The real cost to Queensland of uranium mining may be very high
Queensland lifts its uranium ban, but is the price worth the cost? The Conversation Maxine Newlands Lecturer in Journalism, Researcher in Environmental Politics at James Cook University Liz Tynan Senior Lecturer and Co-ordinator Research Student Academic Support at James Cook University 1 July 14,
As of today, Queensland has lifted a 32-year ban on uranium mining. That decision was taken within months of the 2012 state election, despite Premier Campbell Newman’s pre-election promise not to restart mining the radioactive mineral.
Miners are being invited to apply to restart the industry under the Queensland’s government’s uranium action plan, which will mean Canadian company Mega Uranium can reopen the Ben Lomond and other mines in north Queensland.
Queensland’s resumption of uranium mining comes only days after Australia’s newest uranium mine, Four Mile in South Australia, officially opened on 25 June.
Yet the price of uranium has fallen from a high in 2007 of US$70 a pound to $US28, due to factors including oversupplyand what the Wall Street Journal has described as a “post-Fukushima funk”.
Given the prices are so low that The Australian has reportedthat Four Mile is already losing money, while the Beverley mine has been mothballed since January, why are Australian states looking to open more mines?………….
Battles ahead over Queensland exports
The highest concentration of Queensland’s uranium mines sit in the northern tropics, an area prone to Category 5 cyclones.
A 2013 Swiss study found uranium was far more mobile than originally thought. Uranium once extracted, becomes soluble in water, increasing the chances of contamination or radioactive dust carried in high winds and heavy rainfall.
If Ben Lomond is reopened, the quickest way to export its uranium would be through the city of Townsville, home to 190,000 people, which is only 50km from the mine.
The Port of Townsville has said it has the capability to “facilitate the transportation and export of yellowcake”. The Queensland’s government’s uranium action plan recommends that:
Queensland’s efforts should be [put] on facilitating the use of existing ports and shipping lanes by industry for the export of uranium.
However, the Port of Townsville sits within the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area and close to sensitive environments including the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, dugong protected areas, seagrass beds, fringing coral reefs and mangrove forests.
Last year, Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority chairman Russell Reichelt told the ABC that:
I think shipping of any toxic cargo would be of concern. But really we would have to see a proposal and we would have to consider that.
So this is set to be a contentious issue: while economic development of the north has bipartisan support at a federal, state and local government level, a number of locals and environmental groups have said they will challenge any plans to reopen uranium mines and exports from Queensland.
The big question for Queensland residents to consider now is whether the return of uranium mining to the state will be worth the wait for the uranium price to recover, given the risks attached to transporting the mineral through populated and environmentally-sensitive areas.http://theconversation.com/queensland-lifts-its-uranium-ban-but-is-the-price-worth-the-cost-28105
Rare Earths: background to arrest and release of Australian activist Natalie Lowrey
Crikey Clarifier: what’s all the fuss about rare earths? http://www.crikey.com.au/2014/07/01/crikey-clarifier-whats-all-the-fuss-about-rare-earths/ by Crikey Intern Bondi resident Natalie Lowrey was suddenly released without charge on Friday night after five days’ detention in a Malaysian prison. Lowrey, who was born in New Zealand, was arrested last week in Kuantan, Malaysia, for protesting against the processing of rare earths by Australian minerals giant Lynas Corp. We delve into some of the issues surrounding the case.
What are rare earths?
Rare earths are chemical elements found in the earth’s crust that are vital to many modern technologies, including electronics such as speakers, computers, hybrid cars and wind turbines. Rare earths have unique magnetic, luminescent, and electrochemical properties that help technologies perform more efficiently. They are particularly valuable for use in smartphones, and are in high demand.
What is Lynas Corp, and what is it doing in Malaysia?
Lynas Corporation Ltd is an ASX 100 listed company based in Sydney, Australia. It is currently constructing the Lynas Advanced Materials Plant (LAMP), a rare earth processing plant at Gebeng, near Kuantan, Malaysia.
Lynas’ rare earth project has sparked protests in Australia and Malaysia over fears about possible negative health, environmental and economic impacts once the plant begins its operation, as it will produce radioactive material as a waste product. Although the rare earths are extracted in Western Australia, the potentially hazardous processing will take place in Malaysia.
Is there any evidence processing rare earths is dangerous?
Mitsubishi Chemicals Asian Rare Earths, a plant in Bukit Merah, Malaysia, was shut down in the 1992 after at least eight cases of leukaemia and a sudden surge in birth defects and miscarriages in the area. The plant was finally closed after an eight-year battle and is currently undergoing the largest clean-up in the rare earth industry at a cost of US$100 million. Cleaning up requires digging up the entire area of contamination and entombing it inside a mountain.
A spokesperson from Lynas told Crikey: “The Asian Rare Earth plant used the waste from tin mining as its raw material. Lynas raw material contains naturally low levels of thorium, which are 30-40 times lower than rare earth concentrates from tin mine tailings. By all international standards, the Lynas raw material is classified as safe, non-toxic and non-hazardous.”
But Dr David KL Quek, former president of the Malaysia Medical Association, has said:
“Thorium is an acknowledged waste product from the planned Lynas refinery of rare earth ores. Due to the various refining processes thorium will be enriched and concentrated to levels which could reach quantities that are difficult to contain or be safely sequestrated.
“Based on the preliminary Environmental Impact Agency report, thorium residues would lead to a sizeable radioactivity dose of some 62 Becquerel per gram. For 106 tonnes this would be an enormous quantity of radioactive residual thorium.”
Wastes from production will include radioactive thorium and uranium and their radioactive decay products such as radium and radon. Australian authorities have explicitly refused to allow the wastes to be shipped back to Australia for safe disposal.
Why Malaysia?
The Malaysian government has been more open to rare earths processing than the Australian government.
Phua Kai Lit, an associate professor of the Jeffery Cheah School of Medicine and Health Sciences at Monash University in Malaysia, told Crikey: “The Prime Minister, as well as the Chief Minister of the state of Pahang, are both strong supporters of the project. Similarly, political appointees such as the various ministers from ministries involved with the project echo the government’s line. The head of the main regulatory body, the Atomic Energy Licensing Board, also echoes the government’s line.
A spokesperson told Crikey Lynas plans to recycle the waste from the LAMP refining process into co-products such as plaster boards and cement. Two out of three of these products have been certified as non-radioactive by the Malaysian Atomic Energy Licensing Board.
The AELB is in charge of approving and monitoring radioactive industries and received an undisclosed sum by Lynas Corp in 2011. However the AELB denied the sum was a requirement.
U.S, judge rejects coal project on grounds of global warming
Coal Mine’s Rejection on Global-Warming Grounds Has Major Implications http://insideclimatenews.org/carbon-copy/20140701/coal-mines-rejection-global-warming-grounds-has-major-implications If the judge’s reasoning holds up in other cases it could undermine the rationales for much bigger projects, such as the Keystone XL pipeline.
U.S. District Court Judge R. Brooke Johnson’s decision halts exploration proposed by Arch Coal that would have bulldozed six miles of roads on 1,700 untrammeled acres of public land.
When the agencies touted the supposed economic benefits of expanded coal mining in the Sunset Roadless Area, Johnson ruled, they should also have considered any global-warming costs.
The decision was a significant judicial endorsement of a policy tool known as the “social cost of carbon,” which economists and climate scientist use to put a price in today’s dollars on the damages from drought, flood, storm, fire, disease and so forth caused by future global warming due to our emissions from burning fossil fuels.
“It is arbitrary to offer detailed projections of a project’s upside while omitting a feasible projection of the project’s costs,” Johnson decreed.
The Obama administration has increasingly used the social-cost figure to help decide whether restraints on carbon dioxide emissions are worthwhile. Industry groups and their allies in Congress have sought to limit its use. Environmentalists call it a useful device for making clear that there are high costs as well as benefits to burning fossil fuels.
“This decision means that these agencies can’t bury their heads in the sand when confronting the very real impacts of climate change,” said Ted Zukoski, an attorney with Earthjustice, which represented conservationists who sued to block the mining expansion. f the judge’s reasoning holds up in other challenges to agency decisions, it could undermine the rationales for much bigger projects, such as the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. In its environmental review of the KXL, the State Department ignored repeated requests by the Environmental Protection Agency to estimate the social cost of carbon from burning the unusually dirty fuel the pipeline would deliver from Canada to the Gulf Coast.
In the Colorado case, the judge wrote, “by deciding not to quantify the costs at all, the agencies effectively zeroed out the cost.”
That violated a key precept of the National Environmental Policy Act, the judge said, which requires a “hard look” at all the environmental costs of government decisions.
That this can be difficult or contentious does not allow agencies “completely to ignore a tool in which an interagency group of experts invested time and expertise,” he wrote. “Common sense tells me that quantifying the effect of greenhouse gases in dollar terms is difficult at best. The critical importance of the subject, however, tells me that a ‘hard look’ has to include a ‘hard look’ at whether this tool, however imprecise it might be, would contribute to a more informed assessment of the impacts than if it were simply ignored.”
Climate change clearly above party politics
Palmer puts climate in the centre, Financial Review RICHARD DENNISS 01 JUL 2014 Clive Palmer may be voting against a tax but his newfound stance means climate change is no longer just an issue of the left. Richard Denniss….Subscribers only http://www.afr.com/p/opinion/palmer_puts_climate_in_the_centre_7fAcWiGqdYslQyYFZGa4AL
Palmer and Gore have saved Australia’s important renewable energy projects
Australia Institute director says Gore-Palmer ploy reset climate debate http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jul/01/australia-institute-director-says-gore-palmer-ploy-reset-climate-debateFormer Greens staffer Ben Oquist, one of those who brought the two men together, said the move was a step forward The Australia Institute has defended its role in negotiating the Clive Palmer-Al Gore climate announcement because the concessions made by the Palmer United party had “avoided a big step backwards” and reset the climate debate in Australia.
In an email to supporters, the thinktank’s strategic director and former Greens staffer, Ben Oquist, one of a number of people involved in bringing Gore and Palmer together, defended the move as a step forward, despite PUP’s unchanged resolve to repeal Australia’s carbon pricing scheme after the Senate resumes next week.
PUP will now use its balance of power votes in the Senate to retain the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, the Climate Change Authority and the renewable energy target.
“Six months ago it seemed certain that the Abbott government would succeed in its plan to scrap the RET, the CEFC and the CCA,” Oquist wrote.
“[The institute’s] research has long shown that the RET has been the key mechanism driving investment in clean energy production … It has had more impact than the carbon price at zero cost to the government. Billions of dollars in investment was being put at risk by the Abbott government’s determination to unwind the scheme.
“The Palmer-Gore announcement has reset climate policy and politics. Keeping the CCA, the RET and the CEFC is much more than most expected from PUP. We have avoided a big step backwards … [it] also reframed the debate about carbon pricing – it’s hard to suggest carbon pricing is some form of left-wing, economy-wrecking conspiracy when a billionaire mining magnate supports it.”
Oquist says it “would have been preferable for PUP to have delayed a vote on the carbon price repeal by sending it to a committee. It would have been preferable for them to amend the existing carbon price to move straight to the floating price [due to start next July]. The fact is that the PUP senators and Clive Palmer think that their voters expect them to vote it down, and that’s what they intend to do.”
Government backbenchers have been pushing for the RET to be watered down (it currently requires 41,000 gigawatt hours of power to be sourced from renewables by 2020) on the grounds that it pushes up power prices. Before the PUP announcement senior government sources were suggesting the scheme could be closed to new entrants after the government’s own review of the scheme, chaired by the businessman and self-professed climate sceptic Dick Warburton. More recently backbenchers have been pushing for a less drastic scaling back.
ACIL Allen modelling done for the government’s review shows the current target will increase the average household bill by an average of $54 a year between now and 2020, but will reduce bills by a similar annual amount over the following decade compared with what they would be if the RET were repealed.
The modelling used assumptions highly unfavourable to renewable energy, including that coal and gas prices would remain almost unchanged until 2040.
Separate modelling for the Clean Energy Council by Roam Consulting – with different assumptions about gas prices – found that bills would be $50 higher by 2020 if the RET were repealed, compared with it being retained.
And polling has revealed that Australians overwhelmingly want the renewable energy target to be retained or even increased.
The polling, done for the Climate Institute, shows 72% of Australians want to keep or expand the RET.
The Coalition went to the election promising to keep the RET, which underpins investment in energy sources such as wind and solar, but said it would review the fact that the policy was exceeding its original goal of delivering 20% renewable energy by 2020 because of falling electricity demand.
Warburton, a veteran industrialist and the chairman of the Westfield Retail Trust, described his views on climate science in a 2011 interview on ABC.
“Well, I am a sceptic,” he said. “I’ve never moved away from that. I’ve always believed sceptical. But a sceptic is a different person than a denier. I say the science is not settled. I’m not saying it’s wrong. I’ve never said it’s wrong, but I don’t believe it’s settled.”
Solar and wind power set new energy records in America
Renewable energy records set in California and Texas http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/details/beitrag/renewable-energy-records-set-in-california-and-texas_100015571/?utm_content=buffer11a9a&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer#ixzz369kysSef 30. JUNE 2014 BY: IAN CLOVER Solar power in California sets new one-day record of 4.76 GW in June as Texas joins the ranks of the renewables big league, powered largely by wind. Figures from the California Independent System Operator (Cal ISO) revealed this week show that the Golden State broke its own one-day record for solar PV generation on June 1 when 4767 MW of utility scale solar energy was fed into the grid.
The record smashed California’s previous one-day best of 4100 MW in March, which also stood as the highest one-day figure for the whole of the U.S.
California’s solar footprint is growing bigger with each passing day, week and month, with May recording three times as much solar generation as recorded during the same month in 2013. In total, solar PV powered 6% of Cal ISO’s total electric load in May, rising to 14% during peak hours, according to data gathered by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). In 2013, California added 2145 MW of utility scale solar.
In Texas, wind power accounted for 30% of the state’s electric load on March 26, generating 10.2 GW of electricity according to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT). Regulators in Texas expect that record to be outstripped again shortly as the state’s wind capacity rises above 12 GW.
Last year was a record 12 months for renewable energy generation in the U.S. The solar sector grew by 41% in 2013, with California responsible for more than half of new PV capacity. For the remainder of 2014, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) expects California to add an additional 1728 MW of utility scale solar before the year is out.
Japan’s nuclear restart likely to be delayed due to evacuation anxieties
Evacuation plans stir fresh doubts over Japan nuclear restarts Planet Ark 01-Jul-14 Kentaro Hamada The problem has come into focus as procedures for the first proposed restart enter the home stretch in Ichikikushikino, a town five km (three miles) from Kyushu Electric Power Co’s Sendai plant.
The government, facing the first summer in 40 years without nuclear power, is fielding complaints from residents who say key points have been missed in planning for any mass evacuation. Local authorities approve restarts, but Ichikikushikino, as only a neighboring town, does not get any final say in the matter. That didn’t stop more than half its 30,000 residents from signing a petition opposing it.
“The (evacuation) plan itself is very sloppy, just slotting bits and pieces into a manual without giving any consideration to the special features of the area,” said Zenyu Niga, a Buddhist monk whose mountain-side temple overlooks the Sendai plant. Residents say a narrow road designated as an evacuation route regularly floods at high tide. A day care center has no evacuation plan at all. One evacuation center is a run-down building with limited space……..
scepticism in Ichikikushikino and other coastal towns, which do not share in the jobs and government subsidies linked to the nuclear industry, could delay the restart.
Ichikikushikino’s city council promised last week to submit the residents’ petition to the governor.
And there may be a reassessment or revision of plans drawn up by local officials to have residents pile into cars and buses and drive along highways to pre-assigned evacuation centers. Any town within a 30-km radius of a nuclear plant must create an evacuation plan, while schools, hospitals and elderly care facilities are asked to set their own emergency plans.
Kiyoko Kojima, 75, who works at a day-care center 13 km from the plant, said the facility, with 60 children in its charge, had no evacuation plan.”I haven’t heard anything about an emergency plan. I’m not even sure whether we wait for the parents to come pick up the children or we evacuate right away,” she said.,,,,,,,,,
The newly established Nuclear Regulation Authority is bogged down in regulatory hearings since laying down stringent guidelines for plant restarts a year ago. Officials reject any notion of a more active role in emergency planning.
Even supporters of restarts have doubts about the plans. Toyoji Fukuzono, 61, a retired fisherman, questioned a route requiring 1,600 residents to travel down a narrow road that routinely floods at high tide.
“We just want you to consider actual road conditions,” he told a town hall meeting. “You know there’s regular flooding and landslides.”
(Writing by Mari Saito; Editing by Edmund Klamann and Ron Popeski) http://planetark.org/enviro-news/item/71788
Solar storage project to be funded by Australian Renewable Energy Agency
Australian Renewable Energy Agency to fund solar storage solution http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-01/arena-funds-solar-storage-technology/5552394 1 Jul 2014,
AUDIO: ARENA funds breakthrough solar storage technology (ABC Rural)
“Sunverge Energy plans to work with energy retailers to offer solar packages that include its innovative storage solutions. “This approach has the potential for fast, widespread adoption of the technology, increasing the supply of renewable energy in Australia.”
The investment comes at an interesting time for ARENA which was put in place by the previous Labor Government to promote and implement renewable energy solutions but faces a cut in funds under the Coalition.
Politics aside, ARENA is still endeavouring to meet its charter with $1 billion worth of committed funding for projects to be rolled out over the coming years.
“Now the other the other thing I should emphasis is we have over a billion dollars of existing commitments and the Federal Government is very much behind keeping those.
“Out of that billion odd dollar less than a third of it has actually been spent. “So there is an awful lot to do and an awful lot of benefits to yet come out of the ARENA project.”
Climate change is above party politics. Labor should support Direct Action policy
Labor should compromise on Direct Action: Australia Institute chief The Conversation, 1 July 14, Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow at University of Canberra The chief executive of the left-leaning Australia Institute think tank, Richard Denniss, has urged Labor to do a deal to implement elements of the government’s controversial direct action climate program.
With money already appropriated in the budget for the proposed emissions reduction fund, Denniss said it should be used “to buy as much abatement as we can”.
The government has legislation before Parliament to provide for the Clean Energy Regulator to conduct auctions and enter into contracts to pay companies to reduce their emissions. Some $2.55 billion worth of contracts would be funded, although only $1.1 billion would be spent in the forward estimates period.
When the carbon tax is repealed – now considered certain after last week’s announcement by Clive Palmer that PUP senators will vote for ending the tax – Australia would have no primary scheme for combating climate change if direct action is not implemented.
Labor voted against the direct action legislation in the House of Representatives, but shadow treasurer Chris Bowen appeared to leave open its final position at the weekend.
Denniss told The Conversation: “The government is offering to spend a couple of billion on abating emissions. As long as we get good value for it, and we are confident the emissions are abated and administrative costs are not excessively high, I think that would be a good outcome.”
But he said the money should be spent on energy efficiency projects and carbon farming, rather than buying emissions from big polluters, as the administrative costs would be much lower and the measurement of emission reduction much easier…….http://theconversation.com/labor-should-compromise-on-direct-action-australia-institute-chief-28689
Canberra’s new solar farm plan soon available
Uriarra solar farm company to reveal new plans to residents 666 ABC Canberra 1 Jul 2014 Uriarra residents will this week see the latest plans for a major solar farm near the rural village in Canberra’s west.
The company behind the project, Elementus Energy submitted a new development application (DA) to build a 26,000-panel solar farm near Uriarra Village, to generate enough electricity to power more than 1,400 homes.
It will make its plans public later this week.
A previous application for solar cells to be built on a paddock across the road from houses in Uriarra Valley was rejected last year.
Resident Judy Middlebrook told 666 ABC Canberra that most of the anger about the project was around the closeness of solar panels to residences.
“From reading this, it looks as if he has moved it back 100 metres or so but we won’t know that until the DA is notified,” she said.
“The mood is now let’s wait and see……http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-01/uriarra-solar-farm-company-to-reveal-new-plans-to-residents/5562570
India’s race towards renewable energy
India powers toward renewable energy: Part II 30 June 2014 SAROSH BANA In the second instalment of this three-part exclusive, Sarosh Bana discusses the dynamics of the Indian solar market relative to other renewable energy segments in the country. (Subscribers only) http://www.renewableenergyfocus.com/view/39082/india-powers-toward-renewable-energy-part-ii/
Only 9% of Australians want Renewable Energy Target cut, but Abbott govt fights on
Renewable Energy Target Still Under Threat http://www.energymatters.com.au/index.php?main_page=news_article&article_id=4374 While Clive Palmer’s again-found passion for renewables has been encouraging, the battle for the RET is far from over.
It’s becoming increasingly clearer that the government is hell-bent on gutting or destroying the Renewable Energy Target somehow, no matter what evidence is tabled showing that to keep it in its current form is A Very Good Thing.
The Australian has reported on an ABC interview with Prime Minister Abbott, who stated:
“All of us should want to see lower prices and plainly at the moment the renewable energy target is a very significant impact on higher power prices.”
Time and again the impact on residential bills has been shown to be minimal –just a few percent now and that is expected to drop in the next two years to less than 1% of a power bill.
Other fronts are also opening up in the battle.
25 Coalition backbenchers have written to Environment Minister Greg Hunt and Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane asking for the aluminium industry to be given afull exemption from RET associated costs; plus a change to the scheme to reflect a “true” 20 per cent target. This would result in less renewables being installed and heavily impact on jobs and investment in the sector.
Any nobbling of the RET could also come at a huge political cost for the Coalition. There are over 1.4 million solar households in Australia and owners of solar panel systems are generally quite passionate about the technology.
But it’s not just solar owners who support the Renewable Energy Target.
A recent survey indicates the number of people supporting an RET of 20 per cent and above has risen to 71 per cent this year and only 9 per cent want to see the target reduced or abolished altogether.
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 