Fantastic news! Port Augusta’s opportunity to become a world class solar energy hub
Revealed: Proposal for $1.2bn solar thermal power plant at Port Augusta June 4, 2016 http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/revealed-proposal-for-12bn-solar-thermal-power-plant-at-port-augusta/news-story/58e18b826e4ecedfb57a9d11dc5fe7ba Sheradyn Holderhead Tory Shepherd A NEW proposal for a $1.2 billion solar thermal plant at Port Augusta, backed by former federal Liberal leader Dr John Hewson, can be revealed by The Advertiser just weeks after the city was hit with the closure of its power station.
Solastor Australia will next week unveil its plans to build a solar thermal power station with a generation capacity up to 170 megawatts and energy storage capabilities, The Advertiser has discovered.
While details of the project remain secret until an official announcement on Tuesday, a similar proposal from US company SolarReserve would create up to 1000 jobs during construction and about 50 permanent jobs.
Solastor Australia chairman Dr Hewson will reveal the company intends to build a fully integrated, solar thermal power station and energy storage system to provide SA with “24/7 base load and peak load generation”.
“We’ll be announcing it all on Tuesday,” he said last night. “This is world-class. We think this is something we can roll out not only across Australia but internationally. It’s Australian technology, it gives Australia a real edge … in actually being able to turn sunlight into effective baseload energy.”
The Advertiser understands behind-the-scenes work on the proposal has been underway for months. The company has a plant in China and has been working in the Middle East.
And Solastor believes that it can produce affordable energy from the plant. In a statement, Solastor Australia said the proposed power station would cost about $1.2 billion and would have a generation capacity of 110mW in winter and 170mW in summer.
“Once completed, it will generate approximately 1.25 billion kilowatt hours of electricity per annum, which is sufficient to provide power to more than 200,000 Australian homes,” the statement said.
Both Federal and State governments are aware of the plans — and consider it to be a legitimate proposal.
Last month, Federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt promised financial support for the 110mW SolarReserve project, which until now was the only publicly known proposal for a solar thermal plant at Port Augusta.
Port Augusta mayor Sam Johnson said the second proposal was “fantastic news” and, along with four other renewable energy projects, was the “saving grace” for the town and the state’s economy.
“This reinforces comments in the past that Port Augusta will be the renewable capital of Australia,” he said. “This would be South Australia and Australia transitioning to a new world and would be a saving grace for Port Augusta and the SA economy.”
Mr Johnson said this proposal was the fifth renewable energy power station plan, which also included two 100mW solar panel farms, and a combined wind turbine and solar panel farm, the approval of which was expected to be announced next week
These projects will support Arrium and the skilled workforce we have, as well as benefiting small business throughout the region,” Mr Johnson said. “All up these projects would replace the generation from the coal-powered plant.” Repower Port Augusta campaigner Dan Spencer said it was great news that more companies were coming forward with proposals.
“Port Augusta really has the opportunity to become a renewable energy hub,” he said.
“More and more proponents are coming forward and saying they want to invest which is really exciting.
“There’s no reason we couldn’t see both these solar projects get built. The more projects, the more investment, the more clean energy.”
In April a Repower Port Augusta-commissioned ReachTEL poll of 1195 people showed that three-quarters believed the Federal Government should help fund the construction of a solar thermal power plant at Port Augusta.
Comparison of global warming’s climate effects at 1.5C and 2C
Scientists compare climate change impacts at 1.5C and 2C , Skeptical Science, 2 June 2016 Half a degree makes a very big difference when judging how different parts of the world will feel the effects of climate change.
This is the conclusion from the first study to compare and contrast the consequences of 1.5C world compared to a 2C world, published today in Earth System Dynamics.
Both 2C and 1.5C are explicitly mentioned in the Paris agreement as potential upper limits for global warming since the preindustrial era, but details from scientists on how the temperature thresholds compare have been sparse.
For example, an extra 0.5C could see global sea levels rise 10cm more by 2100, water shortages in the Mediterranean double and tropical heatwaves last up to a month longer. The difference between 2C and 1.5C is also “likely to be decisive for the future of coral reefs”, with virtually all coral reefs at high risk of bleaching with 2C warming.
The authors presented their research today at the European Geosciences Union, an annual major gathering of geoscientists taking place this week in Vienna.
“Two-headed goal”
California’s community group formed to fight nuclear waste dump plan
Group forms to fight San Onofre nuclear waste plan, San Diego Union Tribune By Jeff McDonald June 2, 2016 Residents of San Diego and Orange counties concerned about the longterm storage of radioactive waste on the coast between Oceanside and San Clemente have organized a new coalition aimed at forcing the removal of tons of spent nuclear fuel.
The group, calling itself Secure Nuclear Waste, is comprised of lawyers, activists, a scientist, an elected official and an emergency-room physician. It is hosting a community meeting at Laguna Beach City Hall next Wednesday evening.
“The deadly radioactive waste is toxic to humans for millions of years,” the group said in a news release criticizing a California Coastal Commission storage permit approved in October. “If nothing is done, the waste could be buried on the beach as early as May 2017 for up to 300 years.”
Secure Nuclear Waste said it organized as a counter to the Community Engagement Panel, a group of volunteers convened by plant owner Southern California Edison to meet regularly and discuss decommissioning of the failed San Onofre nuclear plant.
The new group complained that the Community Engagement Panel unfairly favors Edison and is not truly representative of the public……..
Members of Secure Nuclear Waste include San Diego consumer attorneys Michael Aguirre and Maria Severson. It also includes Charles Langley of the consumer group Public Watchdog, geologist Robert Pope and transportation consultant Nina Babiarz.
San Juan Capistrano Mayor Pam Patterson, who serves on the Community Engagement Panel due to her elected office, also joined Secure Nuclear Waste. She said the official group is not independent and not forceful enough opposing onsite spent-fuel storage at San Onofre.
“People on the Community Engagement Panel have been hand-picked because they are candy-coating the situation,” Patterson said. “The community needs to understand what’s going on is not in anybody’s best interest. It’s scary what they are doing.”
The Coastal Commission permit, now the subject of a lawsuit filed by the Aguirre & Severson law firm, allows Edison to store 1,600 tons of spent fuel in underground canisters just north of the shuttered nuclear reactors.
The spent fuel historically has been stored in above-ground cooling ponds but Edison is in the process of transferring the waste into steel-lined casks. More than 100 of the 45-ton canisters will then be buried in a massive tomb embedded in the beach.
Critics say the plan does not allow for monitoring the canisters for future degradation or leaks and presents a health threat to the millions of people who live and travel through the region. They say regulators should do a better job mitigating the longterm threat.
“It is an outrage that taxpayers are funding politically appointed bureaucrats at state agencies to create a deadly toxic waste landfill next to an interstate highway and the Los Angeles-San Diego coastal rail corridor,” said Babiarz, the transportation consultant and coalition member. “Our two counties have united to fight this threat to public safety.”……
The first Secure Nuclear Waste meeting convenes Wednesday, June 8 at 6 p.m. at Laguna Beach City Hall, 505 Forest Ave.
The Community Engagement Panel next meets June 22, when a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission expert will discuss so-called consolidated interim storage, the practice or temporarily storing radioactive waste on site until a more permanent federal site is identified. http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2016/jun/02/secure-nuclear-waste/
New Mexico’s nuclear waste debacle. This could happen in South Australia
The December deadline was missed in large part because of a radiation leak at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Southern New Mexico, where barrels of transuranic waste from Los Alamos were being stored in underground salt caverns. An improperly packaged waste drum from Los Alamos burst in February 2014, closing down the waste site.
Environment Department: LANL cleanup could cost $4B, Santa Fe New Mexican News Jun 2, 2016. Rebecca Moss The New Mexican
The New Mexico Environment Department told state lawmakers Wednesday that it may cost the federal government far more than expected to remove contamination from Los Alamos National Laboratory over the next decade.
During a meeting of the legislative Radioactive and Hazardous Waste Committee, Environment Secretary Ryan Flynn said costs could exceed $4 billion, more than double the current budget proposed by federal regulators. Continue reading
End of road for Adani’s $16-bn coal mine as Australian PM too says ‘no’ to funding
‘With no one to fund the project that has been opposed by environmental groups all along,
Adani’s struggling $16-billion Carmichael coal mine project may never come up.
The mega-mine in Queensland’s Galilee Basin, which has failed to attract private lenders,
has now been denied public funding as well.’
domain-b.com
http://www.domain-b.com/companies/companies_a/Adani_group/20160603_coal_mine.html
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 