Growing public anxiety in Greenland, over Australian uranium miner Greenland Minerals and Energy Limited (GMEL)
the people of Greenland are “split down the middle regarding the repeal of the ban.”
Hooge explains that the “mineral authorities” have fed the public disinformation over the last years but the tide may be turning, with growing concerns over environmental effects and the leftist party Inuit Ataqatigiit pledging to roll back the repeal if it wins back power.
The prospect of a relatively unknown Australian company exploiting massive untapped resources in Greenland deserves a robust public and political debate. It has thus far received nothing in Australia, and little in Denmark and Greenland.
In an age of worsening climate change, mining uranium is an arguably unsafe and potentially explosive answer to the problem
Australian uranium mining in Greenland is tearing the country in half jagadees.wordpress.com August 23, 2014 Antony Loewenstein. source theecologist.org
This is a story about an Australian company you’ve never heard of, operating in a nation that rarely enters the global media: Greenland. It’s a story about the intense search for energy sources in a world that’s moving away from the dirtiest fossil fuels.
Aleqa Hammond, the prime minister of Greenland, is the first woman to lead this autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark. She also welcomes the financial opportunities from climate change and a melting Arctic Circle……..
In October last year, Hammond pushed legislation through Greenland’s parliament to overturn a 25 year old ban on the extraction of radioactive materials, including uranium, despite countless leading environmental NGOs urging otherwise.
It attracted global interest from the rare earth and uranium industries, including from China. Concerns were also raised about Greenland’s ability to manage a toxic substance in the wake of Fukushima and Chernobyl.
The company Greenland Minerals and Energy Limited (GMEL) is based in Perth, Western Australia. This year GMEL announced a major step forward in their plan to open one of the world’s largest uranium mines in southern Greenland, at Kvanefjeld, near Narsaq. The mine will also produce fluoride, thorium and other rare earths.
There is still significant opposition to the Kvanefjeld project. The Ecological Council, a Danish NGO, organised a conference to discuss the potential contamination risks in March, noting that the mine poses serious risks for the inhabitants of the nearby village, Narsaq.
Many locals told the BBC that they worried about pollution and challenges to traditional ways of life if GMEL moved ahead with its plans.
Unsurprisingly, Danish green groups have pushed for a continued ban on uranium mining. They claim that rare earth elements can be extracted without uranium mining in Greenland.
Who owns GMEL?
This would have been an important but fairly typical contest over resources, but after issues surrounding the ownership and status of Perth-based GMEL were raised in the Greenlandic parliament, the prospects of the Australian firm may be in jeopardy. Continue reading
Over 60 epidemiological studies show childhood cancer increase near nuclear power plants
Nuclear power stations cause childhood leukemia – and here’s the proof http://www.ianfairlie.org/news/childhood-leukemias-near-nuclear-power-stations-new-article/ Ian Fairlie 24 Aug 14
In March 2014, my article on increased rates of childhood leukemias near nuclear power plants (NPPs) was published in the Journal of Environmental Radioactivity (JENR). A previous post discussed the making of the article and its high readership: this post describes its content in layman’s terms.
Before we start, some background is necessary to grasp the new report’s significance. Many readers may be unaware that increased childhood leukemias near NPPs have been a contentious issue for several decades. For example, it was a huge issue in the UK in the 1980s and early 1990s leading to several TV programmes, Government Commissions, Government committees, a major international Conference, Government reports, at least two mammoth court cases and probably over a hundred scientific articles. It was refuelled in 1990 by the publication of the famous Gardner report (Gardner et al, 1990) which found a very large increase (7 fold) in child leukemias near the infamous Sellafield nuclear facility in Cumbria.
The issue seems to have subsided in the UK, but it is still hotly debated in most other European countries, especially Germany.
The core issue is that, world-wide, over 60 epidemiological studies have examined cancer incidences in children near nuclear power plants (NPPs): most (>70%) indicate leukemia increases. I can think of no other area of toxicology (eg asbestos, lead, smoking) with so many studies, and with such clear associations as those between NPPs and child leukemias. Continue reading
AUDIO: Over 20,00 jobs at risk if Renewable Energy Target is changed
AUDIO Jobs at risk from renewable energy target changes http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2014/s4073035.htm Matthew Doran reported this story on Saturday, August 23, 2014 ELIZABETH JACKSON: A green energy analyst says any changes to the Renewable Energy Target, which is currently under Federal Government review, will affect far more than the environmental sector in Australia.
It’s estimated that more than 20,000 people are employed in a variety of roles across the renewable industry sector, from construction to research and development. But the ongoing uncertainty is spooking a growing number of developers.From Adelaide, Matthew Doran reports. Continue reading In 2014 huge increase in renewable energy in South Africa, Kenya and Ethiopia
Africa to add 1.8GW of renewable energy in 2014 http://www.energylivenews.com/2014/08/25/africa-to-add-1-8gw-of-renewable-energy-in-2014/ 25 Aug 14 A reduction in costs for wind and solar power as well as an increasing demand for electricity could see more renewable energy projects commissioned in sub-Saharan Africa this year.
That’s according to a new report which predicts 1.8GW of renewable energy capacity, excluding large hydro power plants, will be installed in 2014.
That’s more than the amount that came online in the entire 2000-13 period, analysts at Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) said.
Investment in countries including South Africa, Kenya and Ethiopia is estimated at $5.9 billion (£3.6bn) this year and may reach $7.7 billion (£4.6bn) in 2016. Average annual investment from 2006 through 2011 was just $1 billion (£0.6bn)
Victoria Cuming, Senior Analyst at BNEF said: “Sub-Saharan Africa is not new to renewable energy… What is different now is the breadth of activity, with wind, solar and geothermal exciting interest in many different countries and the potential for further growth.”
Australians’ defence of the Renewable Energy Target underway, with Brisbane pro solar rally
Australia: Pro-solar rally slams attack on renewable target, PV Magazine 21. AUGUST 2014 | BY: JONATHAN GIFFORD
The organized opposition to the federal government’s moves to abolish or reduce Australia’s Renewable Energy Target (RET) has begun. More than 500 people attended a rally in Brisbane to protest against changes to the RET. The Australian Solar Council launched a campaign against the federal government 
making changes to the RET. Its first event in the northeastern state of Queensland on Thursday attracted 500 attendees.
The council’s CEO John Grimes said that a clear message has been sent to the government that Australians in key electorates are willing to vote to defend renewable energy in the country.
“Tonight over 500 solar heroes have come forward to send a clear warning to the Abbott government,” said Grimes. He said the message to Abbott’s conservative government has been clear: “We love solar, solar saves us money on power bills [and] we will vote to defend the Renewable Energy Target!”
The Save Solar campaign has also raised the ire of the government. Environment Minister Greg Hunt slammed John Grimes on ABC Radio……..
“The Environment Minister should be attacking the Prime Minister’s radical plan to shut down the solar industry, not shooting the messenger,” said Grimes. “Today’s outburst shows how scared the Government is of this national campaign to Save Solar taking hold.”
There have been a host of surveys showing that Australians are supportive of renewable energy and the RET. With over 1.3 million solar households around the country, certainly a large number of people have first hand experience of solar.
The Australian Newspaper, a Rupert Murdoch owned publication that is generally skeptical of climate change and is often critical of renewable energy has been running a series of surveys about Australian’s attitudes towards renewables. In its most recent survey, it found that 88% of Australians support renewable energy, while only 8% report being “totally against.”
The Australian currently has a second survey live here.
Australia’s Clean Energy Council is also currently campaigning against changes to the RET. It’s CEO Kane Thornton argues that even a reduction of the RET to a “true 20%,” proposed as a compromise measure, would devastate the renewable energy industry in Australia. http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/details/beitrag/australia–pro-solar-rally-slams-attack-on-renewable-target_100016170/#axzz3BRV0obrI
Fading hopes for nuclear power to restart in Japan
Don’t bank on nuclear restarts, Japan Times 24 Aug 14 Power companies are moving again to raise their electricity rates to get out of dire financial straits ………..Electricity charges are estimated to have already increased by roughly 20 percent for households and nearly 30 percent for businesses compared with 2010 levels.
Additional hikes could weigh heavily on households and businesses alike, and for that reason many are calling for a quick restart of the idled nuclear reactors — to remove an obstacle to Japan’s economic growth. That, however, does not warrant a return to business as usual for nuclear power in Japan.
While minimizing the inevitable rate hikes by introducing more streamlining and efficiency in their operations, the utility firms should begin an effort to change their cost structure and reduce their reliance on nuclear power by taking a more realistic view of the situation since the Fukushima disaster.
The Abe administration also needs to set down more specific goals in Japan’s energy policy that will incorporate efforts to reduce “as much as possible” the nation’s dependence on nuclear power — as it says in the government’s latest basic energy plan — to set a clear direction for the utility industry……..
When it raised its rates 11 months ago, Hokkaido Electric assumed that its Tomari Nuclear Power Plant would resume operations by June this year.
When Kansai Electric raised its electricity charges in the spring of 2013, it similarly calculated that its Oi and Takahama nuclear plants in Fukui Prefecture would be up and running.
In its reconstruction plans approved by the government last December, Tepco also assumed that it would start reactivating reactors at its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant in Niigata Prefecture by July this year — adding that it might need to raise its rates again by up to 10 percent if the restart of the plant was delayed.
All of these forecasts by utilities have proven too optimistic. Of the 20 reactors at 13 nuclear power plants under safety review by the Nuclear Regulation Authority since July last year, the two reactors at Kyushu Electric Power Co.’s Sendai plant in Kagoshima Prefecture have effectively cleared the NRA screening, but their actual restart is not likely before the end of this year due to pending procedures…….
The entire process for restarting the nuclear plants, including the necessary approvals from host municipalities and prefectures, is going to be tough and will take a long time. At present, only 20 of the nation’s 48 reactors are under NRA review……
as long as the power companies keep drawing up business plans based on the hope of once again being be able to operate nuclear power plants as they did before 2011, consumers and businesses can bet on the certainty of more hikes in the future. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2014/08/24/editorials/dont-bank-nuclear-restarts/#.U_u6scVdUnk
How the corporate media deceives us on the Ukraine crisis
Media Propaganda and the Ukraine Crises Paul Rogov, 25 Aug 14 “…… Western journalists write for corporate interests. It does not really matter who it is—The New York Times, The New Republic, The Economist, USA Today, CNN, or Fox— but the Western media it self is the entity that is aggravating the situation in the Ukraine.
By appealing to Western-led Eastern European, Eurasian and Russian scholars and American think-tanks and universities in hopes of the establishing lesser known “facts” about the Ukraine, corporate journalism often pounces on every opportunity or rumor or idea, so it can get its story out for the U.S.’s own benefit, having had met its deadlines.
The media was originally intended to critique the government and serve the people by giving them accurate, unbiased information. All an American needed was the facts. Commentary journalism, however, is different. It is a meta-journalism: a critique of itself.
Meta-journalism is in grave crisis. More than ever independent and free presses are needed to keep mainstream media, which seems to have merged with the U.S. State Department, in check.
A corporate journalist writes their article for their corporate sponsor—wanting to get their story off to his or her editor as quickly as possible— effectively perpetuating the U.S. Military Industrial Complex and explicitly propelling the idea of WWIII.
Now, with American academic-ideologues like Timothy Snyder, who writes articles like “The Battle of the Ukraine Means Everything” for The New Republic, it should be clear that this media dragon has many heads. Americans, in turn, have to lop off each one in order to deconstruct the propaganda that feeds the hysteria within the psyche of the average citizen……..
Western corporate Journalists are the creators of WWIII because they choose to bifurcate everything for the American people. Hawk versus Dove. Democrat versus Republican. NATO versus Russia. West verses East. Is there no way to be multipolar and live in a multipolar world? Western corporate media uses split screen techniques on television and broadcasts about complex political topics that cannot be resolved by two talking heads. They present only two points of view for just two ways of understanding American culture in under two minutes.
Whereas I do not remotely trust news coverage that comes from the Russian Federation, the Western coverage of the Ukrainian predicament is deplorable and dishonest, hysteria-arousing, sometimes pedestrian, uninformative, inaccurate and most of all, propaganda. Why? Because Western corporate journalists serve the U.S.’s Military Industrial Complex.
While the corporate media cynically giggles behind its readers’ backs and Senator John McCain smiles and tweets— “I’m proud to be sanctioned by Putin”—- it revels in every hot new angle to the story about “the Ukraine situation” and gets further and further sucked into the dichotomous “clash of the titans” logic in what it first dubbed a “New Cold War,” then slowly begins using the term “World War III.”……http://paulrogov.wordpress.com/2014/08/25/media-propaganda-and-the-ukraine-crises/
Chinese solar energy firm to close its research in Australia, due to Abbott govt policies
Solar giant to close Australian R&D unit August 22, 2014 Peter Hannam ENVIRONMENT EDITOR, THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD A GIANT CHINESE SOLAR ENERGY FIRM, ORIGINALLY BASED ON AUSTRALIAN TECHNOLOGY, PLANS TO CLOSE ITS LOCAL RESEARCH ARM AMID CONCERNS ABOUT THE FUTURE OF RENEWABLE ENERGY IN THE COUNTRY.
Suntech, founded by Australian-trained former “Sun King” billionaire Shi Zhengrong, will next month close its Suntech R&D Australia unit with the loss of about a dozen jobs.
The company, now owned by a Hong Kong solar tycoon Cheng Kin Ming and renamed Wuxi Suntech, said in May it invests more than $3 million a year in Australian research and development.
“Suntech wants to continue a relationship with Australia, but it no longer makes the same sense to keep a research team [here],” Renate Egan, managing director of the Sydney-based R&D unit, said.
“Clearly the market’s not going to grow here,” Dr Egan said, referring to large-scale projects.
The government is yet to release the recommendations of its hand-picked panel reviewing the Renewable Energy Target. Clean energy investors fear the panel, headed by former Caltex chairman and climate change sceptic Dick Warburton, will back a cut of the current goal of supplying 41,000 gigawatt-hours of renewable energy by 2020 – if not scrap it entirely for new entrants……….
Richard Corkish, chief operating officer of the Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics at the UNSW, said the loss of the Suntech unit could see significant talent head overseas.
“We hope as big a fraction as possible [of the researchers] can remain in Australia,” Dr Corkish said, adding that there has “not been too much good news” lately for the industry’s outlook in Australia.
While Australia continues to conduct world-leading research into aspects of solar PV research – such as UNSW’s work on increasing the productivity of solar panels – the level of support is likely to shrink because of government cutbacks, Dr Corkish said.
The Australian Renewable Energy Agency currently provides grants for UNSW, Monash University and other institutions.
However, the Abbott government has vowed to scrap the agency and is expected to try again in the Senate………
While Australia’s take-up of renewable energy may be about to slow markedly, other nations are likely to press ahead.
A research report out this week by investment giant UBS estimates solar panels combined with storage are likely to be competitive with conventional power grids by 2020. Battery prices are likely to halve by the decade’s end – and continue to fall – giving the solar-storage combination a payback period of six to eight years by then……..http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/solar-giant-to-close-australian-rd-unit-20140822-10758l.html
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 