The week that has been in Australia’s nuclear and climate news
Late news flashes:
- Submarine purchase from France in cahoots with nuclear lobby‘s plan for expansion of nuclear industry, to be announced on May 6 by the sham South Australia Nuclear Fuel Chain Royal Commission.
- The seller, France’s corporation Direction des Constructions et Armes Navales (DCNS) is notorious for corruption.
Most impressive news item of the week – Central bankers, financial facts, bringing an end to the nuclear power era?
NUCLEAR. A quiet week on the nuclear front turned busy, just at the end. The Federal government suddenly announced the site chosen as a national radioactive dump, at Barndioota, South Australia,- a nice little bonanza for property owner former SA Liberal Senator Grant Chapman. Adnyamathanha Traditional Owners did not share his joy, and will fight nuclear waste dump plan. Communities from the five other proposed radioactive waste sites are supporting the Flinders community campaign against the dump.
In the coming week, the South Australia Nuclear Fuel Chain Royal Commission will recommend making Australia the world’s nuclear waste dump. The whole Commission was a setup job from the beginning. #NuclearCommissionSAust sets up a pro nuclear Committee for Adelaide overseas junket. South Australia’s pro nuclear tourists picked a bad day to visit Finland.
Meanwhile South Australia is in a frenzy of delight that there will be a submarine business there, supplied by France at $5 billion, (presumable good election value at $10 billion per each of the 5 marginal Liberal seats). Only it’s very costly, and they mightn’t be built in S.A. at all. But hey – the design is for nuclear submarines !- not fuelled by nuclear at this stage. Maybe later.
CLIMATE Turnbull’s climate policy deceptions – cut climate funds, then announce new policies. Urgent need to end $7.7 Billion Fossil Fuel Subsidies. Australia needs action, not just Turnbull’s words, to save the Great Barrier Reef.
RENEWABLE ENERGY. Canberra at the forefront in the new renewable energy era. First-ever council solar farm for Queensland – on the Sunshine Coast. Export industry potential for Victorian solar energy project, backed by Australian Renewable Energy Agency.
Submarine buyers in cahoots with the spurious Nuclear Royal Commission
And here was I, thinking that I was paranoid, for imagining that the Federal government’s choice of a submarine provider had anything to do with South Australia’s shonky Nuclear Royal Commission.
Yes, I did wonder why, after Tony Abbott promising Japan that they would supply the subs at $40 billion, the govt chose a $50 billion deal. (I thought that Turnbull must have been happy to spend the extra $10 billion just to nark Abbott)
I did wonder why the Royal Commission spent several days in France, conferring with officials and nuclear corporation AREVA, the very days when AREVA went broke, and had to be taken over by the also nearly broke EDF.
I did wonder why they chose a nuclear-powered design (to be fuelled by diesel) when better and cheaper non nuclear designs were available from Germany and Japan.
But now we know. The whole deal was done in collusion with the masterminds of the spurious Royal Commission, and its plans for the eventual entire toxic nuclear fuel chain in Australia.
New submarines chosen as prelude to nuclear submarines
Business SA says Future Submarine fleet could include nuclear-powered versions once local atomic industry is established, Adelaide Now April 30, 2016 State political reporter Daniel Wills, Paris, France, Sunday Mail (SA) AUSTRALIA’S future submarine fleet could be transitioned to include a potent mix of both intelligence gathering diesel boats and rapid, fast-moving nuclear-powered vessels once the state develops a sophisticated atomic industry based around storage, Business SA says.
The Federal Government is facing calls from across the strategic policy and business communities, as well as from an outspoken SA Senator, to strongly consider the nuclear option.
Premier Jay Weatherill visited DCNS’ Cherbourg shipyard last on Friday Adelaide time, just hours after SA was chosen as the likely site of a low-level nuclear waste dump and as former governor Kevin Scare puts the finishing touches on a Royal Commission due for release within days.
Business SA chief executive Nigel McBride, who joined the Cherbourg tour to observe the construction of a nuclear Barracuda sub that will become the template for Australia’s diesel fleet, said there was strong national defence reasons for having a mix of the two…..
Mr McBride told the Sunday Mail that building community confidence behind nuclear storage was crucial before the question of expanding the industry into defence capabilities.
“As we’ve gone around Europe and looked at their nuclear cycle, and take into account the likely final recommendations from the Royal Commission in regards to the storage of waste, we will as a nation and state soon come to a decision about if we participate or not,” he said…….
Mr McBride said storage was a “starting point” in a discussion about other applications.
The first future sub is set to hit the water in the early 2030s, about the time when Mr Scarce says the state could have a storage industry up and running if it moved to do so immediately……
“We walked around a facility today which had a significant nuclear threat, nobody even blinked. We walked around and took it for granted that it would be professionally contained,” Mr McBride said……
Senator Day said there was “no escaping” the strategic need for nuclear subs…….
“The winning DCNS bid links SA with a French nation with nuclear subs and nuclear power. This opens up great opportunities for SA to learn how to embrace all facets of the nuclear fuel cycle.”…….
Mr Thomson said diesel subs were valuable in “certain, specific circumstances”.
“But if you had to choose between 12 nuclear or 12 conventional subs, it’s a no-brainer. You’d have the nuclear subs every time…
Australian law currently bars the use of nuclear subs………http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/business-sa-says-future-submarine-fleet-could-include-nuclearpowered-versions-once-local-atomic-industry-is-established/news-story/9ae30cb1933a6119182944f6dbdcf09c
French nuclear purchase a very bad deal for Britain
“The decision-makers on both sides are totally underestimating” the risks, says Mycle Schneider, an independent nuclear analyst in Paris. “But the farther they go on, the more difficult it is to pull out.”
French Plans for a Nuclear Plant Begin to Look Like a Bad Deal for Britain, Bloomberg 30 Apr 16 A new reactor design poses risks on both sides of the English Channel. As Britain races to replace its aging nuclear reactors and coal generators, it’s hoping to team up with France to build the most expensive power plant in history—a massive atomic facility with two reactors at Hinkley Point on England’s southwestern coast. It could provide 7 percent of the country’s electricity by 2025. But the design, intended to showcase the latest French reactor technology, poses engineering and financial problems that could create a costly morass for both countries. Continue reading
The Adnyamathanha people will not be bribed: they will fight the nuclear waste dump plan
Adnyamathanha to fight federal government’s nuclear dump planned Barndioota location.Transcontinental, Port Augusta,30 Apr 16 ADNYAMATHANHA traditional owners are vowing to fight the federal government’s plans to house a nuclear waste facility Wallerberdina Station near Barndioota in the Flinders Ranges.
The call comes as the site was shortlisted by the federal government as the possible location of Australia’s first facility of its kind on Friday morning
Adnyamathanha Traditional Owner Regina McKenzie, who lives at Yappala Station near the proposed dump site said the Adnyamathanha were not consulted about the nomination.
‘Even Traditional Owners who live next to the proposed dump site at Yappala Station weren’t consulted,” Ms McKenzie said.
“The proposed dump site is adjacent to the Yappala Indigenous Protected Area. On the land with the proposed dump site, we have been working for many years to register heritage sites with the SA government.”
Ms McKenzie said the Arngurla Yarta (spiritual land) holds special significance to her people and the proposed dump site features countless thousands of Aboriginal artifacts.
“Our ancestors are buried there,” Ms McKenzie said.
“The nominated site is a significant women’s site. Throughout the area are registered cultural heritage sites and places of huge importance to our people.”
“We call on the federal government to withdraw the nomination of the site and to show more respect in future. We call on all South Australians − all Australians − to support us in our struggle.
“Adnyamathanha Traditional Owners and Viliwarinha Yura Aboriginal Corporation will fight the proposal for a nuclear waste dump on our land for as long as it takes to stop it.”
Member for Grey MP Rowan Ramsey said the Hawker community would benefit if Barndioota became the site of the low and intermediate nuclear waste repository.
“The open mindedness of the Hawker community on this issue is to be admired and I am very pleased a community in my electorate stands to benefit substantially from this investment. …….
Mr Frydenberg stressed the federal government’s decision was not final. http://www.transcontinental.com.au/story/3879196/adnyamathanha-to-fight-nuclear-dump-plan/
Nuclear inquiry needed for waste dump sites
29 Apr 2016 The Australian Greens have called for an independent, deliberative inquiry into long-term stewardship options for spent nuclear fuel, drawing widely on international experience in light of today’s announcement to use Wallerberdina Station near Barndioota in South Australia’s Flinders Ranges as a proposed dump sitefor WA Scott Ludlam said this should start with the question, what is the safest way to isolate long-lived wastes from people and the environment for tens of thousands of years, rather than where should we dump it?
“Existing spent fuel and reprocessing wastes should be properly containerised in 60-year licenced castors, effectively big bomb-proof lead and steel containers, and remain at Lucas Heights under active care and maintenance,” he said.
The Government must also come clean about what kinds of waste they intend to dump.
“While the Government emphasises that this debate is about low-level medical wastes (gloves and discarded diagnostic equipment), the real debate is about where the spent nuclear fuel from the Lucas Heights research reactor ends up,” he said.
Mr Ludlam said today’s announcement was only happening because community action led by Aboriginal leaders managed to defeat the proposal to dump nuclear waste at Muckaty Station in the Northern Territory.
“Unless the Government wants a repeat of that disaster, it needs to listen to local voices now. Minister Josh Freydenberg and his predecessor Ian MacFarlane said they would not proceed without consent. That consent is clearly missing: the community is saying no, and this must be respected,” he said.
“What we needed was a genuinely deliberative investigation into how to isolate this waste for tens of thousands of years; instead we got this attempt to cut corners and dump it off on an unsuspecting community.”
The Greens have committed to support local Aboriginal people who recently led a tour of the region for Australian Greens representatives.
The Greens also call for: Continue reading
Ocean temperatures on Tasmania’s East Coast are among the fastest-rising in the world
OCEAN temperatures on Tasmania’s East Coast are now among the most rapidly warming in the world, with oyster, salmon, rock lobster and abalone industries feeling the impact.
http://www.themercury.com.au/news/tasmania/ocean-temperatures-on-tasmanias-east-coast-are-among-the-fastestrising-in-the-world/news-story/70e83dcbe51376aa439a53cd2d8d32f7
‘Perilous’: Bureau of Meteorology boss Rob Vertessy exits with climate warning
Australia faces a “perilous” water security future from climate change even as the Turnbull government eyes budget cuts to water programs and CSIRO halves climate investment, Rob Vertessy, the outgoing head of the Bureau of Meteorology, says.
Reservoirs in the Murray-Darling basin are now close to their lowest levels since the Millennium Drought and Tasmania is also facing “serious” issues”, Dr Vertessy told Fairfax Media on Friday, his final day as the bureau’s chief.
Nuclear danger prompts Netherlands to give out anti radiation pills
Netherlands to hand out iodine pills in case of nuclear accident, Guardian, 30 Apr 16 Fear over safety of reactors across the border in Belgium prompts government to order 15m pills, which help reduce radiation build-up in the body Agence France-Presse To protect people living near nuclear plants in case of an accident, as concerns rise over ageing reactors across the border in Belgium.The iodine pills, which help reduce radiation build-up in the thyroid, would be given first to children under 18 and pregnant women living within a 100-kilometre (62-mile) radius of a plant, health ministry spokeswoman Edith Schippers said.
Until now, the tablets have been available within 20km of a plant, to everyone aged 40 and under.
The Netherlands has only one nuclear power plant – at Borssele in the southwest – but the expansion will provide pills for people living in border areas near Germany’s Emsland plant and two Belgian facilities, Doel and Tihange……..http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/30/netherlands-to-hand-out-iodine-pills-in-case-of-nuclear-accident
Russia’s nuclear disaster without end – Mayak
Russia’s nuclear nightmare flows down radioactive river, http://www.concordmonitor.com/Russia-s-nuclear-nightmare-flows-down-radioactive-river-1834751 Monitor, By KATHERINE JACOBSEN Associated Press. Friday, April 29, 2016 At first glance, Gilani Dambaev looks like a healthy 60-year-old man and the river flowing past his rural family home appears pristine. But Dambaev is riddled with diseases that his doctors link to a lifetime’s exposure to excessive radiation, and the Geiger counter beeps loudly as a reporter strolls down to the muddy riverbank.
Some 30 miles upstream from Dambaev’s crumbling village lies Mayak, a nuclear complex that has been responsible for at least two of the country’s biggest radioactive accidents. Worse, environmentalists say, is the facility’s decades-old record of using the Arctic-bound waters of the Techa River to dump waste from reprocessing spent nuclear fuel, hundreds of tons of which is imported annually from neighboring nations
At first glance, Gilani Dambaev looks like a healthy 60-year-old man and the river flowing past his rural family home appears pristine. But Dambaev is riddled with diseases that his doctors link to a lifetime’s exposure to excessive radiation, and the Geiger counter beeps loudly as a reporter strolls down to the muddy riverbank.
Some 30 miles upstream from Dambaev’s crumbling village lies Mayak, a nuclear complex that has been responsible for at least two of the country’s biggest radioactive accidents. Worse, environmentalists say, is the facility’s decades-old record of using the Arctic-bound waters of the Techa River to dump waste from reprocessing spent nuclear fuel, hundreds of tons of which is imported annually from neighboring nations.
The results can be felt in every aching household along the Techa, where doctors record rates of chromosomal abnormalities, birth defects and cancers vastly higher than the Russian average – and citizens such as Dambaev are left to rue the government’s failure over four decades to admit the danger. Continue reading
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 