Nuclear news – week to 14 December
The pandemic and the development of the vaccine have dominated the news this week. Also, the impending USA electoral college vote is holding media attention, along with the potentially violent movement to overthrow Joe Biden’s election win.
The U.N. Climate Change Action Summit drew attention both to the scale ofthe action needed, and to the efforts being made by different nations .
On the broad news, nuclear issues are in the background. For me, life has been busy, too. So this week’s notes are mercifully short.
AUSTRALIA
NUCLEAR.
Analysing Christopher Pyne’s article enthusing about proposed Kimba nuclear waste dump. Australia’s Liberal and National Parties got their arithmetic wrong on nuclear waste dump opinion polls. Michele Madigan sets former Minister Christopher Pyne straight on nuclear waste dump plan. Far from “broad community consent”– nuclear waste dump plan for Kimba South Australia..
Australian Government Productivity Commission Report fails to realise the complexity of environmental problems in uranium mining.
The end of the uranium mining era leaves Jabiru with some social and housing problems.
CLIMATE Australia is “rapidly” moving towards a hotter, drier climate.
INTERNATIONAL
Dr Helen Caldicott on the nuclear lessons of the past – time to take note of them.
Greenhouse gas emissions transforming the Arctic into ‘an entirely different climate’. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOV9QB4c4BA
Google headline news on “Nuclear” – articles are strongly pro nuclear, and for “Small Modular Reactors”, even more so.
Small Nuclear Reactors (SMRs) if they work, will arrive too late to make a difference to global heating.
Uranium Film Festival 2020 – a huge success under difficult circumstances.
Microwave Radiation ‘Most Plausible’ Cause Of Diplomats’ Ailments.
The end of the uranium mining era leaves Jabiru with some social and housing problems
NT mine closure has Jabiru community anxious about an uncertain future, and some are already leaving, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-13/nt-jabiru-housing-uncertainty-as-uranium-mine-end-nears/12975950, By Matt GarrickPacking her life away into boxes and preparing to shift out of her small Northern Territory town has had an emotional impact on Denise House — but it’s not the feeling she expected.
Key points:
- The Ranger uranium mine will cease operations on January 9
- Dozens of mining families are expected to leave town in coming months
- Future rental prices and the standard of the town’s housing remains “unknown”
“It’s funny because I don’t feel like I’m leaving yet, although we know we are. There’s a date, we’ve already got our flights booked and everything,” Ms House said.
“But I’m sure there will be tears.”
The House family is among an exodus of families preparing to up stumps and leave Jabiru — a mining town on the edge of Kakadu National Park with a population of just over 1,000 people — as mining operations officially cease on January 9, 2021.
The vision is for Jabiru to eventually be turned into an Indigenous-run tourism town and service hub.
The entity set up to help handle the transition, Jabiru Kabolkmakmen Limited (JKL), is among those conceding the town faces a huge challenge in the coming year. Continue reading
Don’t be led up the garden path on the nuclear road to nowhere
Nuclear power is the slowest and most expensive way to reduce carbon emissions, per kilowatt hour. Choosing new nuclear therefore impedes and supplants renewable energy development, which would save more carbon far sooner and faster and at a lower cost.
Beware the nuclear road to nowhere
By Linda Pentz Gunter
Dear people of Anglesey:
The announcement that a US consortium, consisting of American companies Bechtel, Southern Company and Westinghouse, could take over the Wylfa B nuclear power project in North Wales, may sound like a much-needed jobs panacea, but it is another cruel joke on the people of Anglesey.
Horizon/Hitachi’s legacy of broken promises, destroyed homes and landscapes, and a 100% failure to deliver the promised two-reactor Wylfa B project, is already a bitter pill. Inking a new nuclear deal with the American consortium would turn it into a poison one. Trust me, we know. We’ve already swallowed it.
Here in the US, the track record of Bechtel, Southern Company, Westinghouse and the AP1000 reactor design, now being proposed for Wylfa B, should send a dire warning to Wales. Continue reading
Pathway of the peacemakers
Walking the long road from law to justice with the Kings Bay Plowshares
By Paul Magno
For the past two-and-a-half years it has been my privilege to support the Kings Bay Plowshares. They are seven disarmament activists who entered the Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base in Georgia by night on April 4, 2018 — the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s martyrdom — to confront the Trident nuclear weapon system and engage in an act of disarmament. The seven poured human blood on signs and missile models, unfurled peace banners and used household tools to begin symbolic disarmament of Trident, a submarine based first strike nuclear missile, termed by the Navy as a “strategic” weapon.
The seven have subsequently been charged and convicted in a jury trial of three felonies and a misdemeanor in federal court. All but one have been sentenced, to date, by Federal Judge Lisa Godbey Wood…
View original post 1,563 more words
Western Power seeks another 50MW of battery storage for WA’s main grid — RenewEconomy
Western Power seeks another 50MW of battery storage to avoid network costs and boost penetration of renewables in WA’s main grid. The post Western Power seeks another 50MW of battery storage for WA’s main grid appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Western Power seeks another 50MW of battery storage for WA’s main grid — RenewEconomy
December 13 Energy News — geoharvey
Opinion: ¶ “Rising To The Challenge Five Years After The Paris Climate Agreement’” • A new report produced by the UN Environment Program – the Emissions Gap Report 2020 and the Production Gap Report – highlights the urgency of the task ahead. We know how to deliver a safer climate trajectory right now, but major […]
December 13 Energy News — geoharvey
Antinuclear 