ERA, Rio Tinto, Paladin desperately hope that Fukushima is just a “bump in the road”
Japan goes nuclear-free The Motley Fool, By Justin Loiseau – September 16, 2013 Japan is closing down its last operating nuclear reactor for scheduled maintenance, putting the country in “nuclear-free” territory for the first time since the Fukushima crisis necessitated nationwide inspections two years ago. Japan has 50 commercial reactors nationwide, and the March 2011 Fukushima disaster marked the first time in over 40 years that the country pulled power exclusively from non-nuclear sources.
Japan is split on the future of this fuel. While Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and utilities point to the need for nuclear to meet Japan’s growing energy demands, the general public and environmental activist groups remain apprehensive about the safety of local reactors.
Japan and Australia may be oceans apart, but the two countries are closely linked. Energy Resources of Australia (ASX: ERA) is one of the largest uranium producers in the world, the secret sauce of nuclear reactors. Rio Tinto (ASX: RIO) has a 64% stake in the company as well, and Japan’s exit from nuclear could push prices down drastically if it bids adieu indefinitely. Paladin Energy (ASX: PDN) and its 82%-owned Summit Resources(ASX: SMM) subsidiary tell a similar story. Spot prices have already dropped from $65 highs in 2011 and are currently hovering around $35, similar to 2006 markets.
Japan’s nuclear notions are unclear, and proponents of the energy have warned of blackouts if the country doesn’t jump back on the nuclear track. Opponents, including Greenpeace Japan, are instead pushing Japan to seize the opportunity to become a leader in renewable energy.
Regardless of the ultimate outcome, this latest nuclear shutdown is another bump in the road (read “increased risk”) for nuclear energy and its uranium producers……http://www.fool.com.au/2013/09/16/japan-goes-nuclear-free/
Indigenous Affairs to be run by Prime Minister’s Office, and the unelected Indigenous Advisory Council
Senator hails change NT News, STAFF WRITERS | September 17th, 2013 TERRITORY Senator Nigel Scullion is the country’s new Indigenous Affairs Minister………The administration of the portfolio will now rest within the Prime Minister’s office – not the Indigenous Affairs Department.
“Having the support of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet ensures that I will have influence across all portfolios,” he said.
Senator Scullion has already met with Indigenous Advisory Council chair Warren Mundine and said they shared “common ground on most issues”……http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2013/09/17/325000_ntnews.html
TEPCO’s huge release of Fukushima water into Pacific Ocean
Japan Radiation Doomsday: Typhoon Man-yi Pushes Fukushima Operator to Release Contaminated Rainwater into Pacific Ocean, Assures Low Radiation Levels International Business Times By Esther Tanquintic-Misa | September 17, 2013 Waving Typhoon Man-yi as a reasonable enough excuse, the operator of the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant has again dislodged contaminated water, this time in the guise of rainwater, into the Pacific Ocean. Fearing the heavy rains dumped by Typhoon Man-yi will flood and further devastate the Fukushima nuclear power plant, operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) decided to open its barriers to release the water through drainage ditches into the ocean. This happened around 12:40 pm on Monday.
However, Japanese media outlets reported the amount of contaminated rainwater remained unknown. It further confronted TEPCO if it first measured the toxicity of the contaminated rainwater before releasing it into the ocean….. http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/506536/20130917/japan-radiation-doomsday-typhoon-man-yi-fukushima.htm#.Ujn5N9JwonE
Typhoon in Japan, 1000 tons of radioactive water dumped into ocean
Fukushima Operator Dumps 1,000 Tons Of Polluted Water In Sea http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/17/fukushima-polluted-water-sea_n_3939014.html Agence France Presse 09/17/2013 The operator of the leaking Fukushima nuclear plant said Tuesday that it dumped more than 1,000 tons of polluted water into the sea after a typhoon raked the facility.
Typhoon Man-yi smashed into Japan on Monday, bringing with it heavy rain that caused flooding in some parts of the country, including the ancient city of Kyoto. The rain also lashed near the broken plant run by Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO), swamping enclosure walls around clusters of water tanks containing toxic water that was used to cool broken reactors. Continue reading
Strong support for solar power in Japan, as it passes the 10 gigawatt mark.
Solar energy reaches new milestone in Japan http://www.hydrogenfuelnews.com/solar-energy-reaches-new-milestone-japan/8513955/ 17 September 2013.
Japan hits 10GW of installed solar energy capacity
As Japan continues to look for alternatives to fossil-fuels and nuclear power, the country has reached a major milestone concerning solar energy. A recent study conducted by NPD Solarbuzz, a research organization focused on solar energy, found that Japanese photovoltaic installations surpassed the 10 gigawatt mark. This makes Japan only the fifth country in the world to reach this milestone. The other four are Italy, China, Germany, and the U.S. Continue reading
Wind farmers find the industry profitable and benign – no “wind farm syndrome”
Wind turbine syndrome: farm hosts tell very different story The Conversation, Simon Chapman Professor of Public Health at University of Sydney 18 Sept 13 People who host wind turbines on their properties and derive rental income from wind energy companies have important stories to tell about living alongside turbines, but they’ve largely been absent from the debate on wind farms and health. Australian filmmaker and researcher Neil Barrett is finally giving this critical group a voice in his new short film, The way the wind blows, released today.
Turbine hosts at Waubra earn A$8,000 a year for each turbine on their land. In the bush, the expression that wind farms can “drought-proof a farm” is common: a land owner with ten turbines can wake up each morning comfortable in the thought that a tough year with poor rain or bad frosts can be ridden out, thanks to income from wind generation.
All of Barrett’s interviewees say they can hear the turbines but none say they are bothered by them or suffer from any health problems they attribute to the turbines. Continue reading
UK’s new technology – the Solar Pyramid
The Solar Powered Pyramid http://www.energymatters.com.au/index.php?main_page=news_article&article_id=3947 18 Sept 13 The sight of solar panels on a rooftop mightn’t generally capture as much attention as it once did, but this installation certainly does.
Designed and installed by Scotland’s Sustainable Renewable Technologies (SRT), the 48.25 kW installation provides 85% of the power used by the pyramid-shaped headquarters of Survey Solutions at Bilston Glen, Loanhead, Edinburgh.
According to SRT, other solar companies approached to execute the installation shied away from the project; stating that it could not be done.
Design of the scaffolding system that would allow the panels to be positioned in place was quite a challenge, but even more so was the clients’ requirement that each face of the pyramid to be covered in solar panels must be a perfect triangle. There could be none of the stepping that would otherwise be seen with square solar cells of the cut-down panels along edges.
To achieve the “perfect triangle” effect wasn’t so much a case of high-tech wizardry, but more design ingenuity – the panels along the edge are dummies and do not generate power. The 193 panel array will provide a benefit to the building’s owners of around AUD$17,000 annually and avoid the creation of around 36 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions each year.
The system was installed in July 2012 and has been nominated for this year’s Solar Power Portal Awards, which recognises good practice, professionalism, quality, safety and innovation in the UK’s solar industry.
The SRT installation is unsurprisingly in the “Most Innovative System Design,” category. Also not surprising is the comment from Tom King, SRT’s managing director, who said the installation was the most challenging project he has planned so far.
We imagine the project has resulted in all sorts of weird and wonderful design requests for Mr. King and his team.
Ambitious community wind farm project for Fremantle?
Fremantle Community Wind Farm , Pozible, By Claire Vanderplank, Raoul Abrutat, Louis Kent, Rowan Gallagher, Michael Fuller and Jamie Ally The Fremantle Community Wind Farm is an ambitious project to build 8 to 12 community-owned wind turbines along the breakwaters at Fremantle Port. With 8 turbines sized to fit within the port landscape, the project would produce enough electricity for 3300 average Australian homes.
We are so passionate about this project. It will produce clean energy and distribute profits locally. With Fremantle’s connection to the wind and water and its identity as a progressive city, the project has great potential to produce cultural and social capital. It also has educational and awareness-raising potential due to the prominent location. Check out our website and Facebook page for all the details.
The project is at a critical point in time; ready to go ahead however facing one key barrier, land access. The community’s voice is required to make it happen. There are too many myths and misperceptions blowing around regarding wind farms that are holding this, and other projects, back. We are on a mission to set things straight.
Exposing the garbage propaganda from the anti wind farm lobby
More than two-thirds of Australian wind farms including more than half of those with large turbines have never received a single complaint. Two whole states – Western Australia and Tasmania – have seen no complaints.
Wind turbine syndrome: farm hosts tell very different story The Conversation, Simon Chapman Professor of Public Health at University of Sydney 18 Sept 13 “………Laurie and the Waubra Foundation have done all they can to spread concern about the harms they allege are caused by living near wind farms. One former Waubra resident has been particularly prominent, speaking emotionally at anti-wind farm meetings about how wind farms have ruined his health and caused his family to move to Ballarat, at great personal expense.
In a statement that would be of immense interest to Apple, Samsung and Nokia, he recently told a meeting in Barringhup that electricity generated by wind turbines started charging his cell phone without it being plugged in:
I’ve had my … mobile phone go into charge mode in the middle of the paddock, away from everywhere.
In 2012, he wrote a public submission to a parliamentary inquiry where he revealed he had suffered a serious head injury some eight years before the wind farm opened in 2010:
I have been in brain training care and rehabilitation for about ten years because of an unfortunate, unrelated accident.
Indeed, the most common health complaints voiced by complainants are problems such as disturbed sleep, anxiety, hypertension and normal problems of ageing that are very prevalent in all communities, regardless of whether they have wind farms.
Continue reading
Abbott government to fast track sales of uranium to India
India-Australia nuclear agreement back on track with government change in Australia By ET Bureau | 17 Sep, 2013 DIPANJAN ROY CHAUDHURY NEW DELHI: The return of the Tony Abbott-led Conservatives to power in Australia has put back on fast-track the talks for the nuclear deal. Australia, the world’s largest uranium reserves holder, and India have already held two rounds of negotiations for a ‘safeguard’ agreement that will enable uranium sales for India’s nuclear power plants. “The last round of talks was held in July and the next is scheduled for later this year,” Australian High Commissioner Patrick Suckling told media on the day Abbott announced his cabinet. While senior officials in the Australian government have refused to put a timeframe for the agreement, they are hopeful that it would be concluded soon.
According to Suckling, setting a date is tough as sometimes even straight-looking issues become complex and drag issues. In 2011, the previous Labour government in Australia changed its long-held stance and reversed the ban on selling uranium to India that has not signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT).
It was Abbott’s party that had decided to sell uranium to India in their last term in power and now they are keen to expedite the process. …….http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/india-australia-nuclear-agreement-back-on-track-with-government-change-in-australia/articleshow/22639037.cms
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) – what it meant for Aboriginal Australia
History of government and Aboriginal Affairs prior to 1967 and after The Stringer, by Delephene Fraser September 17th, 2013…..…….History of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC)
ATSIC became part of the Australian legislation in 1989 and the government appointed Lois (Lowitija) O Donoghue as ATSIC first Chairperson, ATSIC flung open it doors in March 1990. section 3 of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission Act 1989 sets out ATSIC objectives as follows:
- To ensure maximum participation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in government policy
- To promote Indigenous self-management and self-sufficiency
- To further Indigenous economic, social and cultural development, and
- To ensure co-ordination of Commonwealth, state and territory and local government policy affecting Indigenous people.
In order to achieve these objectives, ASTIC was to:
· Advise governments at all levels on Indigenous issues
· Advocate the recognition of Indigenous rights on behalf of Indigenous peoples regionally and nationally and internationally
· Deliver and monitor some of the Commonwealth government Indigenous programs and services. Continue reading
Making coal seam gas seem clean – by changing its name
More CSG Greenwashing? http://www.energymatters.com.au/index.php?main_page=news_article&article_id=3948 18 Sept 13, What’s been a good way in the past to distance a nasty product from its bad reputation? Simply change its name. However, the strategy isn’t so effective these days in an increasingly online world where news travels fast.
According to a report on the ABC, a briefing note from the office of Resources Minister Chris Hartcher suggests changes be made to the way the coal seam gas (CSG) industry and fuel is described within Government communications and texts. Instead of the crisp ‘CSG’ term or ‘coal seam gas’, it seems Mr. Hartcher would like to see it referred to as ‘natural gas from coal seams’ and that references to coal seam gas or CSG be removed from sentences.
‘Natural’ may work as an effective greenwashing term for some products; but the recommended change won’t fool many – it will (and has already) just further incited those dedicated to exposing the many serious issues involved with extracting the fossil fuel. In addition to the interruptions to agriculture and potential contamination of water supplies; according to Zero Emissions and other sources, coal seam gas is even more emissions intensive than coal when total lifecycle emissions are taken into account.
Research recently carried out by scientists at the University of Queensland determined that not only would a shift from coal-fired to gas-fired electricity generation in Australia fail to deliver significantly lower carbon dioxide emissions;wholesale electricity prices would be higher than with a renewable energy option.
According to Aidan Ricketts from CSG Free Northern Rivers, quoted by theNorthern Star; the attempt to relabel coal seam gas is “.. just another example of the government falling in line with industry. They’re trying to get away from the words which have become poison.”
It would seem changing how CSG is referred to is just a case of putting lipstick on a particularly filthy and greedy pig.
New equipment: old problems – ERA’s Kakadu uranium plans in focus
Environment Centre NT, 17 Sept 13, Uranium miner Energy Resources of Australia will unveil its new brine concentrator – a long overdue piece of infrastructure that seeks to address both chronic water management problems and contaminated process water – at its aging Ranger uranium mine in Kakadu on Thursday.
The Ranger mine has been plagued with water and waste management problems that have caused extended shutdowns and deep concerns about impact on the World Heritage Kakadu National Park. “The new infrastructure is a long overdue and welcome initiative,” said Lauren Mellor, Nuclear Free NT Campaigner with the Environment Centre NT.
“The delay in commissioning this key piece of equipment is a poor reflection on ERA’s commitment to rehabilitation, given the company’s long history of water mismanagement. That ERA has been allowed to continue mining and expanding its waste water inventory, now estimated at eleven gigalitres, without having an effective waste water management plan or the ability to treat process water shows a disturbing lack of regulatory rigour.” Continue reading
Maurice Newman, Tony Abbott, John Howard, get behind climate denialist campaign
Tony Abbott’s business advisor attacks “myth” of climate change http://reneweconomy.com.au/2013/tony-abbotts-business-advisor-attacks-myth-climate-change-53017 By Giles Parkinson on 17 September 2013 Maurice Newman, the former chairman of the ABC and the ASX who will be the chair of Tony Abbott’s Business Advisory Council, has launched an attack against the CSIRO, the weather bureau and the “myth” of anthropological climate change.
In an opinion piece written for the Australian Financial Review, Newman said much of the public service infrastructure would be resistant to change because of their “vested interests” in the status quo.
“The CSIRO, for example, has 27 scientists dedicated to climate change,” Newman wrote. “It and the weather bureau continue to propagate the myth of anthropological climate change and are likely to be background critics of the Coalition’s Direct Action policies.”
Given Newman’s dismissal of climate science, one wonders why he sees the need for Direct Action of any type. The answer possibly lies in the government’s updated policy position: Abbott has conceded that the government will no longer seek to reach even the minimum 5 per cent emission reduction target if its reduced budget of $3 billion falls short of requirements.
Newman’s comments came a day after it was revealed that Abbott’s mentor John Howard would address one of the world’s most prominent climate skeptics think tanks, and the portfolios of science and climate change had been subsumed into other ministries. Continue reading
Climate denial themes pushed by Murdoch media, in 5 stages
In Murdoch’s The Australian, Andrew Montford took a different approach to deny that we’re the cause of the problem, attacking the expert consensus on human-caused global warming. Specifically he attacked the Cook et al. (2013) study finding 97 percent consensus on this question in the peer-reviewed scientific literature.
The 5 stages of climate denial are on display ahead of the IPCC report, The Guardian, by Dana Nuccitelli Monday 16 September Climate contrarians appear to be running damage control in the media before the next IPCC report is published The fifth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report is due out on September 27th, and is expected to reaffirm with growing confidence that humans are driving global warming and climate change. In anticipation of the widespread news coverage of this esteemed report, climate contrarians appear to be in damage control mode, trying to build up skeptical spin in media climate stories. Just in the past week we’ve seen:
- The David Rose Mail on Sunday piece that treated scientific evidence in much the way bakers treat pretzel dough.
- Dr. John Christy interviewed by the Daily Mail;
- Christy’s colleague Dr. Roy Spencer in The Christian Post;
- Andrew Montford in Rupert Murdoch’s The Australian;
- Matt Ridley in Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal; and
- Bjorn Lomborg in The Washington Post.
Interestingly, these pieces spanned nearly the full spectrum of the 5 stages of global warming denial. Continue reading
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 