Role of senator Sean Edwards in the South Australia Nuclear Toilet plan
South Australia’s future role in the nuclear industry, The Saturday Paper, 8 Aug 15 PHILIP DORLING“……..Perhaps the most interesting twist in these proceedings, however, has been the role of South Australian Liberal senator Sean Edwards, who in April outlined a radical plan for an integrated nuclear industry embracing nuclear waste storage and recycling, fuel fabrication and power production.
Edwards has demonstrated a sustained interest in nuclear issues since he entered federal parliament in 2011.
He argues that East Asian countries could pay up to $1 million a tonne to send used fuel rods to South Australia for storage. By using a new form of reactor, an integral fast reactor (specifically the power reactor innovative small module – PRISM – design proposed by GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy), 95 per cent of the energy could be extracted from the rods, with electricity generation as a byproduct.
“We could end up with zero or low-cost power,’’ Edwards told The Sydney Institute in April. “It could revitalise the industrial sector in South Australia. The more you reprocess, the more electricity you have to get rid of.”
After consultation with a group of pro-nuclear advocates and technical experts, Edwards has submitted an as-yet-unpublished 213-page submission to the royal commission, arguing that South Australia can take advantage of the “under-serviced market for the management of used nuclear fuel. Several nations are holding quarantined budgets in the tens of billions of dollars with no satisfactory pathway to discharge responsibility for this material”.
Edwards’ submission proposes the establishment of a multinational spent fuel storage installation, an industrial pilot-scale fuel recycling and fabrication facility, a new “fourth generation” fast-breeder reactor, and deep borehole disposal of short-lived waste products.
Substantially funded by foreign investment, Edwards estimates the project could deliver $28 billion to South Australia, including very low-cost, even free, electricity for the state.
During the past 18 months, Edwards has also engaged in discussions with the nuclear industries in several Asian countries, which he says have expressed “considerable interest”. He is currently not prepared to identify the countries involved, but The Saturday Paper has established they include South Korea and Japan.
Edwards has also briefed Abbott, Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane and Trade Minister Andrew Robb.
It remains to be seen whether Edwards’ scheme stands critical scrutiny from the royal commission and wider debate. There are already plenty of critics. The Australian Greens have expressed strong opposition to the entire royal commission process, so too has veteran anti-nuclear campaigner Helen Caldicott. Nuclear researcher Richard Leaver, formerly of Flinders University, points out that no so-called fourth-generation reactors have been built and they are not expected to be available for commercial construction before 2030-40. ……..https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2015/08/08/south-australias-future-role-the-nuclear-industry/14389560002222
Climate Change: What Australia Knew – and Buried
Taylor’s book shows how Australia could have acted on climate change a quarter of a century ago, but how corporate interests and economic ideologies not only stopped the clock on action, but wound it back
Australia was ready to act on climate 25 years ago, so what happened next?, Guardian, Graham Readfearn, 7 Aug 15 New book investigates how corporate interests and ideologues worked to make Australia doubt what it knew about climate change and its risks.
There’s something about climate change that almost everyone in Australia has either forgotten or never knew in the first place.
In 1990 Bob Hawke announced his government wanted the country to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by the year 2005.
For a fleeting moment, it seemed the Australian public, politicians and the media were in agreement with the science.
But a new book investigates how the industries that stood to lose the most worked to undermine the science and entirely reshape the story being told to the public.
“We have been propagandised,” says the author, Maria Taylor. Continue reading
The Bombing of Hiroshima: A Doctor’s Testimony
“Introduction
The first atomic bomb actually used in war time was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6th, 1945 killing between 130,000 and 150,000 people by the end of that year. Those who survived the bombing are rapidly aging now after struggling for many years. The Hiroshima Peace and Culture Foundation has decided to newly videotape the testimonies of 100 A-bomb victims to commemorate the International Year of Peace 1986 to record the precious experiences of these survivors to be handed down to the future generations. http://www.inicom.com/hibakusha/
Testimony of Hiroshi Sawachika
Mr. Hiroshi Sawachika was 28 years old when the bomb was dropped. He was an army doctor stationed at the army headquarters in Ujina. When he was exposed, he was inside the building at the headquarters, 4.1 km from the hypocenter. Being rather far from the hypocenter, he was not seriously injured. Afterwards, he was very busy getting medical…
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Tokyo’s record heatwave – thousands hospitalised
Japan in Hot Water — Longest Heatwave on Record for Tokyo, Tens of Thousands Hospitalizedhttp://robertscribbler.com/2015/08/06/japan-in-hot-water-longest-heatwave-on-record-for-tokyo-tens-of-thousands-hospitalized/
This morning, at 10:53 AM local time in Tokyo, the temperature was a sweltering 95.2 F (35.1 C) and climbing…
For six days running thermometers in that city have been above 95 degrees F (35 C). That’sthe longest unbroken string of 95 degree + highs Japan’s capital has experienced since record-keeping began 140 years ago in 1875. In other words, parts of Japan are experiencing never-seen-before heat.
All told, recent days have seen fully 25 percent of Japan’s cities and towns hit temperatures above 95 F. It’s a heat that sinks bone deep. That gets into the blood. That makes it hard to keep going outdoors. A heat that causes injury and, sometimes, death. And over this summermore than 35,000 people have been hospitalized throughout Japan due to heat injury. Of those, more than 850 have remained hospitalized for three weeks or more. And from this grim tally 55 have now lost their lives.
Hot Ocean Waters Breed Heat Domes
The record hot air temperatures have come on due to a combination of factors. First, the ocean around Japan is abnormally warm. Recently, near-Japan sea surface temperatures have ranged from 2-5 degrees Celsius above established averages. That’s excessively hot water, especially when one considers that El Nino will typically draw the warm waters south and eastward. But this year is not at all typical with unusual-to-record heat now ranging much of the Pacific Ocean basin. Continue reading
South Australia’s flirtation with nuclear energy – a ticking time bomb for Labor?
South Australia’s future role in the nuclear industry, The Saturday Paper, 8 Aug 15 PHILIP DORLING The South Australian government’s flirtation with nuclear energy threatens to turn its relationship with federal Labor into a ticking time bomb. South Australia was in the news this week thanks to Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s announcement of a new naval construction plan that, if implemented, will see Adelaide confirmed as Australia’s naval shipbuilding hub.Coal: the Captain’s call and its catastrophic implications. #Auspol #ClimateChange
The last few days have demonstrated just how far out of touch some in the Australian media and political incumbency are from critical climate change events happening around the world.
Yesterday The Australian Financial Review condemned “eco-activists” for the costs they are supposedly inflicting on the Australian community (Eco-activism is a major cost to the community, 6th August 2015) after the courts overturned Federal Government approval of the Carmichael Mine in the Galilee Basin.
Instead of condemnation, these activists should be congratulated them for their responsibility in trying prevent substantial economic damage and wasted assets, which will be the outcome if the Galilee Basin coal developments are allowed to proceed.
Predictably we now have the Prime Minister’s Captain’s call. Coal, we are repeatedly told, is essential for the future of humanity, and for the alleviation of poverty in countries like India.
Every other consideration, must now be put aside in…
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August 7 Energy News
Opinion:
¶ “Cost of EPA’s Climate Plan? Minor Compared to the Benefits” – The good news is that cutting carbon turns out to be not just affordable, but smart: the Clean Power Plan’s public health and climate benefits, worth an estimated $34 billion to $54 billion in 2030, far outweigh the estimated costs of $8.4 billion. [The Equation: Blog of the Union of Concerned Scientists]
Solar array at Nellis Air Force Base. USAF photo. Public Domain. Wikimedia Commons.
World:
¶ China’s public sector companies continue to support the development of renewable energy infrastructure in Pakistan. HydroChina Investment Corporation will invest $115 million for the implementation of a 50 MW wind energy project near Karachi. The project is expected to be operational by September producing enough power for 100,000 households, with an 8-year payback. [CleanTechnica]
¶ Australian electricity companies have offered solar and battery systems for lease in a bid to keep…
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The human toll on the survivors of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki
They were so badly disfigured by the blast that it not only took them years to recover some kind of health, but they were also hesitant to reveal themselves in public. Children would cry or run away from them, thinking they were monsters. Younger survivors were often bullied at school. Atom-bomb victims (hibakusha) found it hard to find marriage partners, because people were afraid of passing genetic diseases to their offspring.
The only reason we know about the people described by Southard is that all of them overcame their deep embarrassment and “came out,” as it were, as kataribe, or “storytellers” about the atom bomb, reminding people of the horrors of nuclear war by speaking in public, at schools, conferences and peace gatherings all over the world.
The merits of Southard’s book are clear. It was bad enough for the Americans to have killed so many people, and then hide the gruesome facts for many years after the war. To forget about the massacre now would be an added insult to the victims. Southard has helped to make sure that this will not happen yet.
‘Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War,’ by Susan Southard,
NYT, By IAN BURUMAJULY 28, 2015 “………..Susan Southard’s harrowing descriptions give us some idea of what it must have been like for people who were unlucky enough not to be killed instantly: “A woman who covered her eyes from the flash lowered her hands to find that the skin of her face had melted into her palms”; “Hundreds of field workers and others staggered by, moaning and crying. Some were missing body parts, and others were so badly burned that even though they were naked, Yoshida couldn’t tell if they were men or women. He saw one person whose eyeballs hung down his face, the sockets empty.”
Gen. Leslie Groves, the director of the Manhattan Project, which had developed the atom bomb, testified before the United States Senate that death from high-dose radiation was “without undue suffering,” and indeed “a very pleasant way to die.”
Many survivors died later, always very unpleasantly, of radiation sickness. Their hair would fall out, they would be covered in purple spots, their skin would rot. And those who survived the first wave of sickness after the war had a much higher than average chance of dying of leukemia or other cancers even decades later.
What made things worse for Japanese doctors who tried to ease the suffering of atom-bomb victims is that information about the bomb and its effects was censored by the American administration occupying Japan Continue reading
Remembrance of Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombing, and this week’s Australian nuclear news
This week is marked by Hiroshima commemorations around Australia -news reports from Canberra , Lismore, Newcastle are already online. Some splendid writing by the Mirrar people of Northern territory , and by Prof Tilman Ruff, and Dr Sue Wareham on the atomic bombing, and on moves to ban nuclear weapons.
CLIMATE CHANGE This month I am concentrating on the damage that climate change is doing to uranium and nuclear facilities. I was prompted to this by hearing of the disastrous wildfires in the Northern Hemisphere, that threaten the nuclear industries. Australia’s turn will come – what insanity to plan for the nuclear industry in Australia’s summer climate conditions! Climate change makes nuclear power unviable and unsafe for Australia.
Australian Youth Climate Coalition calls for NO Bjorn Lomborg Climate Centre at Flinders University, What’s Australia’s water security under future climate? Olympic Dam Uranium mine- Australia’s largest water guzzler – it’s criminal in a dry climate.
SOUTH AUSTRALIA South Australia Nuclear Royal Commission – outcome is already decided? A #NuclearCommissionSAust for the nuclear industry, not for the people of South Australia. Tom Kenyon MP revealed as the man who sold the radioactive trash idea to South Australia Short term greed overtakes long term prospects in South Australia’s push for nuclear waste importing.
All the submissions to the Royal Commission that have been uploaded so far can be found by clicking on the four pictures on the following page: http://nuclearrc.sa.gov.au/submissions/?search=Submissions
Two good submissions to the Royal Commission on Issues Paper 4:
As Alinta coal mine to close, opportunity opens for solar thermal plant. South Australia’s new wind farm creating 250 construction jobs.
Uranium mining executives still profess their faith, despite the gloomy situation for the nuclear industry. In reality, uranium mining is being phased out. Uranium miner ERA losses slump, yet again.
Wind inquiry: Australia’s pro-nuclear Senate trio downgrades nation’s peak medical research body. The Senate wind farm inquiry report designed to kill the industry. Senate inquiry into wind power a ‘stitch up’.
Renewable energy Largest coal mining union backs Labor’s Renewable Energy Target. Australian Renewable Energy Agency helps kick off Queensland’s ‘Virtual solar plant’. Energy storage is revolutionising electricity – especially in off-grid solar
Nagaskai’s experience of nuclear bombing – theme for this week
Entering the nuclear age, body by body — the Nagasaki experience, Asia Times, BY AT EDITOR on AUGUST 6, 2015 (From TomDispatch.com)
By Susan Southard [This essay has been adapted from chapters 1 and 2 of Susan Southard’s new book, Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War, with the kind permission of Viking.] “…….The five-ton plutonium bomb plunged toward the city at 614 miles per hour. Forty-seven seconds later, a powerful implosion forced its plutonium core to compress from the size of a grapefruit to the size of a tennis ball, generating a nearly instantaneous chain reaction of nuclear fission. With colossal force and energy, the bomb detonated a third of a mile above the Urakami Valley and its 30,000 residents and workers, a mile and a half north of the intended target. At 11:02 a.m., a superbrilliant flash lit up the sky — visible from as far away as Omura Naval Hospital more than 10 miles over the mountains — followed by a thunderous explosion equal to the power of 21,000 tons of TNT. The entire city convulsed.
At its burst point, the center of the explosion reached temperatures higher than at the center of the sun, and the velocity of its shock wave exceeded the speed of sound. A tenth of a millisecond later, all of the materials that had made up the bomb converted into an ionized gas, and electromagnetic waves were released into the air. The thermal heat of the bomb ignited a fireball with an internal temperature of over 540,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Within one second, the blazing fireball expanded from 52 feet to its maximum size of 750 feet in diameter. Within three seconds, the ground below reached an estimated 5,400 to 7,200 degrees Fahrenheit. Directly beneath the bomb, infrared heat rays instantly carbonized human and animal flesh and vaporized internal organs.
As the atomic cloud billowed two miles overhead and eclipsed the sun, the bomb’s vertical blast pressure crushed much of the Urakami Valley. Horizontal blast winds tore through the region at two and a half times the speed of a category five hurricane, pulverizing buildings, trees, plants, animals, and thousands of men, women, and children. In every direction, people were blown out of their shelters, houses, factories, schools, and hospital beds; catapulted against walls; or flattened beneath collapsed buildings.
Those working in the fields, riding streetcars, and standing in line at city ration stations were blown off their feet or hit by plummeting debris and pressed to the scalding earth. An iron bridge moved 28 inches downstream. As their buildings began to implode, patients and staff jumped out of the windows of Nagasaki Medical College Hospital, and mobilized high school girls leaped from the third story of Shiroyama Elementary School, a half mile from the blast.
The blazing heat melted iron and other metals, scorched bricks and concrete buildings, ignited clothing, disintegrated vegetation, and caused severe and fatal flash burns on people’s exposed faces and bodies. A mile from the detonation, the blast force caused nine-inch brick walls to crack, and glass fragments bulleted into people’s arms, legs, backs, and faces, often puncturing their muscles and organs. Two miles away, thousands of people suffering flesh burns from the extreme heat lay trapped beneath partially demolished buildings.
At distances up to five miles, wood and glass splinters pierced through people’s clothing and ripped into their flesh. Windows shattered as far as eleven miles away. Larger doses of radiation than any human had ever received penetrated deeply into the bodies of people and animals. The ascending fireball suctioned massive amounts of thick dust and debris into its churning stem. A deafening roar erupted as buildings throughout the city shuddered and crashed to the ground……http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176032/ http://atimes.com/2015/08/entering-the-nuclear-age-body-by-body-the-nagasaki-experience/
Mirrar people mourn Hiroshima, and regret impacts of uranium sourced from their land
Mirarr recognise 70 years since nuclear bombs destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki 06 Aug 2015 The Mirarr traditional owners of lands in Australia’s Northern Territory, including parts of Kakadu National Park and the Ranger and Jabiluka uranium deposits, acknowledge with sadness the seventy year anniversary of the world’s first nuclear bomb attacks.
Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation, which represents the Mirarr, is supporting commemoration events around the country in recognition of the strong links between Mirarr country and Japan and the great damage that the nuclear industry has inflicted on people and country over these 70 years.
Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation CEO Justin O’Brien said: “There is a strong history between Mirarr country and Japan. Mining began at Ranger- against the wishes of the Mirarr – in large part because of agreements between the Australian and Japanese governments.”
In 1978 before Ranger mine opened, then Senior Traditional Owner Taby Gangale was worried the uranium from his land might be used in nuclear weapons stating: “What if they make an atom bomb or something? Same as they did in Japan. Very dangerous.”
The Mirarr feel great responsibility for the impacts of uranium sourced from their land. Soon after the 
nuclear emergency started at Fukushima, Mirarr senior traditional owner Yvonne Margarula wrote a letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon expressing her concern and sadness at the devastation that uranium from her lands was causing in Japan: “This is an industry we never supported in the past and want no part of in the future. We are all diminished by the events unfolding at Fukushima” Ms Margarula wrote at the time.
“In 2014 the Mirarr hosted a visit from Naoto Kan, who was Prime Minister of Japan at the time of the Fukushima nuclear emergency. Mr Kan’s visit marked a new chapter in the longstanding partnership between our two countries. We discussed the ways in which uranium has damaged both Mirarr country and Japan and the importance of working together towards peaceful energy sources and better outcomes for all people.” Mr O’Brien concluded
For details of commemoration events visit the website of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons www.icanw.org.au For further information including photographs of the Mirarr, Naoto Kan and Ranger mine contact Kirsten Blair: 
0412 853 641
Professor Tilman Ruff on .The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
there are grounds to be hopeful about decisive progress on a circuit-breaker. The first ever intergovernmental conferences on the humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons have been held – three in the past two years. These have led to 113 nations signing a humanitarian pledge committing them to work to fill the legal gap for the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons.
In a welcome development, the recent ALP national conference adopted a policy that recognises that eliminating nuclear weapons is a humanitarian imperative. The policy commits Labor to support negotiation of a global treaty banning nuclear weapons
Ban the bomb: 70 years on, the nuclear threat looms as large as ever, The Conversation, Tilman Ruff Associate Professor, International Education and Learning Unit, Nossal Institute for Global Health, School of Population and Global Health at University of Melbourne August 6, 2015 “……..The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Rumours had been circulating in Hiroshima that the city was being saved for something special. It was. The burst of ionising radiation, blast, heat and subsequent firestorm that engulfed the city on August 6 killed 140,000 people by the end of 1945. Many were incinerated or dismembered instantly; others succumbed over hours, days, weeks and months from cruel combinations of traumatic injury, burns and radiation sickness.
Three days later, another B-29 carrying a bomb equivalent to 21,000 tons of TNT headed for Kokura. Because of clouds blocking visibility, its cargo was dropped over Nagasaki instead, raining similar radioactive ruin and killing 90,000 people by the end of 1945.
In both cities, ground temperatures reached about 7000° Celsius. Radioactive black rain poured down after the explosions.
In both weapons, less than one kilogram of material was fissioned. The physics of the Hiroshima bomb were so simple and predictable that the bomb was not tested prior to use. The Nagasaki plutonium bomb required a more sophisticated design. A prototype was exploded at Alamogordo in New Mexico on July 16, 1945, detonated by Australian nuclear physicist Ernest Titterton.
The survivors of the two bombings bore the legacy of terrible injuries and scars on top of the cataclysmic trauma of what they witnessed. They also faced discrimination and ostracism, reduced opportunities for employment and marriage, and increased risks of cancer and chronic disease, which stalk them, even 70 years later, for the rest of their days. Continue reading
South Australia’s new wind farm creating 250 construction jobs
Work on Hornsdale Wind Farm near Jamestown to create 250 construction jobs http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/work-on-hornsdale-wind-farm-near-jamestown-to-create-250-construction-jobs/story-fni6uo1m-1227471864726 BELINDA WILLIS THE ADVERTISER AUGUST 06, 2015
WORK on a new 100-turbine wind farm in the state’s mid-north is expected to start within months, creating up to 250 jobs during construction.
Canberra-headquartered Neoen Australia’s $250 million investment in the Hornsdale Wind Farm near Jamestown was signed off by state Planning Minister John Rau on Friday, with its first stage of 100 megawatts production planned to be in operation in 2017.
Two South Australian firms, Catcon for civil construction and CPP for electrical works, have been confirmed as contractors by Neoen Australia managing director Franck Woitiez.
It is believed to be the state’s first new wind farm construction since the Federal Government’s political compromise in May on reducing the nation’s Renewable Energy Target to 33,000 gigawatt hours by 2020, down from 41,000 gigawatt hours. Continue reading
Uranium mining experts have faith, despite the gloomy situation for the nuclear industry
One of the major risks for the uranium industry is the rapid advancement of the renewable power sector, particularly in battery technology.
“We have been waiting for the Japanese nuclear power fleet to be turned back on. We had an expectation for the past two summers that it would be turned back on and that hasn’t come to pass, and that remains the biggest question for uranium prices..”
Australia is well placed to cash in on uranium boom, say mining experts The Age, August 6, 2015 Peter Ker If uranium demand were to ever boom like iron ore, Australia would make a packet. But renewables and community attitudes threaten that. If uranium demand were ever to boom in the way iron ore has over the past decade, Australia would be well placed to cash in.
With the world’s largest known uranium resource and enough mining to be the world’s third biggest producer of the nuclear fuel, Australia is already a significant player in the global uranium industry.
But that industry remains relatively small compared with the likes of gold, copper and coal, and it has endured a severe downturn over the past four years………..
dramatically reduced demand for uranium and prices have been badly depressed ever since. The benchmark price has spent the past couple of years between $US25 a pound and $US40 a pound, and uranium was fetching $US35 a pound last week.
The weak prices have forced many marginal mines around the world to close which, combined with older mines reaching the end of their working lives, has reduced the number of operating uranium mines in Australian in recent years.
Uranium is now being produced at just three Australian sites: BHP Billiton’s Olympic Dam mine in South Australia, the Rio Tinto-dominated Ranger lease in the Northern Territory, and the Four Mile mine in South Australia, run by Quasar and Alliance Resources.
Mining at Ranger has stopped and the company is gradually working through the remaining stockpiles, while Olympic Dam is focused on copper and treats uranium as a byproduct.
Two others in South Australia (Russian miner Uranium One’s Honeymoon mine and US company General Atomics’ Beverley mine) closed down during 2013 and 2014 because weak uranium prices made them unviable.
But weak prices do not only hurt the mines that are already in production; they also deter companies from pushing ahead with the next generation of uranium mines, as at Ranger last month when plans for a underground expansion were abandoned.
Other Australian uranium deposits, such as the ones Toro Energy is developing in Western Australia, seem unlikely to be mined unless uranium prices significantly recover. Continue reading
Submissions to #NuclearCommissionSAust by Medical Association for Prevention of War & Public Health Association of Australia
MAPW & PHAA make joint submission to the SA Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission http://www.mapw.org.au/news/mapw-phaa-make-joint-submission-sa-nuclear-fuel-cycle-royal-commission05/08/2015
MAPW in partnership with the Public Health Association of Australia have lodged a joint submission addressing the terms of reference of the South Australia Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission.
MAPW would like to thank everyone who contributed to the submission and would welcome the opportunity to provide evidence in person to the commission if required.
For further information please contact Phyllis Campbell-McRae on 03 9023 1958
Click here to read the executive summary
Click here to read the full submission
If you would like any further information about the submission please contact Phyllis Campbell-McRae 03 9023 7958
http://www.mapw.org.au/news/mapw-phaa-make-joint-submission-sa-nuclear-fuel-cycle-royal-commission
(This must-read 77-page submission and the 3-page Executive Summary can be downloaded here or via links on the MAPW Resources webpage at: http://www.mapw.org.au/resources)
Antinuclear 