Senate again postpones discussion on contentious nuclear waste Bill.
Discussion of the contentious Bill to impose nuclear waste dump at Napandee, South Australia, has once again been postponed in the Australian Senate.
it might re-emerge next week (last Senate sitting for the year) or next year (Senate sits early February), or perhaps the government will reassess it’s approach … which would probably mean nominating the Kimba site using existing legislation
Australian government struggles to impose nuclear waste dump in small South Australian agricultural area
‘Need a resolution’: Government fights opposition to toxic waste dump plans, Brisbane Times, By Rob Harris, December 1, 2020 A likely Senate roadblock to establish a radioactive waste dump in regional South Australia could be used by the Morrison government as a trigger to go to an early election as it prepares to bring the issue to a vote in the coming days.
The contentious proposal would finally establish a low- and medium-level nuclear waste facility at Napandee, a farm on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula, after 40 years of public debate about the disposal of such materials………..
Kimba mayor Dean Johnson and community members met with Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese and Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Monday to stress the town wanted everything that came with the National Radioactive Waste Management Facility……..
The plan has been criticised by the traditional owners of the region, the Barngarla, who were not included in the vote because it was limited to those living in the Kimba Council area.
The group later challenged the ballot under the Racial Discrimination Act in the Federal Court but it was dismissed.
The Australian Conservation Foundation has also criticised the process, claiming it would lead to potentially dangerous waste management, including trucking radioactive waste from Lucas Heights in Sydney through regional communities and dumping it on South Australian farmland.
“This is actively opposed by many in the wider region, including the Barngarla Traditional Owners who have been consistently excluded from the consultation process,” veteran anti-nuclear campaigner Dave Sweeney said.
Labor will seek to amend the laws so that the minister responsible, Resources Minister Keith Pitt, can use existing powers to nominate any site under the current legislation. Labor says the changes would still give the local community access to a significant community fund on offer and would ensure the decision be subject to a judicial review………
A bill which is rejected twice by the Senate – with a period of at least three months between each attempt – hands the government the opportunity to dissolve both houses of parliament and head to an election ahead of schedule.https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/politics/federal/need-a-resolution-government-fights-opposition-to-toxic-waste-dump-plans-20201201-p56jhs.html
Australia joins with USA to get hypersonic missiles
 Australia Teams Up With U.S. To Get Hypersonic Missiles For Its Super Hornets In Five Years
Plans call for the rapid prototyping of a new air-breathing long-range missile for the Royal Australian Air Force. The Drive, THOMAS NEWDICK. NOVEMBER 30, 2020 Australia is gearing up to start testing a new air-launched hypersonic missile “within months.” Details of the joint U.S.-Australian program are still emerging but point to a multi-million-dollar effort to develop an air-breathing, long-range missile that could ultimately be carried by a range of Royal Australian Air Force aircraft. The new weapon is due to be formally announced tomorrow and prototypes are being developed together with the United States under the Southern Cross Integrated Flight Research Experiment, or SCIFiRE. Hypersonic weapons are generally understood to be capable of flying at least five times the speed of sound, giving them faster response time for striking critical targets and making them much harder to defend against than their slower counterparts
The new weapon is due to be formally announced tomorrow and prototypes are being developed together with the United States under the Southern Cross Integrated Flight Research Experiment, or SCIFiRE. Hypersonic weapons are generally understood to be capable of flying at least five times the speed of sound, giving them faster response time for striking critical targets and making them much harder to defend against than their slower counterparts……
While Australia has apparently struck a new deal with the United States regarding SCIFiRE in the last few days, this program dates back as long as 15 years. It has included joint research on hypersonic scramjets, rocket motors, sensors, and advanced manufacturing materials.
In the past, The War Zone has examined previous U.S. and Australian hypersonic experiments, including the Hypersonic International Flight Research Experimentation (HiFIRE) program, which you can read more about here. A U.S. Air Force contract announcement as long ago as 2008 indicated that one of the aims of the HiFIRE program was to gather information that could be “applicable to the design of next-generation high-speed strike weapons.”……..
While the initial focus of the SCIFiRE work seems to be firmly on an air-launched missile for the RAAF, Australia is also looking to develop hypersonic weapons for launch from the ground or from warships, and it’s possible that a family of weapons may eventually be developed for different launch platform applications. …….. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/37875/australia-teams-up-with-u-s-to-get-hypersonic-missiles-for-its-super-hornets-in-five-years
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Nuclear cleanup – a $billion here, a $billion there – pretty soon you’re talking real money
 US Nuclear Site Cleanup Underfunded By Up To $70 Billion, Clean Technica, December 1st, 2020 by Michael Barnard
Headlines out of the UK are pointing out the horrible state of affairs for nuclear generation decommissioning after a committee of Members of Parliament that the UK’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority really doesn’t have a handle on the 17 sites, their costs, or the vendors they selected for cleanup. They are currently projecting $177 billion and 120 years for the full decommissioning, over $1 billion per site. Some of this is due to botched procurement, with two different cleanup vendors stripped of their contracts. Certainly the UK cleanup is a fustercluck of epic proportions, equivalent in fiscal sense to building Hinkley. That new reactor, billions and years over budget and schedule, required a commitment for 35 years to pay $150/MWh for every MWh they generated, at a time when onshore wind and solar in the UK are at or under $50/MWh and offshore wind is under $100/MWh. Some US commenters were feeling chuffed, although that’s not a term they would use, that the US was handling things so much better. But the USA isn’t far behind the UK in problems, it just isn’t as public. Per the World Nuclear Association: In the USA, utilities are collecting 0.1 to 0.2 cents/kWh to fund decommissioning. They must then report regularly to the NRC on the status of their decommissioning funds. About two-thirds of the total estimated cost of decommissioning all US nuclear power reactors has already been collected, leaving a liability of about $9 billion to be covered over the remaining operating lives of about 100 reactors (on the basis of an average of $320 million per unit). NRC data for the end of 2018 indicated that there was a combined total of $64.7 billion held in the decommissioning trust funds covering the 119 operational and retired US nuclear power reactors. An OECD Nuclear Energy Agency survey published in 2016 reported US dollar (2013) costs in response to a wide survey. For US reactors the expected total decommissioning costs range from $544 to $821 million; for units over 1100 MWe the costs ranged from $0.46 to $0.73 million per MWe, for units half that size, costs ranged from $1.07 to $1.22 million per MWe. For Finland’s Loviisa (2 x 502 MWe) the estimate was €326 million. For a Swiss 1000 MWe PWR the detailed estimate amounts to CHF 663 million (€617 million). In Slovakia, a detailed case study showed a total cost of €1.14 billion to decommission Bohunice V1 (2 x 440 MWe) and dismantle it by 2025. [Brief aside: I love the World Nuclear Association, because they are actually honest and report details that contradict their mission. I cite them on Germany’s wholesale electricity prices, which they freely admit are among the lowest in Europe as that country ramps up renewables rapidly and dumps nuclear. They aren’t just a lobbying organization, although they are an industry-funded lobbying association. Unlike the equivalent oil and gas organizations, they seem compelled to be honest and complete, perhaps because being honest and complete usually isn’t so disgustingly horrific for them, just simply bad.] Back to the thread. The US has collected a bunch of money from operating reactors into a cleanup fund that they acknowledge is underfunded to the tune of billions already. But the industry estimates show that they are collecting under half of what it will actually take to decommission the sites. There are about 100 reactors in the United States. Assuming they collect the $320 million per reactor (they won’t, as reactors are closing prematurely), they would have a fund of $32 billion. But they need a fund of closer to $70 billion, and they are short regardless. So the US fleet cleanup is going to cost the taxpayer probably closer to an additional $40 billion, if it all goes according to the estimates. Note that the UK and Slovakia examples show that it usually doesn’t, just as building new nuclear never seems to come in on time or budget. The reality is going to be closer to the European and Slovakian costs, so let’s assume a billion per reactor as a reasonable number. The US will have maybe $30 billion. They’ll need $100 billion. Yeah, $70 billion is the more reasonable number. “A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you’re talking real money.” – US Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen Continue reading |
Trump’s Support for Israel’s Killing of Iranian Nuclear Scientist Could Lead to War
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Trump’s Support for Israel’s Killing of Iranian Scientist Could Lead to War, Marjorie Cohn, Truthout, December 1, 2020, In the weeks remaining before Joe Biden’s inauguration, Donald Trump is taking actions — including aiding and abetting murder — to prevent his successor from pursuing diplomacy with Iran.
On November 27, Israel assassinated Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, Iran’s top nuclear scientist. International law expert Richard Falk called it “an outrageous act of state terrorism.” Although the Israeli government has not claimed credit for the illegal killing, there is little doubt of its culpability. Trump implicitly praised the assassination, retweeting a comment by Israeli journalist and intelligence expert Yossi Melman that the killing was a “major psychological and professional blow” to Iran. This was an “implicit approval if there ever was one,” according to Sina Toossi, a senior research analyst at the National Iranian American Council. The Israel Defense Forces have been ordered to prepare for a possible U.S. military attack on Iran before Trump’s term ends, senior Israeli officials told Axios. They expect “a very sensitive period” leading up to Biden’s inauguration. In mid-November, Trump requested plans to attack Iran’s Natanz nuclear power facility but was reportedly talked out of it. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia and strategized about Iran. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Israel, the West Bank, the Golan Heights and several countries in the Gulf to discuss Iran. During Pompeo’s visit to the Gulf, the U.S. Central Command announced that B-52 strategic bombers carried out a “short-notice, long-range mission into the Middle East to deter aggression and reassure U.S. partners and allies.” And in an unusual move, the U.S. military sent the aircraft carrier the U.S.S. Nimitz back to the Gulf region following the assassination of Fakhrizadeh. “All options are on the table,” State Department officials who were traveling with Pompeo told reporters. Trump Appears to Have Outsourced His Iran Policy to IsraelIsraeli leaders think Iran poses an existential threat to Israel’s existence, in spite of the fact that Iran has never attacked Israel or any other country in the last 200 years. In fact, Israel is the only Middle East country that has nuclear weapons and it refuses to join the new UN International Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. At Netanyahu’s urging, Trump pulled the United States out of the Iran nuclear deal, which was preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons. And in January, the Trump administration illegally assassinated Iran’s top general, Qassim Suleimani. Shortly before that assassination, Pompeo followed the same pattern — traveling and meetings with U.S. allies in the region, according to Iranian American journalist Negar Mortazavi. The Iran nuclear agreement is embodied in the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), negotiated during the Obama administration between Iran, the U.S., France, U.K., Russia, China, Germany and the European Union. Iran, which has consistently maintained that its nuclear program is only intended for peaceful purposes, agreed to restrict its uranium enrichment and other nuclear activities. In return, it received relief from the punishing U.S. sanctions. The UN International Atomic Energy Agency certified several times that Iran was complying with its obligations under the agreement. Nevertheless, Trump withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018 and reimposed the sanctions against Iran. One year after the U.S. withdrawal, Iran began to pull back from its commitments under the JCPOA, which allows a party to abandon its obligations if another party is in noncompliance. Trump intensified the sanctions that have devastated Iran’s economy, impoverished 82 million Iranians and hindered its ability to respond to the pandemic. With his campaign of “maximum pressure” on Iran, Trump has waged economic warfare against the Iranian people…….. It is becoming clear that Trump aims to cater to Israel’s agenda until he leaves office. U.S. and Israel Try to Bait Iran to Retaliate and Lead to Middle East WarHopefully, Iran will resist the apparent U.S.-Israeli attempt to provoke it into retaliating for Fakhrizadeh’s assassination and thereby provide Trump with a pretext to launch a retaliatory strike, which would ignite a war in the Middle East. The U.S. military already has more than 40,000 troops in the region on high alert. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani pledged to respond to the assassination of Fakhrizadeh at the “proper time.” Rouhani said, “The Iranian nation is smarter than falling into the trap of the Zionists. They are thinking to create chaos.” The day after the assassination, Iran’s parliament unanimously voted to end future UN inspections of Iran’s nuclear sites. The inspections had confirmed that Iran was in compliance with the JCPOA. Terminating them could spell an end to the nuclear deal……. It is up to Congress, as well as civil society, to prevent the Biden administration from continuing the U.S. policy of caving to Israel’s demands — a practice that not only deepens the oppression of the Palestinians but could also actively imperil the national security of the United States. Meanwhile, we must pressure Congress to prevent Trump from attacking Iran. The consequences to the Middle East and the entire world would be catastrophic. https://truthout.org/articles/trumps-support-for-israels-killing-of-iranian-scientist-could-lead-to-war/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=1a5fde20-0879-45fe-9c19-50ff3b76e37e |
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Angus Taylor’s EV and transport plan will present false narrative on “choice” — RenewEconomy
The Australian government’s upcoming EV transport strategy will probably be more of the same: vague tech investments instead of real, consumer-focused change The post Angus Taylor’s EV and transport plan will present false narrative on “choice” appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Angus Taylor’s EV and transport plan will present false narrative on “choice” — RenewEconomy
Green hydrogen or green-wash? Industry-led scheme to guarantee origin of supply — RenewEconomy
Industry bodies seek scheme to guarantee provenance of green hydrogen produced in Australia and prevent “green-washing” in the booming new industry. The post Green hydrogen or green-wash? Industry-led scheme to guarantee origin of supply appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Green hydrogen or green-wash? Industry-led scheme to guarantee origin of supply — RenewEconomy
December 2 Energy News — geoharvey
Opinion: ¶ “When Climate Disaster Strikes, It’s Renewable Energy That Keeps The Lights On” • The lesson of the Fukushima Disaster is painfully obvious: Energy systems need to be resilient to disaster. And this is not just a lesson for Japan; it’s one the rest of the world is starting to learn as we face […]
December 2 Energy News — geoharvey
Victoria to trial “sophisticated” two-way market for home solar and storage — RenewEconomy
AusNet Services-led trial will see customer owned assets like rooftop solar compete in the same market as traditional power plants in north-eastern Victoria. The post Victoria to trial “sophisticated” two-way market for home solar and storage appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Victoria to trial “sophisticated” two-way market for home solar and storage — RenewEconomy
UK’s COP26 president piles new pressure on Morrison on zero carbon target — RenewEconomy
Incoming COP26 chief piles pressure on Morrison government to set zero carbon target, while praising Australian States and Territories for leading the way. The post UK’s COP26 president piles new pressure on Morrison on zero carbon target appeared first on RenewEconomy.
UK’s COP26 president piles new pressure on Morrison on zero carbon target — RenewEconomy
Aussie State Tasmania Declares itself 100% Renewable Energy —
Aussie State Tasmania Declares itself 100% Renewable Energy https://ift.tt/39zlxLA That time when greens once opposed wilderness destruction and dams. The Anti Frankin Dam protests in Tasmania led to the formation of the Tasmanian Green Party Guest essay by Eric Worrall 100% renewable, except when Tasmania’s politicians run down their hydro dams to critical low levels […]
Aussie State Tasmania Declares itself 100% Renewable Energy —
Hidden secrets that Angus Taylor tried to bury in Australia’s latest emissions data — RenewEconomy
A sugar hit of COVID-hit transport, growing renewables and suspicious revisions – all the hidden bits in Australia’s new emissions data The post Hidden secrets that Angus Taylor tried to bury in Australia’s latest emissions data appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Hidden secrets that Angus Taylor tried to bury in Australia’s latest emissions data — RenewEconomy
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 