Australia: recent nuclear news
I recently listened to Richard Broinowski, former Australian diplomat, describing Australia’s government policy makers as “illiterate about nuclear power”. I’m appalled to find out how true this is. As well as our Federal government’s schizoid attitude about uranium sales, and nuclear proliferation, we have today a very blatant example of ignorance, in South Australia granting approval for BHP to go ahead with a new and different type of uranium mining at Olympic Dam.
South Australia. The previous Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) applied to a new open cut mine, not the experimental heal leaching process, that BHP is now planning. That wasn’t even discussed in the EIS, but South Australia has still extended the Olympic Dam Indenture agreement, (which was always a bad deal for the State, anyway)
Fortunately, the economics of a new Olympic Dam uranium mine still do not stack up.
Northern Territory. Are some dirty deals going on here, between the NT government, and a panicky Federal Government? The Federal Government is panicking because the Aboriginal traditional owners might win their legal case against the planned Muckaty nuclear waste dump. NT’s Chief Minister Mills has met with Minister Martin Ferguson – cutting a deal in Canberra to the exclusion of the local community. Sounds like a half-baked plan to position the nuclear waste dump on some other part of Muckaty Station. All rather hush hush.
Queensland. Powerful Electrical trades Union has come out strongly against uranium mining, on the grounds of members’ health, saying that ‘Uranium will be the next asbestos.”.
New South Wales. Labor will oppose any move to allow uranium mining in that State, as stated at anti uranium protest rally at Parliament on 13 November. Broken Hill’s mayor expressed reservations on uranium mining “I don’t like uranium as it is because it causes a lot of cancer”
Federal: Energy White Paper acknowledged Australia’s need to shift to clean energy sources, and they didn’t include nuclear energy. That didn’t stop old Ziggy Spinowski coming out of the woodwork again, to declare nuclear energy asclean and predicting a rapid build of nuclear reactors in Australia, once it got started, Fukushima being just a “set-back”. Why the media keeps giving coverage to this snake oil salesman is beyond me.
Climate action. new hope for co-operative action with USA on climate change, as newly re-elected Obama states importance of acting on climate change.
ABC television showed “The Devil’s Dust” a truly brilliant documentary on the James Hardie company asbestos story – a tragedy that resulted from over 50 years of denial about the asbestos danger. Will uranium be the next?
South Africa leads in solar thermal, where sunny Australia fears to go
Australia concedes lead in solar thermal technology to South Africa, REneweconomy, By Giles Parkinson 12 November 2012 It is ironic that in the same week that the ambitious $1.2 billion Solar Dawn solar thermal project in south-west Queensland should finally be put to rest, construction of two solar thermal projects – with storage – should begin in South Africa.
The last chance for the Solar Dawn consortium led by French nuclear giant Areva for the construction of a 250MW solar thermal plant in Queensland, or even a scaled down version of it, was removed when the Australian Renewable Energy Agency rejected its funding proposal – after the federal government had done so under the previous Solar Flagships program.
Meanwhile, in South Africa, the Spanish group Abengoa last week began construction of two solar thermal projects boasting a mixture of solar tower and parabolic trough technologies. The 50MW Khi Solar One and 100MW KaXu Solar One CSP (concentrating solar power, another name for solar thermal) projects will feature storage and dry cooling technologies, to reduce water demands.
These are the sort of projects that should be pioneered and deployed in Australia. Instead, Australia’s obsession with grandiose schemes, its inflexible funding arrangements, and the lack of true support from state governments and major utilities, mean South Africa will lead and Australia will follow.
The failure of the Solar Flagships program, or the inability of various projects to lock in power price arrangements is not a failure of technology, as many would like to portray it, but a failure of policy – where the hubris of government overwhelms sound technical advice from the industry. It was an idea dreamed up by the egos in the office of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, and the bureaucrats were never able to meet the impossible task of matching such grandiose dreams – of having the biggest, but not necessarily the best – with sound policies. The coup-de-grace was delivered by Queensland Premier Campbell Newman in a similarly grand-standing gesture…..
The one opportunity that Australia now has for a solar thermal project in the short term may well be in Port Augusta, where Alinta has held some discussions with ARENA, for a possible replacement of its coal-fired power stations there. What they may propose, however, is a hybrid systems no dissimilar to the solar booster that is currently being built in Queensland by Areva.
But the importance of solar thermal should not be underestimated. Even the Energy White Paper, a conservative document prepared by the Federal Energy ministry and released last week, said 16 per cent of Australia’s electricity demand could be sourced from solar thermal by 2050. That could make Australia a leader in solar thermal, but for the moment it trails……
South Africa is succeeding with stand alone systems because it has introduced a market-focused system that has successfully attracted many of the world’s largest solar and other alternative energy developers, through an auction-based system that has attracted more than $5 billion of projects in its first two auctions.
The ACT is the only state or territory government that has pursued a similar strategy, albeit at a much smaller scale. It has so far had one round of bidding that should see a 20MW solar PV project being built near Canberra by the end of 2013…… http://reneweconomy.com.au/2012/australia-concedes-lead-in-solar-thermal-technology-to-south-africa-91812
South Australian government rolled over for BHP, but Olympic Dam uranium mine still uneconomic
High costs stall Olympic Dam BY: SARAH MARTIN, SA POLITICAL REPORTER : The Australian November 14, 2012 BHP Billiton chief executive Marius Kloppers says the Olympic Dam mine will not be expanded until the high-cost environment in Australia improves, with the resources industry overheated by too much demand.
The South Australian Labor government yesterday granted the miner an extension until October 2016 to its existing indenture agreement for the shelved mine expansion, in line with the project’s environmental approvals….. subscription only http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/high-costs-stall-olympic-dam/story-e6frg9df-1226516169013
BHP Billiton should have a new Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for controversial heap leach uranium mining
“No approval is sought to implement these initiatives at this stage” [original EIS] ”
“He has given environmental approval for one type of mining process, and has now said he will allow that approval to stand for a completely different processing technique using a novel technology that has yet to be invented, without any further assessment”. “It is simply outrageous that BHP Billiton is not being asked to seek further approvals for this completely different mining method. “
The Greens will move today to disallow the extension of the Olympic Dam Indenture approval until October 2016.
New Roxby method needs a new Roxby EIS Greens Parliamentary Leader Mark Parnell has questioned whether Mining Minister Tom Koutsantonis has the capacity to do his job, and has demanded a new Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) assessment of the proposed brand new processing option of ‘acid heap leaching’ at Olympic Dam be conducted before the project is allowed to commence.
The call comes in response to Mining Minister Tom Koutsantonis’s false claims on ABC 891 radio this morning that it was always BHP Billiton’s intention to shift to the ‘heap leaching’ process and this had been covered in the EIS:
(David Bevan: But if they’re looking at a new technology, a new way of doing this, won’t you need a new Environmental Impact Statement?) Koutsantonis: Well, no, because BHP has foreseen that in the next, you know, five to six to seven years they may have been switching to this technique. (Abraham: Was that covered by the Environmental Impact Statement?) It was, yes.
Yet in over 7,000 pages of the original EIS, the Supplementary EIS and the Government’s response to the EIS, the only mention of heap leaching is:
The feasibility of heap leaching of the lower-grade ore at Olympic Dam is under investigation. At this early stage, recoveries of copper and uranium from heap leaching appear too low, but this option continues to be investigated. Continue reading
South Australian government jumps to obey BHP? Greens will oppose extension of Olympic Dam Expansion Indenture Agreement.
BHP: Jump! SA Govt: How High? …..for 4 more years 13 Nov 12 The Greens will move in Parliament to stop any extension of the Olympic Dam Expansion Indenture Agreement.
The Weatherill Government has agreed to an extension of the starting date for the project in the controversial contract until October 2016.
“The Indenture was a dud deal for South Australia when we debated this in Parliament last year, and will still be a dud deal in 4 years’ time,” said Greens Parliamentary Leader Mark Parnell.
“Instead of again meekly accepting whatever the world’s richest resource company wants, the Government should seize the opportunity to start renegotiating terms to expand local procurement, increase royalty returns and improve environmental outcomes.
“The project appears years away. Yet, the Government has recklessly locked in last century environmental outcomes decades into the future.
“BHP Billiton appears to be moving further and further away from job-rich local processing, and yet has still managed to lock in a feeble ‘production based’ royalty rate for 45 years.
“Surely it would be better to finalise the Olympic Dam Expansion contract with BHP Billiton when the project is actually guaranteed to begin?
“That will ensure royalty rates, local processing and procurement targets and environmental conditions are based on the expectations, rules and operating conditions of the day, not locked in years ahead,” he said.
Wind and solar energy more desirable, as world’s water supply is limited
Water scarcity could drive push towards wind and solar REneweconomy By Giles Parkinson 14 November 2012 In 2010, more water – 583 billion cubic metres – than is discharged each year by the mighty Ganges River in India was used to meet the world’s growing energy needs.
It’s an interesting statistic, but why should that matter? Well, if the world continues on its merry way, power capacity – particularly with water-hungry energy technologies such as coal and nuclear – and water-dependent extractive techniques such as coal, shale gas and tar sands, are going to grow quickly, and, according to the International Energy Agency, the world’s demand for water will grow at twice the pace, putting pressure on increasingly scarce water resources. Continue reading
Asbestos and cancer – uranium will be next, says powerful Electrical Trades Union
“‘Uranium will be the next asbestos. All those years ago they said it was safe to work with asbestos. Then years later the companies didn’t want to know about it when workers started dying from diseases such as asbestosis, mesothelioma and lung cancer,”
ETU in uranium mining no-go Townsville Bulletin, JOHN ANDERSEN | November 10th, 2012 UNION bosses have instructed the 12,800 financial members of the Electrical Trades Union in Queensland not to work in any start-up
uranium mines in the state.
The ETU directive against members taking jobs in uranium mines has been in place since 2010, but with no uranium industry in the state it has lain dormant for the past two years. Continue reading
Hear: latest Radioactive Show – USA superstorm, Tom Uren’s story
This week we hear about the near nuclear disaster in New Jersey as a result of Hurricane Sandy from Kevin Kamps, radioactive waste watchdog with Beyond Nuclear in Washington, we also speak to 91 year old veteran anti-nuclear and anti-war activist, ex-labour party deputy leader and former prisoner of war, Tom Uren, about his life and learnings, from his home in Balmain, Sydney.File Download (31:12 min / 14 MB)
Energy efficiency and renewable energy the keys to saving the planet, says IAE
The IEA says energy demand out to 2035 could be halved through energy efficiency measures – in the building sector, including appliances, the transport sector and the industry sector. This would require an estimated $US11.8 trillion investment, but this would be more than offset by an $18 trillion reduction in fuel costs.
How energy efficiency and renewables can save the planet http://reneweconomy.com.au/2012/how-energy-efficiency-and-renewables-can-save-the-planet-44897 By Giles Parkinson , 13 November 2012 The International Energy Agency has raised hopes that time can be bought for the world to finally get its act together on climate change – as long as it implements a rapid uptake of energy efficiency measures.
In its latest World Energy Outlook, the IEA says energy efficiency could buy the world an extra five years to reach conclusive and effective climate change policies. Without such measures,it says, the world by 2017 will have exhausted its carbon budget to try and keep keep the world to an average rise in global temperatures of 2C. It says 81 per cent of that budget has already been used. Continue reading
Protest rally: New South Wales Labor Party opposes uranium mining
“NSW Labor will stay true to what its position has always been, and that is no exploration or mining in NSW”
NSW uranium exploring immoral: opposition http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/nsw-uranium-exploring-immoral-opposition/story-e6frf7kf-1226515943188 THE “immoral” decision to allow companies to express interest in exploring for uranium in NSW is simply testing the waters for a uranium mining industry, NSW deputy opposition leader Linda Burney says.
About 100 protesters gathered outside parliament in Sydney on Tuesday to mark the end of the government’s initial 60-day period for expressions of interest in uranium exploration. The protesters are highlighting the dangers of uranium mining, use and waste. Continue reading
Small but courageous bare protest against US military base in Perth.
NO MORE WARS – CHEEKY PRESENCE AT SAS BARRACKS, SWANBOURNE 13th November This morning a group of women bared all outside Swanbourne Barracks, headquarters of the SAS, to deliver a peaceful message in advance of the visit of Leon Panetta, United States Secretary for Defence.
The un-named women, bearing the letters of NO MORE WARS across their buttocks, are concerned at the military build-up which will be subject of AUSMIN discussions over the next two days between the United States and Australian governments, taking place in Perth.
“We know that Leon Panetta is scheduled to visit the SAS headquarters at Campbell Barracks, so we wanted to get in ahead of security forces, to let him, his Government, our Government and the public know that there are hundreds of thousands of Australians who do not want our country further embroiled in wars of the United States’ choosing.
“We do not want an “upgrade” of Stirling Naval Base to suit U.S. Navy requirements, meaning more warship visits, some of which carry nuclear weapons and are powered by nuclear reactors.
“We do not want further “interoperability” which suits the United States war-fighting plans, but not necessarily the requirements for the defence of Australia.
“We do not want to see U.S. marines on Australian soil, nor further military exercises which are damaging to our environment.
“What’s happened to Australian sovereignty? Gone missing in action, while U.S. forces get the nod.
“Not in our name,” the women concluded.
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For further information, contact Kerrie Ann: 0401 909 332
The next nuclear arms race is under way – drones
Drones: The New Nuclear Arms Race? (VIDEO) Everyone’s got a drone, or so it seems, HUFFINGTON POST, Ahmed Shihab-Eldin, 14 Nov 12 It wasn’t long ago that the US had a monopoly on drones, but that is no longer the case. In fact, Israel – not the U.S. – is reportedly the world’s largest exporter of drones , selling Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and the technology to build them to Nigeria, Russia, Mexico, and most recently to Azerbaijan as part of a $1.6-billion arms deal involving dozens of drones.
In 2004, 41 countries had acquired UAVs according to a report by the Council on Foreign Relations. As of 2011, the number climbed to at least 76 countries. While only a small number of them have armed drones, many are beginning to invest in weaponizing drones. Continue reading
It turns out that 50,000 Australians are not wrong about climate chnage
A disproportionate amount of media airtime given to climate sceptics may lead some people to overestimate the prevalence of that view
powerful interests promoted the voices of climate sceptics.
Climate change deniers are rarer than we think http://reneweconomy.com.au/2012/climate-change-deniers-are-rarer-than-we-think-46206 By Sunanda Creagh 13 November 2012 The Conversation Australians grossly overestimate the proportion of people who deny that climate change is happening, a CSIRO study has found.
The study, published today in the journal Nature Climate Change, surveyed over 5000 Australians over two years. Continue reading
New ultrafast transmission technology is a boon for renewable energy
Capable of carrying electricity over long distances much more efficiently than alternating current (AC), HVDC transmission is seen as a way of transporting renewable energy from remote utility-scale locations — such as desert solar power facilities and offshore wind farms — to consumption centers at much lower cost than existing transmission infrastructure.
Big boost for renewable energy: ABB’s game changing hybrid, REneweconomy, By Cleantechnica 12 November 2012 Solving a problem that has handicapped use of high-voltage direct current (HVDC) in transmission lines, networks, and power grids for more than 100 years, multinational power engineering giant ABB has announced that it has designed and developed a hybrid DC breaker capable of interrupting DC power flows “equivalent to the output of a nuclear power station within five milliseconds… as fast as a honeybee takes per flap of its wings.”
The hybrid DC breaker combines “advanced ultrafast mechanical actuators with ABB’s in-house semiconductor IGBT valve technologies or power electronics.” ABB management deems it a “game changer.” Continue reading
Ultraviolet radiation – skin cancer a greater danger than insufficient Vitamin D
Monday’s medical myth: we’re not getting enough sun heconversation.edu.au/mondays-medical-myth-were-not-getting-enough-sun-10205 12 November 2012 Myths abound about UV radiation and its effect on our health. We hear that sun-protection has triggered an epidemic of vitamin D deficiency; being tanned protects you from sunburn; a tan looks healthy; and “old” skin doesn’t need to be protected from the sun like “young” skin does.
Myth, myth, myth, myth.
What is beyond doubt is that Australia is the world’s skin cancer capital , yet skin cancer is the most preventable of all common cancer types. Continue reading
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