Following tank rupture, outlook dim for ERA’s Ranger uranium project
Leach tank failure impacts ERA’s uranium production results, Mining Australia,10 January, 2014 Vicky Validakis Production at ERA’s uranium mine took a 60 per cent hit in the December quarter after a leach tank rupture forced operations to close at the site.
While a slight fall in production was expected after the completion of mining in the high-grade open-cut Ranger pit, matters worsened for the miner when a leach tank at the site’s processing plant ruptured and collapsed, causing an acidic radioactive slurry spill.
The incident forced the shutdown of operations and a massive clean-up at the site, with the Federal Government announcing the mine will not be able to restart production operations without regulatory approval and the go ahead from a joint operation taskforce.
Processing operations remain suspended while clean-up and recovery operations at the Ranger processing plant are ongoing.
In an ASX announcement the Rio Tinto-owned ERA revealed uranium production for the December quarter was 503 tonnes, down 17 per cent on the preceding September quarter and 59 per cent down on the previous corresponding period.
The fall cut annual output by 20 per cent to 2960 tonnes……..approval may be difficult to come by with the Mirrar people previously stating that a number of safety incidents at the site had caused distrust.
In early November a mine left the site’s controlled areas sparking fears of contamination, while later that month four uranium storage barrels were discovered in bushland near Darwin.
“Day by day, litre by litre, incident by incident, they’re losing whatever trust traditional owners have in them,” Mirrar spokesperson Justin O’Brien said. http://www.miningaustralia.com.au/news/leach-tank-failure-impacts-era-s-uranium-productio
Practical problems in Tony Abbott’s climate change policy
Labor and the Greens are preparing to exploit the confusion with a Senate inquiry into direct action taking submissions until January 20 before it starts public hearings.
Tony Abbott’s climate change policy problematic January 11, 2014 SMH, Tom Arup, Peter Hannam The federal government’s new green paper reveals many practical problems with its policy to combat climate change.
When Australia’s new senators take their place in July they are likely to deliver Prime Minister Tony Abbott what he has promised for four years – the scrapping of the carbon tax.
But despite that looming victory the government is now finding out its other big climate promise – the development of a ”lasting and stable” alternative – may not be as simple as it had first suggested.
That alternative, called direct action, has had a long gestation period with then-opposition environment spokesman Greg Hunt devising its initial outline during the summer of 2009-10…….
Hunt emerged touting a scheme that has since been panned by many economists and environmentalists. Despite the doubters, Hunt is now preparing to implement it.
Direct action has two main elements. Continue reading
In Australia renewable energy now cheaper than fossil fuel
Renewables cheaper than fossil fuels in Australia BY DAVID TWOMEY · JANUARY 10, 2014 IT MAY COME AS A SHOCK TO SOME BUT EVEN WITHOUT A SUBSIDY THE COST OF RENEWABLE ENERGY IN AUSTRALIA HAS FALLEN TO THE EXTENT THAT IT IS NOW CHEAPER TO PRODUCE THAN CONVENTIONAL FOSSIL FUEL POWER SOURCES.
This has emerged from a study produced by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), and shows that even without a carbon price, wind energy is 14 per cent cheaper than new coal and 18 per cent cheaper than new gas.
The BNEF study should certainly provoke a rethink by Australia’s conservative Liberal-National government as it sets about trying to repeal the country’s carbon price laws and possibly change the Renewable Energy Target (RET).
Prices for both renewable energy and fossil fuel-based energy have been changing rapidly in Australia Continue reading
Small Modular Reactors will not revive moribund nuclear industry
IEER REPORT: Small Modular Reactors a “Poor Bet” to Revive Failed Nuclear Renaissance in U.S. AUDIO: Light Water Designs of Small Modular Reactors: Facts and Analysis http://ieer.org/resource/nuclear-power/light-water-designs-of-small-modular-reactors-facts-and-analysis/By Dr. Arjun Makhijani
Download the report, updated September 2013
$90 Billion in Initial Manufacturing Order Book Needed, Requiring Massive Involvement by the Chinese or Taxpayer-Backed Federal Subsidies;
Major Implications Seen for Companies and SMR Test Sites in FL, MO, NC, OR, PA, SC, and TN.
WASHINGTON, D.C.///August 8, 2013///A shift to “small modular reactors” (SMRs) is unlikely to breathe new life into the increasingly moribund U.S. nuclear power industry, since SMRs will likely require tens of billions of dollars in federal subsidies or government purchase orders, create new reliability vulnerabilities, as well as serious concerns in relation to both safety and proliferation, according a report issued today by the nonprofit Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER) think tank .
The IEER report has implications for SMR companies headquartered or with planned test sites in Florida, Missouri, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Tennessee.
Titled “Light Water Designs of Small Modular Reactors: Facts and Analysis the IEER report focuses on light water reactor (LWR) SMR designs, the development and certification of which the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is already subsidizing at taxpayer expense. Continue reading
Marshall Islanders – nuclear bomb test guinea pigs
U.S. Human Radiation Experiments Covered Up by Public Broadcasting Op Ed News, By William Boardman — Reader Supported News 10 Jan 14 “……..director [of film Nobles Savages] Adam Horowitz has been angry about American treatment of the Marshall Islands for a long time. In late 2013 he told a reporter the U.S. “destroyed an entire country that we were not at war with, that we were at peace with. Not only did they blow up all these islands, but they purposely contaminated all these people as human experiments. It’s a very unknown story here.”
The story was classified top secret until the 1990s, when the Clinton administration declassified documents related to nuclear testing that including previously unknown information on the Project 4.1 program to use Pacific Islanders as human guinea pigs for assessing the impact of ionizing radiation. Even the official historian of U.C. nuclear testing, Barton Hacker, who tries to minimize the criminality of Project 4.1, ended up writing in 1994 that an “unfortunate choice of terminology may help explain later charges that the AEC [Atomic Energy Commission] had deliberately exposed the Marshallese to observe the effects. Like the American radium dial painters of the 1920s and the Japanese of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, the Marshallese of 1954 inadvertently were to provide otherwise unobtainable data on the human consequences of high radiation exposures.” Continue reading
Government divided on whether to kill Renewable Energy Target or just mortally weaken it
The renewable energy industry has said preservation of the RET was crucial for the future of billions of dollars’ worth of investment in large-scale renewable energy projects.
The Clean Energy Council said the RET was encouraging households to invest in renewable and efficient energy.
Cabinet rift on RET: Hunt firm amid scrapping calls GRAHAM LLOYD THE AUSTRALIAN JANUARY 11, 2014 THE federal government is badly split on what to do about the mandatory renewable energy target, which has been blamed for rising electricity prices and making manufacturing Australian uncompetitive.
The terms of reference are being finalised for a review, which was expected to look at whether the RET should be reduced in line with falling demand for power……..
Mr Hunt said the review would be completed well before the end of the year.
The RET forces large power users and retailers to source a fixed amount of their energy demand from renewable sources.
Nationals senator Ron Boswell is pushing to have it scrapped…….. Continue reading
Nuclear is NOT an answer to climate change, say 300 science groups
While the cost of these [ clean renewable] technologies continues to decline and enjoy further technological advancement, the cost of nuclear power continues to increase and construction timeframes remain excessive. And we emphasize again that no technological breakthrough to reduce its costs or enhance its operation will occur in the foreseeable future.”
For more:
– see the letter
Climate change battle: Nuclear vs. an efficient, renewable grid http://www.fierceenergy.com/story/climate-change-battle-nuclear-vs-efficient-renewable-grid/2014-01-09 January 9, 2014 | By Barbara Vergetis Lundin More than 300 U.S. and international environmental and clean energy groups are expressing their disagreement with climate change scientist Dr. James Hansen’s claims that nuclear power is the solution to global warming. A joint letter from more than 311 groups — including 237 from 46 U.S. states and the District of Columbia and 74 from 44 other nations around the world, which includes those on the ground dealing with the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear reactor disaster — is being issued in response to a November 3, 2013 statement from Hansen and three of his academic world colleagues, Ken Caldeira, Kerry Emanuel, and Tom Wigley. Continue reading
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 