The absolutely UNAFFORDABLE NUCLEAR industry – theme for June 2020
Ho
w many $trillions is the American government putting into the nuclear industry, especially nuclear weapons? With the USA essentially bankrupt, and the pandemic ushering it into an even more dire financial state – it’s a joke! Or, it would be a joke, if not for the hardship, suffering, poverty, brought upon its people, by this foolish financial extravaganza on behalf of a corrupt, dangerous and useless industry.
Russia, China, UK France, and soon Middle Eastern nations mindlessly follow this suicidal nuclear path.
The banking industry and other financial institutions join in the frenzy to feed this rapacious evil of the nuclear industry.
Sadly so many jobs and community “benefits” are attached to it. It is going to take an enormous effort of brains, integrity, some sacrifice – to unravel the nuclear financial mess,.
But the world had better start unravelling it. Even without the worst outcome – nuclear war, this foul nuclear industry is going to devastate the finances of nations. and prevent action to stall global heating.
In this Covid-19 pandemic era, it is absolutely time to phase nuclear out, and help populations to transition to a cleaner world, where public money is spent on the things that people really need.
Radioactive Waste Management Amendment Bill – a drastic attack on Aboriginal rights, heritage and environment
This inquiry if successful will enable Native Title to be extinguished, whether it is admitted or not.
3 Section 4 (a) seeks to repeal the definition of Aboriginal land,
9 Section 4 (b) seeks to repeal the definition of traditional Aboriginal owners
34 GA (1) (c) seeks to override the archaeological and heritage values of the land, the significance of the
land in the traditions of the Indigenous owners, by overriding existing state and territory legal protections.
34 GB (1) (a) seeks to override the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984.
34 GB (b) seeks to override the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.
Stephanie Ingerson to Sente Committee on National Radioactive Waste Management Amendment (Site Specification, Community Fund and Other Measures) Bill 2020 [Provisions] Submission 28
South Australia’s north-west desert lands were laid waste by nuclear tests conducted by the British in the
1950s and 1960s at Maralinga on the country of Aboriginal traditional owners. Despite this existing nuclear wasteland, more lands belonging to traditional owners near Kimba on Eyre Peninsula are destined for more nuclear waste. Ninety per cent of the waste will be transported from the Lucas Heights reactor in Sydney, overland and around the coastline of New South Wales, posing a potential risk for humans and the environment given the history of radioactive spills and accidents at the Lucas Heights reactor site. The waste will not just be gloves and gowns. The government does not talk about spent nuclear fuel rods and other hazardous radioactive high level waste, active for thousands of years,that may be destined for a radioactive waste site on Eyre Peninsula.
The Barngarla Aboriginal people have their traditional lands on Eyre Peninsula. They did not give their consent for a radioactive waste site, having been excluded from voting in a restricted ballot in Kimba conducted to secure the land for this purpose. Continue reading
Greg Phillips- Australia’s nuclear management amendment bill – a dishonest, manipulative process.
Greg Phillips to Senate Committee on National Radioactive Waste Management Amendment (Site Specification, Community Fund and Other Measures) Bill 2020 [Provisions] Submission 27
The location of a nuclear dump at Kimba (in the vicinity of valuable farmland, fishing grounds and tourism area) should be rejected. The whole process has been the result of a dishonest, manipulative process. The seat of Grey has been targeted and groomed for many years. The location of a nuclear dump at Kimba (in the vicinity of valuable farmland, fishing grounds and tourism area) should be rejected. The whole process has been the result of a dishonest, manipulative process. The seat of Grey has been targeted and groomed for many years.
The first and major dishonesty relates to Australia’s definition of Intermediate waste. The “intermediate level” waste destined for Kimba would be called “High Level Waste” (HLW) in the USA[1], Canada[2], UK[3], Japan[4], South Africa[5], Taiwan[6], Switzerland[7], South Korea[8]. Even France classified it as High Level Waste when they shipped it to us. The vitrified residue from processing spent nuclear fuel is almost universally called “High Level Waste“. Even Australia once called it High Level Waste[9]. So why do we call it “Intermediate”? Because Australia has a dishonestly slack and misleading definition of “High Level” waste that is purely based on how thermally hot it is ie. “high level radioactive material means material which has a thermal energy output of at least 2 kilowatts per cubic metre.”. The definition doesn’t even mention the radioactivity of the waste! No other country does this. It’s like passing a law that says “manure is only manure if it is hotter than 30 degrees C“. If the “intermediate” waste inner containers were taken out of their massive transport container (the “TN81” container, with 10- inch thick solid steel walls), standing next to it would give a person a fatal radiation dose in seconds. The sole purpose of this definition seems to be to make the importation of High Level
Waste invisible to the public.
The dishonesty of the definition should be enough to stop this process now. It puts Australia at risk because it means that other countries could send their High Level Waste to us and it will be magically redefined as “Intermediate” by our laws. (Note: don’t be tricked by misleading statements from nuclear experts/lobbyists such as “reprocessing removes the bulk of the radioactive material” – the vitrified residues left over from reprocessing are almost as radioactive as the original spent fuel, the “bulky” Uranium and Plutonium removed are relatively low radioactivity[10]. Also, spent fuel from research reactors (whether HEU or LEU types) is still considered HLW[2])
Nuclear medicine (the production of nuclear isotopes) is often used to justify the existence of this dump. But many countries are moving to methods that produce isotopes that don’t produce wastes. Cyclotrons and accelerators can produce isotopes with no reactor waste[11, 12]. The medical isotopes used for the superior imaging of PET scans are produced with a cyclotron. These isotopes decay so quickly that they can be thrown out in normal trash after a few weeks
[13] – no radioactive dump required. ANSTO decided to gamble taxpayer’s money to try and dominate the world medical isotope market with a complex, messy isotope manufacturing technique that produces a lot of problematic waste – waste that the taxpayer (and workers) will have to pay dearly to manage[14]. Canada is moving to a network of Cyclotrons to produce isotopes – it is safer, cleaner and more reliable than relying on a single nuclear reactor (probably cheaper too). Some even predict that the superior imaging of PET will make Technetium-99m/Mo-99 imaging begin to disappear over the next 10 years[15].
The nuclear power/arms/mining pushers see the Kimba dump as a foot in the door for an international dump. It is located near several ports that could be used to directly import nuclear waste. If Australia is going to continue to generate dangerous nuclear waste, it should be stored where there is already high security to protect it ie. Lucas Heights. There is plenty of room for the reactor waste there. Meanwhile Lucas Heights needs to work hard at reducing the waste produced from its production of medical isotopes. Accelerators are the way of the future, but ANSTO has a conflict in interest in that it knows that pushing cyclotrons/accelerators will undermine its reactor/isotope business. ANSTO’s dream of shipping taxpayer funded isotopes to the world (while taxpayers also fund the waste disposal) should be given up. If Australia
concentrated on producing isotopes for its own uses only, then the volume of radioactive wastes ANSTO produces would be reduced dramatically.
Here in South Australia we have been bombarded with lobbyists over the last few years trying to create an International nuclear waste dump in our state. One of the main pushers for a nuclear dump seems to be the Uranium miners (who want to increase their international Uranium sales by giving other countries an easy place for them to abandon their problematic, highly toxic, nuclear waste). It is worth remembering at this point that spent nuclear fuel (and reprocessed spent fuel) is millions of times more radioactive than the Uranium ore we dig up.
Shipping and handling nuclear waste would put our workers and our fisheries, farmers, tourism,
security etc. at risk.
Nuclear lobbyists are often deceptive about the risks of radioactive contamination. They try to make people think that inhaling or ingesting radioactive particles/contamination is the same as the non-contaminating radiation you get from an X-ray (or the increased Cosmic rays when traveling in an airplane). Ingesting or inhaling radioactive contamination is much more dangerous, it is more like inhaling Asbestos. It could sit in your lungs, muscles, bones for years/decades, increasing the risk of cancer. Because illnesses from such contamination take years to develop, the lobbyists dishonestly dismiss any consequences from the Chernobyl and Fukushima catastrophes. The young and the pregnant are most vulnerable to such
contamination. If someone covered a group of people (or land) with Asbestos dust, you wouldn’t say “no harm was done” – unfortunately that is what nuclear lobbyists try to do. No one dies immediately from inhaling Asbestos dust, but we know that the deadly effects can take years/decades to appear. The Cesium-137 that contaminates large areas of Japan will take hundreds of years to decay away, meanwhile the young and pregnant are at risk of disturbing it and breathing this slow-acting poison into their system.
The whole process of selecting a site has been so flawed and dishonest that it should be started again.
References
60 years ago, Aborginal people’s land desecrated by nuclear bombs. Now a new desecration – nuclear wastes?
Even I know off by heart the supercilious tones of the Chief Scientist of the British nuclear tests, Ernest Titterton’s on-screen completely false declaration: ‘No Aboriginal people were harmed.’ The discovery of Edie Milpuddie and family as they camped on the edge of the Marcoo bomb crater was dramatic exposure of that cruel fiction. It is extraordinary to see the actual footage of this moment in the film; and so sobering to hear again the terrible repercussions among her descendants.
‘No Aboriginal people were harmed.’ Add into that mix, English and Australian servicemen and the various pastoral landholders; and from the strong desert winds including across the APY Lands, we will never know the results of the further fallout across the state and nation.
Wind forward another 30 years again and the well being of another almost neighbouring group of Aboriginal people is threatened with nuclear repercussions: this time by the plan for the nation’s nuclear waste ‘stored’ (dumped) on their Country. Again as Traditional Owners, the Barngarla denied a say on their own Country, while a few white ‘latecomers’ were given theirs.
The nuclear fight: then and now, Eureka Street Michele Madigan, 04 June 2020 heeded? https://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article/the-nuclear-fight–then-and-now?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Eureka%20Street%20Daily%20-%20Thursday%204%20June%202020&utm_content=Eureka%20Street%20Daily%20-%20Thursday%204%20June%202020+CID_d497ae8df79099faf8643a0a84a8536d&utm_source=Jescom%20Newsletters&utm_term=READ%20MORE On Sunday 24th May, the ABC showed the documentary Maralinga Tjarutja produced and directed by lawyer, academic, filmmaker and Eualeyai/Kamillaroi woman Larissa Berendt. It was wonderful to see the Traditional Owners including the women given a current national voice as survivors of the British nuclear tests on their lands. Mima Smart OAM former long-term chairperson of Yalata Community was co-presenter with the chair of Maralinga Tjarutja, Jeremy Lebois; Mima’s Maralinga art, painted in collaboration with other Yalata minyma tjuta — women artists, becoming an integral background story — sometimes even in animation.
New Zealand puts Australia to shame – with its environment – pandemic recovery programme
Australia’s destructive COVID-19 recovery
An opportunity for Australia
Economic stimulus through conservation and land management is not yet recognised as a way for Australia to respond to both the COVID-19 crisis and long-standing conservation needs.
Australian governments, if they invested similarly to New Zealand, could create jobs in the short term in any desired target region, based on economic and environmental need….
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Let’s fix Australia’s environment with any pandemic recovery aid – the Kiwis are doing it https://theconversation.com/lets-fix-australias-environment-with-any-pandemic-recovery-aid-the-kiwis-are-doing-it-139305 5 June 20, Lachlan G. Howell, John Clulow,John Rodger, Ryan R. Witt The COVID-19 pandemic is causing significant economic challenges for Australia. With April figures showing more than 800,000 people unemployed and last month 1.6 million on JobSeeker payments, a key focus will be job creation.
Lessons should be learned from what’s happening in New Zealand, where the government is funding projects that revive the environment. Unfortunately, Australia seems to be going the other way. New Zealand gets itAs part of New Zealand’s innovative Wellbeing Budget the government will invest NZ$50 billion in a direct COVID-19 recovery response. Of that, NZ$1.1 billion will be spent on creating 11,000 “nature jobs” to combat unemployment and supplement pandemic-affected sectors. This unique investment will be delivered in a number of targeted environmental programs. Continue reading
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Challenge in USA to nuclear wastes going to another state for ?permanent “Interim storage”
 Beyond Nuclear Files Federal Lawsuit Challenging High-Level Radioactive Waste Dump  for Entire Inventory of U.S. “Spent” Reactor Fuel, Common Dreams, 5 June 20, Petitioner charges the Nuclear Regulatory Commission knowingly violated U.S. Nuclear Waste Policy Act and up-ended settled law prohibiting transfer of ownership of spent fuel to the federal government until a permanent underground repository is ready to receive it.
WASHINGTON – Today the non-profit organization Beyond Nuclear filed an appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit requesting review of an April 23, 2020 order and an October 29, 2018 order by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), rejecting challenges to Holtec International/Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance’s application to build a massive “consolidated interim storage facility” (CISF) for nuclear waste in southeastern New Mexico. Holtec proposes to store as much as 173,000 metric tons of highly radioactive irradiated or “spent” nuclear fuel – more than twice the amount of spent fuel currently stored at U.S. nuclear power reactors – in shallowly buried containers on the site. But according to Beyond Nuclear’s petition, the NRC’s orders “violated the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and the Administrative Procedure Act by refusing to dismiss an administrative proceeding that contemplated issuance of a license permitting federal ownership of used reactor fuel at a commercial fuel storage facility.” Since it contemplates that the federal government would become the owner of the spent fuel during transportation to and storage at its CISF, Holtec’s license application should have been dismissed at the outset, Beyond Nuclear’s appeal argues. Holtec has made no secret of the fact that it expects the federal government will take title to the waste, which would clear the way for it to be stored at its CISF, and this is indeed the point of building the facility. But that would directly violate the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA), which prohibits federal government ownership of spent fuel unless and until a permanent underground repository is up and running. No such repository has been licensed in the U.S. The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) most recent estimate for the opening of a geologic repository is the year 2048 at the earliest. In its April 23 decision, in which the NRC rejected challenges to the license application, the four NRC Commissioners admitted that the NWPA would indeed be violated if title to spent fuel were transferred to the federal government so it could be stored at the Holtec facility. But they refused to remove the license provision in the application which contemplates federal ownership of the spent fuel. Instead, they ruled that approving Holtec’s application in itself would not involve NRC in a violation of federal law, and that therefore they could go forward with approving the application, despite its illegal provision. According to the NRC’s decision, “the license itself would not violate the NWPA by transferring the title to the fuel, nor would it authorize Holtec or [the U.S. Department of Energy] to enter into storage contracts.” (page 7). The NRC Commissioners also noted with approval that “Holtec hopes that Congress will amend the law in the future.” (page 7). “This NRC decision flagrantly violates the federal Administrative Procedure Act (APA), which prohibits an agency from acting contrary to the law as issued by Congress and signed by the President,” said Mindy Goldstein, an attorney for Beyond Nuclear. “The Commission lacks a legal or logical basis for its rationale that it may issue a license with an illegal provision, in the hopes that Holtec or the Department of Energy won’t complete the illegal activity it authorized. The buck must stop with the NRC.” “Our claim is simple,” said attorney Diane Curran, another member of Beyond Nuclear’s legal team. “The NRC is not above the law, nor does it stand apart from it.”……… “When Congress passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and refused to allow nuclear reactor licensees to transfer ownership of their irradiated reactor fuel to the DOE until a permanent repository was up and running, it acted wisely,” said Kevin Kamps, radioactive waste specialist for Beyond Nuclear. “It understood that spent fuel remains hazardous for millions of years, and that the only safe long-term strategy for safeguarding irradiated reactor fuel is to place it in a permanent repository for deep geologic isolation from the living environment. Today, the NWPA remains the public’s best protection against a so-called ‘interim’ storage facility becoming a de facto permanent, national, surface dump for radioactive waste. But if we ignore it or jettison the law, communities like southeastern New Mexico can be railroaded by the nuclear industry and its friends in government, and forced to accept mountains of forever deadly high-level radioactive waste other states are eager to offload.” In addition to impacting New Mexico, shipping the waste to the CISF site would also endanger 43 other states plus the District of Columbia, because it would entail hauling 10,000 high risk, high-level radioactive waste shipments on their roads, rails, and waterways, posing risks of radioactive release all along the way………. Besides threatening public health and safety, evading federal law to license CISF facilities would also impact the public financially. Transferring title and liability for spent fuel from the nuclear utilities that generated it to DOE would mean that federal taxpayers would have to pay for its so-called “interim” storage, to the tune of many billions of dollars. That’s on top of the many billions ratepayers and taxpayers have already paid to fund a permanent geologic repository that hasn’t yet materialized. … https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2020/06/04/beyond-nuclear-files-federal-lawsuit-challenging-high-level-radioactive-waste?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=twitter |
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Nuclear missile submarines in the Indo-Pacific
Increasing Indo-Pacific nuclear boats and the impact on strategic stability Defence Connect, Stephen Kuper, 5 June 20, As the Indo-Pacific continues to evolve economically and strategically, one of the traditional measures of great power status – nuclear attack and missile submarines – will become more prominent. For ASPI academic Stephan Fruehling, this will have a dramatic impact on the strategic stability and calculus Australia depends upon.
Much like the submarine competition between the US and Soviet Union, this new arms race is resulting in fleets of hunter-killers and strategic missile submarines stalking the depths, however the US and China are far from the only emerging and established Indo-Pacific nations seeking to leverage the power of nuclear submarines.
The growing proliferation of advanced nuclear weapons systems, including the relatively crude, yet still capable submarine launch ballistic missiles recently tested by North Korea, and the increasingly capable nuclear-powered submarine fleets introduced by China and Russia, South Korea has moved to address a tactical and strategic shortfall: a lack of nuclear-powered submarines.
While seemingly a shock move, the South Korean strategic policy institute, the Korea Defense Network (KDN), commissioned a research review into the feasibility of developing an indigenous nuclear-powered attack submarine.
It is reported that the results suggested that South Korea consider building a nuclear-powered attack submarine modelled after the French 5,300-tonne Barracuda Class submarine, the design model for Australia’s own fleet of $50 billion Attack Class submarines.
India also fields a growing array of domestic and foreign nuclear submarine designs in both the attack and ballistic missile variants providing an already tense regional balance of power with yet another platform to complicate the tactical and strategic decision making processes for many nations, including Australia……..
For Australia, this raises the question, can the nation depend on the nuclear umbrella provided by the US or, for that matter, the UK at a stretch? If not, what is the solution for Australia? ……..https://www.defenceconnect.com.au/maritime-antisub/6227-increasing-indo-pacific-nuclear-boats-and-the-impact-on-strategic-stability
Australia must plan for future disasters, bushfires, floods – NSW Resilience Commissioner
NSW Resilience Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons is urging Australians to start planning now for future disasters. SBS, 5 June 20, Resilience NSW Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons says Australia’s disaster recovery will be “quite significant” and that people should start planning for future disasters.
The former NSW Rural Fire Service boss says the country has faced unprecedented damage and destruction during the bushfire season, which was compounded by storms and floods and the COVID-19 pandemic.
“There are communities that have been so profoundly impacted and affected, and whilst there’s a tremendous focus on the rebuilding of infrastructure, on people’s homes, it’s a massive undertaking,” he said in an online webinar on Friday.
The commissioner is urging individuals, families, businesses, industries, and governments to begin having conversations about how they might respond to disruptions caused by disasters in the future to build resilience…….. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/australians-told-to-start-planning-for-future-disasters-following-profound-bushfire-impact
Australian media watchdog found Andrew Bolt breached press standards by vilifying Greta Thunberg
Andrew Bolt breached media standards calling Greta Thunberg ‘deeply disturbed’, watchdog rules, SBS, The Australian media watchdog has found Andrew Bolt breached press standards by attempting to “diminish the credibility” of Greta Thunberg on the basis of her disability.
BY MAANI TRUU, 5 June 20 A column by News Corp writer Andrew Bolt mocking teenage climate change activist Greta Thunberg breached standards by attempting to “diminish the credibility” of her opinions on the basis of her disability, the Australian media watchdog has found.
The column, published online in August last year, referred to the 17-year-old as “freakishly influential”, “deeply disturbed”, and a “strange girl”.
“I have never seen a girl so young, with so many mental disorders, treated by so many adults as a guru,” Bolt wrote.
The Australian Press Council found the article breached General Principle 6 of its standards of practice, which requires media organisations to avoid causing offence, distress, prejudice, or a substantial risk to the health and safety of an individual, unless publishing the story is in the public interest. …..
“[The column] attempts to diminish the credibility of Ms Thunberg’s opinions on the basis of her disabilities and by pillorying her supporters on the basis of her disabilities,” the watchdog’s findings, published on Thursday, read. ……. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/andrew-bolt-breached-media-standards-calling-greta-thunberg-deeply-disturbed-watchdog-rules
Russia’s anti nuclear movement – and government reprisals against it
nd radioaсtive threats” Report “Anti–nuclear resistance in Russia: problems, protests, reprisals” Produced by RSEU’s program “Against nuclear and radioaсtive threats”In the city of Krasnoyarsk, Rosatom plans to build a national repository for high–level radioactive waste. A site has been selected on the banks of Siberia’s largest river, the Yenisei, only 40 km from the city. Environmental activists consider this project, if implemented,to be a crime against future generations and violates numerous Russian laws. Activists are also concerned that waste from Ukraine,Hungary, Bulgaria (and in the future from Belarus, Turkey, Bangladesh, and other countries) could be transported there as well. (47)
Antinuclear 