The latest Australian nuclear news
Good news for Australia’s environment, and for the Mirrar people of the Northern Territory. Energy Resources of Australia has finally pulled the plug on its uranium mining activities in Kakadu National Park. Of course it is financial unviability that forced this decision. And Rio Tinto the “parent company” is not a bit happy that it will probably have to fork out $millions to rehabilitate the site.
Much credit has to go to the Mirrar people for their continued monitoring of this project. And to the heroic Jeffrey Lee, who donated his land to Kakadu so that it would not be mined for uranium by AREVA.
But how long can white Australia expect the Aborigines to carry the fight against this toxic nuclear industry threatening Australia?
Comical moment for the South Australian Nuclear Fool Chain Royal Commission. Exactly on the day that the Commission arrived in France for extensive talks and tours of AREVA’s advanced nuclear technology – came the French government’s action – splitting up AREVA, effectively killing it off as a nuclear power giant – due to its utterly disastrous financial state. Funny it it weren’t serious – how South Australia’s greedy nuclear enthusiasts are ready to suck up to international nuclear business incompetents!
Good prospects on the renewable energy scene – Victoria making it easier to develop wind power .Yackandandah goes for 100% renewables – South Australia’s chance to replace coal with renewables. Queensland’s Millmerran solar farm to go ahead – biggest in Australia? Bundaberg – Queensland’s solar capital.
Tony Abbott. My God, that man is an embarrassment to Australia! Even Environment Minister Greg Hunt sees the writing on the wall – in Abbott’s daft policies on climate.
South Australia’s Nuclear Royal Commission unfortunately linked with failed nuclear company AREVA
I would like to think that Kevin Scarce’s Royal Commission was fully investigating nuclear industry issues — not just the geewhiz technology that they would be shown in France by AREVA, which is all too cosy with South Australian pro-nuclear politicians and businessmen.
SA’s Nuclear Royal Commission: All too cosy with failed French nuclear giant AREVA? Just how independent is the SA nuclear review and are opponents being side-lined? Independent Australia 12 June 15, Noel Wauchope looks at just who the Royal Commission met on its recent visit to France.
AT ITS South Australian community forums, South Australia’s Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission head, Kevin Scarce, made a point of the Commission’s independence. He stressed that the Commission would be meeting overseas proponents, and also opponents, of the nuclear industry.
On the Commission’s website, they list the destinations for the Commission’s overseas tour, now about to wind up. I was struck by the amount of time allocated to conferring with the French nuclear energy corporation, AREVA. I had to wonder — in their discussions with AREVA, it would hardly be necessary to talk with nuclear opponents. I wondered how much AREVA would be going to come clean about what really is going on, in France’s nuclear industry.
The AREVA connection with Australia is important. AREVA has an office in Wayville, in Adelaide, and has hosted South Australian parliamentary tours of their nuclear industrial facilities in France. AREVA acquired the Northern Territory Koongarra uranium deposit in 1995, but subsequently, in a David and Goliath battle with Aboriginal traditional owner, Jeffrey Lee, lost this opportunity, as Lee donated his land to Kakadu National Park.
AREVA is in a joint venture with Toro Energy, in uranium exploration in the Northern Territory. The corporation had been exploring for uranium in Queensland’s Karumba and Carpentaria basins since about 2012, but recently pulled out altogether. AREVA will probably be making a submission to the Royal Commission. However, the Commission, in publishing submissions, will not be publishing ones that are deemed “commercially sensitive“.
Without doubt, AREVA has a keen commercial interest in Australia. France’s nuclear industry is somewhat embattled, as its fleet of reactors near the end of their shelf life, and the government is pledged to cut down on nuclear power, and develop renewables. The French nuclear industry (like USA’s) depends for its survival, on selling nuclear technology overseas.
But what of the fortunes of AREVA itself? As the Royal Commission seeks to learn about the commercial viability of the nuclear industry, AREVA is hardly the most reliable authority on that question.
For a start, AREVA now barely exists. Continue reading
Clean progressive South Australia as renewable energy provides many jobs across the State
Dennis Matthews, 13 June15, As demonstrated by its claims concerning jobs created by renewable energy vs coal-fired power stations (The Advertiser, 13/6/15), the Energy Supply Association (ESA) appears to be out of touch with reality.
The ESA nonchalantly says that jobs are created by “clean energy generators” but then dramatically claims “that they ultimately result in big job losses”.
Whilst ancient, decaying, coal-fired power stations have been a growing liability, the 21st century, growing, renewable energy industry has been employing people not just in Port Adelaide and Port Augusta but all around SA, wherever there are wind farms and photovoltaic panels.
And the move away from fossil fuels has not stopped. Once solar hot water and energy efficient buildings become the norm then the jobs will keep flowing.
It’s time for the ESA and other shock-jocks to get with the 21st century and to stop throwing obstacles in the way of having a cleaner, more progressive and enjoyable South Australia.
Rio Tinto will have to step in to fund rehabilitation of Kakadu’s uranium mining area
ERA cans Ranger uranium mine in Kakadu by: BARRY FITZGERALD , Resources Editor The Australian June 12, 2015 The crash in uranium prices in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan has claimed the controversial Ranger mine inside the world heritage-listed Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory as its latest victim.
Operated by the Rio Tinto-controlled Energy Resources of Australia (ERA), Ranger’s long-term future was to be secured by the development of an underground uranium resource known as Ranger 3 Deeps.
But ERA has canned the development, citing the “current operating environment”. The decision leaves ERA to process stockpiles from the previous open-cut operation which was dogged in recent years by water handling issues and process plant spills.
Shares in ERA plummeted after the announcement. At 2:10pm the shares were down 61c, or 47 per cent, to 69c each in trading on the Australian Securities Exchange.
Rio (RIO) owns 62 per cent of the ASX-listed ERA and said last night that it would likely take a $US300 million impairment charge on the investment — an acknowledgment that in the current environment, its investment is near worthless.
Rio could also be compelled to step in to ensure that in the event that Ranger’s life is not extended beyond the current treatment of stockpiles, ERA will be able to meet its rehabilitation costs of more than $600m…….
Despite seeming to baulk at having to help ERA at its annual meeting in April, Rio said last night that it recognised the “importance of ongoing rehabilitation work at the Ranger mine site”.
It said it was “engaged with ERA on a conditional credit facility to assist ERA to fund its rehabilitation program, should additional funding be required beyond ERA’s existing cash reserves and the future earnings from processing ore stockpiles”…. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/era-cans-ranger-uranium-mine-in-kakadu/story-e6frg9df-1227394169459
World will be watching how Australia manages Kakadu, now that uranium mining there has ended
WWF welcomes cancellation of Kakadu uranium mine http://www.theadvocate.org.au/wwf-welcomes-cancellation-of-kakadu-uranium-mine/
WWF has welcomed the cancellation of a planned controversial underground uranium mine in Kakadu National Park.
Energy Resources of Australia, whose parent company is Rio Tinto, cancelled the Ranger 3 Deeps project in a statement to the Stock Exchange last night.
The proposed mine was in an area that had previously been excised from the Kakadu National Park and World Heritage Area.
WWF said the move was not only a victory for Australia’s environment, but also important for further economic empowerment of Indigenous communities.
WWF-Australia CEO Dermot O’Gorman backed calls by the Mirarr Traditional Owners to ensuring the permanent protection of the natural and cultural values for which Kakadu is inscribed World Heritage.
“Kakadu is one of Australia’s environmental treasures and this development presents an ideal opportunity for the area to be rehabilitated and incorporated into the Kakadu World Heritage Area,” said WWF-Australia CEO Dermot O’Gorman.
“Now that the mine will not go ahead, WWF looks forward to ERA and Rio Tinto accelerating the rehabilitation program, ensuring that it results in the full reinstatement of the internationally recognised outstanding natural and cultural values of this important site.
“With a World Heritage Committee meeting now less than a month away, the eyes of the world will be watching how the Australian Government and Rio Tinto manage the rehabilitation of Ranger.”
Legal action stalls Canada’s nuclear waste dump plans
More than 150 communities — many in the United States — have passed resolutions against any storage of nuclear waste near the Great Lakes.
Burial of nuclear waste near Lake Huron subject of legal action The Canadian Press Jun 12, 2015 A review panel decision in favour of a plan to bury dangerous nuclear waste near Lake Huron was illegal and unreasonable, a citizen’s group argues in a new Federal Court application.
In asking the court to set aside the decision, the group says the panel that approved the Ontario Power Generation proposal failed to consider Canada’s international obligations, was biased, and violated the Canadian environmental rules. Continue reading
Now pro nuclear trolls are out in force
Pro Nuke Trolls Are Now Out In Force, Theirs Tactics Are Adapting and Becoming More Deceitful and Intolerant We have been running a troll study. The results will be interesting ……….
Also, I put the list of 15 Tactics at the bottom, and a summary here
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/08/the-15-rules-of-internet-disinformation.html
1) Start a partisian divide and conquer. Get people fighting, rile everyone up, play the race or religion cards or both. Trying to create defensive posture, especially whilst confusing with odd sentence structure or just discordant comments.
2) Pretend that it is hopeless. You will be crushed by the corporate juggernaut, you will never get past “whining to the choir”, your efforts have been worthless.
3) Demand complete fool proof, guaranteed solution and citation, all from peer reviewed science.
4) Suggest extreme over the top “solutions”, discredit the community by being too far “out there”
5) Pretend that alternative media is automatically wrong out of the gate. Discredit any blog as a “personal website”, pretend they are doing it for pay, or just for “clicks”
6) “Shout Down” reasonable comments, an avalanche of comments and attacks.
7) Use an Army of sock puppets. Troll will drop an attack, get a response, and then a different troll will respond, thus not giving credibility to the response of the person attacked.
8) Censor Social Media so the hardest hitting information is buried. Multiple rapid fire responses, capping, or front running with a blast of drivel or a very long post.
9) When the consipracy becomes true, pretend that it could never have been foreseen, it was not a credible probably that’s why it wasn’t considered.
10) Protect the corporate goal by labeling detractors as conspiracy theorists, or nuts, or hippies
11) Become incredulously, indignant, or throw a hissy fit. This is exactly what sociopaths do when you start to back them into a corner.
12) Use a Straw Man, a false position that can easily be knocked down. Have a team troll post up a seemingly genuine argument with weaknesses easy to attack.
13) Hit and Run. Make a brief attack and then don’t respond, better yet, show up as another sock and make a complementary attack.
14) Question motives. Twist words and then imply bias or profit motive, put them on the defensive.
15) Associate opponent charges with “old news”, pretend the issue is already settled….http://nukeprofessional.blogspot.com.au/
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 