Australia’s week of uranium news spin
Still under the radar, perhaps, but nuclear and uranium news are alive and well, here. Well, perhaps not exactly well. The promoters of the uranium industry keep getting all this positive news spin published – about the prospects in Queensland and New South Wales. But the facts are conveniently forgotten – BHP’s pullout from uranium mining, Paladin’s disastrous losses, Cameco selling uranium below the cost of production. Toro undecided, now that Western Australia has made stricter environmental regulations. THE AUSTRALIA in particular continues its spin – also about SILEX laser uranium enrichment, about how Australia ‘needs’ nuclear submarines.
The Australian government dishes out more money for Lucas Heights nuclear reactor – for its fig leaf medical radionuclides. (Never mind that this is last century’s technology, while non nuclear cyclotrons can produce those same medical radionuclides)
Lynas rare earths corporation has applied to Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) to import radioactive waste back to Australia,
Renewable Energy: Renewable Energy Target under fire from Australian utilities (understandably – they will need help as renewable energy succeeds) Canberra going for 90% renewable energy by 2020 . Hepburn Council asks the Victorian government to ease its effective ban on wind farms, to allow their small community wind farm project.
Interactive Australian Map of Nuclear Sites launched today
Friends of the Earth is today launching australianmap.net, a new online educational resource which brings together information, photos and videos about more than 50 of Australia’s nuclear sites including uranium mines and processing plants, the Lucas Heights research reactor, proposed reactor and dump sites, and British nuclear weapons test sites.
An overview shines a spotlight on recurring problems in Australia’s nuclear history such as children being exposed to radiation, unresolved radioactive contamination issues, and the important role of nuclear whistleblowers. An article about the project, ‘Recovering Australia’s Nuclear History’, is posted at New Matilda.
Of course the map pictured below is NOT interactive, but the one at australianmap.net IS
We would be grateful if your organisation could provide a web-link to australianmap.net.
We invite you to put australianmap on your own website − for more information visit australianmap.net/embed
An A2 poster is also being produced and distributed at cost price − please contact us if you want to order some.
View australianmap.net online or download a PDF file which contains all entries and the overview. Another feature of the website is the interactive ‘Chernobyl in Australia’ map which allows people to choose potential reactor sites and different wind directions to see what would happen if something went terribly wrong.
australianmap material has been written and researched by Jim Green and Nectaria Calan with IT support from Glenn Todd.
Contact: jim.green@foe.org.au, 0417 318368
Bleak forecast for uranium industry
[Cameco] now finds itself selling some of its output below the cost of production.
China continues to review approvals for new reactors amid concerns about safety
Uranium outlook bleak, Rebound two years off estimates BLOOMBERG NEWS SEPTEMBER 20, 2012 Uranium’s rebound from the Fukushima nuclear accident may take one or two years longer than analysts estimated, prolonging the languishing recovery of Cameco, whose stock price has lost half its value since the March 2011 tragedy.
Just a month before the tsunami struck, shares were trading at $42.39. Wednesday they closed at $21.01.
The price of uranium for immediate delivery declined to $47 a pound as of Sept. 17, its lowest in two years, according to Ux Consulting, a Roswell, Ga.-based uranium information provider.
BHP Billiton Ltd. and Paladin Energy Ltd. have slowed or deferred development this year of some projects to produce the raw material in nuclear reactor fuel…… Continue reading
Despite the failing nuclear and uranium industries – their hype goes on in Australia
In corporate Australia, in political leaders, and mainstream media there is, of course, no shame in being completely unethical in pursuit of the business dollar. As far as the uranium industry goes, they’re all happy to be sanctimonious about the supposed ‘benefits’ of our exports.
The amazing part is in the way – with all evidence to the contrary, the uranium industry is hyped as a wonderful investment, and uranium mining as a benefit to the local area, in whatever State it might be developed. (Never mind about BHP pulling out of uranium mining, ERA and Paladin’s losses). The latest uranium-hyping headlines include: ‘Uranium mining back on the political agenda’ (Herald Sun), ‘State wants to get a piece of the action’ (The Australian), ‘NSW open to uranium exploration’ , (Financial review.)
The hyping doesn’t stop at uranium mining. There’s ‘SILEX beams on technology success’, (The Australian). Not a word, in this sickeningly enthusiastic article, about the fact that this SILEX laser uranium enrichment technology is known to be a very dangerous avenue for allowing the spread of nuclear weapons fuel. (Controversial nuclear technology alarms watchdogs http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/intelligent-energy/controversial-nuclear-technology-alarms-watchdogs/18138 )
The Australian government gives ANSTO a boost – more money for ANSTO and the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor. This is for ‘worthy’ reasons – medical radionuclides – even though those can be made by other means, as Canada is now doing with its medical radiopharmaceuticals, – going for a non nuclear cyclotron.
And in today’s Australian there’s the ‘ call for nuclear submarines – the only sensible solution’
But – Australia is not alone in this promotion of the nuclear industry. Global nuclear corporations now rejoice that their pressure on the Japanese government has resulted in Japan’s government backtracking on its commitment towards zero nuclear power. In France, EDF is vigourously attacking the government’s plan to shut down Fessenheim, the country’s oldest nuclear power plant.
Meanwhile the global nuclear lobby’s campaign that “low level radiation is quite good for you’ rumbles on. As does the promotion of all sorts of new geewhiz untested nuclear reactors. As does the continued attack on renewable energy.
Still – all this pro nuclear pro uranium propaganda does not seem to be working with ordinary people. Perhaps it is all the desperate cries of a dying industry Christina Macpherson 21 Sept
Australia’s big opportunity to export renewable energy expertise to Indonesia
The AusTrade report has identified several areas of opportunities for Australian clean energy companies, including:
- Education – training, research and development for renewable energy development and deployment, particularly in hydropower and solar photovoltaic,…
Indonesia: Clean Energy Opportunities for Australian Companies Engineering Source, by Justin McGar, 21 Sept 12 The Australian Trade Commission (ATC) has identified Indonesia as a key target market for home-grown companies involved in clean energy products, expertise and services who want to grow and develop their businesses.
That news comes according to a recent study the ATC carried out with key executives with inside knowledge into the workings of the country and Indonesia’s future renewable energy direction.
Australia already exports $4.5 billion worth of products and services to Indonesia which, with a population of over 234 million, is the fourth most populous nation in the world and one of the world’s highest performing emerging markets.
To ensure sustainable growth in Indonesia, its government has set a target that would see 25 per cent of total energy consumption filled by clean energy sources by 2025. Continue reading
Call for Victorian government to allow small scale community wind farms
Call to ease regulations for small wind farms http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-09-20/call-to-ease-regulations-for-small-wind-farms/4271052 Sep 20, 2012 The Hepburn council will lobby the Victorian Government to exempt community-based wind farms from strict regulations. A planning amendment introduced by the State Government last year prohibits new wind farms in certain areas and within two kilometres of houses.
The council adopted a motion at this week’s meeting to express its ongoing support for renewable energy developments.
Mayor Sebastian Klein says small wind farms should not be treated the same as large-scale wind farms. “It basically asks for the State Government to make different considerations for community owned wind farms than I guess large-scale, corporate wind farms,” he said.
“So I guess small-scale community owned wind farms that provide back to the community have a community dividend and also have a much smaller footprint and a much smaller impact on the landscape and on people’s amenity.”
AUDIO: Genetic effects of Fukushima radiation, just like those of Chernobyl’s
Wertelecki: There’s a team of experts on birds and ornithology form France, very distinguished Danish ornithologist who found in Chernobyl area very, very major disturbing findings that exactly the same is happening in Fukushima.
In other words these birds cannot migrate because they become exhausted… they find microcephaly just like we do, they find all kind of instability like random spotted changes to fur, which are local mutations of course on so on and so on.
AUDIO Top Genetics Expert: Japan’s path closely resembles Chernobyl’s — “Very, very major disturbing findings” (VIDEO) http://enenews.com/top-genetics-expert-japans-path-closely-resembles-chernobyls-very-very-major-disturbing-findings-audio September 18th, 2012 By ENENews
Title: Dr. Wladimir Wertelecki on birth defects caused by Chernobyl and how nuclear power devastates human health Source: If You Love This Planet Radio with Dr. Helen Caldicott Date: Sept 14, 2012 Continue reading
Film star cancer victims of atomic testing radiation: coverup by USA govt
“The connection between fallout radiation and cancer in individual cases has been practically impossible to prove conclusively. But in a group this size you’d expect only 30-some cancers to develop. With 91, I think the tie-in to their exposure on the set of The Conqueror would hold up even in a court of law.”
FROM PEOPLE MAGAZINE:Occupy the NRC 21 Sept 12, Few moviegoers remember The Conqueror, a sappy 1956 film about a love affair between Genghis Khan and a beautiful captive princess. But to the families of its stars, John Wayne and Susan Hayward, and of its director-producer, Dick Powell, memories of The Conqueror have begun to acquire nightmarish clarity.
The movie was shot from June through August 1954 among the scenic red bluffs and white dunes near Saint George, Utah, an area chosen by Powell for its similarity to the central Asian steppes. At the time it did not seem significant that Saint George was only 137 miles from the atomic testing range at Yucca Flat, Nev.; the federal government, after all, was constantly reassuring local residents back then that the bomb tests posed no health hazard. Now, 17 years after aboveground nuclear tests were outlawed, Saint George is plagued by an extraordinarily high rate of cancer (PEOPLE, Oct. 1, 1979)—and the illustrious alumni of The Conqueror and their offspring are wondering whether their own grim medical histories are more than an uncommon run of bad luck. Continue reading
Chernobyl nuclear accident caused increase in Downs syndrome births across Europe
Evidence for an increase in trisomy 21 (Down syndrome) in Europe after the Chernobyl reactor accident.http://push-zb.helmholtz-muenchen.de/frontdoor.php?source_opus=7180&la=de Genet. Epidemiol. 36, 48-55 (2012) The objective of this study is to investigate the prevalence of Down syndrome (DS) associated with Chernobyl fallout.
Maternal age-adjusted DS data and corresponding live birth data from the following seven European countries or regions were analyzed: Bavaria and West Berlin in Germany, Belarus, Hungary, the Lothian Region of Scotland, North West England, and Sweden from 1981 to 1992.
To assess the underlying time trends in the DS occurrence, and to investigate whether there have been significant changes in the trend functions after Chernobyl, we applied logistic regression allowing for peaks and jumps from January 1987 onward.
The majority of the trisomy 21 cases of the previously reported, highly significant January 1987 clusters in Belarus and West Berlin were conceived when the radioactive clouds with significant amounts of radionuclides with short physical
half-lives, especially (131) iodine, passed over these regions. Apart from this, we also observed a significant longer lasting effect in both areas.
Moreover, evidence for long-term changes in the DS prevalence in several other European regions is presented and
explained by exposure, especially to (137) Cs. In many areas, (137) Cs uptake reached its maximum one year after the Chernobyl accident. Thus, the highest increase in trisomy 21 should be observed in 1987/1988, which is indeed the case.
Based on the fact that maternal meiosis is an error prone process, the assumption of a causal relationship between low-dose irradiation and nondisjunction is the most likely explanation for the observed increase in DS after the Chernobyl reactor accident.
Global effect of atmospheric nuclear radiation – more boys born than girls
The 1960s and ’70s increase is attributed in the study to the global dispersal of radioactive atoms from atmospheric atomic bomb tests. The tests lofted radioactive atoms high into the atmosphere, where air currents caught the atoms and then dispersed them around the planet.
The new study is “the most convincing documentation” to date that radiation can lead to sex bias in humans, according to geneticist Karl Sperling of the Institute of Medical Genetics and Human Genetics in Berlin.
The findings challenge the conventional belief that exposure to nuclear radiation has no, or negligible, genetic effects in humans,
Millions Fewer Girls Born Due to Nuclear Radiation? “Unexpected” findings suggest bomb tests, plant accidents boosted male births Ker Than National Geographic News June 2, 2011 Nuclear radiation from bomb tests and power plant accidents causes slightly more boys than girls to be born, a new study suggests. While effects were seen to be regional for incidents on the ground, like Chernobyl, atmospheric blasts were found to affect birth rates on a global scale. Continue reading
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 