Recent days in nuclear and climate news
Blissfully away from news, and from all matters digital, – I returned to find that the climate and environment politics are worse than ever in USA and Australia.
Meanwhile, on the nuclear scene, things would be farcical, if they were not so dangerous. Donald Trump wants to expand US nuclear arsenal, make it ‘top of the pack’. Australia’s own Dr Helen Caldicott set out all too clearly the grim situation at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex.
The farcical part is in the nuclear lobby’s pretense that theirs is a viable industry. As the giant Toshiba corporation nears bankruptcy, and nuclear power stations go down like dominoes in USA, it’s really only China where the industry still might save itself. And that’s dubious, too.
And -sorry- this newsletter is too long today!
NUCLEAR Australia stands out- in self-imposed exile from global summit on treaty to ban nuclear weapons. Pine Gap protestors to be prosecuted: may be gaoled for 7 years.
South Australia No place for nuclear enthusiasts in South Australia’s Liberal Party. Department of Industry, Innovation and Science avoids hard questions on nuclear waste. Will the nuclear waste of Sydney’s dead HIFAR nuclear reactor be sent to South Australia?
CLIMATE
- Victoria’s ground-breaking climate change bill passed into law on 24 February.
- Australian Prudential Regulation Authority dropped a climate bombshell – ignored by Government!
- Australia’s Minister For Coal Josh Frydenberg blackens the name of wind and solar power. Josh Frydenberg aims to have coal mining subsidised by Clean Energy Finance Corporation. Coal-dependent states had power bills rising more than in renewables-powered South Australia. Money intended for research was diverted to coal advertising. Mining lobby tries to stifle environmental activism. Australian Conservation Foundation summarises the background of Adani’s Carmichael coal mine and rail project.
- Seed- Australia’s first Indigenous youth climate network.
RENEWABLE ENERGY. There’s heaps of news on this: World-first digital energy marketplace for rooftop solar launched by Australian consortium. South Australia’s Spencer Gulf ideal for pumped hydro energy storage. Global battery storage industry to fight Australia home bans. Shorten speaks out f or Labor’s 50% renewable energy target. Poll shows that majority of Australians support Labor’s renewable energy goal.
Victoria’s ground-breaking climate change bill passed into law on 24 February
Has Australia’s mainstream media not noticed this? And if so, why so?
Australian state passes bill to reduce emissions to zero by 2050, http://www.ammonia21.com/articles/7460/australian_state_passes_bill_to_reduce_emissions_to_zero_by_2050 By Charlotte McLaughlin, Feb 24, 2017, The southern Australian state of Victoria passed the climate change bill yesterday. The legislature of Victoria, Australia has passed a climate change bill committing the state to reduce emissions to zero by 2050. Achieving this would imply phasing out super-pollutants like hydroflurocarbons (HFCs).
HFCs are some of the fastest-growing climate pollutants. R404A, an HFC commonly used in refrigeration and air-conditioning, has a global warming potential (GWP) of 3,922 (in other words, 3,922 times that of carbon dioxide).
The Victoria bill sets out how to achieve the long-term target by “determining the amount of total greenhouse gas emissions attributable to the State, including any removals of greenhouse gas emissions from the atmosphere due to activities within the State; and (b) deducting from that amount any eligible offsets from outside of the State”.
Options for reducing emissions to zero may see Victoria take part in an emissions trading scheme or introduce carbon capture measures.
The state government will determine targets for each year once they have received feedback from experts on how to achieve this ambitious goal. It will then give relevant departments and local government “a description of actions” that they need to achieve over the next five years to work towards the goal of reducing emissions completely.
Extreme weather nudging Australia in right direction
The legislation marks an important step for Australia on climate change, whose federal and state governments have been traditionally hesitant to act.
The conservative Liberal Party and the primarily rural-based National Party, who control the national government, revoked Australia’s carbon trading scheme two years ago.
Australia is also the least-active country among the biggest global economies that make up the G20 when it comes to climate protection, according to a 2016 report from Climate Transparency, an NGO.
Public opinion is shifting in the wake of Australia experiencing record temperatures of over 47oC in the past few weeks. A recent poll by Essential Media puts the number of people who agree with the statement that “climate change is happening and is caused by human activity” at 60%.
According to Accelerate Australia & NZ reports that the federal government in Canberra will table an HFC phase-down plan by the end of next month and pass it by June of this year.
False claims on Generation IV nuclear reactors made by Transatomic Power
It’s interesting the way that, for dubious nuclear enterprises, they like to put a young woman at the top. Is this to make the nuclear image look young and trendy? Or is it so they she can cop the flak when it all goes wrong?
Below – Leslie Dewan – CEO of Transatomic Power
Nuclear Energy Startup Transatomic Backtracks on Key Promises The company, backed by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, revised inflated assertions about its advanced reactor design after growing concerns prompted an MIT review. MIT Technology Review by James Temple February 24, 2017 Nuclear energy startup Transatomic Power has backed away from bold claims for its advanced reactor technology after an informal review by MIT professors highlighted serious errors in the company’s calculations, MIT Technology Review has learned.
The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company, founded in 2011 by a pair of MIT students in the Nuclear Science & Engineering department, asserted that its molten salt reactor design could run on spent nuclear fuel from conventional reactors and generate energy far more efficiently than them. In a white paper published in March 2014, the company proclaimed its reactor “can generate up to 75 times more electricity per ton of mined uranium than a light-water reactor.”
Those lofty claims helped it raise millions in venture capital, secure a series of glowing media profiles (including in this publication), and draw a rock-star lineup of technical advisors. But in a paper on its site dated November 2016, the company downgraded “75 times” to “more than twice.” In addition, it now specifies that the design “does not reduce existing stockpiles of spent nuclear fuel,” or use them as its fuel source. Continue reading
Nuclear investments bring Toshiba to the brink of bankruptcy
Toshiba May Go Bankrupt as Result of Nuclear Investments, The Green Optimistic
The takeover of Webster & Stone by by Toshiba‘s subsidiary Westinghouse may go down in history as one of the worst investments ever made, and it all centers around nuclear power.
Ultimately Toshiba is left holding the bag for a huge construction backlog of nuclear power plants, 46 at present count, and none of them may ever be completed.
On top of the issues surrounding the construction of the nuclear plants, it seems as though senior management at Toshiba has been cooking the books. Their former auditing firm Ernst and Young was recently fined for helping them record more than 300 million dollars in fictitious profits.
A recent Toshiba earnings call was scuttled because their current auditor wouldn’t sign off on the necessary documents, but the unofficial figure for their losses so far is in excess of 6 billion dollars.
What Happened? The details of this financial catastrophe are nuanced, but they all revolve around the difficulty that new nuclear power projects are facing………
Toshiba isn’t alone in the land of nuclear woe. …… https://www.greenoptimistic.com/toshiba-bankrupt-nuclear-20170223/#.WLC9etKGPGg
Turnbull and Trump – twins in their attitudes to environment
Like Trump, Turnbull’s environmental WTFness is a propelling us to disaster, Independent Australia Sue Arnold 25 February 2017, Like many Americans, Australians are wondering how the hell we ended up with a PM whose environment policies are a recipe for disaster. Sue Arnold reports.
AS THE Trump horror reality show unfolds, a collective shudder is being felt around the world. His anti environmental policies are winding back half a century of progressive laws created to ensure healthy human and animal habitats for current and future generations.
With the U. S. Environment Protection Agency now in the hands of climate sceptic and resource industry front man, Scott Pruitt , the Agency is scheduled to be repealed in 2018. The Endangered Species Act is also on the hit list and a U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement is definitely on the cards.
At the same time, scientists have announced that the ocean oxygen levels have dropped by 2% in 50 years, a truly frightening scenario. According to the WWF Report 2015, populations of marine vertebrates have declined by up to 50% since l970. Coral reefs are predicted to be extinct by 2050.
According to Dr Richard Leakey, author of The Sixth Extinction, within the next 30 years half of the species on earth could die in one of the fastest mass extinctions in the planet’s 4.5 billion years of history.
Yet the legacy of future generations has no currency with the world’s most powerful leader.
Banging the drum for “clean coal” and “putting the miners back to work,” Trump is ensuring pollution of rivers, forests, air, water, and the agricultural lands on which we depend for the very stuff of life. His refusal to acknowledge the damage climate change is wreaking on the planet is a threat to human existence.
A similar scene is unfolding in Australia as Malcolm Turnbull leads the way with a similar mindless rejection of environmental reality. Witness his latest Trump style policy to use the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to fund “clean coal”. Utter madness.
Where does this arrogance originate?…..
It’s almost impossible to separate Turnbull and Trump in terms of their attitudes towards the environment. The record speaks for itself. Given the current PM’s repeated assertions he’s an environmentalist, his sell-out on climate change, and his obvious deference to the extreme right wing of the Liberal Party, perhaps it’s time to change the definition of environmentalism. With “clean coal” now his government’s mantra, the PM is better described as a hypocrite, blind to the appalling state of this country’s environment.
Look at the record.
The most recent State of the Environment Report is dated 2011.
Key findings include: -……….
Several bills languishing in the parliament demonstrate the future of Australia’s unique environmental legacy under a Coalition Government, highlighting the move towards Trump extinction policies.
The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Standing) Bill 2015 aims to remove extended standing for community members (including environment groups) to seek judicial review of decisions made under the EPBC Act. Standing would then be restricted to a person “whose interests are adversely affected by the decision”. If this bill is passed by the Senate, the onus of protecting specific environmental matters would be in the hands of individuals who could demonstrate their “interests are adversely affected by the decision”. Common law has interpreted this to require “special interest”.
The likelihood of individuals mounting lawsuits against the Federal Government is remote. https://independentaustralia.net/environment/environment-display/like-trump-turnbulls-environmental-wtfness-is-a-propelling-us-to-disaster,10056
Oil companies to profit from oil-spill clean-ups under petroleum resource rent tax
It means the costs of cleaning up oil spills from exploration wells would be tax deductible, and could be held over and “uplifted” into future years at an annual rate of 17.5%……
“The rules are written so if a company created an oil spill with their exploration rig, they could make a profit from it,” – Greens senator Peter Whish-Wilson
“A standard tax deduction for an oil spill clean-up would be bad enough, but in this case the deduction grows in value every year. No other sector, no other set of businesses gets such ridiculous and costly deductions.”
Taxpayers to pay for oil spill clean-ups under petroleum resource rent tax https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/feb/25/taxpayers-to-pay-for-oil-spill-clean-ups-under-petroleum-resource-rent-tax Treasury confirms companies would be able to claim tax deduction for expenses incurred from cleaning up pollution, Australian taxpayers will be forced to subsidise the clean-up costs of oil spills in the Great Australian Bight thanks to the terms of the controversial petroleum resource rent tax. Continue reading
Community Energy Congress Feb 27-28 highlights Denmark’s zero-carbon island
Local enthusiasm – in the New South Wales town of Armidale, or South Australia’s Kangaroo Island, for example – isn’t matched at the federal government level in Canberra.
federal-level support – through appropriate feed-in tariffs for renewable energy, and government incentives to adopt new technologies – is essential. “It is very important that the federal government gives it the right framework,”
• The Community Energy Congress takes place in Melbourne on 27 and 28 February.
Energy positive: how Denmark’s Samsø island switched to zero carbon The small island’s energy makeover took less than a decade and was spurred on by local commitment, providing a template for how regional Australia could transition to renewables, Guardian, Dyani Lewis, 24 Feb 17, Anyone doubting the potential of renewable energy need look no further than the Danish island of Samsø. The 4,000-inhabitant island nestled in the Kattegat Sea has been energy-positive for the past decade, producing more energy from wind and biomass than it consumes.
Samsø’s transformation from a carbon-dependent importer of oil and coal-fuelled electricity to a paragon of renewables started in 1998. That year, the island won a competition sponsored by the Danish ministry of environment and energy that was looking for a showcase community – one that could prove the country’s freshly announced Kyoto target to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 21% was, in fact, achievable.
The contest didn’t bring with it funds to bankroll the energy transition. But it did pay for the salary of one person tasked with making the island’s 10-year renewables master plan a reality.
That person was Søren Hermansen, a Samsø native vegetable farmer–turned–environmental teacher. Hermansen has wielded his pragmatic, roll-up-your-sleeves attitude to great effect over the past two decades, turning his own rural community into a green powerhouse, and evangelising to communities around the world that they, too, can make the transition.
“It was not an overnight process,” says Hermansen, who heads the Samsø Energy and Environment Organisation, and is chief executive of the Samsø Energy Academy. He is currently in Australia to speak at the Community Energy Congress in Melbourne.
In less than a decade, the transformation to carbon neutral was complete. Continue reading
Global battery storage industry to fight Australia home bans
REneweconomy By Giles Parkinson & Sophie Vorrath on 24 February 2017 The world’s biggest battery manufacturing brands and clean energy lobby groups have signalled they will fight proposed new guidelines and recommendations that could effectively ban battery storage units from inside homes and garages, saying the restrictions are over the top and don’t conform to international standards.
Standards Australia is believed to be preparing the release of new standards that would effectively force most battery storage units to be put in a free-standing and fireproof enclosure, possibly adding thousands of dollars to the cost of installation and making it uneconomic.
As a precursor to that move, Queensland workplace regulators unveiled new recommendations last week that suggested no battery storage units be installed inside homes and garage or adjoining sheds, and instead be put in separate enclosures.
The restriction appears to apply to all battery storage units, and not just lithium chemistries
Some in the industry have branded the suggestions as ridiculous…….http://reneweconomy.com.au/global-battery-storage-industry-fight-australia-home-bans-52711/
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 