Recent nuclear news in Australia
The Northern Territory’s Labor Party lost the recent election, including several “safe” Labor seats. Just today, NT Labor’s conference unanimously passed a resolution opposing the Federal government’s Muckaty nuclear waste dump plan.
BHP is getting out of uranium mining altogether, shutting down its uranium section, due to the poor economic prospects for nuclear power. The mine at Olympic Dam will now focus on copper and base metals only. BHP is selling its Yeelirrie uranium project
Environmental Law. The Gillard government under great pressure from resource corporations, at the resecent COAG meeting, was all set to cave in, and relinquish its control over environmental protection – giving open slather to the States to permit projects. However, the government wavered, and now is delaying that decision (till after the Federal election?)
Toro Energy faces all sorts of obstacles in it Western Australian Wiluna uranium project, – not the least being the lousy market prospects for the product. They’re boasting about now having two women at the helm, with Dr Vanessa Guthrie as new CEO. A case of handing the poisoned chalice to a woman?
Coal Seam Gas, (CSG). Amid scary reports of runaway global warming, and a dismal Doha climate conference, – comes the news that Coal Seam Gas may well be an equally serious greenhouse gas emitter as coal – with its rapid release of methane affecting the atmosphere over a 20 year period
Unanimous decision of Labor Northern Territory branch opposing Muckaty nuclear waste dump plan
The ALP conference endorse the motion that-
1. The Barkly ALP Sub Branch sternly opposes the establishment of a Nuclear Waste Storage Facility at Muckaty NT
1.A the Barkly sub branch opposes the Australian Government capacity to override the Northern Territory Legislation regarding establishing a Nuclear Waste Management facility in the NT.
1.B Rejects any legislation which would continue to target a site on the Muckaty land trust or any other site in Australia, for a nuclear waste dump that is not based on recognised science and international best practices.
1.C Notes 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 of radioactive waste transport, storage and management in Australia.
New members joining Northern Territory’s Labor Party, in reaction against Federal nuclear waste dump plan
ALP NT president Matthew Gardiner says Labor needs to rebuild after its loss in this year’s Territory election.
“We probably have more members now than we ever had before because people are actually responding and reacting to some of the decisions made by the current Government.
NT Labor draws line in sand on nuclear waste dump http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-12-10/nt-alp-on-nuclear-waste-dump/4418778?section=nt By Allyson Horn, 10 Dec 12, The Northern Territory branch of the Australian Labor Party has passed a resolution against the construction of a radioactive waste facility at Muckaty Station near Tennant Creek. Continue reading
We’ve been conned into working harder and longer – consumerism!
One analysis at the University of Melbourne sought to discover the reasons why people are increasingly compelled to work more than 50 hours a week.
The correct answer was consumerism. It was the “work-and-spend” trap, an endless cycle characterised by the desire for higher living standards, linked with greater levels of debt that can only be managed by working longer and harder.
A frenzy of consumerism http://www.theage.com.au/small-business/blogs/work-in-progress/a-frenzy-of-consumerism-20121207-2ayut.html#ixzz2EgEa2wIK The Age, December 7, 2012 James Adonis There was something quite tragic about .. the Black Friday stampedes in the US, the likes of which are bound to be repeated here in Australia on Boxing Day. It’s tasteless consumerism to the max, turning ordinary people into ravenous and mindless shoppers, with flow-on effects in the workplace.
But first, let’s go back to 1929. In an article written for Nation’s Business magazine, Charles Kettering – a director of General Motors Research – opined on the need for companies to keep consumers dissatisfied. The moment people are happy with what they have, “almost immediately hard times would be upon us”, he wrote.
And so it is that marketers persevere with advertising to convince us we’re not sexy enough, popular enough, smart enough, or (whatever) enough, unless we purchase what they’re selling. Continue reading
Methane from Coal Seam Gas has a big impact on global warming
CSG worries hinge on timing of climate change, ABC News 10 Dec 12 by Wendy Carlisle for Background Briefing An expert in public policy says the debate over whether coal seam gas is cleaner than coal depends on the timeframe used to measure emissions.
According to a scientific paper by US academic Nathan Hultman, coal seam gas is 56 per cent cleaner than coal over a 100-year time frame, but when compared to coal over 20 years it is less than 20 per cent cleaner. Professor Hultman, 
from the school of public policy at the University of Maryland, says using the “most extreme assumptions”, coal seam gas is actually dirtier than coal over a 20-year time frame.
He told Radio National’s Background Briefing the choice of timescale was a “value judgment” and “depended on when you thought the real problem of climate change was going to bite”.
“The reason you would be worried about methane in particular over a 20-year time horizon is if you are thinking we are on the verge of a kind of tipping point in climate change right now,” he said.
“If you really think right now we are very close to melting the ice caps or pushing the climate from a moderately steady state into a kind of bad outcome where you’ve got runaway climate change.”
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the global warming impact of greenhouse gases can be measured across three different times frames: 20 years, 100 years or 500 years.
Each is valid and chosen by atmospheric scientists depending on what scientific point they wish to highlight.
Coal seam gas is mostly methane – a powerful greenhouse gas that has a relatively short life span.
This means that over a 20-year time frame, coal seam gas has a much higher global warming impact than if it is measured over 100 years……. . http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-12-09/background-briefing-coal-seam-gas/4416808
Australia overestimates the cost of Concentrated Solar Power: Saudi Arabia and Qatar race ahead with CSP
Australia has proved unable to construct the right incentives – or political will – to construct CSP plants, and most other developments are occurring in China, South Africa and India.
last week IRENA released an assessment that suggested CSP costs per could be around $140-$180 a megawatt-hour in areas of the best solar resources – such as the Gulf states and Australia, and technologies such as solar towers have the greatest potential for further cost reductions. (That is around half the recent cost assessment of Australia’s Bureau of Resource and Energy Economics).
Gulf riches could supercharge concentrated solar, REneweconomy, By Giles Parkinson 10 December 2012 The concentrated solar power (CSP) sector is expected to finally spring to life – and begin its long-awaited journey down the cost curve – as the oil and gas-rich Gulf nations deploy their massive sovereign wealth in solar technologies.
At the climate change talks in Doha, both Saudi Arabia and the host country Qatar reinforced their intentions to invest tens of billions of dollars into large-scale CSP – which includes solar thermal and concentrated solar PV technologies. The biggest oil and gas exporters in the world want to become, well, the Saudi Arabia and Qatar of the solar industry too. Continue reading
Feeble agreement on climate change at Doha
“The solutions to climate change are becoming very good investments,” Jennifer Morgan, from the World Resources Institute, told RenewEconomy at the close of the conference. “Whether it is CSP or wind, you have incentive to invest in these technologies for a range of reasons. Then you can build the political Doha saved 250 trees, but it couldn’t save
the planet
Doha saved 250 trees, but it couldn’t save the planet http://reneweconomy.com.au/2012/doha-saved-250-trees-but-it-couldnt-save-the-planet-54848 REneweconomy, By Giles Parkinson 10 December 2012
DOHA: As the stalemate on the plenary floor in the climate change negotiations in Doha reached its tortuous 10th hour on Saturday evening, members of the French delegation gathered in a tight knot in the main aisle and expressed their alarm at the course of events. “We cannot allow this to happen in Paris in 2015,” I heard one of them say. “That would be a disaster.” Continue reading
India resisting American pressure to change their Nuclear Liability Law
they want India to “rework the law”, passed by Parliament. “The law (the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act, 2010)
commercial agreements for American companies to sell reactors to India are not likely any time soon
Won’t bow to US on nuclear liability law: Salman Khurshid Jayanth Jacob, 
Hindustan Times New Delhi, December 10, 2012 India has strongly rejected mounting US pressure to tweak its nuclear liability law — including suggestions that the legislation be interpreted by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and revisited by Parliament. Continue reading
Australia’s new Solar Hall of Fame
Solar Hall Of Fame For Australia http://www.energymatters.com.au/index.php?main_page=news_article&article_id=3505 by Energy Matters, 10 Dec 12, Australian pioneers of solar power are receiving some well-earned recognition via the new Australian Solar Hall of Fame.
“The inaugural inductees in the Solar Hall of Fame include some of Australia’s greatest scientists, innovators and entrepreneurs and collectively represent an extraordinary contribution to tackling global climate change,” said John Grimes, Chief Executive of the Australian Solar Council.
Mr. Grimes says Australia has “punched well above its weight” with regard to solar research, development and deployment and last year, Australian households installed more home solar panel systems than any other country in the world.
Some of the inaugural inductees to the Hall of Fame include: Continue reading
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 