South Australia election: Malina Wyra for Fisher opposes nuclear power
Dennis Matthews, 14 Mar 14 Another candidate for the seat of Fisher in tomorrow’s (15/3/14) SA state elections has opposed the importation of nuclear waste into SA.
Malina Wyra is not only opposed to nuclear waste import but to nuclear power, uranium enrichment and the entire nuclear fuel chain.
Malina supports the solar feed-in tariff and government incentives for energy efficient homes but does not support a higher tariff for users of air conditioners and is n oncommittal on the whether solar electricity exporters should pay higher costs for the electricity network and whether there should be tighter regulation of the monopoly electricity network utility. Malina prefers to tax the up-front cost of air conditioners.
On the issue of the recent changes to the SA Electoral Act, Malina supports increasing the cost of nominating a candidate from $450 to $3000. This has been a significant deterrent to independents and micro parties contesting seats in the House of Assembly but is generally welcomed by those candidates and parties that are assured of getting at least 4% of the primary vote and hence getting the $3000 returned.
Malina was non-committal on an apology to SA’s Aboriginal people for forcibly taking away their land, for imposing an alien culture, for introducing toxic substances into their communities, and for the lack of aid in combating the effects of the above.
Wake up Australia – to the machinations of the Thorium Nuclear Lobby!
AUSTRALIA – Wake up!!
Completely under the radar, unknown to mainstream media, nuclear lobby machinations are going on, especially in Victoria and South Australia.
On March 15th, South Australians will elect a Liberal government, and that will hasten the lobby’s plans for a nuclear power ‘hub’ in that state. Long promoted by Prof Barry Brook, Alexander Downer Prof Stefan Simons (BHP funded) and others, the nuclear push gets an extra kick from drive to get nuclear submarines. At present Australia’s Defence Minister is in Scotland, researching construction of nuclear submarines.
This will involve South Australia becoming part of USA’s nuclear war machine (i.e. yet another Australian target). It will be pitched to us as both necessary for Australia’s defence, and necessary to replace jobs lost when Holden shut down. And, if they can pull this off – it will be the prelude to South Australia hosting the full nuclear cycle, and importing foreign radioactive wastes.
Now to Victoria. Under the guise of coal seam gas search Ignite Energy Resources’s very media-shy executive director, Dr John White is closely involved in nuclear lobbying.
The Nuclear Activities (Prohibitions) Act 1983, effectively prohibits the exploration and mining of thorium and uranium in Victoria. Sandi Keane of Independent Australia has revealed the interest being taken by the thorium nuclear lobby, and the Victorian government in leases where thorium exists, and in the potential for using it to power nuclear reactors.
Not to be forgotten – the Northern Territory, where traditional Aboriginal landowners continue to fight the draconian National Radioactive Waste Management Act (NRWMA)
Radioactive lake developing below Fukushima nuclear reactors
Gundersen: Fukushima will be bleeding into Pacific for next 100 years — Such a worldwide catastrophe — Molten cores being released into groundwater and moving off site — ‘Radioactive lake’ developing beneath reactors — New Yorker: “Human disaster that may never end” (VIDEO) http://enenews.com/gundersen-fukushima-wil-lbe-bleeding-into-pacific-for-next-100-years-such-a-worldwide-catastrophe-molten-cores-being-released-into-groundwater-and-moving-off-site-radioactive-lake-develo?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ENENews+%28Energy+News%29
Fairewinds Energy Education, Mar. 12, 2014:
Arnie Gumdersen, Fairewinds chief engineer (at 0:45 in): Is most of the cleanup complete? Are the people of Japan, especially the children, OK? Are the Japanese evacuees returning home? And, are the oceans OK? Sadly the answers are no.
Gundersen (at 5:15 in): The aftermath of this catastrophe remains as hazardous as ever. The power plant site itself, entire sections of the surrounding Fukushima Prefecture and the Pacific Ocean are contaminated in ways that humans never imagined, so no method of mitigation exists. The Fukushima catastrophe will continue to be life-threatening and continue to cause extreme hardship for Tepco employees and cleanup workers,the former Fukushima residents, who and the Pacific ocean — its habitats and its on the ecosystem […] The reactors continue to release the radioactive remnants from the molten cores into the surrounding groundwater that’s migrating off site. […] Tokyo Electric appears to have little control over the deteriorating environment, and it behaves like the victim, rather than the perpetrator of the greatest industrial mishap of all time. What will the future bring? The Fukushima Daiichi site will continue to bleed radiation into the Pacific Ocean for 100 years. As contaminated water beneath the site slowly evolves into a radioactive lake. […] Most likely the cleanup of the entire site is at least a century away, if ever. How has this calamity evolved into such a worldwide catastrophe? It happened because the Japanese government chose to protect Tepco, its financial interest and the goals of the nuclear power industry.
The New Yorker, Mar. 11, 2014: “A story of human disaster that may never end.” Seattle Weekly, Mar. 11, 2014: “The 3/11 snowfall was the beginning of Japan’s nuclear winter.”
Bernie Fraser deplores Abbott Govt’s policies opposing action on Climate Change
Abbott government is putting business profits ahead of the community: Bernie Fraser http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/abbott-government-is-putting-business-profits-ahead-of-the-community-bernie-fraser-20140313-34os6.html March 13, 2014 Lisa Cox National political reporter Former Reserve Bank governor Bernie Fraser says the Abbott government is working in the short term interests of business and not the long term interests of the community in its policies on climate change.
Mr Fraser, in an address to the National Press Club, has also expressed surprise at the “brazenness and scale” of the campaign waged by the government and big business against the carbon and mining taxes.
The chairman of the Climate Change Authority, which the government plans to abolish, said on Thursday that the debate over climate policy in Australia was now devoid of balance and maturity.
Australian Capital Territory ready to face the anti wind farm brigade
ACT ready to tackle “wind antis” head on REneweconomy, By Giles Parkinson on 13 March 2014 ACT energy minister Simon Corbell knows he should have no problem attracting many competitive bids for his government’s “reverse auction” of wind energy capacity later this year.
Numerous wind farm developments in the regions surrounding the ACT have been waiting for the opportunity to proceed with their projects. The one big element that has been lacking has been policy certainty, and therefore the lack of power purchase agreements and bank finance. The ACT, by offering a fixed 20-year tariff for 200MW of wind capacity bid at the lowest price, provides that certainty.
As RenewEconomy noted in our report yesterday, developers are so desperate for contracts that bidding is likely to be better than previously thought. The federal government, and its effective freeze on renewable investment, has done the ACT and its consumers a favour. “We are in a buyers’ market,” Corbell told RenewEconomy in an interview.
What is less clear, however, is how the ACT will deal with the vocal and influential “antis” in the surrounding districts where the wind farms will be built. Continue reading
Scientific findings on animal and plant life in Chernobyl and Fukushima
Radiation Facts and Myths
Many have claimed that wildlife is thriving in the highly-radioactive Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.
Some claim that a little radiation is harmless … or even good for you.
One of the main advisors to the Japanese government on Fukushimaannounced:
If you smile, the radiation will not affect you. If you do not smile, the radiation will affect you.
This theory has been proven by experiments on animals.
Are these claims true?
We Ask an Expert
To find out, Washington’s Blog spoke with one of the world’s leading experts on the effects of radiation on living organisms: Dr. Timothy Mousseau.
Dr. Mousseau is former Program Director at the National Science Foundation (in Population Biology), Panelist for the National Academy of Sciences’ panels on Analysis of Cancer Risks in Populations Near Nuclear Facilities and GAO Panel on Health and Environmental Effects from Tritium Leaks at Nuclear Power Plants, and a biology professor – and former Dean of the Graduate School, and Chair of the Graduate Program in Ecology – at the University of South Carolina.
For the past 15 years, Mousseau and another leading biologist – Anders Pape Møller – have studied the effects of radiation on birds and other organisms.
Mousseau has made numerous trips to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and Fukushima – making 896inventories at Chernobyl and 1,100 biotic inventories in Fukushima as of July 2013 – to test the effect of radiation on plants and animals.
On the third anniversary of the Fukushima disaster, we spoke with Dr. Mousseau about what he discovered regarding the effects of radiation on plants, animals … and people.
Question] How did you get into this field? Is it because you are an anti-nuclear activist?
[Mousseau] No.
I’m an activist, but not an anti-nuclear scientist. I’m an activist for evidence-based science policy. Continue reading
Ex nuclear chief calls for worldwide phaseout of nuclear power
Three Years After Fukushima, Ex-Nuclear Chief Lobbies For Worldwide Phase-Out HUFFINGTON POST, | by YURI KAGEYAMA TOKYO (AP) 13 Mar 14, — As radiation spewed from Japan’s nuclear disaster three years ago, the top U.S. atomic energy regulator issued a 50-mile evacuation warning for any Americans in the area, a response some found extreme.
Gregory Jaczko, who stepped down as chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2012, still believes he was right, and says the events at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant show that nuclear power should be phased out in Japan and worldwide.
“The lesson has to be: This kind of accident is unacceptable to society. And that’s not me saying it. That’s society saying that,” he said in an interview this week in Tokyo, where he is giving lectures and speaking on panels marking the third anniversary of the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami that overwhelmed the Fukushima plant.
Now a lecturer at Princeton University, Jaczko, 43, has become a hit on the speaking circuit in Japan, where all 48 nuclear plants remain offline as the country debates what role nuclear power should play in its future……..
Jaczko said he had always been concerned about nuclear safety. But so much unfolded at Fukushima that experts were unprepared for, that it changed his view, and that of the Japanese public, on nuclear power.
Chernobyl and Three Mile Island were major accidents, but for Jackso, Fukushima definitively undermined industry assumptions such as multiple accidents were unlikely or hydrogen leaks would be controlled………http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/13/fukushima-gregory-jaczko_n_4954621.html?utm_hp_ref=green
Australians must learn from Aboriginal management of the land
The massive destruction whites have inflicted on the landscape is unforgiveable. Now we have no excuse. Gammage has told us how it was done. Let’s hope it is not too late. As Gammage says, one day we might be able to call ourselves Australian.
Australia: How the Aboriginal people managed ‘the biggest estate on Earth Review by Coral Wynter
The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines made Australia
By Bill Gammage
Links, March 13, 2014 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal –– This is an extraordinary book, one that will increase your appreciation of the country’s first people, as we begin to understand their amazing knowledge and sheer genius in the way they cared for the land, or as Bill Gammage calls it the “biggest estate on Earth”.
Gammage describes with many examples how the Aborigines looked after the land. No corner was forgotten, including deserts, rainforests and rocky outcrops, across the entire continent for at least 60,000 years until the colonisers began to destroy all this labour after their arrival in 1788.
The Aborigines judiciously used fire to create parklands, with huge, stately trees and grass underneath on rich black soil to feed, then harvest kangaroos and wallabies, as well as to grow yams and spinach. They used cool fires to preserve and maintain the biodiversity of Australia’s orchids, ferns, fruit trees and edible plants. They used “templates” to judiciously burn areas with plants sensitive to fire.
Australia in 1788 was a paradise, which was much more than just sustainable, but instead yielded an abundance of food, which could feed a huge population, some estimates say as many as 8 million people. Continue reading
Market outlook for solar power to 2025
Solar PV in Australia, Market Outlook to 2025, 2013 Update – Capacity, Generation, Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE), Investment Trends, Regulations and Company Profiles Market Watch LONDON, March 13, 2014 /PRNewswire/ — Reportbuyer.com just published a new market research report: Solar PV in Australia, Market Outlook to 2025, 2013 Update – Capacity, Generation, Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE), Investment Trends, Regulations and Company Profiles Solar PV in Australia, Market Outlook to 2025, 2013 Update – Capacity, Generation, Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE), Investment Trends, Regulations and Company Profiles Summary “Solar PV in Australia, Market Outlook to 2025, 2013 Update – Capacity, Generation, Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE), Investment Trends, Regulations and Company Profiles” is the latest report from GlobalData, the industry analysis specialists that offer comprehensive information and understanding of the solar PV market in Australia.
Great possibilities opening up for wind energy
A Peek Into The Astonishing Future Of Wind Power CLIMATE PROGRESS, BY ARI PHILLIPS
ON MARCH 13, 2014 “WHAT IF YOU COULD SCOOP THE AIR? SCOOP IT AND MOVE IT DOWNWARD, AMPLIFYING ITS KINETIC ENERGY ALONG THE WAY, CONCENTRATE IT TO A SINGLE POINT OF INTENSITY, THE WAY A MAGNIFYING GLASS CONCENTRATES SUNLIGHT TO A SINGLE INCENDIARY POINT?”
Dr. Daryoush Allaei, an engineer and founder of Sheerwind, an innovative wind power company, is concentrating his unique thought process on harnessing wind energy in new ways.
“And assuming you could do this technically, could you do it on a large enough scale to make it economically feasible?” Allaei writes in his company description. “More to the point, could you generate energy so inexpensively that it stages a renaissance?”
Sheerwind is pushing the boundaries of wind power innovation with its bladeless wind turbine, called INVELOX. The turbines funnel wind into ground-level generators through a tapering passageway that squeezes and accelerates the air. The units are about half as tall as traditional wind towers, which rise up to 260 feet into the air, and the ground-based turbine blades are more than 80 percent smaller than conventional wind turbine blades, which are about 115-feet long. The device resembles a giant gramophone that sucks in wind instead of blurting out sound.
Sheerwind represents a small point in the larger picture of wind power development, itself part of the story of renewable energy technology. The entire history of power generation, from Ben Franklin’s kite experiments 250 years ago to deep sea drilling for oil and gas is a complex tale of imaginative inventiveness riding up against economic realities. As wind power takes hold across the world, developers are constantly looking for new ways to make the technology lighter, faster, and more efficient but some of the most inventive ideas are often stymied by a lack of financial support during early stages…….http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/03/13/3366401/future-of-wind-power/
Labor’s miserable silence on Climate Change
Bill Shorten was right when he called it a defining issue for our parliament and our nation. It’s also a defining issue for Labor, and for 
him
Climate change bad guys apply heat to Labor, The Age March 14, 2014 Gay Alcorn While the vocal sceptics have free rein on climate change, Labor is disturbingly quiet. “……..The conservative Lord Deben, the head of Globe International which assesses climate laws worldwide, told the Financial Times last month that the Australian government’s policies were ”so unintellectual as to be unacceptable; I mean it is just amazing”. Of its survey of 66 countries, Australia was one of only two winding back climate change laws.
But what of Labor, whose supporters and parliamentary members overwhelmingly do accept the mainstream science and the need to take strong measures to minimise damage to our economy and our way of life?
[Bernie] Fraser’s criticism of the ALP stings because Labor lacks the excuse of ignorance or the hard right’s conviction that climate change is a left-wing plot to destroy capitalism. Continue reading
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 