UN report on Nuclear Safety has implications for Australia
Today, 22 Sept 11, a special UN meeting will examine responses to Fukushima and the role/safety of nuclear power.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon commissioned a multi-agency report to help guide this discussion.
It is available via http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/political/energy/hlm/UN-system-wide-study.pdf
Dave Sweeney Comments on the United Nations system-wide study on the implications of the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant – September 2011
The report has been primarily drafted by the pro-nuclear International Atomic Energy Agency and is framed with the assumption that nuclear power is here to stay – Nuclear power has been and will remain a significant contributor to meeting global energy needs (16)
Within this flawed context there is much value and campaign utility in the report. Continue reading
Nuclear power a victim of, not a solution to – climate chnage
rather than being a solution to climate change, nuclear is actually significantly undermined by climate change. The coalition does not want to address climate change, but we are going to have more extreme weather events in Australia, more high-temperature days. It is completely unsuitable technology in this country. But I do want on the record that Senator Abetz reiterated that it is coalition policy to build nuclear reactors in Australia. He still has not said where he would build them—
Australian Parliament, Senate speech, Senator Christine Milne, 21 Sept 11“……..On climate change, there is this ridiculous assertion that nuclear energy is required to address climate change. It is actually the opposite. In this report it states that the assumptions that need to be reviewed are regarding the types of accidents that are possible. The report says that an assessment of those accidents was way too modest and that they need to look at the possible effects of climate change in relation to nuclear energy. That is because nuclear cannot take the heat. We have seen right around the world in the last decade several occasions where nuclear reactors have had to be closed down because of extreme heat conditions, which will be increasing as the rate of climate change accelerates.
Let me give you a few examples. In July 2010 in Alabama we saw the shutdown of nuclear facilities to the point where it cost that energy agency or energy department $50 million, all of which had to be paid for by customers in Tennessee, when they had to close down the reactors because they could not cool them, there was no water to be able to do it, and also they could not dispose of the hot water into river systems which were already depleted. Continue reading
South Australian government secrecy on expansion of BHP’s Olympic Damn
Release ‘secret’ Roxby report, 22 Sept 11, The Greens have called for the immediate release of a hidden report that captures the views of State Government agencies on the Olympic Dam
Mega-expansion.
Called the ‘Assessment Report’, it is a compulsory step in the approval process for a major development. It summarises the responses by various government agencies to the proponent’s Supplementary Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and is supposed to be released before the Government announces its approval of a project. However, for recent controversial projects the Rann Government has chosen to only release the Report after they have announced their decision. “The only reason the Government is choosing not to release the Assessment Report now is to avoid scrutiny,” said SA Greens Parliamentary leader Mark
Parnell.
“The Government is holding back the Report’s release for political reasons – keeping the SA community in the dark. This means that the public doesn’t get a chance to respond. It also allows the Government to dodge tricky questions as the media and others tend to focus on the approval decision, rather than what Government agencies actually think.
“The Rann Government has form in releasing the Assessment Report only after they announce their decision on a project. They did it for Buckland Park and they did it for the Port Stanvac desal plant. “For a project as important as the Olympic Dam expansion, the Government should be giving the SA community more opportunities to be involved in the
final decision, not less. “For example, the Assessment Report will be able to tell us what
Government agencies like SARDI really think about the proposed desalination plant at Pt Lowly.
“The Greens call on the State Government to immediately release the Assessment Report, well before they announce their decision on the OlympicDam Expansion.
Despite hazards, Australian company Lynas pushing ahead with Malaysian rare earths project
Rare earths mining and processing is difficult, expensive and rarely ecologically friendly. It produces enormous quantities of wastewater, requires vast amounts of energy, uses toxic materials in the refining process and can produce radioactive materials with half-lives of hundreds of years.
Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak and other government officials have continued to insist the plant won’t open until all safety and environmental concerns are met. …
9/11 and Fukushima highlight the nuclear terrorism threat
The U.S.-Russia Joint Threat Assessment notes that “One important lesson of the Chernobyl and Fukushima accidents is that what can happen as a result of an accident can also happen as a result of a premeditated action.”
They explain that terrorists will be searching for the “weakest link”, observing that “the dramatic developments associated with the Fukushima disaster might awaken terrorist interest in this path to nuclear terrorism.”
The 9/11-3/11 connection, By TILMAN RUFF, 21 Sept 11, Special to The Japan Times MELBOURNE — “……..Where was the fourth airliner on Sept. 11, 2001, headed? It crashed in a Pennsylvania field as passengers and crew fought the hijackers, but what was its target? The White House or Capitol Hill is generally thought most likely, though some scholars have concluded that when it crashed, flight UA93 was heading for the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant. Continue reading
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 