Malcolm Turnbull all tied up over Climate Change and Paris Conference
Malcolm Turnbull: Verbal acrobatics required for Paris climate 
talks, Independent Australia, 8 November 2015, Malcolm Turnbull will need to utilise his obvious talent for rhetoric to convince a global audience at the Paris climate talks in November, as there is no substance to the Government’s “Direct Action” climate policy, says Noel Wauchope.
Australia’s new Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has an appealing and glib turn of phrase. He’s going to need that talent when he speaks at the United Nations Paris Climate Conference in late November.
The thing is, Malcolm has to sell to the conference Australia’s current policy on climate change. The Government’s “Direct Action” climate policy is unchanged, despite the departure of climate sceptic Tony Abbott. Its flagship is the Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF).
The ERF boils down to tax-payer handouts to polluting companies that volunteer to cut their greenhouse emissions. There is no enforcement policy, meaning that the companies get the money, and for a year or more, do not need to show that they have reduced emissions.
After a year, the government proposes a ‘safeguards mechanism’, to be explained fully then, so allowing the companies plenty of leeway to lobby to make it meaningless. ……..
What happened to Turnbull? Mark Kenny & James Massola wrote in The Age in February:
‘Amid feverish speculation over the leadership, unconfirmed reports also claimed Mr Turnbull had moved to assuage fears in the conservative wing of the party that his return to the leadership would see a reprise of the carbon tax or an emissions trading scheme. It was claimed Mr Turnbull had promised, in a secret deal, that there would be no such reprise if elected.’
More recently, Kenny expressed it in this way:
‘Turnbull has his hands tied, having lost the leadership in 2009 to Abbott for supporting emissions trading, and then having regained it in 2015 on the express condition of opposing it. Release from such Houdini-esque chains will take some doing.’…….
Turnbull’s support for nuclear waste dumping in Australia might go down okay at the Paris talks. There will be a strong push there for nuclear power to be portrayed as cure for a climate change. At present, “new nuclear” is hamstrung in the U.S. because there has to be a waste solution before it can go ahead. ……
However, to persuade the world on Australia’s entire climate inaction package is a task that will demand Turnbull’s very best linguistic acrobatics.
Malcolm Turnbull faces an epic task to keep faith with Liberal Coalition climate denialists, while making Australia’s pathetic climate policy look at all reasonable to the global audience. https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/malcolm-turnbull-verbal-acrobatics-required-at-the-paris-climate-talks,8356
Why interim storage at Lucas Heights is the least worst solution for returning nuclear wastes.
Dave Sweeney, Australian Conservation Foundation, 9 Nov 15 Last week Natalie Wasley (BNI) and myself spent a few days talking to a range of stakeholders in Sydney and Sutherland Shire and this note seeks to provide some context for the ENGO response to this development.
The BBC Shanghai left the French port of Cherbourg in mid-October carrying twenty five tonnes of Australian origin intermediate level waste returning here after reprocessing in France.
There has been controversy about the shipment, including safety and capacity concerns raised by Greenpeace about the vessel and a statement from the Indonesia’s Maritime Security Board that it can not pass through Indonesian waters. There is sure to be more domestic and international media attention when it arrives in Port Kembla (Wollongong), expected to be in early December.
After arrival in Kembla it is planned that the waste – which is in solid form inside a special transport container – will be moved by road to the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation’s Lucas Heights reactor facility in southern Sydney.
Some local residents are/will be calling for this material to not be stored in Sydney – this is an understandable response, but it is not one supported by the wider national nuclear free movement and key civil society partners.
We advocate that extended interim storage at Lucas Heights is the current least worst option as:
- ANSTO is already both the continuing producer of and home to the vast majority of Australia’s higher level radioactive waste
- ANSTO has certain tenure, a secure perimeter and is monitored 24/7 by Australian federal police
- Storing the waste at ANSTO means the waste will be actively managed as operations at the site are licensed for a further three decades – it also keeps waste management on the radar of the facility/people with the highest concentration of nuclear expertise and radiation response capacity in Australia
- Since the government realised in 2012 that the planned national waste dump at Muckaty would not be in place prior to the return of this waste, ANSTO has constructed and commissioned a new purpose built on site storage shed dedicated to housing this waste
- Extended interim storage at ANSTO helps reduce the political pressure to rush to find a ‘remote’ out of sight, out of mind dump site and increases the chances of advancing responsible management
- Storage at ANSTO has been publicly identified as a credible and feasible option by ANSTO, the nuclear industry lobby group, the Australian Nuclear Association and the federal nuclear regulator, the Australian Radiation and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA)
Importantly, this approach also provides the ability to have a circuit breaker in this long running issue in the form of an evidence based and open review of the best longer term management options.
Nothing about the nuclear industry, especially nuclear waste, is clean or uncomplicated and some in the wider community might be critical of this position.
However we believe that extended interim storage is the least worst approach and that coupled with a sustained ENGO call for a wider public review, is the path that is most likely to usefully advance the debate about future management options.
There is also an unusually high level of common acceptance that storage at Lucas Heights is the best option in the current circumstances – as well as ENGO’s this view is shared by the Sutherland Shire Council, local Greens and environmentalists, ANSTO and the Maritime Union.
Given this, pending a safety inspection upon the ship’s arrival, we do not forsee protest action aimed at disrupting the transfer of this waste from the Port to ANSTO – we want to see that happen with as low risk as possible. There are plans for a peaceful presence to witness the arrival and transfer and convey that while we (reluctantly) accept the need for this transport to occur we will not accept these shipments becoming routine and will actively resist moves to impose a national waste dump on remote communities or develop international waste dumps/storage in Australia.
Clearly this is an important message to convey in the context of the South Australian Nuclear Royal Commission and recent comments by PM Turnbull and other senior Coalition figures.
There is also both a real opportunity and need for a clear social and wider media profile at this time on the need for an open review of the best ways to manage this material and to end/reduce its production.
Nuclear fuel leasing – not economically viable for Australia
When nuclear reactors shut (as they are doing in USA) – where is the income stream to pay Australia for having all that radioactive trash?
Proponents are talking up the billions that might be made by swallowing our pride and making Australia the world’s nuclear waste dump. But they have been silent about the costs.
And the waste would need to be monitored and problems addressed for millenia
Wasting Australia’s Future: Why We Shouldn’t Become The World’s Nuclear Waste Dump, New Matilda, By Dr Jim Green on November 9, 2015 There are many good reasons why Australia should not set its sights on becoming a dumping ground for nuclear waste. Dr Jim Green takes up the case.
While sceptical about the prospects for nuclear power in Australia, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has given cautious support to the idea of a nuclear fuel leasing industry in Australia. Such an industry would involve uranium mining, conversion (to uranium hexafluouride), enrichment (increasing the ratio of uranium-235 to uranium-238), fuel fabrication, and disposal of the high-level nuclear waste produced by the use of nuclear fuel in power reactors overseas.
In the Prime Minister’s words: “We have got the uranium, we mine it, why don’t we process it, turn it into the fuel rods, lease it to people overseas, when they are done, we bring them back and we have got stable, very stable geology in remote locations and a stable political environment.”
Regardless of its merits, a nuclear leasing industry is an economic non-starter. That much is clear from the data provided in the latest edition of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Nuclear Technology Review. Uranium miners could be compelled to participate in an Australian nuclear leasing industry. But try telling that to BHP Billiton. The company bluntly stated in its submission to the 2006 Switkowski Review: “BHP Billiton believes that there is neither a commercial nor a non-proliferation case for it to become involved in front-end processing or for mandating the development of fuel leasing services in Australia.”
And there’s no point appealing to the patriotic fervour of Australia’s uranium miners: they are majority foreign-owned. Continue reading
The Trans Pacific Partnership will override any Climate agreements made in Paris
The TPP, because of fast track, bypasses the normal legislative process of public discussion and consideration by congressional committees
The “deal is rife with polluter giveaways that would undermine decades of environmental progress, threaten our climate, and fail to adequately protect wildlife because big polluters helped write the deal.”
The agreement, in essence, becomes global law. Any agreements over carbon emissions by countries made through the United Nations are effectively rendered null and void by the TPP.
“Trade agreements are binding,” Flowers said. “They supersede any of the nonbinding agreements made by the United Nations Climate Change Conference that might come out of Paris.”
The Most Brazen Corporate Power Grab in American History http://www.globalresearch.ca/tpp-wto-nafta-the-most-brazen-corporate-power-grab-in-american-history/5487363 Nov 6, 2015 By Chris Hedges The release Thursday of the 5,544-page text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership—a trade and investment agreement involving 12 countries comprising nearly 40 percent of global output—confirms what even its most apocalyptic critics feared.
“The TPP, along with the WTO [World Trade Organization] and NAFTA [North American Free Trade Agreement], is the most brazen corporate power grab in American history,” Ralph Nader told me when I reached him by phone in Washington, D.C. “It allows corporations to bypass our three branches of government to impose enforceable sanctions by secret tribunals. These tribunals can declare our labor, consumer and environmental protections [to be] unlawful, non-tariff barriers subject to fines for noncompliance. The TPP establishes a transnational, autocratic system of enforceable governance in defiance of our domestic laws.” Continue reading
Pope’s climate cardinal to visit Australia
A Catholic cardinal who claims that ‘some countries will not have a future’ without climate change action is heading to Australia… (subscribers only)
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/capital-circle/popes-climate-cardinal-to-visit/story-fn59nqgy-1227600864239
UK’s nuclear waste problem – a risky solution PRISM (Power Reactor Innovative Small Module)
Another option on the table is PRISM. Developed by GE Hitachi (GEH), PRISM is a sodium-cooled fast reactor that uses a metallic fuel alloy of zirconium, uranium, and plutonium. GEH claims PRISM would reduce the plutonium stockpile quicker than MOX and be the most efficient solution for the UK. The problem is, despite being based on established technology, a PRISM reactor has yet to be built, and the UK is understandably a little reluctant to commit in this direction. Seen as something of a gamble, it remains in the running alongside the currently more favoured MOX option.
Amid all the uncertainty, one thing is for sure. Regardless of what decision is taken, a proportion of the plutonium will end up as waste and will need to be safely disposed of.
Unlike MOX and PRISM, immobilisation has no prominent industry backers. In comparison to exploiting the plutonium for our energy needs, there is no great fortune to be made from disposing of it safely. But immobilising the entire plutonium stockpile may in fact be a more economically sound approach than reprocessing
Sellafield plutonium a multi-layered problem, The Engineer UK, 6 November 2015 | By Andrew Wade “……..It takes somewhere in the region of 5-10kg of plutonium to make a nuclear weapon, so 140 tons is a slightly worrying amount to have sitting in a concrete shed in Cumbria. While everyone at the press conference was at pains to point out that there are no major safety concerns with the current storage, it is widely accepted that a long-term plan needs to be formulated. This, however, is where things get tricky. The potential energy of the plutonium if converted to nuclear fuel is massive, but there are several competing technologies vying for endorsement, none of which are well proven as financially viable.
Top of the list – and the government’s current preference – is for some application that uses mixed oxide fuel, or MOX. MOX is made by blending plutonium with natural or depleted uranium to create a fuel that is similar, but not identical, to the low-enriched uranium used in most nuclear plants today. MOX can be – and in several European countries is – used in thermal reactors alongside uranium. But despite past concerns, there is in reality no shortage of uranium today, so no huge need to supplement it with MOX in current reactors. Where MOX could in fact lead to greater efficiencies is in fast reactors, but these are costly and difficult to operate, and would not make economic sense unless the cost of uranium fell.
To complicate matters further, developing MOX is by no means a straightforward process. Continue reading
“New nuclear” industry grasps at Climate Change policy to save it
Politico blasted today’s summit: ”The nuclear crowd is certainly excited for the attention and the summit will also let them feel like part of Team Climate, given the industry’s sense of being the unloved stepchild of the whole enterprise.
Hopefully Politico is right and today’s event is really just another cheerleading event for a floundering industry that is grasping at any means to stay afloat and not a true commitment of the limited time and financial resources we have to a technology that cannot deliver carbon emission reductions in an expedient and affordable manner.
Who’s asking for (and getting) even more taxpayer bailouts? Hint: they’ve done it before http://blog.cleanenergy.org/2015/11/06/whos-asking-for-and-getting-even-more-taxpayer-bailouts-hint-theyve-done-it-before/
Once again the nuclear power industry is the culprit and once again, the Obama Administration, like numerous previous Administrations, is the enabler — obliging an industry to the detriment of U.S. taxpayers by continuing to push an “all of the above” energy policy.
On the heels of the wise rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline today, another polluting player in the energy sector received some significant bolstering. This afternoon the “White House Summit on Nuclear Energy” was held for the flailing nuclear power industry, which has been rocked by several early closures of nuclear plants and major debacles at all the under-construction nuclear projects here in the U.S. (TVA’s Watts Bar 2 in Tennessee, Southern Company’s Vogtle 3 & 4 in Georgia and SCANA’s V.C. Summer 2 & 3 in South Carolina). The industry and its proponents, such as the Nuclear Energy Institute and Third Way, which not surprisingly helped organize and participated in today’s pep rally, misleadingly claim that carbon emission reductions, such as required by the EPA’s Clean Power Plan and being discussed at the upcoming U.N. climate conference in Paris, can only happen if nuclear power is expanded.
Australia’s demonstrated incompetence on dealing with radioactive trash
Wasting Australia’s Future: Why We Shouldn’t Become The World’s Nuclear Waste Dump, New Matilda, By Dr Jim Green on November 9, 201 “…….Is there any reason to believe that Australia would manage a deep underground repository any more responsibly than the US? No.
Is there any reason to believe that things might be worse in Australia? Yes.
The US has a wealth of nuclear expertise at its disposal; Australia has comparatively little.
Moreover, Australia has its own sordid history dealing with long-lived nuclear waste. In the late-1990s, the Australian government carried out a clean-up of the Maralinga nuclear test site. It was done on the cheap and many tonnes of plutonium-contaminated debris remain buried in shallow, unlined pits in totally unsuitable geology.
A number of scientists with inside knowledge of the Maralinga project publicly noted their concerns. Nuclear engineer Alan Parkinson said of the ‘clean up’: “What was done at Maralinga was a cheap and nasty solution that wouldn’t be adopted on white-fellas land.”
US scientist Dale Timmons said the government’s technical report was littered with “gross misinformation”. Geoff Williams, an officer with the Commonwealth nuclear regulator ARPANSA, said the ‘clean up’ was beset by a “host of indiscretions, short-cuts and cover-ups”. Nuclear physicist Prof. Peter Johnston said there were “very large expenditures and significant hazards resulting from the deficient management of the project”.
Barely a decade after the Maralinga ‘clean-up’, a survey revealed that 19 of the 85 contaminated debris pits have been subject to erosion or subsidence.
Australia’s demonstrated incompetence feeds back into the economic debate. Some − perhaps many − countries would surely think twice about entrusting nuclear waste to a country that has already proven that it is not up to the task.https://newmatilda.com/2015/11/09/wasting-australias-future-why-we-shouldnt-become-the-worlds-nuclear-waste-dump/
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 