I think that we’re all going to have to join American youth, in relying on comedy TV shows like Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, Late show with Stephen Colbert, to get our English language news, especially about America. The actual news is more like comedy. While Donald Trump struts about the world, for example, talking about peace to the Pope, the Trump budget sets out cuts to the UN peace-keeping operations.
Danger of nuclear terrorism is not talked about much. But Britain has suddenly replaced police at Sizewell nuclear site with armed soldiers. Singapore has recently passed legislation for mandatory death penalty for nuclear terrorism.
AUSTRALIA
NUCLEAR. Australian government about to secretly sign up to developing Generation IV nuclear reactors? Australia to join in developing Generation IV nuclear reactors, WITHOUT ANY PUBLIC DISCUSSION??.
New South Wales govt about to go all enthusiastic about nuclear power? Australia’s rural sector cautious about National Party’s enthusiasm for nuclear power. Nature Conservation Council of NSW slams Deputy Premier’s nuclear power plan.
CLIMATE and ENERGY (Adani coal mine is the continuing big story)
Australia’s energy future at a critical turning point. Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) goes for smarter ways to deal with electricity supply and demand.
Federal and State policies betray Australia’s environment, and fail climate action. Sea level threat rising faster than was predicted. CSIRO is back on the world climate stage, in alliance with China’s largest marine science research institute. Australian cities becoming urban heat islands
RENEWABLES. Western Australia’s large-scale Greenough River solar farm to quadruple in size. Australian Renewable Energy Association funding next generation solar PV. Australia could use hydrogen to export solar energy.
Queensland govt must resist bullying by resources industry: mine rehabilitation should be progressive.
Sweden cancels investigation of Julian Assange, removes arrest warrant.
Aboriginal demands for a Treaty, not just Constitutional recognition.
May 26, 2017
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Federal Labor feels the heat over Adani, and Coalition is sweating too, Guardian, Katharine Murphy, 26 May 17
The biggest environmental campaign seen in Australia since the 80s is causing bumps in the road for both sides of politics When it comes to the Adani Carmichael coalmine, the spotlight this week has been trained on Queensland as the state government battled an internal split on whether to give the project a royalties holiday. There have also been murmurings in Canberra, where Labor MPs are starting to express public opposition to a project many have been privately wringing their hands about.
But to fathom the next phase in the political battle against the project, we need to train our eyes a bit further south.
Over this past week in Victoria, the Greens have launched a new fundraising drive to produce placards which will begin appearing shortly around the electorates of Melbourne, Batman, Wills and Melbourne Ports.
The placards have a simple message, easily consumed from a passing car or tram. They say: Stop Labor’s Adani Mine. It won’t stop with some signage. The Greens are planning to door knock the inner urban electorates where they now slug it out with Labor in hand-to-hand combat during federal elections.
While a couple of Labor MPs, David Feeney and Peter Khalil, have got out ahead of the new onslaught by outing themselves as opponents of Adani, the Greens are telling their supporters the objective is to force the federal Labor leader, Bill Shorten, to rule out supporting the Adani coalmine…..
The anti-Adani effort links in to coordinated global efforts by the environment movement to stop new coalmines. #StopAdani (and the associated activities) is the environmental movement’s equivalent of a multinational corporation – with Queensland the local frontline of a global, anti-coal offensive……
One Liberal said to me forcefully this week when I asked how Adani was playing out on home turf: “Christ, I wish it would just go away.”
One Labor figure puts the problem for his party this way: “It is talismanic. It’s the litmus test. Adani has become shorthand for ‘are you serious about climate change?’.” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/may/27/federal-labor-feels-the-heat-over-adani-and-coalition-is-sweating-too
May 26, 2017
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AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, climate change - global warming, politics |
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Palaszczuk rules out royalty holiday for Adani http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/business/mining-and-resources/palaszczuk-rules-out-royalty-holiday-for-adani-20170526-gwe937.html Felicity Caldwell, 27 May 17
Queensland cabinet has decided not to grant a royalty holiday for the Adani Carmichael mine.
It comes after ongoing reports of tension between the Left and Right factions in the Palaszczuk cabinet over royalties for the Adani mine. Adani released a statement on Friday evening following news of the unanimous decision.
“Adani Australia will give urgent consideration of state cabinet’s decision tonight on a royalties arrangement for the $16.5 billion Carmichael coal mine project.” “Adani will analyse the details when they have been formally provided (and) confirms again that it will pay every cent of royalties to the state as was always the case.”
Ministers were called to a cabinet meeting on Friday afternoon to make a decision on the issue. In a brief statement released at 5.29pm on Friday, Ms Palaszczuk said state cabinet had “unanimously agreed to a new policy approach for the future development of the Galilee and Surat Basins and the North West Mineral Province”.
“Under this new policy, the Adani Carmichael mine will pay every cent of royalties in full,” Ms Palaszczuk said. “There will be no royalty holiday for the Adani Carmichael mine.”
On Monday, May 22, Adani announced it would postpone its final investment decision on the $21 billion central Queensland project after learning the cabinet did not make a ruling on royalties.
Earlier this week, Ms Palaszczuk told journalists that cabinet would meet as usual on Monday, May 29. She did not flag the unexpected Friday afternoon meet-up. More details would be released in “due course”, Ms Palaszczuk said.
May 26, 2017
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climate change - global warming, politics, Queensland |
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If you can’t beat them, sue them. Citizens are increasingly taking governments to court over climate change inaction, with financial lenders – and possibly big firms – next in the firing line.
Some 894 climate change cases have now been filed in 24 countries, according to a report published last week by the United Nations Environment Programme and Columbia Law School’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law in New York.
By some distance, most – 654 – have been in the US. Australia sits in second place, with 80 cases, and the UK third, with 49. The number of countries with climate cases has tripled since 2014.
Citizens have filed the vast majority of these cases against governments, with a handful lodged against fossil fuel companies.
Separately, campaign group ClientEarth has written to energy giants BP and Glencore warning them of the risk of investor lawsuits based on over-optimistic statements about future fossil fuel demand in their reporting.
Wins and losses
Recent years have seen significant wins for climate change cases. Environmental group Urgenda, for example, won a landmark case in 2015 that forced the Dutch government to commit to bigger emissions cuts. And in 2015, a Pakistani farmer successfully sued his government for failing to implement adequate climate change action.
Others have not had the same success. Last year, the Australian Conservation Foundation lost a legal battle over the Australian government’s approval of the Adani Carmichael coal megamine. Continue reading →
May 26, 2017
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Will India Ever Need Another Coal Plant?, The country’s energy infrastructure is changing rapidly as solar prices plummet. CityLab.com , KRUTIKA PATHI, @krutikapathi03, May 25, 2017
“…..over the last five months, the price of renewable energy has plummeted so low that analysts have hailed it as both “record-breaking” and “unsustainable” in the same breath. In fact, the pace of change in the country’s energy infrastructure has been so swift that even researchers are scrambling to keep a steady pulse on a constantly developing beat.
As China slowly cut down on its own coal infrastructure, the International Energy Agency in 2015 projected India to be the next coal center in the near future. It stated that “half of the net increase in coal-fired generation capacity worldwide [through 2040] occurs in India.” Nearly a year later, in July 2016, the nonprofit CoalSwarm put out a report that found 370 proposals for coal plants in the works across the country.
The findings revealed a pretty explosive conclusion: that India’s outsized plans for coal energy would wipe out climate goals set out in the Paris Agreement. Merely a few months after the report, the researchers at CoalSwarm were surprised by a new twist.
In December 2016, the Central Authority of India (CAI) laid out an electricity plan that said no new coal plants, beyond those already under construction, are needed for at least the next decade. The CAI also put forth new renewable energy goals—a production of 275 gigawatts (GW) generated from solar, wind, and hydro by 2027.
This means that the majority of the plants that CoalSwarm tracked are now going to be shelved. It’s also a show of India’s push towards reforming its energy infrastructure: the country added more renewable power than thermal in the 2016 fiscal year. Continue reading →
May 26, 2017
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German battery giant Sonnen teams with Australian solar tile maker to take on Tesla, One Step Off The Grid, By Sophie Vorrath on May 25, 2017 German battery storage giant and major Tesla rival, Sonnen, has opened up competition on yet another front in Australia, with the announcement this week of a partnership with a local roofing company that is set to launch its own version of an integrated solar tile.
Sonnen said on Thursday that it had signed an agreement with Australian company Bristile Roofing to be the national supplier of solar powered energy storage systems for homes using its new solar tile, which is due to hit the market in September.
Under the deal, Bristile will offer the Sonnen AC Coupled modular battery storage system to the builder market, as well as its new Sonnen DC Hybrid range.
The storage system includes an inverter, battery modules, and an energy management system with built-in smart appliance control. The systems have a 10-year guarantee, but are designed for a 20-year life, according to Sonnen.
Bristile, which is a part of the building materials group Brickworks, says it expects to target the estimated 102,000 new-build homes throughout Australia in 2017-18, with a number of builders the company deals with “looking to offer integrated solar systems” as a standard feature of off-the-plan homes…..
The deal come’s just weeks after Tesla announced that its own, much-hyped solar roofing tiles were open for Australian orders, with down-payments, ahead of delivery in 2018.
Tesla, which has previously claimed the tiles would be no more expensive that a regular roof, making the solar power generation “a bonus”, has estimated that the “typical homeowner” should expect to pay $US21.85 per square foot for the tiles. Bloomberg, however, puts the price at $US42 per sqaure foot, including materials and labour.
Prices are yet to be revealed for the Bristile Solartile. https://onestepoffthegrid.com.au/german-battery-giant-teams-australian-solar-tile-maker-take-tesla/
May 26, 2017
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AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, solar |
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Blair’s statement echo’s Secretary of Defence Jim Mattis’ recent admission that a fight with the North would be “”tragic on an unbelievable scale.”
Here’s why the US would have to be absolutely insane to attack North Korea https://www.businessinsider.com.au/us-attack-north-korea-insane-2017-5?r=US&IR=T ALEX LOCKIE MAY 26, 2017 Despite reports of US and Chinese military buildups, North Korea’s increased pace of provocations, and President Donald Trump’s administration’s repeated claims that “all options are on the table,” — the US would have to be absolutely insane to attack North Korea.
To the untrained eye, the preparations for war are all there. The US has deployed the world’s most advanced missile defence system to South Korea to protect against ballistic missiles. The world’s most advanced jets, the F-35, has been sent to Japan. And the US has sent a carrier strike group, the most powerful unit of naval power in existence, near North Korea’s shores.
The US has permanently stationed 25,000 members of the world’s best organised fighting force right of the North’s borders — and they just finished a massive military exercise.
But even the best systems in the world can’t stop a determined foe with a handful of nukes.
Adm. Dennis Blair, former Director of National Intelligence under Obama, recently told a crowd at the Harvard Club that there’s just no way to safely knock out all of North Korea’s nuclear capabilities in one go. “If I were to run the national intelligence again and the president comes to me and says, ‘Here is General [Jim] Mattis’ strike plan and can you ensure me that this will take out of all the North Korea nuclear capabilities?’ — it won’t be easy to say yes,” said Blair, according to the South China Morning Post.
Blair conceded that before he’d advocate an attack on North Korea, he’d accept it as a nuclear-armed state. Continue reading →
May 26, 2017
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Solar power reaches a record high as it surges past nuclear and coal http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/05/26/solar-power-reaches-record-high-surges-past-nuclear-coal/ Jillian Ambrose 26 MAY 2017 The bank holiday heatwave has started with a new record for solar power generation which blazed to a quarter of the electricity mix on Friday afternoon.
The nation’s solar panels scorched the previous record set last month by generating 8.7GW of power, more than nuclear and coal power combined.
Solar power was the second most used generating technology behind gas-fired power and made up around 25pc of the UK’s electricity, its highest ever share of the market on a working week day.The UK now has just over 12GW of solar power in place, the same production capacity as eight new-generation nuclear reactors. Continue reading →
May 26, 2017
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AEMO says major market reform essential to cut energy prices http://reneweconomy.com.au/aemo-says-major-market-reform-essential-to-cut-energy-prices-28327/ By Giles Parkinson on 26 May 2017
Two key Australian energy institutions have again pushed for more rapid and wholesale changes of market rules, saying this was essential if Australia was to manage new technologies and return to its former status of a low-cost energy nation.
Testimony from the Australian Energy Market Operator and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency underlined their plea for changes to market rules, changes which many in the industry say have been stalled under the current market rule maker. New AEMO chief executive Audrey Zibelman says Australia used to have low energy prices, but had obviously lost that status. “The question is, how do we use the resources we have to get back to that level of affordability?” she told a parliamentary inquiry in Canberra.
The answer was with new technologies like battery storage and demand management, a new set of market rules. “What we need is to think how to get these opportunities into the market. We are operating 20th Century power system trying to keep pace with 21st Century change,” Zibelman said.
Both AEMO and ARENA have been highly critical of the slow pace of reform of Australian energy market rules, the province of the Australian Energy Market Commission and the COAG energy ministers.
In its submission to the parliamentary inquiry into a modern electricity system, AEMO said that Australia’s rule making was not sufficiently forward-looking to meet the needs of the “paradigm shifts” the National Electricity Market was undergoing.
In particular, AEMO and ARENA want rule changes that can encourage battery storage and demand management, and that will address the over-investment in networks and generators that are responsible for Australia now having some of the highest electricity prices in the western world. Continue reading →
May 26, 2017
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AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, energy |
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Nuclear the NSW Nationals’ solution to energy crisis, JAMES WAGSTAFF, The Weekly Times, May 24, 2017 “…..NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro said with rising energy costs “crushing businesses, farmers and families”, all available options, “including nuclear energy”, must be considered…….
NSW Greens energy spokesman Jeremy Buckingham labelled the comments as “extreme” and an example the Nationals were “stuck in the wrong century pushing coal and nuclear, and ignoring the massive renewable energy potential of Australia”.
Victorian Farmers Federation president David Jochinke said he would be “open to discussing any strategy that has sound economic, social and environmental principles; however, an opinion needs to be backed by a fact”…..
National Irrigators Council chief executive Steve Whan said that while irrigators were “agnostic about sources of power — including renewables — as long as it’s reasonably priced and reliable” nuclear was “probably unrealistic” given high construction costs and the likelihood of community opposition…..http://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/news/national/nuclear-the-nsw-nationals-solution-to-energy-crisis/news-story/6cedf439e992fd746b1606fb2fff5c49
May 26, 2017
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A predictable nuclear accident at Hanford http://thebulletin.org/predictable-nuclear-accident-hanford10774, Hugh Gusterson, May 17 Last week’s accident at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation should have come as no surprise.
On May 9, workers discovered a 20-foot-diameter hole where the roof had collapsed on a makeshift nuclear waste site: a tunnel, sealed in 1965, encasing old railroad cars and equipment contaminated with radiation through years of plutonium processing. Potential radiation levels were high enough that some workers were told to shelter in place while others donned respirators and protective suits as they repaired the hole.
The Hanford complex, which dates back to 1943, produced the plutonium for the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki. Half the size of Rhode Island, it is often described as the most contaminated place in the United States. Until its last reactor closed in 1987, it churned out plutonium for the roughly 70,000 nuclear weapons the United States built during the Cold War. As the historian Kate Brown documents in her book Plutopia, which explores the uncanny similarities between Hanford and its Soviet counterpart Ozersk, Hanford has been a slow-motion environmental disaster since its opening, constantly excreting radioactive contaminants into the air and water.
More dangerous than the tunnels are the giant tanks of liquid nuclear waste: 177 of them containing 56 million gallons of radioactive soup whose composition is only approximately known. The contents of some have to be stirred periodically to prevent the formation of hydrogen bubbles that would cause the tanks to explode. One million gallons of this witches’ brew have already leaked into the groundwater from tanks that were built to last only 20 years. The US government projects that it will cost more than $107 billion to clean up the site, with remediation finished by 2060. Few knowledgeable people put much credence in either number. Continue reading →
May 26, 2017
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Renewable Energy Powers Jobs for Almost 10 Million People https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-23/renewable-energy-powers-jobs-for-almost-10-million-people [excellent graphs, diagrams) by Mahmoud Habboush May 24, 2017,
- Solar industry has 3.09 million people vs 1.2 million in wind
The renewable energy industry employed 9.8 million people last year, up 1.1 percent from 2015, led by the solar photovoltaic business, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency’s annual report on the industry.
Growth has slowed in the past two years, while the solar photovoltaic category, with 3.09 million jobs, and wind business more than doubled their respective employee numbers since 2012, the first year assessed, Irena said in the report.
“The nature of jobs is changing a little bit, with more emphasis on the installation, operational and maintenance side,” Adnan Amin, Irena’s director general, said Wednesday in an interview in Abu Dhabi. “That doesn’t grow as fast as the growth in manufacturing, which was very quick because the technology cost was coming down and you had this huge explosion in equipment.”
Jobs will continue to grow in developing countries, especially in Asia, he said.
Here are some of the highlights from the report:
- Global renewables employment has climbed every year since 2012, with solar photovoltaic becoming the largest segment by total jobs in 2016.
- Solar photovoltaic employed 3.09 million people, followed by liquid biofuels at 1.7 million. The wind industry had 1.2 million employees, a 7 percent increase from 2015.
- Employment in renewables, excluding large hydro power, increased 2.8 percent last year to 8.3 million people, with China, Brazil, the U.S., India, Japan and Germany the leading job markets. Asian countries accounted for 62 percent of total jobs in 2016 compared with 50 percent in 2013.
Renewables jobs could total 24 million in 2030, as more countries take steps to combat climate change, Irena said.
May 26, 2017
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Most Queensland voters oppose taxpayer support for Adani coalmine – poll
59% give thumbs down to state or federal assistance for Carmichael mine as state government faces factional fight over whether to give project a royalties holiday, Guardian, Katherine Murphy, 25 May 17 Queensland voters have given the thumbs down to taxpayer support for the controversial Adani coalmine, with 59% saying they were opposed to state or federal assistance.
A new poll of 1,618 Queenslanders taken by ReachTel indicates 57% of the sample objected to a loan for a rail link between the mine and Abbot point, which is championed by the federal resources minister Matt Canavan.
Just over 50% of the sample said a decision by the Queensland government to grant the project a royalties holiday would be a broken election promise.
The poll was commissioned by the progressive thinktank the Australian Institute.
It comes as the state Labor government is battling an internal split on whether or not to give the project a royalties holiday.
Federal government sources have also told Guardian Australia that Canavan can expect strong internal pushback against any proposal to grant a concessional loan to Adani. Some argue the concept is objectionable.
This week officials from Infrastructure Australia told Senate estimates they had not identified the proposed rail line as a priority, and they had not consulted the body which is expected to stump up a concessional loan, the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility.
Adani is seeking a $900m concessional loan from the Naif for the rail line. Infrastructure Australia and the Naif are required to consult on projects worth more than $100m.
As well as facing internal resistance to taxpayer support, the environment group, the Australian Conservation Foundation, has warned the Turnbull government it will pursue all avenues, including possible legal action, to stop a concessional loan being granted to the rail line.
The new poll also comes as federal Labor MPs this week have also broken ranks to express public objections to the controversial project…… https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/may/25/most-queensland-voters-oppose-taxpayer-support-for-adani-coalmine-poll
May 26, 2017
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climate change - global warming, politics, Queensland |
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I do believe that Treaty is the mechanism in which we can hold the government to account for past and present atrocities; it is our means of asserting our sovereignty and ensuring the structures that will see our communities flourish are funded.
The Treaty model I support is one where parallel to the existing Australian framework is an Indigenous organisational framework brought about by the signing of a treaty. In the same way, mainstream Australia has local government councils, Indigenous nations can have their own nation councils to deal with local issues.
The Uluru walkout: Constitutional recognition, Treaty and structural change, Independent Australia Natalie Cromb 26 May 2017, Yesterday, several Indigenous delegates walked out of a Constitutional recognition summit. Indigenous affairs editor Natalie Cromb explains why, before proposing a better way.
Indigenous Australians have for some time been discussing Constitutional recognition via the well-known Recognise campaign, as well as some smaller conservative offshoots, which have alternative Constitutional recognition models.
This week, a national First People’s summit has been holding a Constitutional convention to discuss constitutional recognition at Uluru in the Northern Territory. Yesterday, seven delegates and a large number of their supporters walked out of this Convention.
SBS reported their reasons why: Continue reading →
May 26, 2017
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aboriginal issues, AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL |
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The Pentagon Can’t Believe Trump Told Another President About Nuclear Subs Near North Korea “We never talk about subs!” three defense officials told BuzzFeed News after a transcript of a call between President Trump and Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte was published. BuzzFeed News, May 25, 2017, Nancy A. Youssef BuzzFeed News World Reporter Pentagon officials are in shock after the release of a transcript of a call between President Donald Trump and his Philippines counterpart revealed that the US military had moved two nuclear submarines towards North Korea.
“We never talk about subs!” three officials told BuzzFeed News, referring to the military’s belief that keeping submarines’ movements secret is key to their mission.
While the US military will frequently announce the deployment of aircraft carriers, it is far more careful when discussing the movement of nuclear submarines. Continue reading →
May 26, 2017
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Antinuclear 