Australia’s rapidly accelerating photovoltaic solar energy reaches 2,000MW
Australia reaches 2,000MW milestone for solar PV By Warwick Johnston on 8 November 2012 November 2012 will be remembered by Australian sunlovers for two noteworthy events: 1) a solar eclipse visible across most of Australia, and 2) the month cumulative Australian PV installations reached 2 gigawatts (GW) (equivalent to 2,000 Megawatts or 2,000,000
kilowatts).
This threshold has been reached in previously only-dreamed of rapidity, and has been paradoxically accelerated rather than decelerated by the removal of government incentives. (Politicians take notice, there are tens of thousands of solar voters in your electorate.)…
http://reneweconomy.com.au/2012/australia-reaches-2000mw-milestone-for-solar-pv-39439
Vague, veiled discussion on new nuclear dump site, as legal case continues on Muckaty proposal
NLC pledges more talks with waste dump opponents
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-11-08/muckaty-station-waste-dump-talks-follow/4360760?§ion=news By Michael Coggan. 8 Nov 12 The Northern Land Council says people involved in a legal dispute 
over a site earmarked for the case construction of a nuclear waste dump in the Northern Territory will be consulted about plans to nominate a second site.
The NLC says about 60 people attended a formal meeting yesterday to discuss the nomination of a second site at Muckaty Station, north of Tennant Creek.
Lawyer Elizabeth O’Shea, who is representing the people challenging the first site, says her clients were shut out of the meeting.
An NLC spokeswoman says Ms O’Shea’s clients will be consulted in a separate meeting that was arranged prior to yesterday’s meeting at Muckaty Station.
Ms O’Shea says traditional owners who did attend that meeting said they were not shown a map of where the proposed second site might be.
She says the NLC must say what it plans to do to overcome the clear division that exists over the first site, which will persist in any additional nomination. “If families don’t agree about what should happen on the land, what’s the NLC going to do?” she asked.
The nomination of the first proposed site on Muckaty Station is being challenged in the Federal Court.
New research shows leukeamia increase in Chernobyl radiation cleanup workers
LEUKEMIA RISK INCREASED BY LOW DOSE RADIATION: CHERNOBYL STUDY
http://www.omglobe.com/2012/11/08/leukemia-risk-increased-by-low-dose-radiation-chernobyl-study/
Lydia Zablotska, MD, PhD 11/8/2012 A 20-year study following 110,645 workers who helped clean up after the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident in the former Soviet territory of Ukraine shows that the workers share a significant
increased risk of developing leukemia.
The results may help scientists better define cancer risk associated with low doses of radiation from medical diagnostic radiation procedures such as computed tomography scans and other sources.
In the journal Environmental Health Perspectives this week, an international team led by scientists at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and the Chernobyl Research Unit at the Radiation Epidemiology Branch of the National Cancer Institute describes the increased risks of leukemia among these workers between 1986 and 2006.
The risk included a greater-than-expected number of cases of chronic lymphocytic leukemia, which many experts did not consider to be associated with radiation exposure in the past.
The new work is the largest and longest study to date involving Chernobyl cleanup workers who worked at or near the nuclear complex in the aftermath of the accident. Continue reading
Senator Christine Milne, and protestors too, slam Ferguson’s Energy White Paper
Greens leader Christine Milne has slammed the white paper’s focus on gas and its recommendation for streamlined environmental approvals. “What that means is Australia’s farmland, its aquifers, communities who are already outraged by the onrush of coal-seam gas are going to see this as yet more taking away of their rights to facilitate the fossil fuel industry,”
Protesters crash release of energy white paper Yahoo 7 Finance, By chief political correspondent Simon Cullen | ABC 8 Nov 12 Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson has been interrupted by anti-fossil fuel protesters as he outlined plans to overhaul the national energy market.
The two men took over the podium during Mr Ferguson’s speech, accusing him of being a “puppet” of the fossil fuel industry and singing a satirical song about global warning….. Continue reading
Martin Ferguson keeps nuclear door open, while pretending to promote renewables
The big talking points from the Energy White Paper REneweconomy, By Giles Parkinson 9 November 2012, “…….Ferguson may (begrudgingly) acknowledge that nuclear is not part of the Labor Party platform, but he clearly wants to keep the door open. As he said in the draft white paper, and repeated in the final edition, nuclear might be the only option for a zero-emission future if other technologies such as carbon capture, large scale solar and other renewables fail to develop in the next decade.
“If those technologies fail to develop as expected, future Australian governments may need to consider other clean energy alternatives to meet our emissions reduction targets and to minimise the risk of higher adjustment costs,” the Energy White Paper says. Bet get a wriggle on then. But it’s just a little ironic, given his department’s botched handling of the funds designed to bring those technologies to the market – and here you could cite any number of schemes such as Solar Flagships, the Renewable Energy Development Program, and the Geothermal Drilling Program.
Thankfully, the Greens and the Independents forced the Labor Party to put these together under an independent body called the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, which is about to swing into action. Ferguson, however, would have been pleased by the CSIRO’s eFutureonline modelling tool, which displays a nuclear scenario that can best be described as wishful thinking. But as the Energy White Paper admits, the establishment of a commercially based nuclear energy industry in Australia would also require additional financial and/or other forms of government support, and a social licence to operate….”
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 