Australia’s Lucas Heights nuclear reactor to get less security
Lucas Heights nuclear reactor’s security may be cut DANIEL MEERS THE DAILY TELEGRAPH SEPTEMBER 24, 2014 THERE are fresh fears federal police numbers may be cut at the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor, the site of a security breach on Monday.
Just a day after police intercepted bushwalkers at the restricted site 31km southwest of Sydney, the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union claimed Australian Federal Police numbers would be cut from 21 to six at the site next month and restructured. The union’s claims follow funding cuts for the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) which the organisation says has led to a restructure in operations.
Safety supervisors would also be outsourced under the restructure.
A spokesman for ANSTO yesterday said the union figures on policing were wrong but conceded there had been changes to roles…..
AMWU NSW secretary Tim Ayres said he was concerned about security at the site. “In a climate of heightened security risks, we’re about to hand over security of a nuclear reactor to a contractor firm. How can this deliver better safety?
“The community expects our high-risk security targets are patrolled by professional federal police officers and a strong on-site safety culture. But ANSTO … has decided to go with the cheaper option.”….http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/lucas-heights-nuclear-reactors-security-may-be-cut/story-fni0cx12-1227068424540
Gas, Coal, & Nuclear power are the focus of Abbott’s Energy Green Paper
It devotes one special appendix to nuclear energy.
In short, this paper is everything it was expected to be – despite its supposed focus on the future, it is looking in the past rather, completely oblivious to global trends, technology costs and the rapid change in energy systems, not to mention the challenge of reducing emissions
Abbott’s energy green paper focuses on gas, coal, nuclear, REneweconomy By Giles Parkinson on 23 September 2014 The long-awaited energy green paper from the Abbott government is playing to form, focusing largely on Australia’s booming gas industry and how to get more investment into extractive energy resources, so that Australia can become an energy “superpower.”
As the UN meets in New York, and bodies such as it, major investment funds and the World Bank urge a price on carbon and a rapid path to decarbonisation, the green paper makes a virtue of becoming the first country to dump a carbon price.
It also warns against “distorting” subsidies, although this seems focused more on renewables than it does on not accounting for the health and environmental impacts of fossil fuels, which the Climate Institute said today was costing $14-39 billion a year.
To get an idea of where the government sees its priorities, in the four-page executive summary, for instance, gas gets 18 mentions, coal gets four and solar gets just two. Wind energy doesn’t rate a mention. Storage is mentioned once, as is nuclear.
But in the 78-page body of the green paper, gas is mentioned 434 times. Coal is mentioned 100 times, followed by nuclear on 67. Storage gets 32, solar gets 26, and wind energy just 13 mentions.
That certainly doesn’t relate to Australia’s current energy mix, or even the future energy mix. And certainly not the decarbonised energy systems that are advocated by the likes of ClimateWorks, or even the International Energy Association. Continue reading
Australia helps destabilise Asia-Pacific in selling uranium to India
Australia and uranium: the pusher of the Pacific https://overland.org.au/2014/09/australian-and-uranium-the-pusher-of-the-pacific/ By Adam Broinowski 19.Sep.14 “……… The new demand from India will include uranium mined from Ben Lomond near Mt Isa which is likely to be shipped from Townsville Port, and coal mined from the gargantuan Galilee Basin and shipped from Abbott Point, passing through the dredged Great Barrier Reef, or freighted by road to Darwin or Adelaide ports (which hold uranium licenses). The Australia-India uranium agreement supports this concerted and accelerated push.
In cementing a nuclear deal with India, the Abbott government has committed to selling uranium to a nation-state that barely conceals its intentions to expand its nuclear weapons arsenal and that rejects the NPT and Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)………..
First, the Australia-India uranium trade agreement is unsafe. If Japan’s nuclear industry and government have proven unable to properly contain the potential for serious nuclear accidents at its domestic nuclear power plants, then India’s nuclear industry, which is much less reliable and possibly even more corrupt, poses even higher risks of mismanagement.
Internally, India is also unstable, as the government fights an embedded insurgency. It maintains a violently repressive approach to imposing nuclear installations and uranium operations (such as Gorakhpur, Koodankulam, Jaitapur, Jagudoga) upon vulnerable communities, and against the wishes of civil protesters, five of whom have been killed since 2010. While guaranteed only intermittent electricity supply, such communities are experiencing higher rates of disease, congenital malformations and early deaths. In Jagudoga, Jharkhand (19,500 people), those living near the central uranium mine operated by Uranium Corp. of India Ltd. (UCIL), have suffered disproportionately high health problems……….
Second, while Tony Abbott reiterated that ‘suitable safeguards’ were in place to ensure that Australian uranium would be used for ‘peaceful purposes’ and for ‘civilian use only’, such ambiguous terms create false impressions. Nuclear technologies are inherently dual-use (both for civil energy production and military use), and it is disingenuous to claim that a water-tight separation can be ensured. In fact, ten of India’s twenty nuclear facilities do not fall under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) supervisional authority, and India only selectively recognises IAEA safeguards for specific foreign supplied reactors and facilities. With no mechanism to inspect this nuclear technology to ensure that the fuel is not diverted into nuclear weapons production, safety cannot be guaranteed.
Even if the diverted fuel was discovered, neither Australia nor the IAEA could force compliance. An influx of imported foreign uranium will simply make it easier for India to reserve some of its indigenous uranium for enrichment and/or reprocessing weapons-grade plutonium, or for some of Australia’s uranium to be ‘misallocated’ toward military facilities.
In effect, Tony Abbott’s policy to treat India as the exception undermines the IAEA standards within the disarmament regime, and breaches Australia’s obligations to the Rarotonga Treaty for the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone.
Third, and perhaps most significant, the deal will upset the ‘balance’ between India-Pakistan and in the South Asian region so as to aggravate rivalries and intensify tensions between the two nations, as well as others such as China and Bangladesh………
While leaders such as Abe, Abbott and Modi downplay the reality confronting people affected by radiation exposures from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, we should remember that this contamination came, in part, from Australian uranium.
The refusal of executive leaders to acknowledge the dangers of the uranium trade reflects the centrality of nuclear power to the US-led security regime that seeks to dominate non-compliant nations such as China or Russia………
Dr Adam Broinowski is an ARC postdoctoral research fellow at the College of Asia and the Pacific, the Australian National University.
Australia’s Industry Minister damps down Liberals’ enthusiasm for nuclear power – for now
Australia to sell uranium but won’t use it The Age, 23 Sept 14 Nuclear energy is off the table as a power source for Australia.
Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane said Australia has abundant uranium and was regarded as a safe and secure supplier to its neighbours but he said the federal government had no interest in developing it here as an energy source.
“The reality is that in Australia the appetite for nuclear fuel, which did get as high as around 50 per cent within the community, has waned quite significantly since the Fukushima incident,” he told reporters in Melbourne on Tuesday.
“Combined with the fact that we are completely blessed with a range of energy options which include coal, gas and renewables, the community has made it clear that this is not an issue they wish to pursue at this time.”…….http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-national/australia-to-sell-uranium-but-wont-use-it-20140923-3gdov.html
A “nuclear power solution” to Climate Change would just make it worse
Nuclear solutions to climate change are anything but, Aljazeera Americaby Gregg Levine @GreggJLevine 23 Sept 14 “……While major climate polluting nations such as China, India and Canada have declined to send a top-level official to this year’s summit, the U.S. was expected to go all in, with President Obama touting his recent proposals to curtail the nation’s carbon output.
That plan to limit CO2 production has already come under fire from fossil fuel-friendly corporations, trade groupsand politicians who balk at the regulation, and from climate scientists and activists who point out that the president’s plan does not do enough to meet the maximum-2-degrees-of-warming goal, but a group you will not hear complaining is the nuclear energy sector.
Buried in the proposal and absent from many initial reports on the plan is a series of programs and pledges thatencourage the preservation and possible expansion of the nation’s nuclear electrical generation capacity. The president’s proposed carbon rules assume nuclear power to be a clean, low-carbon energy option, and so put forth a nuclear industry Christmas list of subsidies, incentives and financial backstops that potentially funnels billions of public dollars into private industry hands and risks missing emissions targets while increasing the danger of a nuclear mishap.
The inventory of specifics that make nuclear power a terrible option in the fight to stem global warming would almost work as a joke if the consequences of this wrong turn weren’t so serious. Here are but some of the many reasons why nuclear power is a terrible way to deal with climate change.
First and foremost, nuclear power is not greenhouse neutral. Nuclear boosters of late have grabbed hold of climate change as their latest raison d’être, if not their last best hope of restoring relevance to their half-century-old technology. And sure, the fission going on inside a nuclear reactor is not a major source of greenhouse pollution, but nuclear reactors do not exist in a vacuum.
Beyond the operation of the reactor, the nuclear fuel cycle includes the mining, milling, processing, enrichment, fabrication and transport of the uranium-based fuel — each step is energy intensive and greenhouse pollution rich.
The plants themselves have huge carbon footprints, requiring in most cases over a decade of heavy construction, large staffs and elaborate waste-handling protocols. The operation of the plant and the storage of the waste both require a constant flow of electricity — a loss of power for any significant amount of time creates a scenario much like that seen in Fukushima, Japan. In fact, it is one of the most paradoxical parts of the world’s light-water reactor fleet — in order to safely generate electricity, the plants need a significant and consistent supply of electricity. Sometimes the plant can supply that electricity — meaning the net output of the plant is lower than the announced rate — and sometimes it cannot, in which case, the plant becomes an energy consumer.
Another thing nuclear plants consume in copious amounts is water, making them particularly ill suited to a warming climate. Reactors need water to keep their cores and condensers cool — not to mention their spent fuel storage pools — and that water needs to be plentiful, circulating, and relatively cool. Over the last decade, as the globe has warmed, nuclear plants have experienced numerous shutdowns and many more days of reduced output because there was simply no effective heat sink.
In some cases, especially in some European plants set on rivers, droughts caused the water level to drop too low for a plant’s intake valves. In the case of plants that rely on lakes, warmer days and, perhaps more importantly, warmer nights have meant the water is simply not cold enough to effectively cool the reactors. In recent summers across the U.S., this has become a regular problem, especially during prolonged heat waves, which, ironically, are when demand for electricity is highest.
Even nuclear facilities built on the coasts are vulnerable to warming water. In recent years, plants in Connecticut and Massachusetts have had to reduce output or shut down entirely because of water temperature.
But plants near the oceans have other headaches exacerbated by climate change. Rising sea levels, increasingly severe hurricanes and superstorms, and the surges that come with them all threaten to overwhelm the cooling systems and the plants themselves. Superstorm Sandy caused seven plants in the eastern U.S. to shutdownbecause of flooding, storm debris, wind damage, or interruptions to the external power supply. In the case of one aging reactor in southern New Jersey, rising waters came within inches of breaching flood walls, and external pumps and hoses were brought in to provide water for the reactors when the cooling system’s intake valves were clogged with flotsam.
Clogging is also a major concern for southern and west-coast reactors. In those cases, fish, jelly fish and an invertebrate called salp, made more numerous by warming seas, have completely blocked cooling system intakes, requiring weeks of plant shutdown, cleaning, and filter replacements.
But even if all these problems, insurmountable though they seem, could somehow be solved, nuclear power is a poor investment for a world on the brink of climate disaster.
Numerous studies predict that something like 1,500 to 2,000 new nuclear reactors would need to be up-and-running to have a significant affect on greenhouse emissions (there are currently fewer than 400 reactors operating worldwide). If those reactors replaced coal plants, it is predicted the world would see realize a 20 percent decrease in CO2 production. But if the new plants were just there to service new demand, there would actually be an increase in carbon emissions (because, as noted, these are not greenhouse-neutral endeavors).
What would such an undertaking cost? Well, the only new plants under construction in the US, the Vogtle reactors in Georgia, were projected to cost around $15 billion, but only a couple of years into production, those plants are already billions of dollars over budget. They are also already years behind schedule.
And that brings up the time it would take to build the new nuclear capacity. It takes 6 to 10 years in the best cases to bring a new reactor online. Some of the newer plants in the US (which means they are still decades old) took more than twenty years to begin operation. Building 1,500 reactors would mean firing up a new one every two weeks for the next 60 years, which is not only an impossible schedule to meet, it puts the planet long past its drop-dead date for zero greenhouse emissions.
But let’s say, through the magic of magical thinking, you get all of that out of the way, what will you do with the waste? http://america.aljazeera.com/blogs/scrutineer/2014/9/23/nuclear-solutionstoclimatechangeareanythingbut.html
Abbott govt’s Energy Green Paper plans for “Quarry Australia”
Australia ‘little more than a quarry’ in energy green paper, Sunshine Coast Daily 23rd Sep 2014 ENVIRONMENTAL groups have warned a new Abbott government energy policy green paper is a replay of “last century’s energy options”, while the energy supply industry has backed wide-ranging market reforms.
Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane on Tuesday released the paper, an early precursor to the government’s energy policy, to a mixed reception.
The green paper has laid out draft plans to attract more energy investment, loosen market regulations and lower electricity prices.
But it also maintains strong support for the existing coal and gas industries, and has raised the ire of environmental groups for not focussing on renewable energy options.
Mr Macfarlane said the paper aim to “reset” energy policy, coming only two years after a similar process by then-Resources Minister Martin Ferguson.
The report also focuses on building domestic gas supply, but did not advocate a reservation policy, and has reinforced the government’s drive for states to sell off energy assets.
But the Australian Conservation Foundations’ climate change manager Victoria McKenzie-McHarg said it “positions Australia as little more than a quarry”.
She said the paper failed to address two of the “biggest challenges”; growing the renewable energy sector and replacing coal-fired power stations…..
.The green paper is now out for public comment, before submissions will be taken into account for a white paper, which will lead to an official government energy policy. http://www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au/news/abbott-government-energy-green-paper-environment/2396883/
Australia isolated internationally, with no credible plan on Climate Change
Australia out in the cold as world turns up the heat on climate change, SMH September 24, 2014 – Tom Arup Environment editor, The Age As world leaders sit down in New York to discuss climate change, it is unlikely Australia will be trying to scupper the talks.
But nor is it going out of its way to be very helpful either.
The New York summit is critical. Over the past five years, getting world leaders to engage in climate change negotiations has been nigh on impossible.
This time it took a personal plea from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to get 125 heads of state to go to New York. And even then the top leaders of China and India are not among the attendees, though US President Barack Obama will be there……..
Now, as in Copenhagen, Australia risks finding itself out of step. But this time it is shaping up to be a laggard.
The global discussions on climate change are in a more positive place than they have been for many years, the result of recent stronger, though imperfect, efforts by China and the US to reign in their greenhouse gas emissions.
It would be foolish to believe this guarantees the elusive new global climate deal will be signed off at a meeting in Paris next year, where it is due to be finalised.
But China and the US have re-engaged.
Meanwhile, Australia is swimming against the tide. For example, the World Bank on Tuesday released a statement signed by 73 countries and about 1000 businesses and investors, in support of pricing carbon. China, Indonesia and Britain were among the signatories.
However, the Abbott government has made Australia the first country to repeal a national carbon price. And its replacement policy to cut emissions, the ill-formed Direct Action, languishes in the Senate with little political support.
It leaves Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, who is representing Australia in New York, coming to the talks with no comprehensive plan to cut Australia’s emissions under her belt. Nor does she bear any increased ambition to slash Australia’s emissions deeper than the meagre targets presently promised………
All this points to a government that sees climate change as an annoying diplomatic distraction, akin to a minor trade dispute, rather than a central tenet of foreign and environment policy.
It is a position that belies the seriousness of the problem http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/australia-out-in-the-cold-as-world-turns-up-the-heat-on-climate-change-20140923-10kynu.html#ixzz3EGq5HWVk
Tokyo rally – thousands protest against nuclear power reveival
‘What’s your anti-disaster plan?’ Thousands protest Japanese nuclear revival RT.com September 23, 2014 Thousands of people protested in Tokyo on Tuesday, criticizing the government’s move to restart two of Japan’s nuclear reactors by arguing that no sufficient anti-disaster plans have been presented three years after the Fukushima catastrophe.
More than 16,000 activists gathered in the Japanese capital, speaking out against the September 10 decision by the country’s nuclear watchdog to restart two reactors at the Sendai plant in southern Japan. We don’t need nuclear plants,” was one of the main slogans protesters shouted as the demonstration marched through the capital, now more than three years after a triple reactor meltdown at Fukushima’s power plant in March 2011.
“Three and a half years has passed since the nuclear accident, but self-examination has yet to be made,”Nobel literature laureate Kenzaburo Oe told the Tokyo rally.
“[Japan’s government] is going ahead with the plan to resume operation at the Sendai plant without compiling sufficient anti-disaster plans,” Oe said, according to public broadcaster NHK…….http://rt.com/news/190068-japan-nuclear-energy-protest/
Uranium glut indicates price will unravel further
Uranium Rally Threatened by Surplus as Mine Strike Eases Bloomberg, By Ben Sharples September 23, 2014 The rally in uranium spurred by speculation of further sanctions against Russia is poised to unravel as a supply surplus builds with the end of a labor strike at the world’s biggest mine in Canada……
Market Glut
Cantor estimates a uranium market surplus of 13.2 million pounds in 2014 while Raymond James Ltd., a financial adviser, on Aug. 27 forecast an overhang of about 10 million…….
Paladin Energy Ltd. said it would close its Kayelekera operation in Malawi until uranium climbs above $70 a pound, while Russia’s Atomredmetzoloto shut the Honeymoon mine in Australia last year…….http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-09-23/uranium-rally-threatened-by-surplus-as-mine-strike-eases
Climate chaos – caused by “King CONG”—Coal, Oil, Nuclear and Gas.
At the Grassroots How to Win the Climate Fight CounterPunch. by HARVEY WASSERMANm 23 Sept 14, The most hopeful, diverse, photogenic, energizing and often hilarious march I’ve joined in 52 years of activism—and one of the biggest, at 310,000 strong—has delivered a simple message: we can and will rid the planet of fossil fuels and nuclear power, we will do it at the grassroots, it will be demanding and difficult to say the least, but it will have its moments of great fun.
With our lives and planet on the line, our species has responded.
……….Climate chaos is a clear and present danger.
It’s caused by “King CONG”—Coal, Oil, Nukes and Gas.
The corporations who threaten us all must be reorganized and held accountable. Corporate greed is no way to power an economy. Corporate personhood is an unsustainable myth. The corporate profit motive is at war with our survival.
But renewable energy, community-owned and operated, can and will green-power our Earth cleanly and cheaply, bringing jobs, prosperity, ecological balance and, in concert, peace and social justice, without which no green transition is sustainable.
And it will come to us on the wings of focussed local campaigns against each and every polluting project, one at a time, through the grueling, endless hard work of an aroused and focussed citizenry.
The magic of today’s New York minute was its upbeat diversity, sheer brilliance and relentless charm. A cross between a political rally and a month at Mardi Gras. There were floats, synchronized dances, outrageous slogans, chants, songs, costumes, marching bands, hugs, parents with their kids, and one very sweaty guy in a gorilla suit.
Above all, there was joy…which means optimism…which means we believe we can win….which is the best indicator we will…….http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/09/23/how-to-win-the-climate-fight/
Tony Abbott exaggerated India’s nuclear safety
Fact check: Tony Abbott exaggerating India’s ‘absolutely impeccable record’ on nuclear non-proliferation ABC News, Wed 24 Sep 2014, A new bilateral agreement signed by Prime Minister Tony Abbott in early September will allow Australia to sell uranium to India for the first time.
The agreement formalises a 2007 Howard government policy to allow Australian uranium to be exported to India for energy generation, overturning a decades-old ban on uranium sales to countries which had not signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT)………
Mr Abbott says the agreement is a sign of trust between the two countries. “India has an absolutely impeccable record when it comes to nuclear non-proliferation,” he said…..
Diverting nuclear material from peaceful purposes
The promise not to divert nuclear material, such as uranium, from peaceful purposes to the development of nuclear weapons is a key plank of both the NPT and Australia’s uranium export policy.
Dr Rublee says India certainly does not have an impeccable record when it comes to nuclear non-proliferation.
“I do believe it’s a stretch to say it’s impeccable and in fact, the fact that India’s program began by explicitly breaking a legal commitment to Canada, tells you that there’s a problem from the very start,” she said.
Dr Rublee is referring to India’s first nuclear test, when it exploded the ‘Smiling Buddha’ nuclear bomb in 1974 using plutonium from a nuclear reactor supplied by Canada. The Canadian government immediately stopped supplying India with nuclear materials, a ban that was only overturned in 2010.
Former Labor foreign minister Professor Gareth Evans, who convenes the Asia Pacific Leadership Network for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, also cites India’s diversion of Canadian resources to making nuclear weapons as evidence that their record is not impeccable.
“There should be no waiving of our standard safeguards requirements when it comes to accounting for Australian-supplied nuclear material,” he said.
Dr Rublee says there are also issues with how India secures its nuclear material………
India has increased its nuclear weapons stockpile, conducted nuclear testing and refused to sign the NPT. There are also question marks over its safety procedures. India’s record when it comes to nuclear non-proliferation is not “absolutely impeccable”.
Mr Abbott’s claim is exaggerated. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-24/tony-abbott-india-uranium-record-fact-check/5736514
Police surround Australia’s Lucas Heights Nuclear Reactor
Police surround nuclear power plant after two cars appear at the entrance of the facility
- AFP officers surrounded the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO)
- Two cars were seen at the plant in Lucas Heights, south of Sydney
By FREYA NOBLE FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA , 22 September 2014…….The Daily Telegraph reports police spoke with five men and let them go after a short discussion…… http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2764899/BREAKING-Police-surround-nuclear-power-plant-two-cars-appear-entrance-facility.html#ixzz3EGeTBZZs
Rockefellers get out of oil, invest in renewables
Rockefeller family to sell oil investments to reinvest in renewables ABC News, 23 Sept 14, The heirs of the Rockefeller family, who made their vast fortune in oil, have joined in a pledge to divest more than $56 billion of fossil fuel investments to reinvest in clean energy on the eve of a major climate change summit in New York.
The Global Divest-Invest coalition has drawn 650 individuals and 180 institutions, which control billions of dollars in fossil fuel assets, to switch to renewables over five years using a variety of approaches.
One of the signatories is Rockefeller Brothers Fund and heir of Standard Oil tycoon John D Rockefeller, Stephen Heintz, who said the move would be in line with his wishes.
“We are quite convinced that if he were alive today, as an astute businessman looking out to the future, he would be moving out of fossil fuels and investing in clean, renewable energy,” he said.
Another of the higher profile institutional divestments came in May, when Stanford University said it would no longer use any of its $21 billion endowment to invest in coal mining companies.
New York mayor Bill de Blasio on Sunday unveiled a new plan for the city to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent from 2005 levels by 2050.
All 3,000 major city-owned buildings would be retrofitted with energy-saving heating, cooling and light systems, but he said meeting the commitment would also require significant investments by private landlords…….http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-23/rockefeller-family-to-sell-oil-investments-to-reinvest-in-renew/5761966
South Australia goes for 50% renewable energy by 2025
South Australia commits to 50pc renewable energy target by 2025 (includes AUDIO), ABC News 23 Sep 2014, The South Australian Government says it will increase its Renewable Energy Target (RET) and aim for 50 per cent of the state’s power to be generated by renewables by 2025.
Premier Jay Weatherill said figures from last financial year showed 31.5 per cent of energy produced in the state came from renewable sources.
He said updated figures were expected to show SA had since exceeded its current target of 33 per cent by 2020.
“Modelling shows that the RET has underpinned $5.5 billion of expenditure to date,” he said.
“[It is] forecast to support a further $4.5 billion by 2025. “This new target of half of the state’s power to be generated by renewable sources will create jobs and drive capital investment and advanced manufacturing industries.”
Mr Weatherill said SA had demonstrated that with appropriate policies and incentives, highly ambitious targets were achievable.
This new target of half of the state’s power to be generated by renewable sources will create jobs and drive capital investment and advanced manufacturing industries.
Jay Weatherill
He said the Federal Government needed to heed that message.
“The sovereign risk created by the Federal Government’s unnecessary and unexplained review into the national RET has caused a number of projects to be placed on hold, putting many construction projects and ongoing jobs at risk,” he said.
“There are hundreds, if not thousands, of SA jobs in the renewable energy sector and these are the growth areas we should be supporting, not undermining.”…..
Conservation Council CEO Craig Wilkins urged the SA Government to keep fighting the federal move to downgrade the RET.
“We have reaped the benefits of the Commonwealth Renewable Energy Target over the last decade with enormous investment in wind and solar infrastructure, particularly in regional SA,” he said
“This new state target of 50 per cent renewable energy generation by 2025 will be extremely difficult to achieve if the federal RET is dismantled.”
Andrew Bray from the Australian Wind Alliance said South Australia had proved itself a wind power success story.
“While more wind and solar power in SA is being fed into the grid, the wholesale cost of power has stayed the same,” he said.
“South Australians are paying the same for wholesale power as they were eight years ago, even accounting for the cost of renewable energy certificates.
“This decision to increase the target shows that with the rise of renewable energy is inevitable and beneficial to Australians’ costs and standard of living.”http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-23/sa-commits-to-50-per-cent-renewable-energy-target/5763640
Nuclear agreement with Argentina( may mean return of radioactive wastes?)
Argentina reaches nuclear agreements with Australia, Russia, Business News America By Andrew Baker – Tuesday, September 23, 2014 Argentina signed a contract to provide Australia with nuclear fuel for the latter’s Opal research reactor, built byArgentine technology firm Invap.
Argentine planning minister Julio De Vido encouraged further nuclear cooperation between the two countries at the signing, which took place at an event in Vienna, Austria held by the International Atomic Energy Agency……… The Australia contract follows news of an agreement between Argentina and Russia to cooperate on nuclear development. (I’m prety sure that this agreement includes the return of nuclear wastes to Australia)…….http://www.bnamericas.com/news/electricpower/argentina-reaches-nuclear-agreements-with-australia-russia?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BusinessNewsAmericas-TopStoriesEN+(Business+News+Americas+-+Top+Stories+EN)
1 This month
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