Paul Richards , Nuclear Fuel Cycle Watch South Australia, 7 Mar 17‘…whacky millionaire donors who think that they own the party, and that making SA nuclear will make them richer.’ (Steve Dale)
Whacky, I like the word Dale
Still, deviously clever is closer to the mark, as there is no thinking it will make them richer; they know it it will make them richer
As they intend to tap into the Australian Sovereign wealth and this is the ‘biggest game in town’ metaphorically speaking
Because there would be a guaranteed supply of Government funding for the nuclear industry for their lives
What many fail to grasp about the desperate and greedy grab for this nuclear industry is that because it’s economically unsustainable; once this nuclear cycle even starts and the truth comes out the decommissioning is measured in half centuries, and it literally takes thousands of years of management
This fact is regardless of the sales narrative that creates a sustainable meme, a constructed positive outcome for the ears of the naive and hopeful.
The whole story is nothing more than yet another sales brochure online, pumping out in the media that this is the solution to our species carbon emissions problem, or conversely for the denier of global warming, able to solve the fear of invasion from the North in supporting nuclear weapons.
Furthermore, it is so desirable an enterprise, even when contracted into national or multinational corporations senior executives have no such guarantee of capital flow. Simply because corporations live on quarterly, six monthly, yearly guaranteed rates of return
Our sovereign wealth commitment needed to start this whole nuclear cycle in Australia means taxpayers paying indefinitely for the infrastructure
Ergo; these ‘whacky millionaires’, if they crack this nuclear industry they will have guaranteed their elitist ‘life conditions’ and any progeny following Infinitum. Clever business
Today’s news media is a smorgasbord of online blogs,Facebook. Twitter, Youtube, Linked-In and a hundred other online sites. Oh, and yes, there are still some online, and even print, newspapers. You remember those last. They employed reputable investigative journalists, who did fact-checking about their news sources.
With journalists dropping off employment like flies, anyone can write anything – no fact-checking needed. It might be fabricated. It ‘s likely to be biased and inaccurate.
The “old media” – newspapers, radio, TV have long been vulnerable to uncritically disseminating propaganda articles from industry. Even more so, now, as they struggle financially. Industry handouts are much cheaper than real journalism. That situation is a boon to the nuclear lobby.
The “new media” is also a boon to the nuclear industry. They already pay lobbyists,Twitter and Facebook users, and especially Youtube-ers to daily spin out propaganda items by the hundreds. Nuclear lobbyists make use of “bots” to send tweets in multiples, which actually come from just one software programme. At the same time, nuclear companies continue to produce glossy, expensive, sophisticated films and TV series. Their latest effort will hit the cinemas soon – The New Fire.
As if this media revolution were not enough, the nuclear industry now receives a new bonus, the rise of fascism, pioneered by Donald Trump, and perhaps soon to hit Europe and other countries. With an uncanny and Goebbels-like ability to home in on the right places in the media landscape, Trump makes brilliant use of Twitter. Doesn’t matter if his tweets are lies – they are regurgitated across the world, and believed in by many.
Like all dictators, Trump’s first attack is on the media. Any journalism that Trump doesn’t like is “Fake Press”. Reputable credible news sources like CNN and New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Politico, the BBC, Huffington Post and BuzzFeed News. are now “enemies of the people” , and banned from White House media briefings. Instead, Trump
crony publications like Breitbart are welcomed.
What does this mean for the nuclear industry? Well. probably Trump-dominated media will be a positive for them. Let’s not forget, Donald Trump is in power, for now, under suffrance from the Republican Party on behalf of the richest industrialists.
What does it all mean for us, writers and readers who seek genuine information?
Judith Donath of CNN said it for me:
“help promote a culture that reveres veracity. Check your sources before you post anything. Support newspapers and other organizations that do good, reliable reporting. Discourage people in your own community when they promote stories that feel good to you, but are, alas, untrue.“http://edition.cnn.com/2016/11/20/opinions/fake-news-stories-thrive-donath/
National and state environment groups have described the recent federal conditional approval of the Mulga Rock uranium project in West Australia as irresponsible fast-tracking.
“The project does not have final approval to begin construction, it is not economically viable, it does not have a social license to operate and there is no bipartisan political support for this sector in WA,” said CCWA campaigner Mia Pepper.
“It is a long way from a conditional environmental approval to an operating mine.”
The Mulga Rock project is east of Kalgoorlie in a region classified as ‘pristine’ and upstream from the Queen Victoria Springs Class ‘A’ Nature Reserve. The area is home to rare and endangered species, including the sandhill dunnart, marsupial mole and rainbow bee-eater.
Project proponent Vimy Resources advised the ASX today of conditional federal project approval.
Environmental groups have detailed concerns about long term groundwater and radioactive waste contamination impacts. Representatives of the Spinifex Aboriginal people have also expressed environmental and cultural opposition and concern over the planned mining operation.
“Days out from a state election where there is a stark policy contest on uranium mining federal environment Minister Frydenburg has put industry favours ahead of proper process and effective environmental protection. His race to rubber-stamp a major radioactive risk is deeply irresponsible,” said ACF campaigner Dave Sweeney.
Uranium prices remain deeply depressed and recent times have seen the major WA uranium hopeful Cameco write down the full book value of its Kintyre uranium project in the Pilbara.
“Vimy Resources are trying to clear all the hurdles before this weekend’s state election but they have fallen short,” Ms Pepper said.
“This project and the wider WA uranium sector will be actively contested.”
This Alliance initiative is directed at ensuring remote and isolated communities are sufficiently catered for in respect to their energy needs …
“Grassroots energy enterprises, which numbered more than 80 people nation-wide formed an alliance to harness the power of communities to increase local energy security, bolster regional development partnerships, enhance community cohesion, reduce carbon emissions and
work towards a just energy transition. … ”
First Nations Renewable Energy Alliance
“Ghillar, Michael Anderson, Convenor of the Sovereign Union, last surviving member of the founding four of the Aboriginal Embassy and Head of State of the Euahlayi Peoples Republic said from Melbourne:
““Members from First Nations across the continent successfully participated in the Coalition for Community Energy held in Melbourne Town Hall on 27 – 28 February 2017 …
““This Alliance initiative is directed at ensuring remote and isolated communities are sufficiently catered for in respect to their energy needs. The current Australian corrupt system of energy delivery is controlled at the top level by government officials and politicians, who gain a lot of private funding for their political campaigns, in other words:
‘You scratch our backs and we’ll scratch yours.’ The level of corruption in Australian politics is so entrenched that the equity in engagement in respect of sustainable energy strategies is not possible under the current regime.
“We will direct our energies now and in the future to ensure that this corruption does not continue
and thereby give direction to secure certainly for those who seek to partner with us to provide for the development of sustainable communities.” … ”
The record-breaking heat seen across southeast Australia in the last few months was made 50 times more likely by climate change, according to new analysis that links the heat directly to global warming.
Southeast Australia was struck by three major heatwaves in January and February, with temperatures climbing as high as 113°F (45°C) in some places.
On February 10, Sydney Airport recorded its hottest February day on record, with temperatures hitting 109°F (42°C).
The heat was also uncharacteristically persistent — Observatory Hill in Sydney saw temperatures reach above 95°F (35°C) for nine consecutive days in January, breaking a 120-year old record.
Elsewhere, the consistent heat was even more extreme: in Moore, New South Wales, there were 52 consecutive days with temperatures above 95°F (35°C).
The study, conducted by the World Weather Attribution Program at Climate Central, used climate model simulations and observational data analysis to understand how climate change, caused by an increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, might have made these heat events more likely.
They found that climate change made the average temperatures seen this summer in Australia 50 times more likely, and made the maximum summer temperatures 10 times more likely.
“In the past, a summer as hot as 2016–2017 was a roughly 1 in 500-year event,” the researchers wrote. “Today, climate change has increased the odds to roughly 1 in 50 years — a 10-fold increase in frequency.”
The analysis also warns that heat events like these — both punctuated heatwaves and long stretches of above-average temperatures — are likely to become more frequent as climate change continues.
In the future, according to the study, heat events like the one this summer could happen as frequently as every five years — and will likely be more intense, with temperatures averaging at least 1.8ºF (1°C) warmer than they were in the past.
The connection between heat waves and climate change has strong scientific support. In 2015, eight papers published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society’s attribution report — an annual report that explains extreme weather events from a climate perspective — all linked climate change to heatwaves, showing that climate change clearly made heatwaves either more likely, more intense, or both.
According to data from NASA and NOAA, 2016 was the hottest year on record.
Before that, both 2015 and 2014 held that distinction.
In fact, 16 of the 17 hottest years on record have occurred since 2001.
The mainstream media have been so timid for so long, so unwilling to take on the right for fear of being accused of liberal bias, that they really don’t know how to behave otherwise.
The problem is not that the media are now normalizing Trump, serious as that is, but that their tendencies to do so are so deep, there is little hope they can ever perform as a real instrument of democracy. First, there is their fascination with style over substance.
So Donald Trump has actually been right about one thing: the mainstream media are a farce. You can game them, as he has and will continue to do.
The Media’s Rapid Retreathttp://billmoyers.com/story/medias-rapid-retreat/, Tuesday provided a vivid demonstration that we are in this all by ourselves. The media won’t come to America’s rescue. BY NEAL GABLER | MARCH 3, 2017 Oh, how optimistic, naïve and ultimately foolish we were! When Donald Trump bulldozed his way through his first five weeks of his presidency, leaving wreckage in his wake, we knew the mainstream media couldn’t pretend this was business as usual. And they didn’t. And when Trump performed at his first presser as if he were, to put it charitably, deranged, we knew the media couldn’t pretend otherwise. And they didn’t. And when Trump decided to lash out at the mainstream media and declared them an “enemy of the people,” a characterization that even the reliably conservative John McCain thought contained a hint of dictatorship, we knew that the media, if only in self-defense, wouldn’t take that lying down. And they didn’t.
But here is what we should have known: the media scrutiny was only a temporary deviation from their norm. And something else. Though, as Todd Gitlin wrote so powerfully and eloquently in this space, we have a lot to fear from Trump’s media attacks, I think we have far more to fear from the media’s own customary cowardice. Trump won’t have to murder them. They will kill themselves. They already are in the process of doing so.
U.S. nuclear testing ceased in 1992. In 2002, the Centers for Disease Control estimated that virtually every American that has lived since 1951 has been exposed to nuclear fallout, and that the cumulative effects of all nuclear testing by all nations could ultimately be responsible for up to eleven thousand deaths in the United States alone.
America’s Forgotten Nuclear War (On Itself), , http://nationalinterest.org/blog/americas-forgotten-nuclear-war-itself-19662Kyle Mizokami, 4 Mar `17, Nuclear weapons have a mysterious quality. Their power is measured in plainly visible blast pressure and thermal energy common to many weapons, but also invisible yet equally destructive radiation and electromagnetic pulse. Between 1945 and 1992, the United States conducted 1,032 nuclear tests seeking to get the measure of these enigmatic weapons. Many of these tests would be today be considered unnecessary, overly dangerous and just plain bizarre. These tests, undertaken on the atomic frontier, gathered much information about these weapons—enough to cease actual use testing—yet scarred the land and left many Americans with long-term health problems.
The majority of U.S. nuclear tests occurred in the middle of the Western desert, at the Nevada Test Site. The NTS hosted 699 nuclear tests, utilizing both above-ground and later underground nuclear devices. The average yield for these tests was 8.6 kilotons. Atmospheric tests could be seen from nearby Las Vegas, sixty-five miles southeast of the Nevada Test site, and even became a tourist draw until the Limited Test Ban Treaty banned them in 1963. Today the craters and pockmarks from underground tests are still visible in satellite map imagery. Continue reading →
The banks provided a combined $10bn to projects around the world that expanded non-renewable energy, according to finance group Market Forces.
ANZ and the Commonwealth Bank were the worst offenders, investing over $3bn each in fossil fuels. In the same period, ANZ only lent $225m to renewables, giving it a 14:1 ratio. Continue reading →
Renewable power to the people could reap profits in Victoria, The Age, Benjamin Preiss , 6 Mar 17 Electricity bill shock has become a distant problem for residents in Soren Hermansen’s hometown in Denmark. It is far more likely they will receive a cheque in the mail for their power on Samso Island. The island is carbon neutral and runs on renewable energy, with power and profits flowing back into the community.
Now Mr Hermansen travels the world championing community-owned power generation methods. Most recently he was in Victoria discussing with local communities how they can harness the power of the sun, wind and other renewable sources.
Last week Mr Hermansen spent a day in the Latrobe Valley meeting with residents who are concerned about how their communities will cope once the Hazelwood power station and mine close at the end of this month.
On Samso most of the wind turbines are mostly owned by locals. The island is powered by 11 onshore and 10 offshore wind power turbines, a solar plant and three straw-fired plants………..
Mr Hermansen believes Victoria is ripe with opportunities for community renewable energy generation, including the Latrobe Valley.
He suggested the Latrobe Valley could form part of a renewable energy distribution hub, capitalising on existing infrastructure and skills.
Latrobe City mayor Kellie O’Callaghan said Mr Hermansen’s visit was a “natural extension” of discussions already taking place in the community.
She agreed the Latrobe Valley already offered sound energy distribution infrastructure and expertise that could translate well into the community renewable energy projects.
Cr O’Callaghan said an “employee transition centre” set up to deal with the looming closure of Hazelwood had already included a “vision” for community-owned and operated energy generation.
“It is based in a firm belief community ownership means no longer being subject to the commercial whims of a large multinational company,” she said.
Coal mining town Collinsville vies to become Australia’s solar capital, ABC By Ben Millington, 5 Mar 17, While many of Australia’s mining regions have been hit hard by the resources sector downturn, solar is providing rays of hope for the small town of Collinsville in north Queensland.
Three hours south of Townsville, Collinsville has a proud, long history of coal mining, boasting it had the last working pit ponies in Australia — up until 1990.
But this coal-fired town is poised for a rebrand. Solar companies are vying to take advantage of the region’s 300 days a year of perfect sunshine.
In August, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency announced it would provide $9.5 million to both Edify Energy’s 70MW Whitsunday Solar Farm and RATCH Australia Corporation’s 43MW Collinsville Solar Project.
“It’s a very good place for solar because of the radiation levels in north Queensland,” he said. “For example, our site in Collinsville will produce double the amount of power than a project in the UK, and about 5 to 10 per cent more than in New South Wales or Victoria.”
Plan to pump energy into Queensland grid Another advantage in Collinsville is a decommissioned power station that sits on its outskirts. Both projects plan to utilise the infrastructure to pump energy straight into the Queensland grid.
SA heads for financial armageddon, Fin 24 2017-02-26 06:02 – Justin Brown State finances face stormy times as the private sector braces itself for a possible switch in finance ministers amid spluttering tax collections, low growth, tax hikes and deep suspicion regarding the nuclear build.
Prince Mashele, a senior research fellow at the University of Pretoria, said at a PwC post-budget speech event on Friday – where Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan was conspicuously absent – that, depending on which ANC faction dominated, the next two to three weeks would be crucial in determining what would happen in the finance ministry.
Following the swift swearing-in of former Eskom CEO Brian Molefe as an ANC MP this week, Mashele pointed to the possibility of his becoming either finance minister or deputy finance minister…….
Mashele said that once Molefe was installed at Treasury, he was likely to sign off on a nuclear deal with Russia that would mean South Africa would never again enjoy the benefit of cheap power prices.
“Your grandchild and great-grandchild will pay through the nose [for the nuclear deal],” he added.
The plan by the Guptas, who are close allies of President Jacob Zuma, to install their preferred candidate as finance minister was put on hold – but not abandoned – when former finance minister Nhlanhla Nene was replaced by Des van Rooyen, whom the president reluctantly axed after pressure from the business sector, before Gordhan was placed in the position.
Antinuclear 