The past week in nuclear news: Australia
Muckaty nuclear waste dump plan to meet increasing opposition, as Australian groups, especially unions, support traditional owners’ legal action against the plan. Meanwhile Tony Abbott is happy about the plan – saying that “local concerns have to give way to the national interest”
Aborigines. To a deafening silence from the Australian mainstream media, Senate – Labor and Liberal unite in passing new Northern Territory Intervention, judged discriminatory by Aboriginal groups, human rights groups, and lawyers. Michael Anderson leads a national Aboriginal movement to stop Aborigines being deceived out of their land.
Carbon tax began on July 1st – to an avalanche of negative media, and negative Liberal campaigning . Climate Institute estimates the carbon tax could create up to 32,000 clean-energy jobs by 2030 Superannuation funds investing in renewabel energy, as carbon tax gives the incentive. Tony Abbott promises doom and gloom, and vows to repeal carbon tax legislation.
Pro nuclear propaganda. Barry Brook and pro associates from South Australia push for nuclear reactors (and indeed, the whole nuclear fuel cycle) for Australia
Renewable Energy : Australian Renewable Energy Agency Board starts off, overseeing funding for renewable energy research and development. Aborigines and solar company join forces to bring solar energy projects to regional Western Australia. New wind farm for Barossa Valley would power about 68,000 homes a yea.r Wave energy for Victoria, with world’s biggest wave energy turbine.
Julian Assange. Australia’s foreign minister contradicts the evidence, in asserting that USA does not plan to try Assange for espionage.
Rare earths. Globe company to mine rare earths in Mozambique, but sen dthem to China for processing, as Australian company Lynas’ plans for reprocessing rare earths in Malaysia go awry
Australia’s nuclear priesthood, Barry Brook etc, dazzle us with science about Integral Fast Reactors
It will be great pity if Australians let themselves be mentally paralysed and muzzled by the nuclear technocrats into thinking they can’t understand nuclear issues. Frankly, events like Fukushima show ordinary people probably have a much better grasp of issues surrounding the environment, economics, safety, nuclear radiation, and weapons proliferation than the nuclear hierarchy does.
IFRs needs plutonium or enriched uranium as fuel. So, to have fast reactors, Australia would need to import these, or set up nuclear reprocessing or uranium enrichment here.
In dispraise of Integral Fast Nuclear Reactors Independent Australia, 5 July 12, Can only nuclear technocrats discuss nuclear issues — leaving the great unwashed out of the debate? Noel Wauchope considers the latest – but not necessarily the greatest – nuclear gizmo — Integral Fast Reactors. “….. the nuclear priesthood is pretty safe in all this. They keep the argument narrowly technical, with pages and pages on the various technicalities of cooling systems, reprocessing of fuel systems, passive safety systems and so on; in other words, they induce in the public a kind of mindless torpor as they dazzle us with science.
At the same time, the nuclear priesthood, like some gifted but autistic child with specialist knowledge in just one area, seems to have little grasp of other issues concerning nuclear power — blinkered as they are in their apparent view that the technicalities are the whole story. This is the case with their latest propaganda for the ‘Integral Fast Reactor’ or IFR. Continue reading
Nuclear waste dumping is fine: local communities don’t matter, according to Tony Abbott
Nuclear waste dump in ‘national interest’: Abbott ABC News By James Glenday, July 03, 2012 Tony Abbott says local concerns sometimes do have to give way to the national interest. (AAP: David Crosling)
Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says he is confident a nuclear waste dump can be built safely in the Northern Territory……”Sometimes local concerns do have to give way to the national
interest.” http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-07-03/abbott-on-muckaty-nuclear-waste-dump/4107768
interest.
Radioactivity on Japan’s beaches has ruined surfing industry
AUDIO Japan’s surfers lament radioactive coast, Radio Australia 2 July 2012, Japan overnight restarted a nuclear reactor – the first time it’s done so since the Fukushima disaster. The move has polarised the country, with many fearing the reactor on the country’s west coast is just as vulnerable to earthquakes and tsunamis as the Fukushima plant.
And some of those fighting hardest against the restart of more nuclear plants are Japan’s professional surfers, who say Fukushima’s coastline was once regarded as one of the best surfing spots in the country. Continue reading
Yassa Arafat to be exhumed: he was probably murdered by radiation poisoning
That debate was reignited after a Swiss lab said Wednesday it had discovered traces of polonium-210 in clothing and other belongings
Polonium-210 is best known for causing the death of Alexander Litvinenko, a one-time KGB agent turned critic of the Russian government,
Call to exhume Arafat after radiation find fuels ‘assassination’ theory SMH, July 5, 2012 The discovery of traces of a radioactive agent on a pair of underwear reportedly worn by Yasser Arafat in his final days reignited a cauldron of conspiracy theories Wednesday about the mysterious death of the long-time Palestinian leader. Continue reading
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. Continue reading
Solar energy – a patriotic issue for Americans
Politicians on both sides of the aisle should open their eyes to the fastest growing energy source in America, surging ahead against hard economic times. They should understand that solar affords Americans – at homes, workplaces and businesses – the ability to generate heat and power cleanly, safely and affordably. As they ready for debates and town hall meetings, they surely should know that solar now employs 100,000 Americans at more than 5,600 companies – the vast majority of them small businesses – across all 50 states.
Solar: Life, Liberty And The Pursuit of Energy Independence, Forbes, 4 July 12, By General Wesley Clark (ret.) and Rhone Resch No energy source is more American than solar. Technologies to convert sunshine to electricity were pioneered in the U.S. half a century ago at Bell Labs, and quickly became a source of inspiration and imagination. In the last several years, solar energy has awoken from yesterday’s dream to today’s reality.
Last year, the U.S. solar energy market more than doubled in size, creating jobs in every state. You can harness solar energy in every city and county in the country, and even in every Congressional district – although you wouldn’t know that given the way candidates in this year’s elections have misconstrued and abused the facts about solar. Continue reading
World’s Biggest Wave Energy Turbine for Victoria
World’s Largest Wave Turbine Gets New Grant from Australian Government Clean Technica, JULY 3, 2012 BY GILES PARKINSON The Australian government as upped its investment in two nascent, Australian-developed wave energy technologies, announcing new grants worth almost $10 million to help bring the two new systems to the market, including what is believed to be the world’s biggest wave energy turbine.
The government is providing $5.6 million to BioPower Systems to install a 250kW full-scale pilot plant of its bioWAVE technology off the coast of Victoria, and is also providing just under $4 million to Oceanlinx, to install a 1MW demonstration plan of its Greenwave technology in South Australia.
Both grants are being made under the $126 million Emerging Renewables program, and follow an earlier $9 million grant to Carnegie Wave Energy, which is building a $31 million, 2MW grid-connected demonstration of its CETO technology near Fremantle in Western Australia.
BioPower CEO Tim Finnigan said the grant, along with a $5 million grant from the Victorian state government, means that its $15 million project was now fully funded. “This puts us into a position to complete the project, get it on the grid, and prove the technology at scale,” he told RenewEconomy. “It’s a pretty big development for us.”…… http://cleantechnica.com/2012/07/03/worlds-largest-wave-turbine-gets-new-grant-from-australian-government/
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 