India’s nuclear power future by no means assured
The same stumbling block over parallel safeguards in perpetuity has held up India’s conclusion of nuclear deals with Japan and Australia
With complex legal, pricing and other issues still pending, the deal’s commercialization is anything but imminent. In fact, the two sides are yet to sign the administrative arrangements, which they announced had been “finalized.”
Why a deal to import reactors to generate an increasingly uneconomical source of energy is critical to Indian interests has never been elaborated by the deal pushers
The U.S.-India nuclear breakthrough that wasn’t, Japan Times 12 Feb 15 BY BRAHMA CHELLANEY During U.S. President Barack Obama’s recent India visit, a stalled, decade-old civil nuclear deal took center-stage, with the two sides announcing a breakthrough on the contentious issues blocking its implementation — a development that promised to potentially open the path for a Japan-India nuclear deal. It now appears that the breakthrough was more hype than reality and that there is little prospect of the U.S.-India deal’s early commercialization……..
it has now become apparent that the U.S. and India are still locked in negotiations to tie up loose ends and that the much-trumpeted breakthrough was little more than an effort to project a substantive advance during a presidential visit rich in pageantry and symbolism. Obama was the chief guest at India’s Jan. 26 Republic Day parade, a year after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had that honor.
While claiming a breakthrough, neither side released any details, including on how another sticking point had been resolved: a U.S. demand that New Delhi accept nuclear-material tracking and accounting arrangements that go beyond the safeguards system that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has approved and applied to nuclear-armed India’s civilian nuclear program. The U.S. demand entails establishing, on top of the IAEA inspections system, a bilateral safeguards system — an elaborate and expensive arrangement in which India would separately track and account for nuclear materials “by flag” (that is, by each national origin). Continue reading
$1 billion solar farm for Toowoomba, Queensland
Toowoomba council approves $1bn solar farm STAFF WRITERS, JOHN CONROY FEBRUARY 12, 2015 http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/toowoomba-council-approves-1bn-solar-farm/story-fnn8dlfs-1227216531992 APPROVAL has been given for the largest solar farm in the country — and possibly the largest proposed in the world — to be built in Queensland.Construction on the 13,000-acre Bulli Creek site near Powerlink’s substation near Millmerran, southwest of Toowoomba, is expected to start next year. It will be on cleared, flat cattle grazing land.
Developer Solar Choice has received approval from Toowoomba Regional Council for a total footprint of up to 2 gigawatts over the next eight years.
The solar farm will be built in stages of multiple 100MW-plus phases, within a total planning approved envelope of 2GW.
“The Bulli Creek project is attracting attention from a range of global investors prepared to take a medium- and long-term view,” Solar Choice said, stating it remained open to a large-scale investor.
“The Bulli Creek Solar Farm is one of a very small and select number of mega-scale solar projects that Solar Choice has strategically located at transmission nodes on broad-acre lands with high solar irradiation.”
Solar Choice said the approval of the potential 2GW farm shows claims the 2020 Renewable Energy Target can’t be met are false.
Managing director Angus Gemmell said if the farm reached its full potential it would take Australia 25 per cent closer to achieving the mandated 41,000GWh target by 2020.
“There are a lot of people saying there’s not enough of a pipeline to reach the target. This project shows it could absolutely be reached,” Mr Gemmell said.
“We need 8GW by 2020 to reach the target and this project could represent one quarter of that.”
Mr Gemmell called on the Federal Government to end the uncertainty around the large-scale RET, saying that ‘big solar’ had strong support among regional communities.
“The (Toowoomba) council decision is an exciting milestone, we’re a third of the way there,” he said.
‘Wind Turbine Sickness’ -National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) to do yet another study!
Research council calls for further study into ‘wind turbine sickness’, sets aside $500,000 in grants, ABC News 12 Feb 15 By online environment editor Sara Phillips The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), Australia’s premier health research body, has called for Australian scientists to look into so-called “wind turbine sickness”, saying that very few scientifically rigorous studies have been done.
The council has set aside $500,000 in funding grants for the research.
Wind turbine sickness is a list of medical complaints that includes headaches, nausea and anxiety and depression. It is said to be caused by proximity to wind turbines, as well as the sound and inaudible “infrasound” they produce.
After a comprehensive review of publications about wind turbine sickness, in which it amassed more than 4,000 documents from across the world, the council concluded there was “no direct evidence that exposure to wind farm noise affects physical or mental health”.
But Professor Warwick Anderson, chief executive of the NHMRC, said it was “terribly hard to prove a negative”.
Concerns about wind turbine sickness led to the Victorian Government’s introduction of a two-kilometre buffer between new wind turbines and houses in 2011.
The New South Wales Government later followed suit………
The NHRMC released the final version of the report on Wednesday. A draft was released last year and opened for public comment.
The review also considered related reports into noise, such as road traffic or industrial noise.
Based on these studies, the council concluded that noise effects from wind farms are unlikely to be felt or heard more than 1,500 metres away.
“At this distance, wind farm noise is usually below 30-35dBA, below the noise levels of household devices and similar to a quiet residential area,” the report said.
Infrasound was at “levels are similar to those at other locations (for example, at the beach, in the vicinity of a coastal cliff, near a gas-fired power station and in a city centre away from major roads).”…….
The Clean Energy Council welcomed the findings of the report, but questioned the need for further research.
“While the NHMRC has called for more research into potential health impacts within 1,500 metres of a wind farm, the evidence to support this is weak,” policy director Russell Marsh said.
“Australia already has some of the world’s strictest regulations for wind farms, and we know that further scientific research will only reinforce the fact that wind energy is one of the safest and cleanest forms of energy generation in the world.”……http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-11/research-council-calls-for-study-of-wind-turbine-sickness/6086546
Climate change brings another reason why not to bring nuclear wastes to Australia
It’s possible though not, of course proven, that the Malysian aircraft disaster was due to unusual and extreme weather – caused by climate change.
By the time South Australia’s nuclear entrepreneurs get their greedy little paws on contracts for importing radioactive trash, it’s likely that extreme weather events will be more frequent and more extreme, making the transport of that trash mega dangerous
Global warming may be affecting jet stream, SMH, 13 Feb 15 February 13, 2015A winter of strange weather and turbulent transatlantic flights in the northern hemisphere has scientists asking: Has a predicted climate imbalance of the jet stream begun?
The Arctic is warming faster than other parts of the world, and scientists believe that is having a dramatic impact on the jet stream, which may be responsible for the unusual weather and stronger upper atmospheric winds of late.
n January 8, thousands of Britons were left without electricity in the aftermath of the most violent storms to hit the isles in more than a century. British Airways Flight 114 carried by strong winds journeyed from New York to London in a record five hours and 16 minutes.
Several jetliners flying from Europe to North America in recent weeks faced powerful headwinds, which forced them to make unscheduled mid-flight stops to refuel.
The jet stream – a narrow, variable band of westerly air currents miles above the Earth – is strongest in winter, when boundaries between hot tropical and cold polar air masses are most pronounced.
Currents can be even more turbulent at high altitudes flown in by jetliners some 10 kilometres above the Earth, where winds can reach 300 kilometres per hour.
Since 2012, researcher Jennifer Francis of Rutgers University in New Jersey has been trying to develop new scientific tools to study these “very messy” changes in the jet stream.
“Last winter and this winter the jet stream has been unusually strong,” she told the Royal Society of Britain last year, adding that scientists expect more of the same in coming years…..http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/global-warming-may-be-affecting-jet-stream-20150212-13dhtm.html
Labor MPs pick Weatherill over party membership on nuclear!
Labor Senators have today voted against their own party platform on nuclear policy, voting down a motion by Australian Greens Senator for South Australia Penny Wright opposing nuclear development in SA.
The motion quoted directly from the Labor Party’s National Platform which says nuclear power presents “unique and unprecedented hazards and risks” and is at odds with Premier Jay Weatherill’s recent announcement.
Senator Wright said she was stunned to see South Australian Labor Senators vote against the decision of the party membership and recent statements made by Opposition Leader Bill Shorten.
“Just this week Bill Shorten said Labor opposed nuclear power ‘based on the best available expert advice’,” Senator Wright said.
“Today, South Australia’s MPs have turned their back on Mr Shorten to support Mr Weatherill.
“While the Labor Party is conflicted, the Australian Greens are unequivocal. We do not support nuclear power in any circumstances.
“As the National Labor Party’s own platform says, ‘the nuclear power cycle presents threats to human health and the local environment’.
“Today’s vote shows the elected representatives of the Labor Party are out of step with the wishes of their members and with the South Australian community at large.”
Media contact: Danielle Forsyth – 0417 173 508
The motion read:
I move that the Senate:
1) opposes the establishment of nuclear power plants in Australia, based on the best available expert advice; [1]
2) recognises that the production of uranium and its use in the nuclear fuel cycle presents unique and unprecedented hazards and risks, including:
- threats to human health and the local environment in the mining and milling of uranium;
- the generation of products that are usable as the raw materials for nuclear weapons manufacture; and
iii. the generation of highly toxic radioactive waste by-products; and[2]
3) rejects any efforts to move toward establishing nuclear power plants in South Australia.
[1] Spokesperson for Opposition Leader Bill Shorten, 10 February 2015, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/state-politics/bill-shorten-refuses-to-back-south-australian-nuclear-probe/story-e6frgczx-1227213806115
2 ‘National Platform’, Australian Labor Party, 2011, p. 68. http://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/australianlaborparty/pages/121/attachments/original/1365135867/Labor_National_Platform.pdf?1365135867
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 