Wrap up of the week’s antinuclear news – Australia
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Radioactive waste dump. Aborigines legal battle continues, against nuclear waste dumping at Muckaty Station. Public Health Association of Australia says it is not needed for medical wastes. Liberal M.P. Andrew Thomson wants Australia to import and store radioactive debris from Japan.
Liberal and Labor parties getting indistinguishable from each other. They voted together for the waste dump. They voted together to support Australia buying USA nuclear submarines – and then they voted together again to reverse that vote! Liberal Party praising Bob Carr for his being pro nuclear. It’s a mutual admiration political society. They also agreed on the importance of the Nuclear non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) – but both still happy to sell uranium to India (a non signatory to the NPT) Victoria. With the rhineros hide of a man “born to rule”, Premier Baillieu ignores the economic and job prospects of renewable energy for Victoria, and prevents new wind projects, while forging ahead with dirty brown coal.
Lynas – Australian rare earths corporation still much in the news, and getting more so, as it is an election issue in Malaysia. And did they agree to return radioactive wastes to Australia?
ANSTO – in the poo for having bullied their employees, in order to shut them up about radiation and health concerns.
Greens to alert the Senate on the anti nuclear protest crisis in India
Senator Scott Ludlam will put a motion to the Senate – noting India’s repressive frackdown on anti nuclear protestors, and the growing anti nuclear movement in India, – and also the illegality of Australia selling uranium to India (non signatory to the NPT.)
The motion will call on the Australian government to protest the Indian government’s actions against peaceful protestors in Koodankulam, and warn on nuclear safety procedures, and on the need for independent nuclear regulation. It will call on the Australain government not to allow sales of uranium outside the Nuclear non Proliferation Treaty Continue reading
Australia’s rhetoric on nuclear weapons – hollow when we sell uranium to India
“India is not a party to the NPT and there is clear legal advice that selling uranium to India would be in conflict with our obligations under the South Pacific Nuclear Weapons Free Zone Treaty.
The Australian Conservation Foundation has welcomed today’s bipartisan motion on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament and called for real action to match the rhetoric. “The Prime Minister and Opposition Leader have taken an important step in acknowledging the grave threat posed by nuclear weapons and the importance of nuclear disarmament and abolition,” said ACF nuclear free campaigner Dave Sweeney. Continue reading
Curiouser and curiouser – Greenpeace accused of being a tool of America’s CIA!
VIDEO Palmer says green groups funded by CIA ABC Radio PM By Matt Wordsworth and staff March 20, 2012 Mining magnate Clive Palmer has accused the United States government of funding environmental group Greenpeace via the CIA to undermine Australia’s coal mining sector. Continue reading
Vital importance of renewable energy to rural Victoria’s future
Renewable energy ‘vital’ to region, The Warrnambool Standard, 21 Mar, 2012 MP Lily A’mbrosio yesterday continued the Opposition’s attack on state government wind farm polices when she visited Warrnambool to gauge the importance of renewable energy projects for the region. She also drove through Hawkesdale for a view of the Macarthur wind farm towers’ construction.
Ms A’mbrosio, the Opposition’s spokeswoman on energy, said government policy could strangle potential jobs growth and force companies to build their projects interstate. “You’ll see a faltering of jobs particularly in regional Victoria,”
she told The Standard. “Energy and Resources Minister O’Brien has been deathly silent in the debate. “I call on him to visit the Great South Coast to see for himself how important for the local economy renewable industry is. “He needs to account for the government’s failure to back renewable energy.”
Ms A’mbrosio said she was “enthralled” by her briefing from city council chief executive Bruce Anson and mayor Cr Jacinta Ermacora about the economic and jobs potential for the region from the renewable energy industry.
Ms A’mbrosio said she would also visit other shires in the next couple of months including Moyne, which has the region’s largest collection of wind farm projects….. http://www.standard.net.au/news/local/news/general/renewable-energy-vital-to-region/2495044.aspx
Victoria’s Liberal government pushing ahead with brown coal
Victoria announces plans to cash in on brown coal reserves 
ABC Radio National P.M. March 20, 2012 MARK COLVIN: A carbon tax was supposed to spell the death of brown coal but the Victorian Government has announced plans to export more of the energy source.
It’s announced plans to cash in on the billions of tonnes of brown coal in the La Trobe Valley. The Energy Minister, Michael O’Brien, says a number of companies overseas are developing low emissions technology for brown coal power
generation.
But one environmental mining engineer says it’s a fanciful suggestion and there’s no evidence of clean, brown coal anywhere in the world…. http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2012/s3459690.htm
Tension rising as thousands of police confront India’s anti nuclear protestors
“There is no need for such massive deployment of police here. This is nothing short of state terrorism 
against a peaceful group of women, children and men fighting for the last seven months in a non-violent manner”
Tension simmers in Koodankulam http://www.asianage.com/chennai/tension-simmers-koodankulam-750 The Asian Age, Mar 21, 2012 – Pradeep Damodaran & Arul Oli | DC | Idinthakarai Even as engineers and other workers drove in to resume work following the government’s green signal for the Koodankulam nuclear power project, the situation at Idinthakarai, which is less than 10 minutes drive from the nuke plant, is getting more tense by the minute as the ‘fast-to-death’ by the protesters’ leader S.P. Udayakumar and 14 others entered the second day on Tuesday. Continue reading
The world’s race for leadership in clean energy
The Great Renewable Energy Race (excellent interactive graphics) http://go.bloomberg.com/multimedia/the-great-renewable-energy-race/ BLOOMBERG MARCH 18, 2012 Global investment in renewable energy climbed to a record $260 billion last year, and the race for clean power is just getting started.
We reported last week how new solar and wind technologies are approaching price parity with traditionally cheaper coal- and gas-burning power plants. Today, the world’s regions go head-to-head….
Where the Wind Blows
The wind energy market started in the U.S. in the 1980s, in a drive for greater energy independence. Investment shifted to Europe in the 1990s, drawn by grants, incentives and so-called feed-in tariffs, which encourage cost reductions by locking in long-term prices at favorable rates.
Turbine installations moved to Asia in 2009. By 2011, China, the world’s biggest wind investor, was installing 20 gigawatts of wind power a year, three times as much as the U.S., the second biggest investor. Asia will remain the most active region for wind investment until 2019, according to BNEF estimates.
Where the Sun Shines
Japan dominated solar installations in the 1990s, when the market remained small. In 2004, European feed-in tariffs abruptly shifted the solar focus to Europe, where it remains today.
The decline in crystalline solar silicon prices has been dramatic. As the cost of producing solar approaches parity with retail electricity purchased from the grid, installations are expected to shift from utility-scale solar fields to smaller-scale rooftop projects. The biggest share will move to Asia next year, according to BNEF: China’s total solar capacity is expected to climb to 272 gigawatts in 2030 from less than 1 gigawatt today. http://go.bloomberg.com/multimedia/the-great-renewable-energy-race/
USA President Obama and renewable energy critics
Obama Blasts Renewable Energy Critics United States President Barack Obama has blasted critics of renewable energy, referring to them as ‘professional politicians’ and comparing them to those who once believed the earth was flat.
“A lot of the folks who are running for a certain office who shall go unnamed, they’ve been talking down new sources of energy,” Obama told a crowd of students at Prince George’s Community College in Washington’s Maryland suburbs on Thursday, according to a report on Australian Associated Press (AAP).
“They dismiss wind power. They dismiss solar power. They make jokes about biofuels. They were against raising fuel standards. I guess they like gas-guzzlers.”…. http://designbuildsource.com.au/obama-blasts-renewable-critics
1 This month
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
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