Investors flee as uranium price collapses even further
A uranium price collapse has made mining companies radioactive to investors, Quartz By Jason Karaian May 28, 2014 Here’s the latest sign that uranium-mining doesn’t pay: Paladin Energy, an Australian uranium mining group, announced today that it was ceasing production(pdf) at a key mine in Malawi. The move will take 3.3 million pounds of uranium per year off the market.
Paladin is far from alone. As uranium prices have tumbled, others have been feeling the pinch. Indeed, for some 60% of global uranium production, the cost of extraction is higher than the market price for the commodity, the firm says.
Uranium prices have been hit by a series of setbacks in recent years, from a global financial crisis that put a big dent in nuclear power demand, to a glut ofdecommissioned weapons-grade uranium, to the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, which led to the shutdown of all that nation’s nuclear power plants and inspired nuclear phase-outs in places such as Germany and Switzerland.Investors in uranium mines have seen their assets plunge in value:……http://qz.com/213889/a-uranium-price-collapse-has-made-mining-companies-radioactive-to-investors/
New South Wales Premier Baird backs Renewable Energy Target, in defiance of Federal Liberals
Mike Baird gives backing for renewable energy target, SMH, Peter Hannam ENVIRONMENT EDITOR, THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD May 29, 2014 The NSW government has broken ranks with conservative counterparts in Canberra and the other states by declaring its strong support for the national renewable energy target.
Unlike other Coalition leaders, including Prime Minister Tony Abbott, Mike Baird makes clear in his government’s submission to the federal RET review that renewable energy benefits consumers, helps energy security by diversifying sources and cuts greenhouse gas emissions.
The NSW submission notes the fixed target – now at 41,000 gigawatt-hours of clean energy sources by 2020 – last year cost households in the state about $40. That sum, though, was offset by the effect renewable energy had on driving down wholesale electricity prices, the report said. ”The RET is good for NSW consumers and households – it ultimately saves money,” said Amy Kean, the state’s renewable energy advocate, who helped prepare the submission
The state also has a lot of jobs and investment at stake – some 8395 megawatts of capacity worth about $13 billion are ”progressing through the planning system”, the report said……….
The submission says projects that have met certain conditions – such as having progressed to a financial close by a particular date – could be given special consideration in any reformed RET, ”given the significant amount of effort that has already been expended in good faith”. Further reviews should also be held only every five years to bolster certainty, the NSW government said.
Analysts such as Hugh Saddler at Pitt & Sherry warn that any tinkering of the target is likely to stall new investments.
”The problem about postponing to an undefined date [is it] makes it uncertain again as to when the investments will be required,” he said. ”Once you get away from a fixed amount of gigawatt-hours in a fixed year, you’re immediately bringing back uncertainty because it depends on demand growth.”
The declaration of support is likely to be welcomed by an industry which has few outspoken supporters in conservative ranks.
Mr Baird’s predecessor, Barry O’Farrell, did not make a submission to the previous RET review less than two years ago, and was no fan of wind farms. http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/mike-baird-gives-backing-for-renewable-energy-target-20140528-394ri.html#ixzz33Fp4KnBR
New South Wales Greens introduce Bill to promote renewable energy to benefit Hunter Valley
The Greens say renewable energy bill will benefit the Hunter http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-30/the-greens-say-renewable-energy-bill-will-benefit-the-hunter/5488224 The New South Wales Greens are confident new jobs will be created in the Hunter Valley if state MPs back its legislation to transform the energy sector. The party has seized on the Baird Government’s support for the national renewable energy target with a Bill calling for at least one 500 megawatt coal fired electricity generating unit to be shut down by 2017.
It also wants sensible, science-based wind farm planning guidelines introduced.
Green’s energy spokesman John Kaye says the move away from coal fired base load power will not hurt the Hunter.”There’s a whole lot of studies out there that show pushing up the renewable energy target, moving out of coal into wind, bring three or four times the number of jobs that already exist,” he said. “We can create new jobs, high quality jobs, unionised jobs in the wind industry, in the solar industry that will more than compensate for any loss of jobs in the coal industry.”
Plans for two Upper Hunter wind farms could benefit from the Greens push to make renewable energy a bigger part of the state’s energy mix.Scone’s Kyoto Energy Park is already approved while planning continues on the proposed Liverpool Range Wind Farm.
Mr Kaye says the government should support his party’s legislation. “What the Baird government is going to do to remove the barriers for renewable energy, what they’re going to encourage public and private investment,” he said. “Hopefully Mike Baird is turning a corner, he’s taking his government to new days where some of these Hunter wind farms can go ahead.”
Uranium sales to India? But new Indian govt going slow on nuclear energy expansion
Narendra Modi government may go slow on nuclear energy expansion: PwC, The Economic Times, May 27, 2014, MUMBAI: The new government may put on the back-burner a plan to install 20 gigawatts of nuclear power capacity in the country by 2020 and instead focus on wind and solar to achieve energy security, says PwC……….
Rather than nuclear, the Modi government may focus on increasing wind and solar power capacity, especially when these models worked successfully in Gujarat, Mohapatra said.
The power, coal, and new and renewable energy portfolios in the Modi Cabinet are held by Piyush Goyal, who is from Maharashtra, where BJP ally Shiv Sena was opposing the 9,900 MW Jaitapur nuclear project……..An industry expert from KPMG, who did not want to be identified, said that before the new government takes any decision on nuclear power, it will first have to tackle issues of supply chain, safety and acceptance from locals. http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-05-27/news/50122504_1_energy-security-power-capacity-nuclear-power
Uranium industry in turmoil, with spot price down to $28 per pound
Wyoming mines affected by low uranium prices Houston Chronicle, May 29, 2014 CASPER, Wyo. (AP) — Some uranium producers in Wyoming say they’re being affected by weak demand that has caused prices for the nuclear fuel to slip to their lowest level in eight years.
Spot prices for yellowcake are down to $28 per pound. That’s as low as they’ve been since 2006 and down from $75 per pound in 2011………
the current situation is that we have oversupply due to excess inventories,” said Rob Chang, an industry analyst at the New York-based investment firm Cantor Fitzgerald.
Wyoming is among the top uranium-producing states. Wyoming’s uranium mines employ a process of dissolving uranium out of underground deposits and then pumping the ore-containing solution to the surface through wells.
Uranium One has stopped drilling new uranium wells and laid off eight employees since last year, said Donna Wichers, Uranium One vice president for the Americas.
“At $28 a pound you can imagine what that is doing to us,” Wichers said……..http://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/Wyoming-mines-affected-by-low-uranium-prices-5514120.php
December 2014, a further step as momentum grows for a Treaty to Ban Nuclear Weapons
New Campaign for a Treaty to Ban Nuclear Weapons Gains Momentum Truth Out, , 29 May 2014 By Alice Slater, The 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), extended indefinitely in 1995 when it was due to expire, provided that five nuclear weapons states which also happened to hold the veto power on the Security Council (P-5)– the US, Russia, UK, France, and China– would “pursue negotiations in good faith”[i] for nuclear disarmament. In order to buy the support of the rest of the world for the deal, the nuclear weapons states “sweetened the pot” with a Faustian bargain promising the non-nuclear weapons state an “inalienable right”[ii] to so-called “peaceful” nuclear power, thus giving them the keys to the bomb factory. [iii] Every country in the world signed the new treaty except for India, Pakistan, and Israel, which went on to develop nuclear arsenals. North Korea, an NPT member, took advantage of the technological know-how it acquired through its “inalienable right” to nuclear power and quit the treaty to make its own nuclear bombs. Today there are nine nuclear weapons states with 17,000 bombs on the planet, 16,000 of which are in the US and Russia!
At the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference, a new network of NGOs, Abolition 2000, called for immediate negotiations of a treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons and a phase out of nuclear power. [iv]A Working Group of lawyers, scientists and policy makers drafted a Model Nuclear Weapons Convention[v] laying out all the necessary steps to be considered for the total elimination of nuclear weapons. It became an official UN document and was cited in Secretary General Ban-ki Moon’s 2008 proposal for a Five Point Plan for Nuclear Disarmament. [vi]The NPT’s indefinite extension required Review Conferences every five years, with Preparatory Committee meetings in between.
In 1996, the NGO World Court Project sought an Advisory Opinion from the International Court of Justice on the legality of the bomb. The Court ruled unanimously that an international obligation exists to “conclude negotiations on nuclear disarmament in all its aspects”, but disappointingly said only that the weapons are “generally illegal” and held that it was unable to decide whether it would be legal or not to use nuclear weapons “when the very survival of a state was at stake”. [vii]Despite the NGOs best efforts at lobbying for continued promises given by the P-5 at subsequent NPT reviews, progress on nuclear disarmament was frozen. ……..
In 2012, the International Committee of the Red Cross made an unprecedented breakthrough effort to educate the world that there was no existing legal ban on the use and possession of nuclear weapons despite the catastrophic humanitarian consequences that would result from nuclear war, thus renewing public awareness about the terrible dangers of nuclear holocaust. [viii] A new initiative, International Campaign
to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN)[ix]had been launched to make known the disastrous effects to all life on earth should nuclear war break out, either by accident or design, as well as the inability of governments at any level to adequately respond. They are calling for a legal ban on nuclear weapons, just as the world had banned chemical and biological weapons, as well as landmines and cluster munitions. …….
Norway also took up the call of the International Red Cross in 2013, hosting a special Conference on the Humanitarian Effects of Nuclear Weapons. ……..
The P-5 boycotted the Oslo conference, issuing a joint statement claiming it would be a “distraction” from the NPT! Two nuclear weapons states did show up—India and Pakistan, to join the 127 nations that came to Oslo and those two nuclear weapons states again attended this year’s follow-up conference hosted by Mexico, with 146 nations.
There is transformation in the air and a shift in the zeitgeist in how nations and civil society are addressing nuclear disarmament. They are meeting in partnership in greater numbers and with growing resolve to negotiate a nuclear ban treaty which would prohibit the possession, testing, use, production and acquisition of nuclear weapons as illegal,………
The world has begun an Ottawa process for nuclear weapons that can be completed in the very near future if we are united and focused! One obstacle that is becoming apparent to the success of achieving a broadly endorsed ban treaty is the position of “nuclear umbrella” states such as Japan, Australia, South Korea and NATO members. They ostensibly support nuclear disarmament but still rely on lethal “nuclear deterrence”, a policy which demonstrates their willingness to have the US incinerate cities and destroy our planet on their behalf…….
With a follow up meeting coming in Austria, December 8th and 9th of this year, we should be strategic in pushing the impetus forward for a legal ban. We need to get even more governments to show up in Vienna, and make plans for a massive turnout of NGOs to encourage states to come out from under their shameful nuclear umbrella and to cheer on the burgeoning group of peace-seeking nations in our efforts to end the nuclear scourge!
Check out the ICAN campaign to find out how you can participate in Vienna. www.icanw.org http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/24018-new-campaign-for-a-treaty-to-ban-nuclear-weapons-gains-momentum
Does Bob Hawke hate Australia? He wishes toxic radioactive trash upon it
Dump the Worlds Nuclear Waste In Australia Says the Ex Prime Minister MAY 29, 2014 Weird News –http://www.tarborotimes.com/2014/05/29/weird-news-dump-the-worlds-nuclear-waste-in-australia-says-the-ex-prime-minister/ Jessica Jones / Weird News and Odd News “[Former Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke said] Australia bore a responsibility to assist with the safe disposal of radioactive waste, given the ample space the country possesses. ‘If Australia has – as we do – the safest remote locations for storing the world’s nuclear waste, we have a responsibility to make those sites available for this purpose,’ he said. Hawke based this conclusion on a 25-year-old report made by Ralph Slayter, whom the former prime minister appointed as Australia’s first chief scientist back in 1989. According to Slayter’s report, some of the remote reaches of the Northern Territory and Western Australia could provide apt dumping grounds for radioactive waste.”
… clearly he hates his country.
Tasmania’s Upper House stalls the progress of Aboriginal land rights
Tasmanian Aboriginal land rights stalled on the road to reconciliation, ABC 936 Hobart 28 May 14 This week celebrates the process of reconciliation between Tasmania’s traditional owners of the land and the broader community. While significant land has been returned, and in a recent example purchased, the most recent efforts to transfer two significant sites via an amendment to the Aboriginal Lands Act has stalled with the change of state government earlier this year.
Since then, the process of returning land of special significance to the traditional owners has been a gradual one.
Currently 55,606 hectares of land has been returned to the Aboriginal community, comprising 16 separate areas.
Ten parcels of land were returned in 1995, and since then Parliament has twice approved the transfer of further lands, in 1999 and 2005.
In 2012, the former state government successfully moved to amend the Tasmanian Aboriginal Land Act(1995) to include the areas of Rebecca Creek, on Tasmania’s West Coast, andlarapuna*, on the East Coast.
The amendment to the legislation has since stalled in Tasmania’s upper house, the Legislative Council…………
Significance
The two sites earmarked for return are on opposite sides of the state.
Rebecca Creek, several kilometres inland from Temma on the West Coast, is the richest Aboriginal stone working area known in Tasmania.
It is a source of spongolite which was used for the production of stone tools, and archaeological evidence shows it was traded by Aboriginals further than any other raw material in Tasmania.
larapuna is located in Tasmania’s North East near Ansons Bay, and now houses the Eddystone Point Lighthouse and lighthouse keeper cottages.
The area was a rich hunting ground for fish, kangaroo and seals while the broader area contains middens, artefact sites and burial grounds.
While there is no part of Tasmania, apart from some outer lying islands, that Tasmanian Aboriginals did not regularly inhabit, the return of especially sensitive lands by successive governments is a recognition the cultural significance of land to the Aboriginal community, and an important step in the process of reconciliation.
The most recent land that has been acquired on behalf of the Tasmanian Aboriginal community was made possible through a combined purchase, rather than a transfer from the state.
Gowan Brae
Gowan Brae, a property of more than 6,000 hectares in the Central Highlands, was collaboratively purchased by Aboriginal groups, the Tasmanian Land Conservancy and the Australian Government.
It is the largest parcel of land acquired for Aboriginal people on mainland Tasmania, and contains quarry sites, evidence of long term habitation, and provides an opportunity for Tasmania’s Aboriginal community to reconnect with culturally and environmentally important land.
The Chairman of the Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania Clyde Mansell described the purchase as a milestone for reconciliation in Tasmania.
The unique collaboration for the purchase means the Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania is now the freehold owner of the land, the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre is the reserve manager and the Tasmanian Land Conservancy will provide ongoing support and assistance to manage the property for its conservation values.
The long legislative road
While the Legislative Council Sessional Committee concluded its public hearings into the amendments late last year, a change in government has halted the process. The Liberal party in opposition supported the amendment’s passage back in 2012, but new legislation will have to be presented before the Legislative Council can again consider it.
Any change to the amendments could mean the process of consultation may have to be taken all over again, with still no guarantee that it will pass in the final vote in the upper house.
Premier Will Hodgman has reiterated his government’s support for the legislation that will complete the handing over of the two land returns………..http://www.abc.net.au/local/photos/2014/05/28/4014001.htm?site=hobart
New Zealand govt awards Tokelau for its solar energy success
Tokelau Wins EECA Renewable Energy Award http://www.energymatters.com.au/index.php?main_page=news_article&article_id=4326 29 May 14, The Pacific territory of Tokelau has been named the 2014 EECA Renewable Energy Award winner for its solar efforts.
The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA) is a New Zealand government agency that supports energy efficiency, energy conservation and the use of renewable energy in New Zealand and its Territories.
Like many island nations, Tokelau has in the past relied heavily on expensive and polluting diesel generators for electricity supply.
Thanks to the Tokelau Renewable Energy Project, three large solar panel arrays arrays are now operating on Tokelau’s three atolls, some powered by SMA inverters. The project was completed last year.
These solar farms are now providing 90% of Tokelau’s electricity needs and place it among the world’s top nations for renewably-sourced electricity. Harvesting the sun’s energy is expected to save Tokelau roughly NZD $900,000 (~ AUD $824,500) per year in diesel costs.
The Tokelau Renewable Energy Project (TREP) was a joint undertaking between the Government of Tokelau and the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
“Island communities such as Tokelau, with few energy alternatives, are ideal sites for solar-generated electricity,” EECA Chief Executive Mike Underhill.
“This project showed immense vision and drive from the leaders and communities of Tokelau. They are showing other Pacific nations the way – as well as highlighting to the world the need for more renewable energy and less carbon-intensive fossil fuels.”
Solar power represents so much more to Tokelau than just a stable, clean electricity supply. It’s a flagship for the battle against climate change and a signal to the world.
At their highest point, the islands rise around 2 metres above sea level. Tokelau is a nation in the front-line of the effects of climate change – and it is already experiencing the effects of rising seas. It is believed Tokelau could be the first nation to disappear under the waves unless dramatic action is taken to rein in carbon emissions.
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 