Mexico Conference towards ending nuclear weapons launches ICAN’s new report
Learning from history March 1 marks 60 years since the Bravo nuclear test on Bikini Atoll, in the Marshall Islands. ICAN Australia From 1946 until 1996, more than 315 nuclear test explosions were conducted in the Pacific Islands by France, Britain and the United States. The Bravo nuclear test of 1954 was the largest ever conducted by the US, yielding a force 1,000 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Radioactive fallout travelled across 11,000 square kilometres and many communities in the Pacific still cannot return to their home islands due to radioactive contamination.
ICAN has produced a report entitled Banning Nuclear Weapons: a Pacific Islands Perspective, which was distributed at the recent Second Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons in Nayarit, Mexico, and can be downloaded here. Report author Nic Maclellan also has an article here on Inside Story. Speaking of history, for an enthralling piece of poetry performed by Marshallese poet Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, click History Project.
The end of the Mexico Conference was nothing short of exhilarating, as the Conference Chair summed up the meeting with this:
“The broad-based and comprehensive discussions on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons should lead to the commitment of States and civil society to reach new international standards and norms, through a legally binding instrument.
It is the view of the Chair that the Nayarit Conference has shown that time has come to initiate a diplomatic process conducive to this goal…
It is time to take action. The 70th anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks is the appropriate milestone to achieve our goal. Nayarit is a point of no return.”
As the dust settles on Mexico, we’re looking forward to a challenging year ahead coaxing the Australian Government onto the right side of history. Get in touch if you want to help us get there.
Now for your post-Conference reading:
– Nuclear Weapons: it’s high time for Australia to be bold and call for a ban – David Donaldson, The Guardian.
– Report from the Nayarit Conference – Ray Acheson, Beatrice Fihn, and Katherine Harrison.
Huge losses for Australian coal and gas company, as demand falls, and solar power rises
Massive losses hit Energy Australia as demand falls, solar soars REneweconomy, By Giles Parkinson on 28 February 2014 EnergyAustralia, one of the big three utilities in the country, has slumped to a loss of $350 million for calendar 2013 after slashing the value of its Yallourn brown coal generator, as well as some of its gas-fired generation assets.
The write-down came as the company, owned by Hong Kong based CLP Holdings, returned a profit of just $18 million (down from $236 million in 2012) for the year from its portfolio of coal and gas generation and its large retail customer base – a result it blamed mostly on an “unprecedented” fall in demand, and the popularity of solar PV. Continue reading
A boost for wind energy as ACT plans big renewables projects
Clean energy boost stirs stalled wind farms, Canberra Times, March 1, 2014 Kirsten Lawson Chief Assembly reporter . The ACT government’s planned roll-out of large-scale clean energy projects is set to give new life to stalled wind farms near Canberra.
Infigen Energy, the company that runs the Capital 1 wind farm near Bungendore, already has approval for another 41 wind turbines at the site, generating about 100 megawatts of energy. General manager of development David Griffin confirmed his company hoped to take part in an auction expected later this year to win the right to supply the ACT with renewable energy for a guaranteed price over 20 years.
A second big project, near Collector, was approved last year for 55 wind turbines, generating 187 megawatts, and run by Ratch-Australia (80 per cent Thai owned, 20 per cent Transfield). Ratch could not be reached on Friday.
Environment Minister Simon Corbell announced a vast increase in the ACT’s commitment to renewable energy last week, more than doubling the cap on feed-in projects to 550 megawatts, with the bulk of the funded projects in wind farms around Canberra.
Solar would make up most of the rest, but it is undecided whether solar projects outside the ACT will qualify…….http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/clean-energy-boost-stirs-stalled-wind-farms-20140228-33rrx.html
No uranium deal, but AREVA will not be able to continue ripping off Niger
(relevant to Australia’s overseas uranium mining projects) Niger fails to reach uranium mining deal with French nuclear firm Areva Deadlock over royalties as Oxfam points out Areva’s global turnover is more than four times Niger’s entire annual budget Guardian Celeste Hicks in Niamey, 28 Feb 14, Another deadline has passed without agreement in Niger in the government’s ongoing negotiations with the French nuclear company Areva on the renewal of the company’s license to operate in the country.
After months of discussions, the mining minister, Omar Tchiana, said last week that Friday would be the final deadline for the two sides to strike a deal. Now it has been agreed that talks will continue without a fixed deadline.
The negotiations are deadlocked on the issue of the royalties Areva pays Niger for the rights to two large uranium mines, Somair and Cominak in the arid north of the country. The terms of the original deal struck in the early 1970s have never been made public, but government sources say the company pays about 5.5% of its revenues in royalties. Niger wants the terms of a new mining code passed in 2006 to be implemented, which would force Areva to pay between 12% and 15% in royalties, and end a number of tax breaks on materials and equipment.
“Niger has not benefited at all from uranium production for 40 years. These contracts need to be win-win for Niger and not just for the benefit of France and Areva” said Ali Idrissa, the executive co-ordinator of the civil society group Rotab. The issue is of huge significance to the country, which ranks bottom of the UN’s human development index. According to Oxfam, Areva’s annual turnover of €9bn ($12.4bn) is more than four times Niger’s entire annual budget of €2bn…….
the current negotiations between Areva and the government are still less than transparent, and steps towards establishing a FGF and prioritising its spending have not been implemented…….
It is likely that Niger will be able to leverage a better deal from Areva, despite the company’s claims that a higher royalty rate could make the operation prohibitively unprofitable……http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/feb/28/niger-fails-uranium-mining-deal-french-firm-areva
Power utilities will have to adjust to the inevitable renewable energy future
MUSK: Hard Times Must Come For Utilities, Business Insider, Australia, 28 Feb 14, ROB WILEEl on Musk is warning fossil fuel-dependent utilities to prepare for hard times. In comments made at a panel set up by the California Public Utilities Commission, Musk said addressing climate change depends on upending traditional power providers, and he called on regulators to help lower the cost for renewable providers to compete with them.
“There will be some amount of strife for existing utilities, particularly ones heavy into fossil rules,” Musk said. “There will be bit of a hardship for them. But we have no choice. We have to decide if we’re going to have clean, sustainable energy or not and if we decide want good future…and the only good future is one with [clean] energy.”
Musk argued for a carbon tax, expressing disbelief at the ongoing presence of hydrocarbons for fuel use. “It’s amazing that we burn oil — it has much higher value in plastics,” he said. “It’s like burning the furniture in your house instead of firewood.”
SolarCity CEO Lyndon Rive warned of the danger that regulators would allow the current monopolistic and fossil fuel-heavy power company model to persist even as renewable energy grows.
“What don’t we don’t want to have happen is the innovation, and then old biz model still continues,” he said. “We don’t want two energy infrastructures. At some point someone has to shut down, and if you fast forward 10 or 20 years, I don’t think we’ll be shutting down cleaner energy.”……..
The panel comes one day after Tesla announced details for its Gigafactory, which by 2020 will produce 50 gigawatt hours-worth of battery packs. Panasonic, the principal partner in the Gigafactory, currently makes a total of only about 6-7 gigawatt hours-worth of batteries. Tesla’s batteries will be used both in Tesla’s fleet and will help bring the cost of batteries for SolarCity power storage units down. The batteries currently comprise at least 50% of the cost of other solar storage units.
Musk emphasised that regulators will have to prove flexible to work around what amounts to monopoly control of power by most utilities…….http://www.businessinsider.com.au/musk-on-utilities-2014-2
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 