This week in nuclear/climate news
News is, by its nature, all about bad stuff. Whatever is normal, reasonable, decent, is ordinary, and just not news, – a fact that we need to remind ourselves of, in these uncertain Covid-19 days. There’s a lot of good will for changing society’s trajectory towards ruining our planet. Half of the Earth’s ice-free land is still free from human impact. Post-pandemic packages could green up our energy systems for environmental and economic benefit. Some seemingly small ideas can have surprisingly large successes – for example, fast-growing mini-forests springing up in Europe are helping the climate.
Another bit of good news – Elders Around the World in Their 80s, 90s, and 100s Are Bouncing Back From Virus – and Sharing Advice.
AUSTRALIA
Australia’s Environment Laws have no teeth, are in much need of strengthening. Australia’s very bad record on environment: it’s no time to weaken our laws.
NUCLEAR Don’t send uranium to India- Dr Vaishali Patil speaks to Australia. Former weapons chief executive now South Australian Premier’s top advisor. Reviews of two TV shows on Australia’s nuclear history at Maralinga.
National Radioactive waste Dump Plan. Australia’s govt rushes nuclear waste Bill through Lower House, but this story is not over. Labor, Greens and 2 Independents voted against it. The Maritime Union of Australia (SA branch) rejects Nuclear Waste Bill, discusses transport dangers. Is Napandee another Maralinga?
Government -owned Woomera a better site than agricultural land, for nuclear waste dump. MP Rowan Ramsey depicts town of Kimba as failing, desperate to have nuclear waste dump for its survival. Senator Rex Patrick – nuclear waste dump should not go on agricultural land.
Submissions to Senate Inquiry.
- Desmond Menz – Constitutional problems in Nuclear Waste Bill – could lead to High Court case?
- Ivan Quail says –No logic in double handling of nuclear waste, and makes 14 strong recommendations.
- Anne Wharton- appalled at exclusion of Barngarla Aboriginal people from nuclear waste dump decision-making: a national issue, not just local.
- South Australia – Citizens’ Jury rejected nuclear waste dump in 2016. Decision should not be made by a tiny community.
- Azark says: nuclear waste site process unfair and Napandee unsuitable.
- James Shepherdson – no true community support for Napandee nuclear waste dump, and alternative site ignored.
CLIMATE. Australian Government’s Covid-19 advisory body – stacked with fossil fuel big-wigs, but their conflicts of interest kept secret. Australia is one of world’s worst transport polluters: Covid-19 response could change this. Four ways a smart government can create jobs and cut emissions. The latest on Adani and the decline of thermal coal.
RENEWABLE ENERGY. Australia’s best performing wind and solar farms in May. How community-owned renewables could lead Australia’s Covid-19 recovery plans. Western Australia is emerging as the new hot spot for wind energy in Australia. Contracts awarded for Brisbane’s $1b all-electric Metro bus project. Morrison’s $25,000 renovation grant could deliver full energy retrofit for social housing.
INTERNATIONAL
Our existential threat – our extinction.
Cloud studies indicate that global heating may be more alarming than anticipated. Global heating to bring more frequent, more extreme, ocean waves. Seeking ways to remove carbon from the air.
The last major treaty for nuclear weapons control now hangs in the balance.
Is Napandee another Maralinga?
Kim Mavromatis Fight To Stop Nuclear Waste In The Flinders Ranges, 15 June 20,
The similarities between Napandee and Maralinga are frightening.
Do Australia’s politicians really understand the effect of nuclear radioactive contamination on agricultural land?
Mike Hancy Fight To Stop A Nuclear Waste Dump In South Australia, 15 June 20
Australia’s Environment Laws have no teeth, are in much need of strengthening
‘No checks, no balances’: push for change to environment laws, The Age, By Mike Foley, June 14, 2020 Australia’s 20-year-old flagship environmental protection laws are failing badly and in urgent need of an overhaul, the crossbench senator who helped the Howard government install the landmark legislation says.
“Clearly it’s not working well,” former Democrats senator Andrew Bartlett said ahead of an imminent review of the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. “The most obvious failure is despite the fact conditions can be attached to project approvals, there are just so many cases where conditions aren’t adhered to. There are no efforts to check and no penalties.”
Mr Bartlett stared down bitter opposition from some powerful players in the conservation movement and sided with the Howard government against Labor and the Greens to vote for legislation in 1999.
The act was an attempt by the Howard government to modernise environmental protection laws and was controversial because it significantly increased the environment minister’s powers, such as allowing them to intervene in project approvals to protect threatened species.
Since the act’s introduction, Australia’s list of nationally threatened species and ecosystems has grown by more than one-third – from 1483 to 1974.
The act is being reviewed by the former chair of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, Graeme Samuel, who is due to complete his report for Environment Minister Sussan Ley later this month.
Both conservationists and industry are unhappy with the application of the act. Conservation groups say successive governments have not used the powers in the act to protect threatened species, while industry argues the act has delayed development because of so-called “green law-fare”.
Australian Conservation Foundation policy co-ordinator James Trezise said “the idea that vexatious litigation is rife under national environment law is not borne out by the evidence”.
Professor Hugh Possingham, one of the scientists who advised the Howard government on the legislation, said the act had failed to protect the environment.
“There’s no ambiguity in the science, the EPBC Act isn’t delivering,” Professor Possingham told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. ……
The Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists’ submission to Mr Samuel’s review said the “objectives of the [EPBC] act are not being met”….. https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/no-checks-no-balances-push-for-change-to-environment-laws-20200610-p55180.html
Green Recovery

message was a grim, possibly self-serving, prediction, that sun, wind and water power would only ever meet four per cent of the country’s needs.
be exacerbated by the pandemic in the short-term and climate change in the long-term,” says the study published in May 2020.
Cloud studies indicate that global heating may be more alarming than anticipated
![]() Modelling results from more than 20 institutions are being compiled for the sixth assessment by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is due to be released next year. Compared with the last assessment in 2014, 25% of them show a sharp upward shift from 3C to 5C in climate sensitivity – the amount of warming projected from a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide from the preindustrial level of 280 parts per million. This has shocked many veteran observers, because assumptions about climate sensitivity have been relatively unchanged since the 1980s. “That is a very deep concern,” Johan Rockström, the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said. “Climate sensitivity is the holy grail of climate science. It is the prime indicator of climate risk. For 40 years, it has been around 3C. Now, we are suddenly starting to see big climate models on the best supercomputers showing things could be worse than we thought.” He said climate sensitivity above 5C would reduce the scope for human action to reduce the worst impacts of global heating. “We would have no more space for a soft landing of 1.5C [above preindustrial levels]. The best we could aim for is 2C,” he said. Worst-case projections in excess of 5C have been generated by several of the world’s leading climate research bodies, including the UK Met Office’s Hadley Centre and the EU’s Community Earth System Model Timothy Palmer, a professor in climate physics at Oxford University and a member of the Met Office’s advisory board, said the high figure initially made scientists nervous. “It was way outside previous estimates. People asked whether there was a bug in the code,” he said. “But it boiled down to relatively small changes in the way clouds are represented in the models.” The role of clouds is one of the most uncertain areas in climate science because they are hard to measure and, depending on altitude, droplet temperature and other factors, can play either a warming or a cooling role. For decades, this has been the focus of fierce academic disputes. Previous IPCC reports tended to assume that clouds would have a neutral impact because the warming and cooling feedbacks would cancel each other out. But in the past year and a half, a body of evidence has been growing showing that the net effect will be warming. This is based on finer resolution computer models and advanced cloud microphysics. “Clouds will determine humanity’s fate – whether climate is an existential threat or an inconvenience that we will learn to live with,” said Palmer. “Most recent models suggest clouds will make matters worse.” In a recent paper in the journal Nature, Palmer explains how the new Hadley Centre model that produced the 5+C figure on climate sensitivity was tested by assessing its accuracy in forecasting short-term weather. This testing technique had exposed flaws in previous models, but in the latest case, the results reinforced the estimates. “The results are not reassuring – they support the estimates,” he wrote. He is calling for other models to be tested in a similar way. “It’s really important. The message to the government and public is, you have to take this high climate sensitivity seriously. [We] must get emissions down as quickly as we can,” he said. The IPCC is expected to include the 5+C climate sensitivity figure in its next report on the range of possible outcomes. Scientists caution that this is a work in progress and that doubts remain because such a high figure does not fit with historical records. Catherine Senior, head of understanding climate change at the Met Office Hadley Centre, said more studies and more data were needed to fully understand the role of clouds and aerosols. “This figure has the potential to be incredibly alarming if it is right,” she said. “But as a scientist, my first response is: why has the model done that? We are still in the stage of evaluating the processes driving the different response.” While acknowledging the continued uncertainty, Rockström said climate models might still be underestimating the problem because they did not fully take into account tipping points in the biosphere. “The more we learn, the more fragile the Earth system seems to be and the faster we need to move,” he said. “It gives even stronger argument to step out of this Covid-19 crisis and move full speed towards decarbonising the economy.” |
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Researchers find that half ofthe earth’s ice-free land is still free from human influence
![]() “The encouraging takeaway from this study is that if we act quickly and decisively, there is a slim window in which we can still conserve roughly half of Earth’s land in a relatively intact state,” said lead author Jason Riggio, a postdoctoral scholar at the UC Davis Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology. The study, published June 5 on World Environment Day, aims to inform the upcoming global Convention on Biological Diversity — the Conference of Parties 15. The historic meeting was scheduled to occur in China this fall but was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. Among the meeting’s goals is to establish specific, and higher, targets for land and water protection. Approximately 15 percent of the Earth’s land surface and 10 percent of the oceans are currently protected in some form. However, led by organizations including Nature Needs Half and the Half-Earth Project, there have been bold global calls for governments to commit to protecting 30 percent of the land and water by 2030 and 50 percent by 2050. Intact natural lands across the globe can help purify air and water, recycle nutrients, enhance soil fertility and retention, pollinate plants, and break down waste products. The value of maintaining these vital ecosystem services to the human economy has been placed in the trillions of U.S. dollars annually. CONSERVATION AND COVID-19 The coronavirus pandemic now shaking the globe illustrates the importance of maintaining natural lands to separate animal and human activity. The leading scientific evidence points to the likelihood that SARS-CoV2, the virus that causes the disease COVID-19, is a zoonotic virus that jumped from animals to humans. Ebola, bird flu and SARS are other diseases known to have spilled over into the human population from nonhuman animals. “Human risk to diseases like COVID-19 could be reduced by halting the trade and sale of wildlife, and minimizing human intrusion into wild areas,” said senior author Andrew Jacobson, professor of GIS and conservation at Catawba College in North Carolina. Jacobson said that regional and national land-use planning that identify and appropriately zone locations best suited to urban growth and agriculture could help control the spread of human development. Establishing protections for other landscapes, particularly those currently experiencing low human impacts, would also be beneficial. FROM THE TUNDRA TO THE DESERT Among the largest low-impact areas are broad stretches of boreal forests and tundra across northern Asia and North America and vast deserts like the Sahara in Africa and the Australian Outback. These areas tend to be colder and/or drier and less fit for agriculture. “Though human land uses are increasingly threatening Earth’s remaining natural habitats, especially in warmer and more hospitable areas, nearly half of Earth still remains in areas without large-scale intensive use,” said co-author Erle Ellis, professor of geography at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County. Areas having low human influence do not necessarily exclude people, livestock or sustainable management of resources. A balanced conservation response that addresses land sovereignty and weighs agriculture, settlement or other resource needs with the protection of ecosystem services and biodiversity is essential, the authors note. “Achieving this balance will be necessary if we hope to meet ambitious conservation targets,” said Riggio. “But our study optimistically shows that these targets are still within reach.” |
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France’s submarine accident a reminder of the ever present danger of nuclear catastrophe
Why The Catastrophic Fire On A Nuclear Submarine Is Nothing To Gloat About https://www.forbes.com/sites/hisutton/2020/06/14/why-the-catastrophic-fire-on-a-nuclear-submarine-is-nothing-to-gloat-about/#ef9667d2ffd0
As details emerge of the fire aboard the French submarine Perle on Friday, it seems unlikely to me that the boat will be returned to service. Whichever way you look at it, the fire is a terrible blow for the French Navy (Marine Nationale). Their submarine fleet is already stretched. But France’s misfortune brings home a basic reality that it could happen to any navy.
The cause of the fire, which took most of Friday to extinguish, has yet to be determined. Florence Parly, Minister of the Armed Forces, was reported by Naval News as saying on June 13 that the “cause for such a strong (and rapid) fire is still unknown.” She also said that if the boat turns out to be fixable, everything will be done to repair it. Any hint of optimism in this statement may point to the terrible predicament that it will leave the French Navy in if it cannot be repaired.
No Reason To Gloat
You will not find many in the defense community laughing at France’s expense. When a Russian or Chinese warship suffers a similar accident, many casual observers are quick to make jokes. Less so the defense community.
For example on April 13 a Chinese Type-075 assault carrier caught fire in Shanghai. That ship, the first of its type, was being fitted out before delivery. The types of work done during refit are similar to the deep overhaul that Perle was being subject to. Or in December last year a Russian aircraft carrier caught fire.
But the Western defense community is very aware that these accidents could equally apply to their home navies. Overhauling ships and submarines is ‘hot work’ and fires can easily occur.
The fire took 14 hours to put out, from 10.35am until 00.50 am the next morning. This may sound like a long time, but the U.S. Navy had a similar experience dealing with a fire aboard the Los Angeles class submarine USS Miami in 2012. That fire, which was also during an overhaul, lasted 12 hours and caused so much damage that the boat had to be written off. In the American case it turned out that the fire had been started deliberately by a dockyard worker hoping that the alarm would get him off work early.
In general, fires aboard submarines can be harder to put out. This is because of the cramped spaces aboard, and also because there are very few openings into the submarine. And they can be more devastating than a similar fire aboard a surface vessel because the heat can deform the steel hull. On a surface vessel this can be repaired more easily, but with a submarine it can make the hull weaker so that it is no longer safe to dive. This is why I am not optimistic that she will be repairable.
The fire was not as bad as it could have been. Fortunately the nuclear reactor had apparently already been removed. So the fire has not been categorized as a nuclear accident. And the torpedoes and missiles had also been unloaded so there was no risk of them exploding.
Many core systems, such as the combat system and sonar, had also been removed. So if the hull can be saved, then returning her to service is at least feasible. But everything seems to depend on whether the hull itself has been weakened.
Fast-growing mini-forests spring up in Europe to aid climate
Fast-growing mini-forests spring up in Europe to aid climate Miyawaki forests are denser and said to be more biodiverse than other kinds of woods, Guardian, Hannah Lewis, Sat 13 Jun 2020 Tiny, dense forests are springing up around Europe as part of a movement aimed at restoring biodiversity and fighting the climate crisis. Often sited in schoolyards or alongside roads, the forests can be as small as a tennis court. They are based on the work of the Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki, who has planted more than 1,000 such forests in Japan, Malaysia and elsewhere. Advocates for the method say the miniature forests grow 10 times faster and become 30 times denser and 100 times more biodiverse than those planted by conventional methods. This result is achieved by planting saplings close together, three per square metre, using native varieties adapted to local conditions. A wide variety of species – ideally 30 or more – are planted to recreate the layers of a natural forest. Scientists say such ecosystems are key to meeting climate goals, estimating that natural forests can store 40 times more carbon than single-species plantations. The Miyawaki forests are designed to regenerate land in far less time than the 70-plus years it takes a forest to recover on its own. “This is a great thing to do,” said Eric Dinerstein, a wildlife scientist who co-authored a recent paper calling for half of the Earth’s surface to be protected or managed for nature conservation to avoid catastrophic climate change. “So this could be another aspect for suburban and urban areas, to create wildlife corridors through contiguous ribbons of mini-forest.” The mini-forests could attract migratory songbirds, Dinerstein said. “Songbirds are made from caterpillars and adult insects, and even small pockets of forests, if planted with native species, could become a nutritious fast-food fly-in site for hungry birds.”……. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/13/fast-growing-mini-forests-spring-up-in-europe-to-aid-climate |
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June 14 Energy News — geoharvey
Opinion: ¶ “Why We’re Overweighting Renewable Energy” • With the tentative return of demand, West Texas Intermediate oil just posted its best month on record in terms of price percentages. But some analysts say global oil demand may never fully recover. I believe this makes alternative and renewable energy a more attactive long-term investment. [ETF […]
Australia is one of world’s worst transport polluters: Covid-19 response could change this — RenewEconomy
ClimateWorks report says national EV strategy needed to cut transport emissions, and push for quieter, healthier and cleaner cities. The post Australia is one of world’s worst transport polluters: Covid-19 response could change this appeared first on RenewEconomy.
How community-owned renewables could lead Australia’s Covid-19 recovery plans — RenewEconomy
Independent MP Helen Haines leading regional groups arguing community energy – including wind, solar and battery storage – should form major plank of Covid-19 recovery plans. The post How community-owned renewables could lead Australia’s Covid-19 recovery plans appeared first on RenewEconomy.
via How community-owned renewables could lead Australia’s Covid-19 recovery plans — RenewEconomy
Four ways a smart government can create jobs and cut emissions — RenewEconomy
Done well, post-Covid government spending can make Australia’s economy more productive, improve quality of life and help the low-carbon transition. Here’s how. The post Four ways a smart government can create jobs and cut emissions appeared first on RenewEconomy.
via Four ways a smart government can create jobs and cut emissions — RenewEconomy
Adani news, June 2020 — John Quiggin
Amid the coronavirus pandemic, the climate crisis rolls on, slowed a bit by the economic impact of travel restrictions. The campaign to stop carbon dioxide emissions, including those from the Adani Carmichael project, has to continue as well.It’s now almost a year since Adani Mining gained the final environmental approvals for the construction of the…