Nuclear Weapons company gets go-ahead for South Australian uranium mine
Final environmental OK for Four Mile World Nuclear news, 16 August 2013 The start of operation of the Four Mile uranium mine in South Australia has moved a step closer with final environmental approval. However, the project partners have yet to agree on a development plan.
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The state Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) has now granted a mining and mineral processing licence for Four Mile. The licence also covers radiation and radioactive waste management plans for the in-situ leach (ISL) mine…..
The Four Mile project is a joint venture between Alliance Resources (25%) and Quasar Resources (75%). The project is managed by Heathgate Resources affiliate Quasar. Both Quasar and Heathgate are subsidiaries of US-based General Atomic Technologies Corp.….
Disputes delay start-up
The start of production from the project has been stymied by legal disputes between Alliance, Quasar and Heathgate. There are on-going Federal Court proceedings by Alliance seeking restitution of its full ownership of the Four Mile deposit due to delays and disagreements.
In May 2012, Alliance said it had agreed to form a strategic alliance with Japanese trading house Itochu Corporation. Under the terms of this, Itochu will have the right to acquire a 14.9% shareholding in Alliance within six months of all litigation being finally determined. Furthermore, within 12 months of that final determination, Itochu will have an option to acquire a further 25.1% shareholding in Alliance.
Four Mile uranium project – Australia’s dirtiest and most dangerous uranium connection
(Christina Macpherson, originally posted on 4 Nov 2012) Leaving aside its nasty little internal squabbles, Australia’s fifth uranium mine Four Mile uranium project in South Australia is without doubt the most striking example of all that is wrong about Australia’s uranium industry. Well, next door, is Beverley mine – equally bad. But they’re practically the same, in that they are both practically owned by USA’s General Atomics. Neal Blue is the chairman of Quasar Resources, which is affiliated with General Atomics, a major United States weapons and nuclear energy corporation. He is CEO of Heathgate Resources. a 100 per cent-owned subsidiary of General Atomics (GA) which owns Beverley uranium mine. He is Chairman of the Board of Directors for General Atomics
General Atomics has a murky history It develops nuclear technologies including arms manufacture. Especially those Predator drones which kill anybody that the Pentagon thinks is “suspicious” in Iraq and Afghanistan. Neal Blue was one of the designers of Predator. At its uranium processing plant on an Indian reservation in Oklahoma, General Atomics for years covered up radioactive water and gas leaks.
General Atomic has spent $thousands’ lobbying and ferrying of USA politicians to Australia, , and Australian federal and state politicians to USA . In 2000 Heathgate applauded police brutality against environmentalists and local Aboriginal people. An online video clip details this brutality. the police action (in a 2000 media release which is no longer available online). After a 10-year legal case, 10 people were awarded a total of $700,000 damages.
General Atomics flew a group from the US Congress to Australia, accompanied by company executives, to persuade the Federal Government to buy the company’s Predator unmanned aircraft
As well as its interest in unmanned spy planes, General Atomics has employed human spies. In 2008 it was caught hiring a former undercover police officer turned private investigator to infiltrate Australian environment groups and report on their actions.
In 2008 General Atomics and Neal Blue were sued for fraudulently hiking uranium prices and manipulating costs. In the settlement One of General Atomics’s customers, Exelon, received $US41 million from the company. It is estimated Mr Blue made $US200 million by breaking the contracts and selling uranium on the spot market
Heathgate Resources have been promoting the view that low-level radiation is beneficial, and funding the Australian visits of people like Dr Doug Dr Boreham prepared to promote those views.
Heathgate is not required to clean up Four Mile uranium mine. and there is no requirement it decontaminate the Beverley site when mining ceases. Christina Macpherson 25 Oct 12,
Go-ahead for disputed uranium joint venture BY: BARRY FITZGERALD From: The Australian October 25, 2012 THE much-delayed Four Mile uranium project in South Australia – a joint venture between ASX-listed Alliance Resources (25 per cent) and US group Heathgate (75 per cent) – is finally being developed.
Liberal and Labor pander to mining industry in plan for tax favours to Northern Territory
Greens leader Christine Milne says Labor’s vision for the north panders to the wishes of the mining lobby.
Gone Troppo: Northern visions just ‘pie in sky’ ABC News, Staff reporters Aug 16, 2013 A respected independent think tank says both major parties are pursuing the worst idea in decades with their plans for tax incentives to encourage investment in northern Australia.
The Australia Institute executive director Richard Denniss says Labor and the Coalition are pursuing bad policy in a bid to win a handful of seats north of the Tropic of Capricorn. “The idea that the national debate should revolve around shifting billions, tens of billions of infrastructure up away from Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane to chase a few seats up north is politics gone mad,” he said…..
Dr Denniss says it is worrying that there is bipartisan support for the ideas. “There is bipartisan consensus that people in the southern states should continue to pay taxes at the same rate so that we can build new infrastructure, so that people can pay less tax up there,” he said.
“Sydney and Melbourne are creaking under the weight of rapid population growth, and we want to build infrastructure for imaginary cities.” Continue reading
Victorian farmers part-owners in Wimmera’s new wind farm
hopes Coonooer Bridge will be the first of many other small projects involving groups of farmers.
Coonooer Bridge locals win with wind farm http://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/article/2013/08/16/579559_national-news.html 16 Aug 13, THESE new turbines will help the locals, writes CHRIS McLENNAN To call them mountains would be a stretch: the highest peak on the Yawong Hills rises only to 434 metres.
This formerly unremarkable sheep-grazing country is suddenly hot property.
Wind whistles across the Wimmera plains. The inland side of the Great Divide has nothing to block this steady breeze which is forced up and over this low range at Coonooer Bridge between Charlton and St Arnaud.
Scientists have studied this phenomenon for years and find the average wind speeds of more than eight metres a second amount to some of the best renewable energy resources in the world. Far from the Roaring Forties of Australia’s southern coast, where wind farms jostle for space in western Victoria, the search for green energy has found a new home.
The first wind farm to pass Victoria’s myriad planning obstacles for two years has just won approval at Coonooer Bridge. There are only five turbines, but they are the first in Australia to be part-owned by the neighbouring farmers through Windlab. Continue reading
Concrete tomb – the latest idea for Fukushima nuclear plant
Bloomberg: Tepco now in talks to cover Fukushima reactors with concrete for next 75 years — Officials reviewing plan in U.S.http://enenews.com/just-in-tepco-now-in-talks-to-cover-fukushima-reactors-with-concrete-for-next-75-years-officials-reviewing-plan-with-u-s-experts
(at left – Chernobyl’s concrete tomb building in progress)
Title: Nagasaki Bomb Maker Offers Lessons for Japan’s Fukushima Cleanup
Source: Bloomberg
Author: Shigeru Sato & Yuji Okada
Date: Aug. 15, 2013
[… Tepco] has sent engineers on visits to the Hanford site in Washington state this year to learn from decades of work treating millions of gallons of radioactive waste. Hanford also has a method to seal off reactors known as concrete cocooning that could reduce the 11 trillion yen ($112 billion) estimated cost for cleaning up Fukushima. […] Continue reading
Costly, long-drawn out process of entombing Chernobyl’s shattered nuclear reactor
Chernobyl copes with nuclear fallout a quarter-century on, Global Post Jakub Parusinski February 25, 2013 As a new structure around the destroyed nuclear reactor goes up, life for locals remains blighted. The so-called exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was once home to some 120,000 people, who were evacuated following the reactor meltdown at in 1986. Trees that sprouted in living rooms are now pushing through rooftops inside this highly contaminated, sealed off area, while wild horses and wolves roam the woods.
However, there are also some 7,000 people working here, including almost 3,000 at the plant itself.
An international fund managed by theEuropean Bank for Reconstruction and Development is spending an estimated $2 billion to build a new confinement shelter to protect the world from Chernobyl’s radioactivity for the next 100 years……Built by a French-led consortium, the 360-foot giant hangar-like casing is being constructed with modern equipment on infrastructure that’s better maintained than in the capital Kyiv, 70 miles to the south. While hundreds in the Ukrainian capital injure themselves every day slipping on ice-covered sidewalks, roads in the exclusion zone are swept clean for a stream of cement trucks….. Completion of the reactor confinement structure, set for 2015, will calm longstanding fears about a collapse of the current sarcophagus. Those living around the zone face a less certain future. … http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/130221/chernobyl-nuclear-reactor-confinement
International Atomic Energy Agency’s mission to downplay health effects of radiation
The IAEA wants the people make believe, that the main effect of the atomic catastrophe is psychological.
The Nuclear Cancer inside of the United Nations, blog by Jan Hemmer, June 1, 2013 by Mikkai 妊娠中の日本人女性の避難す
22nd July 1946 – Creation of World Health Organiation (WHO)
10th December 1948 – The UN adopts the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
July 1957 – Creation of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
28th May 1959 – Signing of the Agreement WHA 12-40 between WHO and IAEA.
The UN is divided into 7 organisations, of which two are of interest to us, the Economic and Social Council and the Security Council. The “Economic and Social Council” oversees ALL the United Nations agencies with the exception of the “IAEA”. In fact, the IAEA is the only agency that reports directly to the “Security Council” which is made up of representatives of 15 countries, of which 5 are permanent members of the Council : the United States, the Untied Kingdom, the Russian Federation, China and France. These 5 nations are all nuclear powers, both civil and military, and almost all are exporters of nuclear technology.
The 10 remaining members (or countries) have a mandate which lasts for 2 years.
The influence of these 5 permanent members of the Security Council on policy making within the IAEA is enormous and ongoing. With no counterbalancing power, it is almost impossible to claim that the IAEA has an objective view of the nuclear industry and the consequences of its use.
On 28th May 1959, the IAEA (not yet two years old !) and WHO signed an agreement referred to as “WHA 12-40” which, though it might, on paper, appear balanced and reciprocal, in practice, puts WHO in a subordinate position to the IAEA.
The IAEA wants the people make believe, that the main effect of the atomic catastrophe is psychological. This is made in these steps: Continue reading
BHP Billiton under investigation for corruption
BHP Billiton could be facing legal action by US over possible breach of anti-corruption laws ABC News, By business reporter Pat McGrath Aug 16, 2013 Global miner BHP Billiton has revealed it could be facing legal action by US authorities over a potential breach of anti-corruption laws.
The company says the investigation relates to “previously terminated exploration and development efforts, as well as hospitality provided as part of the company’s sponsorship of the 2008 Beijing Olympics”.
BHP announced in April 2010 that it was being investigated by the US Securities and Exchange Commission over possible violations of laws involving interactions with government officials.
In a statement, the company says the Australian Federal Police has also begun an investigation……… http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-08-16/bhp-reveals-target-of-us-investigation/4891340
Renewable energy for a positive economic future in New South Wales Coastal Region
“Solar power, sustainable crop waste biomass and energy efficiency are big employers. Pushing the change rapidly lays the basis for a jobs-rich export industry.
“Both the major parties are captured by the fossil fuel lobby.
“The next federal election is make or break for the climate and for jobs in this electorate,”
Energy future: gas or renewable? http://www.camdencourier.com.au/story/1710272/energy-future-gas-or-renewable/?cs=704 Aug. 16, 2013, The Greens are promoting their plan to make NSW’s electricity supply 100 percent renewable, citing the environmental, health and employment benefits for the Lyne electorate. Greens NSW MP John Kaye will be in Taree and Port Macquarie this Saturday 17 August to talk about the party’s plans for a 100% renewable energy future within 15 years.
Despite the propaganda from the coal seam gas industry and the big energy companies, Dr Kaye will be explaining why all fossil fuels and new transmission lines are unnecessary for keeping the lights on and growing the economy.
Dr Kaye, who will be joined by Ian Oxenford who is contesting the seat of Lyne in the upcoming federal election for the Greens, will outline how a transition to 100% clean green energy technologies will benefit the communities on the Mid North Coast. Continue reading
A (VERY) critical look at the nuclear advertising film “Pandora’s Promise”
The movie also illustrates that none of its five layman “converts” to pro-nuke views knows enough about nuclear plants or other energy solutions to evaluate them fairly. They only know the Nuclear Dream.
A Nuclear Submariner Challenges a Pro-Nuclear Film NYT, By ANDREW C. REVKIN, 16 Aug 13 John Dudley Miller, a former nuclear engineering officer in the Navy with a doctorate in social psychology and a long career in journalism, sent this “Your Dot” critique of “Pandora’s Promise,” the new documentary defending nuclear power,
When I saw “Pandora’s Promise,” I didn’t believe a word of it. I served as a submarine nuclear engineering officer for my four-year stint in the Navy years ago. I qualified as an Engineering Officer of the Watch (a guy who’s in charge of the plant and its other technicians during four-hour shifts) on two different sub reactors. I know the truth about reactors, and the movie replaces it with the demonstrably false Nuclear Dream, a just-so mythical story claiming that nukes are safe, clean and cheap…..
the movie – It spews out a stream of untruths, for instance, telling us only that Chernobyl killed56 people. It leaves out that a United Nations World Health Organization agency predicts 16,000 more will die from Chernobyl cancers and that the European Environment Agency estimates 34,000 more. It omits that non-fatalthyroid cancer struck another 6,000, mostly children
Even the movie’s two reactor designers distort truth. Physicist Charles Till claims that fast-breeder reactors are inherently safe. Actually, they’re riskier than ordinary reactors. Hans Bethe, Manhattan Project scientist and Nobel laureate, calculated in 1956 that if a breeder’s liquid sodium coolant leaked out, it could melt in 40 seconds, become a small unintended atom bomb and spontaneously explode. (Modern designers believe breeders are more likely to melt down like Three Mile Island than to explode like Chernobyl.)
The breeder reactors EBR-1 in Idaho and Fermi-1 near Detroit partially melted. Several breeders have suffered sodium coolant fires, because sodium automatically burns in air and explodes in water. Continue reading
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 