Globe company mining rare earths, but sending them to China for processing
Globe tests waters with new rare earth spinoff Kate Emery | View Archive, The West, June 11, 2012, “……..Uranium had its pre-GFC day in the sun and, more recently, it was rare earths’ time to shine, with prices for the not-actually-so-rare metals soaring on the back of moves by China to restrict supply. Prices for the handful of Australian-listed rare earths players rocketed in response and investors were suddenly talking about the likes of scandium and yttrium.
Fast forward to mid-2012 and the heat has decidedly come out of rare earths stocks.
There’s no one reason for the fall, most likely a combination of the dramas encountered by Australia’s sole rare earths miner, Lynas Corp, at its Malaysian processing plant, global macroeconomic conditions and a realisation that the surge in prices is unsustainable.
Globe Metals and Mining knows something about how quickly investor sentiment can turn when it comes to commodity bubbles, having lived a past life as Globe Uranium….. Arafura has encountered its share of obstacles and, as with Lynas, they have been largely associated with the processing side of the business.
Globe hopes to sidestep that potential pitfall by establishing Mount Muambe as a mining-only operation, shipping the product to China for processing….. http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/opinion/post/-/blog/13920051/globe-tests-waters-with-new-rare-earth-spinoff/
Yassa Arafat was probably murdered, with radioactive polonium
French authorities refused to reveal the precise illness or cause of death, which only fuelled the rumours……. Polonium was used to kill Russian former spy turned Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko, who died in 2006 after drinking tea laced with the radioactive substance at a London hotel.
Radioactive polonium found in Arafat’s clothes, Radio Australia, 4 July 2012, New radiation tests on the clothes and belongings of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat have led to speculation he died from poisoning by polonium. Researchers at the Institute of Radiation Physics at Lausanne in Switzerland conducted tests on the clothing Mr Arafat was wearing when he died in 2004, as well as personal belongings, including a toothbrush. Continue reading
Support grows for Aboriginal traditional owners’ legal battle to stop Muckaty nuclear waste dump
Muckaty traditional owners fight Ferguson’s nuclear dump, July 3, 2012, Jim Green, Four Muckaty traditional owners — Penny Phillips, Jeannie Sambo, Kylie Sambo and Delvine Spiteri — visited Melbourne on June 25 to attend a federal court hearing concerning the nomination of Muckaty, 120 kilometres north of Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory, for a national nuclear waste dump.
Legal proceedings against the federal government and the Northern Land Council began in June 2010 and a trial is anticipated in the first half of 2013. A small group of traditional owners support the dump proposal, in return for a financial package. But most are opposed and are challenging the right of the government to establish the dump at Muckaty without their consent.
Legislation pushed through parliament by federal resources minister Martin Ferguson — the National Radioactive Waste Management Act — allows for the imposition of a dump without consultation with or consent from traditional owners. In a previous federal court hearing, lawyers for the Commonwealth argued that the Muckaty nomination was valid even if the wrong traditional owners were consulted.
The most pressing issue for the government is the return of spent nuclear fuel reprocessed waste from France and Scotland in coming years. The government is aware that its Muckaty plan is unravelling and has moved to firm up an alternative plan — interim storage of the reprocessing waste at the Lucas Heights nuclear research reactor site south of Sydney, from where the spent fuel originated. Plans are in train to increase storage capacity at Lucas Heights.
Trade unions & emergency services
Some of Australia’s most powerful unions have pledged support for the campaign. The Maritime Union of Australia’s Victorian Secretary, Kevin Bracken, attended a media event with traditional owners after the June 25 court hearing, and traditional owners briefed MUA members the following day.
In Darwin, the MUA is organising a protest at Stokes Hill Wharf on July 12, marking seven years since the NT was first targeted for a nuclear waste dump. The MUA is sending delegates from around the country to attend this event.
In May, the Australian Council of Trade Unions Congress passed a resolution expressing disappointment that the Muckaty site will continue to be pursued under the National Radioactive Waste Management Act. It affirmed that the ACTU “stands in solidarity with traditional owners and communities resisting federal government plans for a radioactive waste dump and commits to supporting trade unions refusing to cooperate with implementation of the policy.”
The ACTU Congress resolution further states that “the recent application by ANSTO for reprocessed spent fuel waste to return to the Lucas Heights facility in Sydney and acknowledges this as an opportunity to review radioactive waste management in Australia by conducting an independent and comprehensive public commission into all aspects radioactive waste transport, storage and management in Australia”…… www.greenleft.org.au/node/51545
Despite Japan restarting 2 nuclear reactors, uranium market stays sluggish
Gap Grows Between Uranium Buyers and Sellers, 9 News 4 July 12, A slow week last week ended what was a slow month for uranium trading. Spot prices barely budged on the 15 transactions reported in June by industry consultant TradeTech, with sellers unwilling to drop their prices and buyers not willing to pay more.
With traders comprising the vast majority of both buyers and sellers in the bulk of the transactions reported over the past several months, TradeTech notes the spot uranium price remains stuck between the lack of committed buyers and what are fairly unmotivated sellers at current levels.
Last week’s news that Japan had officially green-lighted the restart of two reactors did see a bit of renewed optimism in the market, but what seems to be an increasingly stubborn spot uranium market remained sluggish, with the announcement yet to produce any sort of uplift in prices.
Muckaty nuclear dump shows Mabo still matters
Beyond Nuclear, ABC Unleashed, GEORGE NEWHOUSE , 4 July 12 The Mabo case is widely recognised as a turning point in Australian legal history, as it challenged the colonialist assumptions upon which our nation was founded and acknowledged the realities of Indigenous dispossession.
When, in 1992, the High Court of Australia recognised that the Indigenous population held a connection to the land predating European settlement, a door opened for Indigenous Australians to reclaim at least some of their rights to parts of our nation.
However, 20 years on, Aboriginal land rights remain as contested and as tenuous as ever. Of particular note is the Commonwealth Government’s plan to establish a nuclear waste dump in the Northern Territory at Muckaty, north of Tennant Creek.
Since the 1990s, the Commonwealth has led a long and troubled search for a remote place to store the country’s radioactive waste. The Howard Government tried to locate a site in South Australia but a spirited campaign by Aboriginal custodians, the wider community, and the state Labor Government ended that push.
Despite promising no mainland dump site ahead of the 2004 federal election, the re-elected Howard government announced three possible Northern Territory sites in July 2005. As part of that effort, the Coalition government then turned to the Aboriginal Land Councils to encourage them to identify other possible waste sites on Aboriginal Land. In 2007, the Commonwealth Government accepted a nomination by the Northern Land Council for a site to be assessed, 120km north of Tennant Creek on the Muckaty Land Trust.
That nomination has been the subject of continuing controversy. Many of the traditional owners of Muckaty argue that they were never consulted, and others say that they were not consulted in a meaningful way and never consented to the nomination. Most importantly, many traditional owners allege that they were never informed about the details of the proposal to dump nuclear waste on their land, the danger that this might present to them and their families, the potential impact of the proposal on their sacred sites, and the fact that the nature of the legislation and the material involved meant that they were effectively giving up their land in perpetuity (i.e. forever).
94% of Australians want big solar energy, survey finds.
Survey Finds 94% Of Australians Want Big Solar http://www.energymatters.com.au/index.php?main_page=news_article&article_id=3280, by Energy Matters, 3 July 12, As plentiful as Australia’s solar resources may be and as much as Australians may want a clean energy future with solar power as the centerpiece, we’re still not anywhere close to tapping into even a small percentage of our sun-kissed potential.
After pulling funding from Solar Dawn, Queensland Premier Campbell Newman may want to take note of a recent poll showing 94% of respondents said they wanted to see big solar projects built in Australia.
The Big Solar Poll, conducted by dozens of community groups across Australia, found a further 95% wanted to see governments investing in big solar projects.
Coordinated by 100% Renewable, the survey also revealed people generally understood that solar was a “circuit breaker” for rising power bills and accepted that financial support of new clean energy based power generation stations is well worth the investment. Continue reading
Antinuclear 