Australia’s submarine deal with a corrupt French company
Meanwhile, in Australia, the submarine deal continues. In February last year, after two years of negotiations, the government signed a ‘strategic partnership agreement’ with Naval Group. The signing took place despite the emergence of two more investigations into Naval, including alleged corruption on a 2009 submarine deal with Brazil and a significant security breach where complete plans of the new Scorpène submarines Naval had provided to India were apparently leaked from within Naval.
Strong anti-corruption measures essential
Vast amounts of Australian taxpayers’ money are being handed to military industrial companies, including Naval Group, in contracts. Yet the perennial lack of transparency in defence procurement, blanket secrecy surrounding Australian weapons exports, and a pervasive “culture of cosiness” between government and industry all continue.
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Murder, corruption, bombings – the company at centre of Australia’s submarine deal, Michael West Media by Michelle Fahy | Oct 24, 2020 The arms company at the centre of a deadly criminal saga and numerous global corruption scandals, Naval Group, was selected by the Australian government to build our new fleet of submarines – a deal heralded as ‘one of the world’s most lucrative defence contracts‘. How did this happen? In this special investigation Michelle Fahy discovers significant gaps in anti-bribery and corruption measures on this massive procurement project. The message communicated far and wide is that our standards are lax; grey areas are tolerated; and we’ll bend the rules and look the other way.
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Small nuclear reactors – just a convenient ‘cover’ for the nuclear weapons industry
so-called “small nuclear reactors”
Downing Street told the Financial Times, which it faithfully reported, that it was “considering” £2 billion of taxpayers’ money to support “small nuclear reactors”
They are not small
The first thing to know about these beasts is that they are not small. 440MW? The plant at Wylfa (Anglesey, north Wales) was 460MW (it’s closed now). 440MW is bigger than all the Magnox type reactors except Wylfa and comparable to an Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor.
Only if military needs are driving this decision is it explicable.
”Clearly, the military need to maintain both reactor construction and operation skills and access to fissile materials will remain. I can well see the temptation for Defence Ministers to try to transfer this cost to civilian budgets,”
Any nation’s defence budget in this day and age cannot afford a new generation of nuclear weapons. So it needs to pass the costs onto the energy sector.
How the UK’s secret defence policy is driving energy policy – with the public kept in the dark. https://www.thefifthestate.com.au/energy-lead/how-the-uks-secret-defence-policy-is-driving-energy-policy-with-the-public-kept-in-the-dark/ BY DAVID THORPE / 13 OCTOBER 2020
The UK government has for 15 years persistently backed the need for new nuclear power. Given its many problems, most informed observers can’t understand why. The answer lies in its commitment to being a nuclear military force. Continue reading
Nuclear waste storage in Australia
Japan plans to dump a million tonnes of radioactive water into the Pacific. But Australia has nuclear waste problems, too The Conversation,October 23, 2020 Tilman Ruff. Associate Professor, Education and Learning Unit, Nossal Institute for Global Health, School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne, Margaret Beavis, Tutor Principles of Clinical Practice Melbourne Medical School .
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Nuclear waste storage in Australia This is what happens at our national nuclear facility at Lucas Heights in Sydney. The vast majority of Australia’s nuclear waste is stored on-site in a dedicated facility, managed by those with the best expertise, and monitored 24/7 by the Australian Federal Police. But the Australian government plans to change this. It wants to transport and temporarily store nuclear waste at a facility at Kimba, in regional South Australia, for an indeterminate period. We believe the Kimba plan involves unnecessary multiple handling, and shifts the nuclear waste problem onto future generations. The proposed storage facilities in Kimba are less safe than disposal, and this plan is well below world’s best practice. The infrastructure, staff and expertise to manage and monitor radioactive materials in Lucas Heights were developed over decades, with all the resources and emergency services of Australia’s largest city. These capacities cannot be quickly or easily replicated in the remote rural location of Kimba. What’s more, transporting the waste raises the risk of theft and accident. And in recent months, the CEO of regulator ARPANSA told a senate inquiry there is capacity to store nuclear waste at Lucas Heights for several more decades. This means there’s ample time to properly plan final disposal of the waste. The legislation before the Senate will deny interested parties the right to judicial review. The plan also disregards unanimous opposition by Barngarla Traditional Owners. The Conversation contacted Resources Minister Keith Pitt who insisted the Kimba site will consolidate waste from more than 100 places into a “safe, purpose-built, state-of-the-art facility”. He said a separate, permanent disposal facility will be established for intermediate level waste in a few decades’ time. Pitt said the government continues to seek involvement of Traditional Owners. He also said the Kimba community voted in favour of the plan. However, the voting process was criticised on a number of grounds, including that it excluded landowners living relatively close to the site, and entirely excluded Barngarla people. Kicking the can down the road Both Australia and Japan should look to nations such as Finland, which deals with nuclear waste more responsibly and has studied potential sites for decades. It plans to spend 3.5 billion euros (A$5.8 billion) on a deep geological disposal site.https://theconversation.com/japan-plans-to-dump-a-million-tonnes-of-radioactive-water-into-the-pacific-but-australia-has-nuclear-waste-problems-too-148337
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Freakishly warm weather delays development of Arctic sea ice
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Alarm as Arctic sea ice not yet freezing at latest date on record
Delayed freeze in Laptev Sea could have knock-on effects across polar region, scientists say, Guardian, jonathan Watts Global environment editor @jonathanwatts, Thu 22 Oct 2020 For the first time since records began, the main nursery of Arctic sea ice in Siberia has yet to start freezing in late October. The delayed annual freeze in the Laptev Sea has been caused by freakishly protracted warmth in northern Russia and the intrusion of Atlantic waters, say climate scientists who warn of possible knock-on effects across the polar region. Ocean temperatures in the area recently climbed to more than 5C above average, following a record breaking heatwave and the unusually early decline of last winter’s sea ice. The trapped heat takes a long time to dissipate into the atmosphere, even at this time of the year when the sun creeps above the horizon for little more than an hour or two each day. Graphs of sea-ice extent in the Laptev Sea, which usually show a healthy seasonal pulse, appear to have flat-lined. As a result, there is a record amount of open sea in the Arctic. “The lack of freeze-up so far this fall is unprecedented in the Siberian Arctic region,” said Zachary Labe, a postdoctoral researcher at Colorado State University. He says this is in line with the expected impact of human-driven climate change. 2020 is another year that is consistent with a rapidly changing Arctic. Without a systematic reduction in greenhouse gases, the likelihood of our first ‘ice-free’ summer will continue to increase by the mid-21st century,’ he wrote in an email to the Guardian. This year’s Siberian heatwave was made at least 600 times more likely by industrial and agricultural emissions, according to an earlier study. The warmer air temperature is not the only factor slowing the formation of ice. Climate change is also pushing more balmy Atlantic currents into the Arctic and breaking up the usual stratification between warm deep waters and the cool surface. This also makes it difficult for ice to form……… https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/22/alarm-as-arctic-sea-ice-not-yet-freezing-at-latest-date-on-record?CMP=twt_a-environment_b-gdneco&fbclid=IwAR1qZzerjnAanadMi942h7N8XdCf6Drz_-UIO5mECgAzvXqgiIYjuh6BETc |
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Global heating is bringing huge water stress to nuclear and coal-fired power stations
Climate change poses big water risks for nuclear, fossil-fueled plants, S and P Global, Esther Whieldon Taylor Kuykendall, 23 Oct 20,
Climate change-exacerbated water shortage issues pose a near-term and longer-term performance risk to power plants, such as hydropower and nuclear, around the world. And in the Lower 48, more than half of the fossil-fueled and nuclear fleet is located in areas forecast to face climate-related water stress by the end of this decade under a business-as-usual scenario, according to an analysis by S&P Global Market Intelligence.
But electric utilities’ overall exposure to power plant water stress risks could diminish as they pursue decarbonization strategies and replace water-dependent plants with wind and solar generation that require little to no water. Some companies are also implementing water management and related investment strategies to reduce their exposure. ……..
According to projections from the World Resources Institute’s Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas, water stress — when humanity’s competition for water exceeds the rate at which nature can replenish its stocks — could grow materially by 2030 in the drought-prone Western U.S., as well as the upper Midwest and portions of the Northeast and Florida, due to climate change.
About 61.8% of existing fossil-fueled and nuclear power plants in the Lower 48, or a combined 535 GW of operating capacity, is in areas that could face medium-high to extremely high water stress in 2030, based on an analysis of Market Intelligence’s power plant data paired with the Aqueduct water stress projections.
Moreover, 68.6% of the Lower 48’s natural gas-fired fleet, 73.3% of its oil-fueled fleet, 61.0% of its nuclear fleet, and 44.6% of its coal-fired fleet are in areas expected to face medium-high to extremely-high water stress that year.
“As we’re seeing snowpack decline — a natural mountainous reservoir of water — and as we’re getting lower amounts of total precipitation and available water in the U.S. West, this is going to be a really serious issue for the power sector,” said Betsy Otto, director of the Global Water Program at the World Resource Institute, or WRI. Moreover, scientists have said the West is entering a megadrought that could last more than 20 years.
Otto also noted that several other U.S. regions not normally thought of as facing water supply issues are already experiencing chronic water challenges that, if left unchecked, could become a problem if extended droughts, heatwaves, and other major extreme weather events should occur.
A number of utilities use WRI’s Aqueduct tool to assess their water risks in their annual reports to the CDP, formerly known as the Carbon Disclosure Project, and other organizations. But those reports typically focus on the WRI’s current water stress models and not the tool’s future climate projections.
WRI’s current water stress models show a number of regions that are facing water stress will be in the same situation, or worse, at the end of the decade.
Along those lines, Moody’s Investors Service in August reported that about 48 GW of nuclear capacity across the U.S. face elevated exposure to combined heat and water stress, including plants owned by Exelon Corp., Vistra Corp., Entergy Corp., and the Arizona Public Service Co.
In hot water
A plant’s location is not the only factor that will determine its vulnerability to water stress. A plant’s water source, cooling technology and the temperature of the water when it is withdrawn are also key factors, according to scientific reports. The Market Intelligence analysis using the WRI tool does not account for those three factors.
In addition, rising ambient air and water temperatures can also create operational and legal issues for plants. Because plants primarily use water to cool their systems, “if that water is hot or warmer to start with, that’s not so good. That makes the power plant less efficient” and it also means the plant risks violating federal restrictions on how hot water can be when it is discharged, said Auroop Ganguly, director of the Northeastern University College of Engineering Sustainability and Data Sciences Laboratory.
Ganguly co-authored a study that found that by the 2030s, climate-induced water stress in the form of increased water temperatures and limited freshwater supplies will hurt the power production of thermoelectric plants in the South, Southwest, West and West North Central regions of the U.S. According to the 2017 study, U.S. nuclear and fossil-fueled plants at that time used about 161 billion gallons per day, or 45% of the nation’s daily freshwater usage, 90% of which was for cooling.
The technologies used by a power plant can also make a big difference in how much water it needs. Dry-cooling technology uses very little water but is costlier and less efficient than alternatives. And while once-through cooling systems withdraw more water than recirculating systems, once-through cooling returns nearly all of the water to the source while recirculating systems consume more water due to evaporation………. https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/blog/street-talk-episode-69-banks-left-with-pockets-full-of-cash-and-few-places-to-go
Fossil fuels are ”very clean” – in Donald Trump’s world
Guardian 23rd Oct 2020, In Donald Trump’s world – laid bare during Thursday night’s finalpresidential debate with his Democratic rival Joe Biden in Nashville – fossil fuels are “very clean”, the US has the best air and water despite his administration’s extensive regulatory rollbacks, and thecountry can fix climate change by planting trees.
not exist. Humanity has just eight years to figure out how to get climate change under control before the future starts to look drastically worse – multiple-degree temperature increases, global sea-level rise, and increasingly disastrous wildfires, hurricanes, floods and droughts. Doing so will mean that unless there is a technological miracle, humans will at some point have to stop burning oil, gas and coal.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/23/joe-biden-transition-from-oil-industry-rowing-back
More on the presidential debate – about climate change
Independent 23rd Oct 2020 It has been around 20 years since a lengthy discussion on climate change featured in a presidential debate during which time a monumental shift has happened in how America views the crisis.
Two-thirds of Americans think that the US government should do more on climate change and moderator Kristen Welker asked both Donald Trump and Joe Biden how they would step up
on the issue during the final presidential debate on Thursday, with millions of Americans already taking to the polls ahead of election day on 3 November.
Calling it an “existential crisis”, Mr Biden sounded the alarm for the world to address global warming, as Mr Trump took credit for pulling the US out of the 2015 Paris Climate Accord, the international agreement aimed at doing precisely that. Mr Trump said his focus was saving
American jobs, while taking credit for some of the “cleanest air and water the nation has seen in generations” — partly down to regulations passed in the Obama era.
Independent 23rd Oct 2020, President Trump, who has repeatedly called climate change a “hoax”, said he planned for a “trillion trees” before touting America’s “clean air”, “clean water” and lower carbon emissions (all of which are, at best, misleading, as The Independent has reported).
The president then pivoted to an attack on clean energy, taking particular issue with windmills. “He thinks wind causes cancer. Windmills,” Mr Biden noted. “I know more about wind than you do,” Mr Trump replied, before going on to say windmills are extremely expensive, “kill all the birds” and “the fumes coming up, if you’re a believer in carbon emission … for these massive windmills is more than anything we’re talking about with natural gas which is very clean”.
BHP’s rejection of uranium is a sign of the future
Wire 21st Oct 2020, The news this week that mining giant BHP will not continue with its long planned multi-billion dollar expansion of its Olympic Dam uranium and copper project is a sign that the market is turning against the controversial mineral.
It spells good news for the future of renewables but leaves the problem of leftover radioactive waste at Olympic Dam. There is no decision to change tack and mine the many many rare earths which also exist at the site.
http://thewire.org.au/story/bhps-rejection-of-uranium-a-sign-of-the-future/
October 23 Energy News — geoharvey
Science and Technology: ¶ “SAE International Publishes Two New Documents Enabling Commercialization of Wireless Charging for Electric Vehicles” • SAE International announced publication of two documents to enable a safe and efficient method for transferring power from a charging station to an EV. Wireless charging is done through a magnetic field. [CleanTechnica] Charging pad (Courtesy […]
October 23 Energy News — geoharvey
Solar plus storage better than grid connection for remote households — RenewEconomy
Dozens of WA households taken off the grid and given stand alone solar and storage power systems, cutting costs and improving reliability. The post Solar plus storage better than grid connection for remote households appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Solar plus storage better than grid connection for remote households — RenewEconomy
Danish research shows “almost no birds” die in collisions with wind turbines — RenewEconomy
A multi-year scientific study in Denmark has concluded that birds are quite good at avoiding wind turbine blades, and so “almost no birds die in collisions.” The post Danish research shows “almost no birds” die in collisions with wind turbines appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Danish research shows “almost no birds” die in collisions with wind turbines — RenewEconomy
Solar Insiders Podcast: The day South Australia became 100% solar fuelled — RenewEconomy
We look at the day when South Australia reached a world-first peak of 100 per cent solar power, plus the latest rooftop solar PV forecasts, and Victoria opens up for solar business again. The post Solar Insiders Podcast: The day South Australia became 100% solar fuelled appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Solar Insiders Podcast: The day South Australia became 100% solar fuelled — RenewEconomy
1.This month
For international nuclear news go to https://nuclear-news.ne
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EVENTS
Celebrating the entry into force of the Nuclear Weapons Ban– follow this link to find events in Adelaide, Ballarat,Canberra, Fremantle, Alice Springs, Melbourne, Sydney and more.
NATIONAL EVENTS ONLINE:
NUCLEAR WEAPONS: BANNED
Join the Tom Uren Memorial Fund and Anthony Albanese MP
22nd of January at 6-7pm AEDT via zoom.
Register here.
The 22nd of January 2021 is the day the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons enters into force. From this day onwards, nuclear weapons will be illegal under international law.
Join the Tom Uren Memorial Fund to celebrate this historic day, honour the past and look ahead towards Australia’s ratification of the treaty.
Contact: Gem Romuld, 0421 955 066 / gem@icanw.org.
CELEBRATE A NUCLEAR WEAPONS FREE FUTURE
22nd of January at 9am AEST Brisbane / 10am AEDT Sydney via zoom.
Register here.
One-hour webinar hosted by WILPF, ICAN and others. Featuring former federal Senator for QLD Claire Moore, Ray Acheson (US, WILPF), Aunty Sue Coleman-Haseldine, Dimity Hawkins AM (ICAN co-founder), Bishop Philip Huggins (President of the National Council of Churches in Australia).
Submissions to the Senate Committee Inquiry into National Radioactive Management Amendment Bill. 2020. Go to our summaries of significant submissions, conveniently listed in alphabetical order at Kimba waste dump submissions or see all submissions listed at Read the Submissions
