Australian uranium company Paladin desperate to stay alive – cuts salaries
Paladin Energy cuts management salaries in break-even bid, THE AUSTRALIAN,BUSINESS SPECTATOR JULY 30, 2015 Michael RodMichael Roddan Troubled Australian uranium miner Paladin Energy has slashed the pay of its chief executive by 20 per cent as part of a string of cost cutting measures across the business designed to get the firm to a cash flow break-even point by the end of the year.
Paladin (PDN) said today it had materially lowered its break-even level for the 2016 financial year, on a cashflow basis, off the back of capital expenditure reductions, and cutting of corporate and debt costs….
Previous to this, the salary of the managing director had been reduced by 35 per cent and board fees cut by 10 per cent.
…Mr Borshoff also gave himself a 20 per cent pay cut as part of the restructure, along with a 10 per cent salary cut for management and staff and further 20 per cent reduction in fees payable to Paladin’s chairman and non-executive directors……..
Uranium is currently being traded at $US36 a pound, The market has been soft for some time, with the uranium spot price hovering around or under $US40 for the last two years, well below its peak of $US130 a pound in 2007.
Paladin shares have also taken a pounding since the commodity’s peak, falling from $10.44 in 2007 to their current level at 22.5c……..
“10 Minutes to Midnight” photomedia exhibition Brisbane until August 7
Photomedia installation shines light on Australia’s nuclear past http://www.smh.com.au/national/clique/photomedia-installation-shines-light-on-australias-nuclear-past-20150730-gio5fo.html July 30, 2015 –
This August marks 70 years since the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The two bombings, which killed at least 129,000 people, remain the only use of nuclear weapons for warfare in history.
To commemorate and recognise Australia’s own nuclear history, a team of artists has brought Australia’s chilling atomic story to life in an exhibition called 10 Minutes to Midnight. n the 1950s and 1960s, the British ran atomic experiments at Emu Field and Maralinga in South Australia, and Monte Bello in Western Australia, with grave ramifications for local communities.
Inspiration has been drawn from relationships with Pitjantjatjara Anangu communities affected by nuclear tests in remote South Australia; nuclear veteran and whistleblower Avon Hudson, a leading public campaigner for nuclear veterans’ rights; Japanese hibakusha (atomic survivors); and other international atomic survivor communities.
10 minutes to Midnight is on at The Block, QUT Creative Industries Precinct, Brisbane until August 7.
Small Nuclear Reactors – Unsafe and Unaffordable
This is quite an old article, but I find it remarkable because, for once, it mentions the enormous cost of security measures needed for small nuclear reactors in remote areas.
That is what is being proposed for Australia – by both the thorium enthusiasts, and the overseas companies desperate to keep the nuclear industry alive by selling small reactors to Australa (or, even more insidiously, by providing them to Australia “for free”, in exchange for South Australia importing radioactive trash, as outlined by nuclear proponent Oscar Archer. .
the PM-2A’s purpose was to test whether reactors could be built in remote locations using prefabricated parts.
After the reactor was closed down, the US shipped 7700 cubic metres of radioactive contaminated rock and dirt to California, but passed through Dunedin, with a population of 124,000, the second largest city on New Zealand’s South Island, where it stayed for four days, raising local concerns, the New Zealand news site stuff.co.nz.
Russia has found that the logistics of even finding customers for its ANPP’s outweigh even the logistics of operating the plants. Russia has staked a financial bonanza on prospective orders for the plants, but there are, simply, no takers. And if there were, the logistics of securing such a plant against terrorists or accidents in remote areas would require at least the staff of a stationary plant.
Small-scale US nuclear reactor blamed for spiking cancer rates, casting pall over Russia’s FNPP fetish AMSTERDAM – A small nuclear power plant operated the United States at Antarctica’s McMurdo Sound has been implicated in dozens of cases of an unusual cancer in personnel who worked at or near the station between the years 1964 and 1973, US and New Zealand media have indicated. March 7, 2011 by Bellona Continue reading
Port Augusta coal-fired power stations to close early
Alinta Energy to close Port Augusta power stations and Leigh Creek coal mine early, ABC News 30 July 15 Alinta Energy has brought forward its deadline to close its power stations in Port Augusta and coal mine at Leigh Creek.
The company announced last month it would close the power stations and mine at some point between next March and March 2018…….http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-30/alinta-energy-brings-forward-closure-power-station/6661082
Australian Youth Climate Coalition calls for NO Bjorn Lomborg Climate Centre at Flinders University
Open Letter to Flinders Uni – Keep Us Bjorn-Free http://www.aycc.org.au/bjorn_free
To Flinders University Vice Chancellor Colin Stirling and Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research) Robert Saint,
We, the below signatories, object to controversial Danish academic Bjorn Lomborg being offered $4 million to set the Australian Consensus Centre at Flinders University. We are students, teachers, academics, alumni, and the general public. We are concerned that Flinders would consider such a reputationally risky and academically damaging appointment.
Lomborg’s “Consensus Centre” has already been kicked out of Denmark for its dangerous opinions that don’t align with scientific consensus . Flinders should learn from the decision of the University of Western Australia, where Lomborg was ousted because of his outdated views on climate change and record of poor academic integrity.
In a time when young people are attending university to equip themselves with the skills they need to make a positive impact on the world, there is no place for Lomborg’s backwards views at Flinders University.
This funding allocation sits outside of the competitive research grant process – an insult to students and researchers who are facing hefty cuts and job losses, doing important scientific research.
Lomborg’s views are dangerous. He trumpets the same ideology as the fossil fuel lobby – that we can solve energy poverty with coal, that Pacific Islanders don’t care about climate change, and that climate action should not be a priority for governments.
Bjorn Lomborg’s views on climate change, fossil fuels and economics are outdated and have been repeatedly discredited.
We will not stand by while ideologically motivated fossil-fuel industry mouthpieces are invited onto university campuses for political gain.
In the name of science, academic integrity and a safe future, we are calling on the Vice Chancellor to reject the appointment of Bjørn Lomborg.
78 Percent Of Its Electricity From Renewable Sources in Germany July 25
Germany Just Got 78 Percent Of Its Electricity From Renewable Sources, Think Progress BY ARI PHILLIPS
JUL 29, 2015 ON SATURDAY, JULY 25, GERMANY SET A NEW NATIONAL RECORD FOR RENEWABLE ENERGY BY MEETING 78 PERCENT OF THE DAY’S ELECTRICITY DEMAND WITH RENEWABLES SOURCES, EXCEEDING THE PREVIOUS RECORD OF 74 PERCENT SET IN MAY OF 2014.
According to an analysis by German energy expert Craig Morris at the Energiewende blog, a stormy day across northern Europe combined with sunny conditions in southern Germany led to the new record, the exact figures of which are still preliminary. Morris writes that most of Germany’s wind turbines are installed in the north and most of its solar panels are in the south.
If the figures hold, it will turn out that wind and solar generated 40.65 gigawatts (GW) of power on July 25. When this is combined with other forms of renewables, including 4.85 GW from biomass and 2.4 GW from hydropower, the total reaches 47.9 GW of renewable power — occurring at a time when peak power demand was 61.1 GW on Saturday afternoon. To bolster his analysis, Morris points to early figures from Agora Energiewende, a Germany energy policy firm, that have renewables making up 79 percent of domestic power consumption that day. Continue reading
California’s rapidly spreading wildfires – a climate threat to nuclear power
Rapidly Spreading Wildfire North Of San Francisco Destroys Several Buildings, Forces 500 To Evacuate Fukushima Nuclear Meltdown News July 30, 2015 A rapidly spreading brushfire burning in parched timberland north of San Francisco has forced the evacuation of 500 people and destroyed several buildings less than 12 hours after it broke out, fire officials said on Thursday.
The blaze, named the “Rocky Fire,” is one of a string of wildfires threatening homes and scorching parched wilderness in the U.S. West, where several regions have endured sustained drought.
The Rocky Fire broke out Wednesday afternoon in Lake County, 110 miles (180 km) north of San Francisco. By early Thursday it had covered 3,000 acres (1,200 hectares), according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CalFire)…….http://fukushima411.com/rapidly-spreading-wildfire-north-of-san-francisco-destroys-several-buildings-forces-500-to-evacuate/
Institute of public affairs works hard for the coal lobby
IPA: Coal lobbyist and climate skeptic factory, Independent Australia, Graham Readfearn 30 July 2015 The fossil-fuel funded Institute of Public Affairs has just a released a report promoting the potential of the Galilee Basin, which just happens to be a project by one of its funders — right-wing, mining billionaire Gina Rinehart. Graham Readfearn from DeSmogBlog reports.
The Institute of Pubic Affairs holds the unofficial and dubious title of being Australia’s leading climate science denial organisation.
The so-called “think tank”, based in Melbourne, promotes fringe views on climate science from non-experts while attacking renewable energy………
The IPA has worked with Rinehart’s lobby group, Australians for Northern Development and Economic Vision, to push for a lowering of taxes and regulations in the country’s north to promote mining projects. IPA executive director, John Roskam, confirmed to Fairfax media in 2013 that Rinehart had provided funding to the IPA.
The IPA also gave Rinehart a “Free Enterprise Leader Award” in 2013 during its 70th anniversary dinner, attended by a who’s who of Australian conservative politics including Abbott and Rupert Murdoch.
But has the IPA’s decision to go all out in support of Galilee Basin coal come too late? ………https://independentaustralia.net/environment/environment-display/ipa-coal-lobbyist-and-climate-skeptic-factory,7999
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 