Australia – The week in nuclear news
Sorry, folks, to harp on the Nuclear Royal Commission. It’s not arousing any interest in Australia as a whole. I find that extraordinary. No country in the world has invited nuclear waste dumping, yet here, South Australia (world renewable energy champion!) is doing just that! It’s getting close to deadline for putting in submissions about this.
I derive some weird comfort from my realisation that this really mightn’t matter. The outcome of this shonky Commission is a foregone conclusion. It’s stacked with pro nuclear “experts” : prominent ones, like the chief, Kevin Scarce, (with his shares in Rio Tinto) have a conflict of interest. Best of all, they’ve made the Submission process so damned difficult that only the likes of AREVA and Canada’s very shonky SNC-Lavalin company are sure to get their submissions received and read.
Formidable Aboriginal anti nuclear warrior Kevin Buzzacott leads Aboriginal elders and university students in a tent community at Flinders University in Adelaide in protest against plans for a nuclear waste dump, in South Australia or anywhere else. Traditional owners are building a campaign against any expansion of the uranium/nuclear industry
Submissions called for Inquiry into Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Amendment Bill 2015
BHP (big uranium miner) wants to be represented at climate talks in Paris. Altruism? I don’t think so! The big nuclear companies are campaigning to have nuclear power pronounced as a climate action solution.
Radioactive Exposure Tour highlights the decline of the uranium /nuclear industry. The end of the line for uranium company Energy Resources of Australia. Taxpayers likely to cop the costs of Ranger uranium clean-up. if ERA goes bankrupt.
Uranium investing – some stocks bad, others worse
Climate change. Government’s Agriculture White Paper comes out – with lack of vision on climate change. Aboriginal landowners reject coal giant Adani
Renewable energy. Tasmania’s Energy Minister hails wind farms, disagrees with Tony Abbott. New wave power technology set to boost economy in Port Fairy, Victoria. @Rottoturbine hits back at Abbott. Local community funds Repower Shoalhaven renewable energy investment scheme.
Is #NuclearCommissionSAust ignorant, or conflict of interest, as it goes to America?
Kevin Scarce sometimes scarce on nuclear reality, Online opinion, Noel Wauchope, 7 July 15 “……..The Royal Commission next goes to USA and Canada for 8 days, from July 9th. They’re particularly interested in the Small Modular Reactor idea. I hope that they’re aware that Westinghouse abandoned their Small Modular Reactor project, and that Babcock and Wilcox pulled back from this – unable to get any contracts or investors.
What I’m worried about, is that the Commission will end up recommending the plan explained recently by Oscar Archer, on ABC Radio National – that South Australia make an “ironclad commitment [my emphasis] to develop a fleet of integral fast reactors to demonstrate the recycling of the used nuclear fuel”
As for the Commission visiting Canada, Kevin Scarce enthused about the similarity between Canada and Australia. Really? What about the difference in climate, in the amount of sunshine, that surely makes Australia ideal for solar power?
Worst of all, as Scarce enthused about Canada’s “very productive nuclear industry” I wondered if the Commission is aware that the World Bank has Canada at the very top of its Corrupt Companies Blacklist, and that this dubious honour is due entirely to its nuclear industry. In particular SNC Lavalin is the culprit – the very company that is trying to sell thorium reactors overseas.
I would like to think that South Australia’s Nuclear Fuel Chain Commission is both well informed and impartial. I really would. But, listening to Kevin Scarce, I am not reassured. Nor is it reassuring to read the background nuclear industry links of Scarce and his research team. Kevin Scarce is a shareholder in Rio Tinto Group – the owner and operator of Ranger and Rossing uranium mines in Australia and Namibia. His prominent team leader is Greg Ward – Ward is also the director of two companies:Prism Defence (for which he is also CEO) and Protegic. The latter is a project management service provider with clients including the Rio Tinto Group, BHP Billiton and Endeavour Energy. Four of the five members of the research team named on the NFCRC website have known prior or current associations with nuclear industrial entities. http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=17489
Aboriginal elder Kevin Buzzacott speaks at strong anti nuclear protest in Adelaide
Nuclear dump would destroy our land: elder http://www.9news.com.au/national/2015/07/09/15/23/elders-students-protest-sa-nuclear-dump Aboriginal elders from across the country have joined scores of university students camping out in a stand against the storing of nuclear waste in Australia.
Protesters from far and wide have set up a tent community at Flinders University in Adelaide in protest against plans for a nuclear waste dump, in South Australia or anywhere else.
“To the South Australian government, to the federal government, to the mining giants – don’t worry about trying to put the waste dump here,” Arabunna elder Kevin Buzzacott said on Thursday.
It also coincides with South Australia’s royal commission into nuclear power, which is looking at whether the state should expand its involvement in the nuclear industry.
At least one SA Liberal senator says it should, with Sean Edwards recently urging the state to cash in by becoming a global player in the spent nuclear fuel recycling industry.
But Mr Buzzacott said a storage facility would destroy the sacred land of the country’s traditional owners. “We’ve lost a lot of sacred sites as it is,” he said. “We don’t want to lose any more. “We’ve been here 40,000 years. We’ve never touched the land – we love the land.”
BHP’s hypocrisy about climate change.
As a proud non-subscriber to THE AUSTRALIAN, I haven’t been able to read this article. But on past performance of BHP, I reckon that I can have a pretty good guess on what BHP’s enthusiasm for climate action really means.
Last month, all the nuclear big-wigs met somewhere in Europe to plan a campaign about the Paris Climate Summit in December . The idea is to have nuclear power established as a solution to climate change.
BHP would love that – otherwise they couldn’t give a damn about climate change.
BHP embraces climate debate, THE AUSTRALIAN, ? 8 July 15
The private sector needs to play a part in this year’s Paris climate talks, says BHP Billiton’s Dean Dalla Valle…. (subscribers only)
The Nuclear Royal Commission’s whole aim – to build a case for importing global radioactive trash ?
If it did take more than 25 years to build a nuclear power plant then the technology could be made obsolete by renewables.
Last October, South Australia managed for the first time to get more than 100 per cent of its electricity needs for a working day between 9.30am to 6pm, from a combination of wind and solar energy. Overall it gets more than 30 per cent of its power from renewables, and has a target of 50 per cent to be achieved within 10 years.
Prof Diesendorf said it would only take 15 to 20 years to go to 100 per cent renewables in the state.
“The global enrichment market is oversaturated, and no-one credibly believes nuclear power is a realistic proposition for the sparse South Australian grid,” Greens senator Scott Ludlam argued in a column for New Matilda.
“That leaves only the probability that this whole exercise is designed to build the case for a national or international radioactive waste dump.”Is building a nuclear waste dump in Australia really the best idea? THE ADVERTISER, CHARIS CHANG JULY 09, 2 “………….at least one expert believes the [Nuclear expansion] scenario is too good to be true, and would do little to help the state’s economy in the short to medium term. The technology Senator Edwards has suggested is still in development and will not be feasible for more than 20 years.
Retired researcher Richard Leaver, formerly of Flinders University, told news.com.au that no Generation IV reactors had yet been built. These reactors are not generally expected to be available for commercial construction before 2030-40.
“And sodium cooling has, so far, a four-decade history of failure and serious accident,” Mr Leaver said.He said the state government should wait until someone managed to get the reactor working on an industrial scale before accepting anyone’s spent nuclear fuel.
Even if researchers could develop a Generation IV generator as a working technology, this would likely reduce the potential economic benefits. Continue reading
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