Australian government funding research in China into dodgy thorium nuclear reactors
Isn’t this just dandy? The Australian government can’t afford to fund services to the needy in health, education, and is doing its darndest to kill clean energy, but is quietly promoting nuclear energy. And not conventional nuclear energy, which is bad enough, but the untested, hugely costly thorium experiment – the same one that was tried and found unviable 50 years ago
ANSTO-SINAP Joint Research Centre, 16 Jan 15 In December 2012, ANSTO signed a memorandum of understanding with the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics (SINAP) for cooperation in the area of materials research and development.
Central West New South Wales could have a bright future with renewable energy – Greens candidate Matt Parmeter
Greens candidate for Dubbo sees opportunities in transition to renewable energy http://www.mudgeeguardian.com.au/story/2819662/greens-candidate-for-dubbo-sees-opportunities-in-transition-to-renewable-energy/?cs=1485 By Elle Watson Jan. 16, 2015 Greens candidate for Dubbo Matt Parmeter says renewable energy poses a bright future for the Central West.
“[Renewable energy] will have a lot of benefits for inland NSW,” Mr Parmeter said. He said 300 jobs had been created in Nyngan were a solar power plant is currently under construction.
The Greens renewable energy plan claims NSW can transform from its reliance on 19th century fossil-fuels to a clean, green economy. “Investing in renewable energy technologies now is possible, it is affordable, and it will create jobs in our region,” said a release from Mr Parmeter.
“We all want to safeguard the environment for our kids – 100 per cent renewable electricity generation for NSW by 2030 is the way to do this.”
The Greens say transitioning to a low-carbon economy is the only way to tackle climate change head on and avoid the worst predictions of a hotter, drier climate. “I think climate change is an issue that effects everyone,” Mr Parmeter said. “There are a lot of aspects to that.”
Mr Parmeter said the Greens are staunchly against Coal Seam Gas mining and believe renewable energy is a far better alternative. “The concerns people have are for the damage caused by CSG mining,” Mr Parmeter said.
He has worked on farm water supply, town water supply and sewerage projects throughout the region for the last 20 years. Has lived in Dubbo since 1996, has two teenage children, and said he has a good understanding of what paying a mortgage and doing the grocery shopping is all about.
The Dynamics of Possible Nuclear Extinction – Symposium in New York
Symposium: The Dynamics of Possible Nuclear Extinction l February 28-March 1, 2015 at The New York Academy of Medicine
A unique, two-day symposium at which an international panel of leading experts in disarmament, political science, existential risk, artificial intelligence, anthropology, medicine, nuclear weapons and other nuclear issues will be held at The New York Academy of Medicine on Feb 28- March 1, 2015. The public is welcome.
A project of The Helen Caldicott Foundation
http://helencaldicottfoundation.org/symposium-the-dynamics-of-possible-nuclear-extinction-l-february-28-march-1-2015-at-the-new-york-academy-of-medicine/
Northern NSW could be a powerhouse for clean energy, but COALition’s loyalty is to coal
The Greens said the coalition’s love affair with fossil fuels was more about shoring up their mates than a realistic policy for the future.
‘Northern NSW could be a powerhouse for clean energy, but right now the National and Liberal Parties are deliberately wrecking the sector to favour destructive coal and coal seam gas,’
Greens attack coalition’s ‘dumb’ renewables stance http://www.echo.net.au/2015/01/greens-attack-coalitions-dumb-renewables-stance/The Greens say jobs and energy independence in the region are under attack by the Liberal/National parties despite a substantial take-up of solar on the north coast. January 15, 2015 | by Chris Dobney
This week, Bloomberg New Energy Finance reported that investment in renewable energy had plunged 88 per cent in Australia in 2014, largely in response to the hostility of the Abbott government to renewable energy and their policy to reduce the Renewable Energy Target.
But 20 per cent of households in the northern rivers already have solar panels on their roofs and the Greens say the industry is still in a ‘growth phase’ worldwide, with more effective batteries allowing residents to become independent from the grid.
Greens candidate for the state seat of Ballina, Tamara Smith, said that investment in the renewable energy sector could be providing new jobs across northern NSW, but instead the government had caused ‘a collapse in business confidence’. Continue reading
When turbulent weather caused a B52 carrying 2 nuclear bombs to crash in Eastern USA
the weapons are found. Not entirely safe, but “…relatively intact…” according to the Air Force. It’s a scary sounding moderation to describe radioactive A-bombs lying around in the woods of the Eastern U.S. unattended.
[Read also: On this day in 1968 a B-52 crashed in Greenland with 4 hydrogen bombs]
The nuclear nightmare of Savage Mountain: when a B-52 crashed due to turbulence. With two nukes, The Aviationist, Jan 15 2015 By Tom Demerly
This is true. And it’s terrifying. It reads like an Ian Fleming or Tom Clancy thriller. But it’s real.0138 Continue reading
Strong interest from South Australia and Victoria in ACT’s wind energy auction
ACT wind energy auction: And the winners are …. REneweconomy, By Giles Parkinson on 14 January 2015 The ACT government’s wind energy auction has thrown up some surprising winners, and none of the planned 200MW of wind turbines will be built within a bull’s roar of the nation’s capital, if market intelligence is correct. The ACT government advised the winning tenderers of their success just before Christmas, and have until early February to prove that they have the finance in place to build the projects.
The winners have not been publicly announced, and will be kept confidential. But through a process of elimination – i.e. by crossing out those among the 18 project tenders who concede they didn’t make it, there are three likely winners.
They are the Hornsdale wind project in South Australia – regarded as the country’s most prospective wind project because of its excellent wind resources. Industry estimates suggest that the project could be a go-er with a tariff of around $80/MWh…………
The second winner is thought to the small Coonooer Bridge wind project in Victoria. This is owned by Windlab, a spinoff of CSIRO which is based in Canberra. Coonoer is likely to be just 18MW, but will also likely have a level of community ownership through an innovative structure that we discussed here.
The third project is less certain but is thought to be the Ararat project owned by RES, also based in Victoria. It is also bidding for less than half of its nominated capacity of more than 220MW.
The ACT wind energy auction is important to the wind industry in Australia because the sector has been at a standstill for nearly two years. According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, no new wind projects were financed in Australia in 2014 because of the Federal government’s attempts to nobble the renewable energy target.
That helped cause an 88 per cent slump in large scale clean energy investment, and pushed Australia down from 11th position to 39th in the world, below Myanmar and Honduras. For some international investors, the ACT auction was considered to be the last hope in Australia, given the uncertainty that continues around the RET.
Contrary to the federal government, which sees its future in coal, the ACT government hopes to source 90 per cent of its electricity needs from renewable energy sources by 2020. It will do this through a series of auctions – 40MW of large scale solar already completed, an initial run of 200MW of wind, and around 50MW of other large scale solar projects including storage, and 23MW of waste-to-energy projects.
The ACT government raised the prospect of winning tenders going to other states if the price was cheaper, although it did profess to have a strong “local content” component of the tender………….http://reneweconomy.com.au/2015/act-wind-energy-auction-and-the-winners-are-25695
UK cover-up of secret deals for private business in managing Sellafield nuclear facility
IoS Investigation: Officials plotted Sellafield cover-up The Independent 15 Jan 15
MPs were denied the chance to challenge sweetener to private firm’s nuclear deal BY GEOFFREY LEAN , ANDY ROWELL AND RICH COOKSON Sunday 04 January 2009 Top civil servants and nuclear administrators colluded to prevent MPs from challenging a massive sweetener to a private business taking over the running of Sellafield, internal documents in the hands of
The Independent on Sunday reveals.
The documents, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, also disclose that the Government pushed through the handover at breakneck speed because it feared that the “unstable management arrangements” of the controversial Cumbrian nuclear complex risked its safety.
Yesterday, a leading Labour MP announced that he would try to get a parliamentary investigation into the revelations in the documents, which run to 140 pages and had been so heavily censored prior to release that many whole pages, and the names of most of the officials involved, have been systematically blanked out. Paul Flynn MP, a member of the House of Commons Public Administration Committee – which examines the performance of the Civil Service – is to ask it to inquire into what he calls “an egregious example of obstruction of parliamentary accountability”.
The cover-up arises from the awarding, late in November, of a contract to run the nuclear complex to Nuclear Management Partners, a consortium of US, French and British companies.
Although the contract is worth some £22bn, the consortium told ministers that it would walk away from the deal unless it was fully indemnified against the costs of cleaning up an accident at what is one of the world’s most hazardous nuclear sites.
Normally, as the documents repeatedly acknowledge, the Government would place a special minute before Parliament if it intended to undertake a liability of more than £250,000. MPs would then have 14 days to raise an objection, which would stop the undertaking going ahead until it had been dealt with. But MPs were not told about the Sellafield indemnity until 75 days after the last moment when they could object, even though it potentially exposes the taxpayer to liabilities running into billions.
The energy minister Mike O’Brien blames a “clerical oversight” for this. But the documents clearly show that the senior civil servants and nuclear administrators had been actively discussing how to limit MPs’ chance to object at least since early last year.
The documents have come to light only as a result of persistent pressure from Dr David Lowry, an independent environmental policy and research consultant, who is a member of Nuclear Waste Advisory Associates. The documents make it clear that the Government was determined to hurry through the handover of operations at Sellafield as quickly as possible because of what one of them calls “the current unstable management arrangements overseeing these extremely sensitive sites, and their high hazard inventories”. Another adds that this instability “constitutes a genuine risk to health, safety and environmental performance” at the complex……….
Other confidential documents, received after two Freedom of Information Act applications, divulge that three local councils in Somerset asked for £750,000 to fund a planning officer and legal advice from companies that want to build nuclear power stations in their areas, raising questions about conflicts of interest, and that the officially neutral NDA considered coming out in favour of new reactors. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ios-investigation-officials-plotted-sellafield-coverup-1224473.html
China has problems with its Westinghouse supplied Advanced Nuclear Reactor
China’s First Advanced Nuclear Reactor Faces More Delays Start-Up Now Unlikely Until 2016 at the Earliest WSJ By CHUIN-WEI YAP And BRIAN SPEGELE Jan. 15, 2015 BEIJING—China’s ambitions to be a leader in nuclear technology have been dealt a fresh blow, as construction of its most advanced reactor is facing a new delay.The project—which China is developing with Westinghouse Electric Co. of the U.S.—faces new development problems and now isn’t expected to start up until 2016 at the earliest, the chief engineer at China’s state-owned reactor technology company said Thursday.
“We discovered some new problems during tests so we need to delay it more until next year,” Wang Zhongtang, chief engineer of China’s State Nuclear Power Technology Corp., said on the sidelines of an industry conference. Mr. Wang didn’t specify the nature of the latest problems found at ongoing trials for the reactor, nor did he provide a more precise time frame for its launch.
The delay is the second for the project, which had been slated to start by the end of 2013. It marks another setback for China’s clean-energy ambitions, as technical hurdles loom over Beijing’s aim to triple its nuclear power capacity by 2020…
….the delays have illustrated shortcomings in China’s nuclear sector, particularly when dealing with immature and first-of-a-kind technologies such as those found in the AP1000 reactor, said Li Ning, a nuclear-industry expert at China’s Xiamen University.
Chinese officials “are certainly very frustrated,” said Mr. Li. “I think they feel Westinghouse oversold the system, oversold the technology, promised more than they could really deliver.”………
China’s ambitions and vast market remain vital for the global nuclear industry. French nuclear engineering firm Areva S.A. , which lost out a key bid in 2007 to Westinghouse to build four reactors for China, is still seeking business there…….http://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-first-advanced-nuclear-reactor-faces-more-delays-1421297393
Will constitutional recognition really make any difference to Australia’s indigenous people?
Baird calls on states to support Indigenous recognition. But what difference will it make?, Guardian, Celeste Liddle– 15 Jan 15 “……………-If, after consultation, a preamble statement is what we’re left with when we go to vote, then the examples set by the states do not leave me with a great deal of confidence. Why would we believe that federal recognition would lead to a great shift of consciousness and more collaborative and equitable governance based on state records?
Baird may have success convincing other Australian premiers and chief ministers that they need to support constitutional recognition but he is going to have a much harder time convincing the Indigenous electorate. We have a lot of experience of being handed pyrite by politicians dressed up as gold.
While we may have differing views on constitutional recognition across the spectrum, you can be certain we will always question the motives of governments who talk of the importance of our rights on one hand, yet attempt to strip our rights on another. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/15/baird-calls-on-states-to-support-indigenous-recognition-but-what-difference-will-it-make
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 