To 19 February – Climate and Nuclear News Australia
Climate change is, as always, the big news this week. Some climate models now predict unexpected , unprecedented spike in global temperatures. Can the insurance industry afford the rising flood risk?
Giant iceberg ‘calves’ from Antarctic ice shelf.
The nuclear connection is significant for the UK, too, as sea level rise threatens its new nuclear projects, at Sizewell, Hinkley Point C, as well as existing nuclear reactors and waste facilities at Sellafield and Drigg. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tesHVSZJOg
There are many organisations worldwide, that are pushing for, and working on, action to slow or stall global warming. Global Optimism is the latest example, in which Christiana Figueres features, with her new book “The Future We Choose”
AUSTRALIA
MPs Andrew Wilkie and George Christensen to UK to help free Julian Assange.
CLIMATE. For Australia “business as usual” on climate change will cost many $billions. Climate change extreme weather making parts of Australia uninsurable. Reserve Bank says climate change already having profound impact on Australian economy.
New Resources Minister Keith Pitt ignores renewables, pushes for more coal, gas and uranium exports. Australia has done little on emissions, and is not planning much in next decade. #ScottyFromMarketing ‘s bushfire inquiry studiously ‘ignores’ carbon emissions. Coal miners given free ride under Morrison government emissions “caps”. Zali Steggall’s climate Bill, Labor’s befuddlement on coal.
NUCLEAR.
- 143 Anti-Nuclear, 10 Pro Nuclear Submissions (published) to Victorian Parliament. Due by 28 February 2020- Submissions to the Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into Nuclear Prohibition.
- Risk that Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act could be changed to promote nuclear power.
- Greens’call for Australia as nuclear-free zone is defeated in the Senate. Labor stays strongly against nuclear power, despite pro nuke push from one union.
- Australian public unaware of the dangers of small nuclear reactors.
- Nuclear waste dumping: as the Baldock family sells farming land, is the agricultural market for Kimba now stuffed up? Australian government pushes on with nuclear dump, tramples on indigenous rights . South Australia’s grain exports could be at risk, if Kimba nuclear waste dump goes ahead.
- Media coverage of Kimba nuclear waste dump is found wanting. Controversial legislation for Kimba nuclear waste dump is tabled in Federal parliament. Whyalla is targeted for nuclear waste shipments and should have a right to refuse untenable plans. History of Australia’s govt move towards importing nuclear waste.
- NukeMap – what if Australian cities were hit by a nuclear bomb.
RENEWABLE ENERGY Australia’s global opportunity to lead on solar power. Senate backs Greens call for ARENA funding extension as money dries up. #ScottyFromMarketing and his crew – blind to the economics of renewable energy.
Australia must learn to mine rare earths responsibly. Greens leader Adam Bandt seeks new deal with “renewable mining and manufacturing” sector. Holden brand killed off as GM switches focus to electric vehicles.
South Australia’s renewable energy future hampered by lack of electricity infrastructure. Queensland researchers smash solar efficiency record for ‘quantum dot’ solar cells. How rooftop and big solar are pushing coal out of daytime energy market. Wind and batteries saved the day when storm cut South Australia adrift. Australian ‘Solar Skin’ invention could power cities and vehicles of the future.
INTERNATIONAL
#WETOOARE PROTESTERS FREE JULIAN ASSANGE
189 nuclear and radioactive material incidents in 2019.
Radioactive material ‘a magnet for groups with malicious intent’, warns UN nuclear watchdog chief.
Hysteria isn’t killing nuclear power. – It’s the very real dangers and catastrophic costs. Uranium prices at rock bottom- doesn’t help the struggling nuclear industry.
143 Anti-Nuclear, 10 Pro Nuclear Submissions (published) to Victorian Parliament
Submissions published so far to the Victorian Government’s Inquiry into Nuclear Prohibition are running strongly ANTI NUCLEAR https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/epc-lc/article/4348
There are currently 143 submissions opposing the nuclear industry.
There are 10 submissions favouring the nuclear industry. (You can bet that vested interests have sent in confidential submissions)
PRO nuclear
1. Don Hampshire ( with attack on ABC, The Age )
2 Robert Heron – vaguely
3 Terje- Petesen
116 Leah McDermott
122 Simon Brink
123 CFMMEU Mining and Energy Division 21 Azark 26 Buchanan, Bill 27 Murphy, Barry 28 Patterson, John
ANTI nuclear
4 Jessica Lawson 5 Pro Forma list of 122 contributors 48 Janet Nixon 49 Karen Furniss 63 Graeme Tyschsen 68 Barbara Devine 76 Vivien Smith
77 Lachlan Dow 81 RVS Industries 92 Alan Hewett and Joan Jones 103 Anne Wharton 106 John Quiggin vague 107 Amy Butcher 109 Nick Pastalatzis 112 Philip White 22 Friends of the Earth 23 Derek Abbott 24 Simpson, Frank 25 Wauchope, Noel 29 Wissink, Bart 30 Sharp, Robyn 31, Smith, Colin
Labor stays strongly against nuclear power, despite pro nuke push from one union
Labor bipartisanship on nuclear energy needed: AWU,Australian Financial Revieew Phillip Coorey – Political Editor, Feb 18, 2020
The Australian Workers’ Union has stepped up its call for Australia to embrace nuclear power by urging Labor leader Anthony Albanese to provide the political bipartisanship that is needed. …….
Like other pro-nuclear advocates, Mr Walton supports small modular reactors. He also accepts that if Labor were in government, nuclear power would not be an option for it.
In the Coalition, the Nationals are hardening against a proposal floated by Mr Morrison and Energy Minister Angus Taylor to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.
On Monday, Mr Morrison was very cautious.
https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/labor-bipartisanship-on-nuclear-energy-needed-awu-20200217-p541eh
For Australia “business as usual” on climate change, will cost many $billions
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Australia faces a multi-billion dollar economic hit without strong climate action https://probonoaustralia.com.au/news/2020/02/australia-faces-a-multi-billion-dollar-economic-hit-without-strong-climate-action/ ________________________________ Australia was ranked the fifth worst affected nation by the loss of nature over the next 30 years, with the country’s annual income set to decline by 1.43 per cent by 2050. WWF-Australia economist Joshua Bishop said across all countries the reduction was 0.67 per cent, meaning Australia was projected to lose more than twice the global average.“Because so much of Australia’s population, infrastructure and service sector output is concentrated in coastal areas, we are more vulnerable than most to sea level rise and storm surges,” Bishop said. WWF noted that the damage could be much worse than anticipated, as the economic cost calculated did not consider the destruction from future bushfire emergencies. The study used new economic and environmental modelling to assess the macroeconomic impact if the world continued a “business as usual” approach to the environment.
This approach – which includes continued greenhouse gas emissions increases, and further loss of natural habitats – would cost the world up to US$9.87 trillion (A$14.68 trillion) by 2050. Marco Lambertini, director general of WWF International, said the study showed how conserving nature was not only a moral issue but a social and economic one. “People across the world are already feeling the impact of rising food prices, droughts, commodity shortages, extreme flooding and coastal erosion,” Lambertini said. “Yet for the next generation things will be many times worse, with trillions wiped off world economies by 2050.”
The report said if land-use was better managed in the future to conserve biodiversity and ecosystem services, it would deliver dramatically better economic outcomes. Under this scenario, global GDP would rise by $490 billion a year above the business as usual calculation, while damage to Australia’s GDP would be halved to $14.3 billion by 2050. Bishop said this highlighted the opportunity Australia had “to save billions by protecting our coastal areas, forests and woodlands and becoming a world leader in renewable energy”.
Meanwhile, new analysis from the Australian Conservation Foundation has found that fossil fuel industry donations to Australia’s major political parties have more than doubled over the past four years.
Australian Electoral Commission data revealed that the coal, oil and gas industry’s political donations grew from $894,336 in 2015-16 to $1.9 million in 2018-19. This figure excludes Clive Palmer’s $83.7 million donation to his own party. ACF’s democracy campaigner Jolene Elberth said these figures highlighted the extent of the fossil fuel industry’s attempts to buy political power in Australia. “As more Australians demand action on climate change and the pressure builds on politicians to take the problem seriously, the fossil fuel industry is doubling down by spending more money to influence public policy,” Elberth said.
“Serious donations reform is needed to curb the power of big money in politics which harms our natural world and drives more climate damage.”
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Climate change extreme weather making parts of Australia uninsurable
Risks aren’t worth it’: QBE says parts of planet becoming uninsurable due to climate concerns, SMH, Charlotte Grieve February 17, 2020 Global insurance giant QBE has warned climate change poses a material threat to its business and the entire economy as its chief executive Pat Regan said premiums were at risk of becoming too high in areas exposed to repeated, extreme weather……
Mr Regan said there had always been parts of the world that were difficult to insure. But as floods and fires become have dominated headlines this summer, this risk was increasing across “swathes of Australia” and could potentially price out customers from home and business property insurance.
He said climate change was a “big topic” in the sector, requiring the insurance giant to “up its game on a number of fronts”. QBE boosted its reinsurance program for catastrophic events to $2 billion in a process that would be reassessed each year, he said. …..
“The evidence is there for all to see that the amount of weather events globally, not just in Australia, is consistently rising and most of the worst years on record have happened in the last 10 years.”
“The most prone ones [areas] are the ones we see in the news frequently,” Mr Regan said, referencing the Queensland floods and east coast fires…… https://www.smh.com.au/business/banking-and-finance/qbe-warns-of-climate-risk-as-300m-hit-to-revenue-alongside-unusual-weather-20200217-p541e3.html
Germany is shutting down its coal industry for good, so far without sacking a single worker
Germany is shutting down its coal industry for good, so far without sacking a single worker, ABC News Foreign Correspondent By Eric Campbell in Germany 17 Feb, 20, “…….. Germany shut down its last black coal mine in 2018.
Miners were offered a new job or an early retirement and a centuries-old way of life came to a sudden end.
But Germany is not looking back. A nation that built its fortunes on coal has decided the fossil fuel’s days are numbered.
As Australia looks to expand coal exp
orts and build new mines, like Adani’s proposed Carmichael project, Europe’s biggest economy is phasing out its entire coal industry for good.
Having already extinguished black coal, Germany is now doing the same to brown coal — a cheaper, dirtier fossil fuel that spews even more carbon emissions.
Berlin has announced a timetable to close not only every remaining brown coal mine but all the carbon-emitting power plants that burn coal to make electricity, by 2038.
In a grand compromise that many Australians might find hard to fathom, trade unions, energy companies, green groups and government have all agreed that the coal industry must go.
And the Government will give tens of billions of dollars to coal regions to create new jobs and industries………
in 2007, the government, coal companies and trade unions struck a historic deal to wind down black coal for good.
“[The government] asked us how much time you need to do that without any problems, not to bring the people off the working market,” Mr Beike said.
Mr Beike said they were given plenty of time — and money — to make the transition.
RAG maintains only a skeleton staff to administer workers’ pensions and contract mine restorations. Mr Beike says only 100 workers are still in need of a job.
One former miner tells Foreign Correspondent he found work as a research scientist; another has been retrained for a job as a trade union secretary.
Government subsidies were used to transform an old RAG coking plant into a World Heritage site, preserved as a piece of history for international tourists. It now has solar panels on the roof.
Black coal may have been shut down for economic reasons but a new move to phase out brown coal is purely environmental.
Renewables currently account for 40 per cent of Germany’s energy generation but there are plans to increase that to 65 per cent by the end of the decade. To meet its Paris targets, the country must do more.
Unlike Australia, where the Federal Government’s response to climate change is being debated after a season of catastrophic fires, there is broad agreement in Germany that coal’s demise is inevitable.
The successful closure of the black coal industry is now providing a blueprint for how to finish the job.
Under what’s known as the Coal Compromise, struck in January 2019, the rest of Germany’s coal industry will soon start retiring their mines and power plants.
Corporations have been given nearly two decades to completely shut down and the Government has promised 40 billion euros ($65 billion) to coal regions to ease the transition…….. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-18/australia-climate-how-germany-is-closing-down-its-coal-industry/11902884
Small is beautiful as solar farms look for ways around grid chaos — RenewEconomy
Developers and off-takers are working with smaller-scale solar farms in a bid to avoid the pitfalls of Australia’s current grid connection and congestion crisis. The post Small is beautiful as solar farms look for ways around grid chaos appeared first on RenewEconomy.
via Small is beautiful as solar farms look for ways around grid chaos — RenewEconomy
Holden brand killed off as GM switches focus to electric vehicles — RenewEconomy
General Motors retires iconic Holden brand as it looks to a future of electric and autonomous mobility. The post Holden brand killed off as GM switches focus to electric vehicles appeared first on RenewEconomy.
via Holden brand killed off as GM switches focus to electric vehicles — RenewEconomy
Why Canavan will be a more dangerous pro-coal advocate outside of Morrison ministry — RenewEconomy
Former resources minister Matt Canavan says he is ready to cross the floor and do everything he can to support coal industry. The post Why Canavan will be a more dangerous pro-coal advocate outside of Morrison ministry appeared first on RenewEconomy.
via Why Canavan will be a more dangerous pro-coal advocate outside of Morrison ministry — RenewEconomy
Victoria intervenes to try and solve wind and solar bottlenecks in local grid — RenewEconomy
Victoria flags “go-it-alone” strategy on network upgrades, as it seeks to solve grid bottlenecks that is hurting and delaying large scale wind and solar projects. The post Victoria intervenes to try and solve wind and solar bottlenecks in local grid appeared first on RenewEconomy.
via Victoria intervenes to try and solve wind and solar bottlenecks in local grid — RenewEconomy
Australia has done little on emissions, and is not planning much in next decade — RenewEconomy
Australia’s emissions have risen substantially since 1990, and since 2005, without including land use, and its Paris goal are only reached through carry-over credits. The post Australia has done little on emissions, and is not planning much in next decade appeared first on RenewEconomy.
via Australia has done little on emissions, and is not planning much in next decade — RenewEconomy
Gas giant concedes gas demand rises only if climate targets are ignored — RenewEconomy
APA says global gas demand rises only if climate targets are ignored, but is coy about details of federal government funding for new gas power station in Victoria. The post Gas giant concedes gas demand rises only if climate targets are ignored appeared first on RenewEconomy.
via Gas giant concedes gas demand rises only if climate targets are ignored — RenewEconomy
Queensland researchers smash solar efficiency record for ‘quantum dot’ solar cells — RenewEconomy
UQ researchers smash efficiency record for ‘quantum dot’ solar cells, opening up the potential for flexible solar skins. The post Queensland researchers smash solar efficiency record for ‘quantum dot’ solar cells appeared first on RenewEconomy.
via Queensland researchers smash solar efficiency record for ‘quantum dot’ solar cells — RenewEconomy
Queensland names two more sites for $2.5m EV network rollout — RenewEconomy
Two additional sites identified for $2.5 million second phase of Queensland’s statewide public electric car charging network. The post Queensland names two more sites for $2.5m EV network rollout appeared first on RenewEconomy.
via Queensland names two more sites for $2.5m EV network rollout — RenewEconomy
February 17 Energy News — geoharvey
Opinion: ¶ “Tesla Semis Are Cheaper Than Rail Enough Of The Time To Reshape Ground Freight” • Later this year, the first Tesla Semis will be rolling out of a gigafactory. This article deals with the question: “What dynamics will shift in the rail vs. road shipping equation?” The Tesla Semi isn’t a “rail killer.” […]
Antinuclear 