would like to find for it…..
But the neighbours aren’t happy, Continue reading
Confusion and deception over Lynas’ plans for toxic and radioactive wastes in Malaysia
The Lynas chairman Nicholas Curtis claims that they have permission from the government to store the waste onsite forever. On the other hand, AELB’s (Atomic Energy Licensing Board) director general Raja Datuk Abdul Aziz Raja refutes that claim in saying that the plant can only store waste temporarily. 
Foreign experts begin Lynas probe The Star Online: troon May 30, 2011 An Australian Co., Lynas, is building the REE refinery in Malaysia. However, that refinery can never be deemed as safe, because accidents happen. It is not only the thorium 232 radioactive alpha particles, those from the ores and the waste, that could accidentally be released into the air as dust, (lung cancer), and into water, (liver cancers etc.), but there is the possiblility of accidental release of highly toxic gases that are REE refining by-products, such as fluorine, radon, (radio-active), and sulphur dioxide. There will also be millions of gallons of waste water loaded with toxic cadmium and other carcinogenic, DNA damaging, heavy metals. Continue reading China’s bad record on rare earths radioactive contamination
simonthongwh, 2 June “………, China has secured more than 95 per cent of the rare earths market. …..Though China denies 
exploiting its market position, it has created stockpiles, is seeking overseas involvement in companies such as Lynas and operates an export quota system, comparable to that used by the OPEC oil cartel…….
though abundant in the Earth’s crust, extracting earths individually from a ”cocktail” of earths within ores, sands and clays is – at any price – ”a difficult, time-consuming, costly and dirty business”.
Until recently, at least, China’s pre-eminence in the business has been built on cheap labour and, according to critics, minimal health, safety and environmental precautions. China has now moved to impose stricter standards, and cracked down on illegal mining and smuggling, but the social, health and environmental legacy of existing projects is horrific.
Martin Ferguson taking over foreign policy from Kevin Rudd?
Mr Ferguson had written to an environmental non-government organisation saying he was in charge of nuclear policy………Mr Ferguson told the US embassy in Canberra in 2009 a deal to supply India with nuclear fuel could be reached in three to five years…..
“Which I suspect would be a big surprise to the foreign minister (Kevin Rudd) who signed off on the bilateral security agreements,” Senator Ludlam told AAP…It would no doubt be a surprise to Environment Minister Peter Garrett
Ferguson self-crowned nuke king: Greens, Sydney Morning Herald, Andrea Hayward,May 31, 2011 The rift between the Australian Greens and Resources Minister Martin Ferguson is widening after another attack on the Labor frontbencher over nuclear policy.
Mr Ferguson had “crowned himself the emperor of nuclear policy”, Greens Senator Scott Ludlam said after a senate estimates hearing on Tuesday. Continue reading
Australia’s Future Fund breaks Australian law with investments in nuclear weapons
the Future Fund’s investments chief appeared unaware that nuclear weapons are banned under Australian law.
The fund’s biggest holding is in Honeywell International (A$76.8 million), a company in charge of conducting simulated nuclear tests for the US government and helping to extend the lifecycle of America’s Trident II nuclear weapons.
Our Nuclear Sovereign Wealth | newmatilda.com, Tim Wright 1 June 11“ If the Future Fund is to comply with its own stated policy not to finance companies involved in activities that are unlawful in Australia, it should exclude nuclear arms makers from its investment universe.
The Future Fund would not be the first sovereign wealth fund to do so. The Norwegian Pension Fund and the New Zealand Superannuation Fund have both deemed it unethical to finance nuclear weapons companies, winding up all investments they once had. Continue reading
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 