The week’s Australian nuclear news
By far the most important nuclear news for this week is the Bill before the senate tomorrow February 8, – the National Radioactive Waste Management Bill. This will impose a nuclear waste dump on Aboriginal land in the NT. It’s likely to be rubber-stamped by the Senate, as the Australian media dutifully shuts up about this – as usual. Only the Greens will fight this one.
Grattan Institute, largely funded by BHP, comes out with a pro nuclear report, and subtly downgrades renewable energy.
Australia to get compulsory airport security scanning. However, as far as I can tell, it is the apparently harmless “millimetre wave” technology, and NOT the X-ray type “backscatter” – therefore airline travellers will not be subjected to ionising radiation.
Australian company Lynas gets “temporary license” for its planned rare earths plant in Malaysia, despite having no plan for long term disposal of radioactive wastes. Growing opposition in Malysia, but Australian government supports Lynas. The plan is the world’s biggest rare earths refining project. It is being watched as the precursor for nuclear power in South East Asia.
Australian Greens move to prevent hasty imposition of nuclear waste dump in Northern Territory
The Australian Greens today vowed to continue the fight against the planned nuclear waste dump at Muckaty Station in the Northern Territory.
The Government has listed the National Radioactive Waste Management Bill for debate tomorrow. Greens Senator Scott Ludlam said Labor’s attempt to force the Bill through the Senate before the completion of a Federal Court case over the status of the land in question was a disgrace.
“The Traditional Owners do not want this eternal radioactive waste dump on their country. The locals don’t want it. The Northern Territory government does not want it. Traditional Owners visited the parliament last year and Dianne Stokes wept here telling the story of her country. There is a Federal Court case currently unresolved as to the status of this land, yet the Government pushes on – led by a minister obsessed with the nuclear industry.”
“This legislation does not just represent a problem for Muckaty – it places enormous and virtually unchecked power in the hands of one minister.”
“In 2007 the IAEA noted examples of states which, having used undemocratic methods lacking public involvement and acceptance, have ‘had to reconsider their programs’. One of the conclusions of the study was that ‘reassessment can become necessary because past decisions were not reached through socially acceptable process’.”
“Last month, in a report to the US Energy Secretary, the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future strongly recommended a ‘consent-based approach to siting nuclear waste storage… noting that ‘trying to force such facilities on unwilling communities has not worked’. And indeed Labor’s stated policy aims to ‘establish a consensual process of site selection, which looks to… the centrality of community consultation and support’, yet the Government ignores both Labor policy and the lessons of history.”
“The Greens will move an amendment to establish a genuinely Independent Commission on the Long Term Safe Storage, Transport and Management of Australia’s Radioactive Waste to find a real solution to this problem.”
“South Australia resisted a nuclear waste dump and won. A Territory has less power and that is why the Government, like the Howard Government before it, targeted the Northern Territory – because it believed it could not resist. But it can and it will resist.”
Senator Ludlam will move to amend the bill to delay its debate until after the resolution of the case over the traditional ownership of the land in the Government’s sights.
Weird and wonderful “web” found amongst spent nuclear fuel rods
Could Spider-Man become a reality? Bizarre white cobweb found on nuclear waste that could have come from a ‘mutant’ spider Daily Mail, By TED THORNHILL 6th February 2012 Scientists are investigating a bizarre white cobweb found on nuclear waste – amid fears it could have been made by a ‘mutant’ spider.
In a freakish echo of the Spider-Man comic strip, workers at a U.S nuclear waste facility discovered the growth on uranium last month. The white ‘string-like’ material – never seen before on nuclear waste – was found among thousands of spent fuel assemblies submerged in deep pools. Continue reading
Grattan Institute”s misleading attack on Solar Feed-in Tariffs
The new Grattan, FOOT OFF THE GAS:GRATTAN WRONG ON SOLAR WRONG ON FEED-IN TARIFFS, Beyond Zero Emissions, 6 Feb 2012 Institute report “No quick fix for Australia’s future energy challenge” contains misleading comparisons, flawed analysis and glaring omissions on vital energy issues confronting Australia.
#1. The report makes a misleading comparison between the cost of wholesale fossil fuel electricity and the cost of solar photovoltaic electricity which currently competes in the retail electricity market and not the wholesale market.
“We do not expect a suburban Woolworths to compete with food prices at the Footscray Wholesale Fruit and Veg market. Yet this is what the Grattan Institute has done by ignoring the differences between the wholesale and retail electricity markets” says Matthew Wright,
Executive Director of Beyond Zero Emissions. “Rooftop Solar photovoltaic has halved in price in the last 24 months. This is a staggering cost reduction, and is in stark comparison to rapidly increasing rising gas prices”.
#2 The report claims that there are no viable energy storage options for renewable energy.
Matthew Wright explained that the Grattan Institute report’s conclusions “ignores Solar Thermal Power (Molten Salt Power Towers with integrated thermal storage tanks). It ignores this game-changing technology, already commercially deployed in baseload, intermediate and peaking configurations in Spain and under construction at a number of sites in the US. This technology is commercially available, off the shelf and ready for deployment in Australia. Rapid cost reductions have been projected by the International Energy Agency, the US Continue reading
How Australia’s Energy Minister sabotages renewable energy
ARENA Needed To Address Solar Flagships ‘Mess’ : Milne, by Energy Matters, 6 Feb 2012, Australia’s Solar Flagships program has faced continual delays and problems, sparking a call from the Greens to expedite the setting up of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) to take over the administration of the scheme.
Australian Greens Deputy Leader, Senator Christine Milne has blasted Energy Minister Martin Ferguson for his handling of Solar Flagships to date, an initiative designed to see construction of large-scale, grid connected solar farms.
“Martin Ferguson has mismanaged this process from start to finish, helping to keep renewable energy from challenging coal’s dominance,” said Senator Milne.
“It is vital to see ARENA get off the ground as soon as possible to take political interference out of renewable energy scheme design and decisions and put them in the hands of a statutory independent authority.”…. Continue reading
Giles Parkinson questions Grattan Institute’s pro nuclear spin
No easy choices, but a strong case for energy action, REneweconomy, By Giles Parkinson on 6 February 2012 “……..There are several glaring omissions from the report: it does not adequately take into account energy efficiency and the impact that that will have on future energy demand, nor does it adequately address the prospects that large scale renewables and small scale distributed energy will have a dramatic change on the function of the grid– it assumes that it will continue to be defined by baseload and peaking sources, when studies in Europe and elsewhere suggest a more dynamic change.
It’s right, though, that renewables will be limited to their scope without cost-effective storage, and the technologies for these are promising but uncertain. And it’s put off the highly contentious discussion about which policies and how to a later report…. the Grattan Institute’s energy program director Tony Wood, also seems un-necessarily pessimistic about costs. The report recognizes that the costs of incumbent technologies will rise to $100-$150/MWh – up from
around $40-$60/MWh – which it uses as its benchmark. Wood, says, however, that if CCS fails to deliver and nuclear is not deployed, then the price of energy could go “through the roof.”
That’s not the view, however, of the EU, which believes that the transition to renewables will cost no more than continuing with fossil fuels, or the IEA, which notes in its “high renewable scenario” that the increased use of renewables – up to 75 per cent – in the event that nuclear is not deployed as widely as some may hope and CCS fails to deliver – may be less than 10 per cent more than otherwise. http://reneweconomy.com.au/2012/no-easy-choices-but-a-strong-case-for-energy-action-98145
Development of smart grids and storage for renewable energy
Germany Maps Out Financing Plan for Renewable Energies, Sacramento Bee, BERLIN and ESSEN, Germany, February6, 2012 — /PRNewswire/–– Germany recently passed the 20 percent mark for renewable energy in the electricity mix. And the federal KfW bank group has introduced a new plan to further accelerate this shift to renewables, with increases in multimillion euro business loans now available.
As more renewable energy is generated, energy management and storage are also receiving increased focus. Germany Trade & Invest, together with representatives of Germany’s six E-energy model regions, will be at this year’s E-world from February 7-9 in Essen to highlight opportunities for international companies in these growing market segments. Continue reading
Australia’s media obscures real meaning behind Aboriginal tent embassy
Aboriginal people have every right to be angry, and public protest is one of the most important avenues available to them to make their voices heard.
About 2000 people had gathered to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy and to reaffirm the struggle for Aboriginal sovereignty. Several Aboriginal leaders spoke of the history of the embassy as a place where Aboriginal people asserted their existence and demanded change in the face of a political establishment that wants to ignore them.
This is why the Tent Embassy remains important today. Its work is a long way from finished.
Aboriginal people are right to protest, Green Left, February 4, 2012, By Ash Pemberton Truth and accuracy have never been the highest priorities for the mainstream media. But hysteria and misrepresentation of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy protest in Canberra on January 26 have been taken to an absurd level.
Terms like “mob violence”, “thuggery” and “riot” have been used by journalists and politicians to describe a protest where no one was injured, no property was damaged and no one was arrested.
Selectively edited television footage has been used to poison public opinion against protesters, giving the false impression they posed a threat to Prime Minister Julia Gillard and opposition leader Tony Abbott. Rather than speak to the small crowd about Abbott’s earlier comment that the Tent Embassy should move on, Gillard and Abbott chose to run from a function they were attending about 100 metres away from the Tent Embassy.
The media’s portrayal of Gillard and Abbott as victims of Aboriginal aggression is deeply ironic. Such a portrayal is possible only when deep racism and ignorance are the norm in society. Continue reading
Tokyo mayor challenges TEPCO and Japan’s nuclear lobby
Anti-Nuclear Tokyo Mayor Challenges Big Utilities, WSJ, By George Nishiyama, 6 Feb 12, Tokyo’s Setagaya ward is over 260 km away from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, a long way from the evacuation area imposed bythe Japanese government after last year’s March 11 disasters….
But Setagaya’s mayor is determined to turn this city ward of 840,000 people, the largest in Tokyo, into the front-runner of a movement that will put an end to Japan’s reliance on atomic power and accelerate the use of renewable energy. Continue reading
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 