Greens MP Kate Faehrmann invited, but sidelined at Kemps Creek radioactive waste meeting, while ALP dominated
Despite being invited to address the meeting, NSW Greens MLC Cate Faehrmann was told at the last minute that she would not be seated on the stage and would only get to speak at the start of discussion time.
She raised the proposal of shifting the waste to the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor site, and said that if the federal Labor government wanted to, they could step in now to make this a reality through an amendment to national laws.Despite a number of people in the crowd pressing the speakers to address this idea, all preferred to side step it.
Labor MPs hijack local outrage over uranium dump plan http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/53403, February 22, 2013 By Fred Fuentes Angry residents from Kemps Creek and surrounding neighbourhoods packed the local sports and bowling club auditorium on February 18 to protest against the state government’s plan to dump radioactive waste in the area.
The NSW Liberal government is proposing to shift 5800 tonnes of soil from an area in Hunters Hill, where a uranium ore processing plant once stood, to the Kemps Creek SITA dump site.
Cancer clusters have been detected in Hunters Hill, which have been linked to the contamination left behind at the former plant site.
The amount of community concern against the project was shown by the more than 3000 submissions against the proposal over the past two months.
The meeting was addressed by three federal politicians and a councillor from Penrith, all from the ALP. Continue reading
Did Iran in fact have a nuclear accident, on January 21, with radiation now leaking?
RADIATION LEAKING FROM IRAN’S NUKE EXPLOSION, WND, by REZA KAHLILI, 25 FEB 13, Islamic regime fears poisonous fallout clouds could hit cities Radiation is leaking from Iran’s nuclear facility at Fordow, which suffered devastating explosions on Jan. 21, WND has learned, and the regime has ordered millions of antidote iodine pills from Russia and Ukraine amid fears the radioactivity will spread.
Many of the personnel, who arrived after the explosion to assist with the cleanup at the site, have been taken to a military hospital suffering from headache, nausea and vomiting, according to a source in the security forces protecting Fordow.
A special team of nuclear experts was ordered to the site days ago, the source said, and detected high levels of radiation. The number of confirmed dead from the explosions has risen to 76, said the source, who provided exclusively to WND the names of 14 Iranian scientists and one North Korean who died in the blasts.
Security forces have arrested 17 high-ranking officers, including majors and colonels, over the incident and summarily executed Maj. Ali Montazernia, a member of the security forces in charge at Fordow.
The Islamic regime has put up a wall of silence surrounding the explosions, but with the possibility of radioactive fallout creating grave health and environmental disasters in the nearby holy city of Qom and other surrounding cities, it may not be able to maintain the secret, the source suggested.
WND reported exclusively on Jan. 24 that explosions rocked Iran’s nuclear facility at Fordow on Jan. 21, with updates on Jan. 27, 29, 30, 31, and Feb. 3, 6, 13 and 23. The blasts at first trapped 219 workers, including 16 North Koreans: 14 technicians and two military attaches. Continue reading
How the Australian government betrayed Servicemen affected by Pacific and Maralinga nuclear tests
With the enthusiastic connivance of the Australian Government (more precisely, prime minister Robert Menzies, who bypassed his cabinet), the British detonated about a dozen nukes in our backyard. More than 8000 servicemen were involved in the tests and the measures for their safety were perfunctory at best and criminal at worst.
‘Death ash’ rains on betrayed men, Courier Mail Terry Sweetman , The Sunday Mail (Qld) February 24, 2013
ONE of the great ironies of history is that the Japanese fishing boat that took 23 men into the fiery breath of America’s first hydrogen bomb was called the Lucky Dragon No 5.
That was on March 1, 1954, which is ancient history to most Australians, but there is a tragic echo right here and right now.
Lucky Dragon was fishing off Bikini Atoll, outside the declared danger zone, when the Castle Bravo thermonuclear device was detonated.
Oops. The blast was about twice as powerful as the boffins had calculated and the Lucky Dragon was showered with radioactive dust, which the Japanese poetically called death ash.
Soon the fishermen began to suffer nausea, pain and skin inflammation and, in September, radio operator Kuboyama Aikichi died.
It was a shocking incident but more shocking was the initial cover-up and official disinformation. Continue reading
The uranium market is a dead cat, even in China, for the foreseeable future
It’s now clear that the “nuclear renaissance” is dead in the US.
The situation in Europe, and of course in Japan, is even worse. Again, and despite the absence of cheap gas, the economics simply don’t stack up
[China’s] plans for renewables have been steadily upgraded, China’s nuclear plans were scaled back substantially after Fukushima…. the establishment of a track record of safe construction and operation in China will take at least a decade, which means that any global renaissance won’t start delivering benefits until after 2030.
the current decline looks set to continue for a long time. Unless new mines are profitable at prices of $40/tonne or less, they will probably be uneconomic.
Uranium exports: bonanza or bust? http://johnquiggin.com/2013/02/23/uranium-exports-bonanza-or-bust/ February 23rd, 2013 John Quiggin Note: The usual sitewide ban on discussions of nuclear power is lifted, for this post only
Queensland’s ban on uranium mining was lifted last year, and a committee is due to report soon on the conditions under which mining might be restarted. As recently as a year ago, the prospects for uranium exports looked bright, despite the Fukushima disaster. In March last year, the Bureau of Resource and Energy Economics predicted “prices close to $100 a pound between now and 2015, rising to $124 in 2016 and $141.6 in 2017, in constant 2011-12 Australian dollars.”
In reality, however, the price has fallen to $US43/pound in early 2013 and looks set to decline further. Looking ahead, the future of nuclear power looks bleaker than at any time since the industry began. Continue reading
At Hanford Nuclear Reservation , 6 waste tanks are leaking radioactive water and sludge
At The Hanford Nuclear Reservation, A Steady Drip Of Toxic Trouble by Eric Nusbaum Feb 24, 2013 Eric Nusbaum tours the largest environmental cleanup operation the United States government has ever undertaken.This month, the Department of Energy announced that a tank at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State is leaking up to 300 gallons of radioactive waste a year. Then last week, Washington governor Jay Inslee corrected that figure: a total of six tanks are leaking. To people unfamiliar with Hanford, this might sound mildly apocalyptic. Nuclear sludge left over from Cold War plutonium production is drip drip dripping into American soil, infiltrating the groundwater, slowly making its way into our rivers. But to Washington residents and Hanford observers, the leak is just another in a long line of mild disasters at America’s most contaminated nuclear waste site, a radioactive drop in the already-polluted Columbia River.
The reactions by politicians to this news have come off like bad attempts at satire. Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, the chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resource Commission, has said that he will make Hanford cleanup a priority during upcoming confirmation hearings for the next energy secretary. Washington governor Inslee assured residents that the leaks posed no immediate danger. “We were told this problem was dealt with years ago, and was under control,” Inslee said after the initial announcement. There is so much impotence behind those words that you can almost see the governor shrugging his shoulders. After all, Inslee knows as well as anybody that the larger problem of Hanford was not dealt with years ago. Nor is it adequately being dealt with now.
Hanford is the worst kind of mess: the kind that humanity is capable of making, but not capable of cleaning up. It was the home of the world’s first full-scale plutonium reactor and the epicenter of American nuclear production during the Cold War. Now the 586-square mile campus is the subject of the largest environmental cleanup operation the United States government has ever undertaken. There are other sites in America with long nuclear histories — places like Oak Ridge, Los Alamos, Yucca Mountain. But none have become sprawling disasters with quite as much panache as Hanford.
The entire city of Los Angeles could fit rather comfortably within Hanford’s borders in southeastern Washington, but the human and environmental consequences of Hanford have spread beyond those borders, across Washington and Oregon. A decade ago a rash of radioactive tumbleweeds blew across the nearby plains. In the early 1960s, an irradiated whale was killed off the Oregon coast, having apparently been contaminated by nuclear waste flowing down the Columbia River. Hanford does not have the feel of a seeping hellscape — the problems there are slow-developing and spread out —but it does have a real effect on the environment and people around it…….http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/24/at-the-hanford-nuclear-reservation-a-steady-drip-of-toxic-trouble.html
Queensland’s Premier blames rising electricity prices on solar energy: this doesn’t ring true
Newman playing dangerous game of solar politics REneweconomy, By Giles Parkinson 25 February 2013 Queensland Premier Campbell Newman and his team feigned to receive the shock of their lives when the Queensland Competition Authority delivered its recommended 21 per cent price hike for the 2013/14 year.
And there were no prizes for guessing who Newman would blame – rooftop solar, the carbon price and the federal Government. Anyone but himself, and his own team.
Queensland consumers should be worried about rising electricity prices. But they should be more concerned about a government that clings to a century old energy system, is relying on short-term bandaid solutions such as price freezes, and is refusing to adapt or embrace to the new technologies and business models that will deliver the cost-effective solutions of the future.
Solar, carbon, and Gillard are easy targets to wrap up in a sound bite and a newspaper or internet headline. But by sheeting the blame on renewables, and by appearing more focused on protecting the revenues of the state-owned network providers and generators – possibly because those assets are up for sale – Newman is digging himself into an even bigger hole and causing even greater pain for the public.
Energy experts say the Newman policy cocktail – a combination of state subsidies on electricity use, price freezes, tariff designs that add fixed costs and do not encourage peak demand reduction or energy efficiency, and his choice of demonising new technology rather than embracing it, will simply accelerate a spiral towards stranded assets rather than an efficient network.
Even the QCA got into the anti-renewable rhetoric late last week, suggesting in its press release that the increases were partly the result of the rising cost of renewable energy targets. But its own report tells us the opposite is true. The cost of the large scale target is steady (and might produce some benefit to the state if it bothered to actually built something), and the costs of the small scale scheme (rooftop solar PV and solar hot water) will fall by 17.1%, according to the QCA figures….. http://reneweconomy.com.au/2013/newman-playing-dangerous-game-of-solar-politics-21866
Mildura area(Victoria) to get revolutionary new solar spin cell project
Solar Spin Cells To Be Manufactured Near Mildura http://www.energymatters.com.au/index.php?main_page=news_article&article_id=3609, 25 Feb 13, A major solar project has been announced for north-west Victoria’s large-scale industrial hub at Thurla, south of Mildura. SIL Global Limited (SILG) has acquired a 20-acre site at Thurla Industrial Park and a licence to manufacture solar products for the US technology developer V3Solar Corporation.
Construction of the manufacturing and assembly plant will begin this year says President of V3 Solar, Michael Neistat.
“The facility will enable production of spin cells for the second stage of the SILG solar power generation plant. The plant will allow us to implement our plan to build a solar generation plant comprising 800,000 spin cell units – the largest power station of its type in the world.”
The Thurla Industrial Park is evolving as a hub for large-scale industrial development in north west Victoria and the estate’s developer, Col Beasley, says the new interest from solar heralds what will be the strongest year of employment and economic growth in the park’s history.
“The new players in the solar field are going to be the catalyst for a lot of other industries going in out here,” he said. “It’s exciting that the vision we had when we started the industrial estate is starting to come together now.”
The Thurla Industrial Park has attracted a strong mix of industrial and technology clients, due mainly to its location and large lot sizes.
“We’re getting more and more inquiries. It’s been surprisingly strong and seems to be generated mostly by these solar announcements and by our location as a cross-road between Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide,” Mr Beasley said.
Thurla Industrial Park is located at Red Cliffs in Victoria’s Sunraysia region, 16 km south of Mildura and 544 km north-west of Melbourne.
Queenslanders to get huge hike in electricity prices – but they can still go solar
Electricity Bills In Queensland To Jump 21% http://www.energymatters.com.au/index.php?main_page=news_article&article_id=3608 25 Feb 13, Electricity bills in Queensland look set to rise again from July 1 for households and businesses; with low consumption households feeling the biggest effects.
A draft determination by the Queensland Competition Authority shows an increase in annual bills for average households on Tariff 11 of $253 a year.
Businesses in Queensland will bear the burden of a 12% – 16% rise.
The main components in the increase are related to network costs followed by retailer costs.
Households that have been particularly energy efficient will be punished under the proposed increases.
“Previously, the Tariff 11 service charge has been too low and the usage charge has been too high. So low-use customers have not been paying enough to
cover the costs of their supply and high-use customers have been paying more than the cost of their supply,” says the QCA
“This is changing, so that customers’ bills better reflect the costs of their electricity use. As a result, low consumption customers will see a high percentage increase in their bill as the fixed service fee is increased.”
The QCA is seeking feedback on the draft determination and its Final Determination will be released by the end of May 2013.
The added financial burden could see more households making the switch to solar; particularly among the 42,000 Queenslanders who were approved for the 44c feed in tariff last year; but are yet to install a system.
According to data from national solar provider Energy Matters, applicants that gained approval for the 44c feed in tariff last year could miss out on over $70,000 in financial benefits over the life of a 5kW solar power system if they fail to have an array installed by the deadline.
Energy Matters states applicants do not have to purchase their system from the solar company noted on the original application. With a rush on installation bookings expected to start soon, the company encourages applicants to call Energy Matters on 133 SUN (133 786) for further details.
For those who didn’t receive approval for the 44c, installing solar is still an effective way to reduce electricity bills. For example, Energy Matters states a 3kW system installed in Queensland can provide $1,066 – $1,470 in electricity bill savings annually.
China’s new President set to cut coal use, promote renewable energy
Xi Jinping promises a cleaner, greener energy future in China BY SCOTT MURDOCH The Australian February 09, 2013 IN every country new governments bring new promises. China’s incoming president, Xi Jinping, who assumes control of the emerging economic superpower next month, is no different, making a range of pledges in the lead-up to his appointment. So far Xi has promised to lift the minimum wage, offer better healthcare to more people and reduce the nation’s heavy reliance on coal-fired power generation.
The government is offering generous incentives to encourage renewable energy sources to become more popular and reliable in the country with a population of 1.35 billion people.
After three weeks of Beijing being covered in the thick fog of pollution and with temperatures as cold as minus 14C in the capital this week, the question now is whether Xi can deliver on his promise of a cleaner, greener energy future in China.
Since the coal cap was announced, the Chinese government has moved to ready the population for the proposed increase in renewable energy. As part of its clean-green policy, the State Council announced on Thursday night that geothermal energy would provide 50 million tonnes of coal equivalent by 2020.
It said the renewable source would then provide 20 million tonnes a year and a national information system would be set up to help the population adjust.
It is estimated that as part of the change geothermal energy will provide heating for 500 million square metres of housing within the same timeframe.
The government also announced that up to 5000 small coalmines would be closed in the next two years. The move was attributed to improving mine safety, in which China has a poor track record, but no doubt the reduced reliance on coal played a part in the decision.
Like most governments, China has been keen to lift its solar power production as part of its renewable energy transformation….
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 