Crash or crash through Abbott crashes on trying to repeal carbon tax
PM Abbott exposes government incompetence http://christine-milne.greensmps.org.au/content/media-releases/pm-abbott-exposes-government-incompetence 10 Jul 2014 Australian Greens Leader Christine Milne says the Australian people have seen today how the Abbott government will crash in its attempts to manipulate the Senate on carbon pricing and its destructive budget.
“The only thing that is clear today is that the Prime Minister has failed. This is government by incompetence. Deals in back rooms designed to stitch up the Senate have come unstuck. Tony Abbott is a crash or crash through Prime Minister, and today he crashed,” said Senator Milne.
“This is chaotic and it shows complete contempt for the processes of the Senate. The government gagged the debate then had to filibuster when the amendments came unstuck. The whole thing came to pieces.
“This is going to characterise this whole period of government unless Tony Abbott learns to respect the Senate and give it time to be an effective house of review.
“Nobody really understands, including the government it seems, what the Palmer political party’s amendment will deliver.
“The government says it hates red tape and green tape but apparently it loves yellow tape.
“The good news today is that we still have a carbon price in Australia. We still have a price on pollution that is bringing down emissions as we speak,” said Senator Milne.
“It’s not over yet. The government can try again to repeal it, but the Greens will fight every step of the way to keep making the polluters pay.
“This is now the second double dissolution trigger the Greens have helped deliver the government, after twice saving the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. Tony Abbott has threatened an early election, but is he really game to pull the trigger?”
Repeal of Australia’s carbon tax voted down in the Senate
Ricky Muir and Palmer United senators vote with Greens and Labor against repeal of carbon tax, SMH, July 10, 2014 – Lisa Cox National political reporter The Senate has voted down the government’s third attempt to repeal the carbon tax after a chaotic morning in which the Palmer United Party backed out of its agreement to support the bills.
PUP senators and Motoring Enthusiast Party senator Ricky Muir sided with Labor and the Greens to defeat the abolition of the carbon tax, with a final vote just after 12.30pm rejecting the repeal 37 votes to 35.
The decision is a major setback for Prime Minister Tony Abbott who had expected that the scrapping of the carbon tax would be the first order of business of the new Senate. But those plans were thrown into disarray on Thursday, when PUP senators refused to back the repeal arguing an amendment drafted by the government to guarantee savings for consumers did not reflect a deal done between the two parties.
That amendment was beefed up by the PUP overnight to include stiff penalties for any company that failed to pass the full savings from the carbon tax repeal within 12 months……
In defending his party’s decision, Palmer United Party leader Clive Palmer said his senators had been ”doubled crossed” by the government and as a result they abandoned the deal and sided with the opposition.
However, the government maintains that the amendment put forward by Mr Palmer was unconstitutional because it would have constituted a money bill, which by definition cannot originate in the Senate.
The Abbott government had expected to be celebrating the achievement of its long-cherished ambition to axe Labor’s price on carbon this week, but instead has found itself scrambling day by day to negotiate with an unpredictable crossbench.
Mr Palmer had earlier on Thursday confirmed that his senators would not vote for the carbon tax repeal on Thursday, saying amendments had been lodged with the Senate Clerk’s office at 8.30am.
”We asked that it be distributed and we had a violent action from government, a violent reaction I would say,” Mr Palmer said. http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/ricky-muir-and-palmer-united-senators-vote-with-greens-and-labor-against-repeal-of-carbon-tax-20140710-3bo57.html#ixzz378lHBjK3
ISIL insurgents in Iraq have seized nuclear materials
Iraq tells UN that ‘terrorist groups’ have seized nuclear materials SMH, July 10, 2014 – Michelle Nichols New York: ISIL insurgents in Iraq have seized nuclear materials used for scientific research at a university in the country’s north, Iraq has told the United Nations in a letter appealing for help to “stave off the threat of their use by terrorists in Iraq or abroad”.
Nearly 40 kilograms of uranium compounds were kept at Mosul University, Iraq’s UN Ambassador Mohamed Ali Alhakim told UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in a letter this week.
“Terrorist groups have seized control of nuclear material at the sites that came out of the control of the state,” Mr Alhakim wrote, adding that such materials “can be used in manufacturing weapons of mass destruction”. However, US security sources said it would be difficult to make weapons from the material.
“These nuclear materials, despite the limited amounts mentioned, can enable terrorist groups, with the availability of the required expertise, to use it separate or in combination with other materials in its terrorist acts,” Mr Alhakim said.
He warned that they could also be smuggled out of Iraq.
A US government source familiar with the matter said the materials were not believed to be enriched uranium and therefore would be difficult to use to manufacture into a weapon………http://www.smh.com.au/world/iraq-tells-un-that-terrorist-groups-have-seized-nuclear-materials-20140710-zt2eb.html#ixzz378WRoppD
TEPCO workers moving to clean and better paid jobs in Japan’s solar energy industry
Stigmatized nuclear workers quit Japan utility. Bloomberg Business Week, By By Yuri Kageyama July 10, 2014 TOKYO (AP) —”………While TEPCO is out of favor with the public, the skills and experience of its employees that span the gamut of engineers, project managers, maintenance workers and construction and financial professionals, are not.
Energy industry experience is in particular demand as the development of solar and other green energy businesses is pushed along in Japan by generous government subsidies.
Currently the government pays solar plants 32 yen ($0.31) per kilowatt hour of energy. The so-called tariff for solar power varies by states and cities in the U.S., but they are as low as several cents. In Germany, it’s about 15 cents.
Sean Travers, Japan president of EarthStream, a London-based recruitment company that specializes in energy jobs, has been scrambling to woo TEPCO employees as foreign companies do more clean energy business in Japan.
“TEPCO employees are very well trained and have excellent knowledge of how the Japanese energy sector works, making them very attractive,” he said. Two top executives at U.S. solar companies doing business in Japan, First Solar director Karl Brutsaert and SunPower Japan director Takashi Sugihara, said they have interviewed former TEPCO employees for possible posts.
Besides their experience, knowledge of how the utility industry works and their contacts, with both private industry and government bureaucracy, are prized assets.
“It’s about the human network and the TEPCO employees have all the contacts,” said Travers, who says he has recruited about 20 people from TEPCO and is hoping to get more.
Yoshikawa, the former TEPCO maintenance worker, said he has received several offers for green-energy jobs that paid far better than his salary at TEPCO of 3 million yen ($30,000) a year.
Since September 2012, all TEPCO managers have had their salaries slashed by 30 percent, while workers in non-management positions had their pay reduced 20 percent. http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2014-07-10/stigmatized-nuclear-workers-quit-japan-utility
Fukushima ice wall: 90 freezing ducts built – 1460 more to go
TEPCO: 90 out of 1,550 freezing ducts built so far http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0001411769 The Yomiuri Shimbun 10 July 14 Tokyo Electric Power Co. unveiled on Tuesday the construction site of the ice wall at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant for the first time since work began last month.
As a measure to halt the increase of contaminated water, the ice walls are aimed at freezing the ground around the Nos. 1 to 4 reactor buildings of the plant to block groundwater from flowing into reactor buildings and becoming contaminated.
Contaminated water at the nuclear plant currently amounts to about 500,000 tons. The government and TEPCO have been working on the construction in the hope of completing it early next fiscal year.
On Tuesday evening, about 30 workers drilled small holes about 30 meters deep around the No. 4 reactor building. Ducts to freeze underground soil are to be installed in the holes.
A total of 1,550 freezing ducts must be installed to surround the Nos. 1 to 4 reactor building area, measuring about 1.5 kilometers. However, TEPCO said only about 90 freezing ducts have been installed so far.
Due to heat exhaustion concerns during summer, workers at the construction site wear vests containing blue ice.
Meanwhile, the task of freezing tunnels filled with contaminated water using the same method involving the construction of an ice wall has been facing difficulties. The Nuclear Regulation Authority has therefore been calling on TEPCO to fundamentally revise construction plans.
Akira Ono, the chief of Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, said: “We’ve already confirmed the effectiveness of ice walls through an on-site experiment. We will push ahead with the construction work forward as fast as we can.”
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