Traditional Owners and environment groups vow to fight Mulga Rock uranium decision
Traditional Owners and national and state environment groups say a decision
by the Department of Water and Environmental Regulation to allow a
controversial uranium mine in WA’s Goldfields to proceed is unjustified and
inconsistent with the evidence.
The Mulga Rock uranium project has been declared to have met an important
‘substantial commencement’ condition that is required to maintain crucial
environmental approvals.
A condition of the Mulga Rock approvals – issued by the former Barnett government
– was that the proponent, Vimy Resources, must “substantially commence” mining
by 16 December 2021. Failure to meet that condition would have prevented the
company from pursuing the mine.
The company has failed to meet with the Upurli Upurli Nguratja registered Native
Title claim group, which is entitled to negotiate on an Area Use Agreement.
The company has continually failed to engage with and respect Traditional Owners
or understand processes and protocols on meeting with the claimant group.
Campaigners say to advance the project without consulting with the group is
disrespectful and out of step with community expectation and best industry practice.
“It’s very clear that as a native title group we don’t want uranium mining on our
country,” said Upurli Upurli Nguratja claimant Debbie Carmody. “This decision has
sidelined our voice and undermined the Native Title process”.
“Any progress to continue to develop this mine is done without consent and without
even having met with our claim group. We have been let down by the company and
now by the Government.
“We will continue to fight this project and stand up for our country and culture.”
Conservation Council of WA (CCWA) Nuclear Free campaigner Mia Pepper said it
was fanciful to say the project has substantially commenced.
“We will continue to fight this project and stand up for our country and culture.”
Conservation Council of WA (CCWA) Nuclear Free campaigner Mia Pepper said it
was fanciful to say the project has substantially commenced.
The Australian Conservation Foundation’s Nuclear Free campaigner Dave Sweeney
said while the company had done some premature and destructive clearing at the
site, it was not substantial
“If this mine proceeds it would cause unacceptable harm to the environment,
including damage to vital habitat for the endangered sandhill dunnart, which is found
in only a handful of locations across Australia.
“Vimy does not have the necessary finance and has not made a Board level decision
to pursue this mine. It still needs a range of approvals, permits, licences and
agreements.”
The Conservation Council of WA and the Australian Conservation Foundation, which
have opposed uranium mining in WA for several decades, are reviewing today’s
decision and exploring all available avenues to stop this mine from proceeding.
Environmentalists and Traditional Owners very dissatisfied with Western Australia’s Environment Department ‘s ruling supporting uranium project.
Green groups angry over uranium project milestone, Stuart McKinnonThe West Australian, 16 Dec 21,
Environmentalists are livid after Vimy Resources was deemed to have met a key milestone in its approvals process that allows it to pursue the development of its Mulga Rock uranium project.
The Department of Water and Environmental Regulation has ruled that the company has begun “substantial commencement” of the project 290km east of Kalgoorlie, an essential component of its approval five years ago.
The former Barnett Government approved the controversial project on December 16, 2016, but ordered that Vimy must have substantially commenced work within five years.
The company had submitted to the DWER that substantial works had begun last month based on the recent clearing of about 143ha, expenditure of more than $20 million over the past five years and a further $8m to be spent on early works before the end of January.
But green groups and Traditional Owners say the decision to allow the project to proceed is unjustified and inconsistent with the evidence.
A statement released jointly by the Upurli Upurli Nguratja claimants and the WA Conservation Council argued the company had failed to meet with the registered Native Title claim group, which is entitled to negotiate a land use agreement.
They say to advance the project without consulting with the group is disrespectful and out of step with community expectation and best industry practice.
Vimy’s works to date have been a clumsy last-minute attempt to hold on to controversial environmental approvals for a toxic commodity that has no social licence.
Upurli Upurli Nguratja claimant Debbie Carmody said the decision had sidelined the group’s voice and undermined the Native Title process.
“We will continue to fight this project and stand up for our country and culture,” she said.
CCWA Nuclear Free campaigner Mia Pepper said it was fanciful to say the project had substantially commenced.
“Vimy’s works to date have been a clumsy last-minute attempt to hold on to controversial environmental approvals for a toxic commodity that has no social licence,” she said.
Ms Pepper said the clearance work completed to date represented just 4.27 per cent of the intended clearing and the company’s expenditure represented just 2.2 per cent of the total estimated capital costs.
The Australian Conservation Foundation’s Nuclear Free campaigner Dave Sweeney said the mine would cause unacceptable harm to the environment, including damage to vital habitat for the endangered sandhill dunnart, which is found in only a handful of locations across Australia.
The CCWA and the ACF, which have opposed uranium mining in WA for decades, said they were reviewing today’s decision and exploring all avenues to stop the mine from proceeding.
Vimy executive director Steven Michael said the confirmation of substantial commencement was testament to careful planning and executive by the company and was consistent with the Mulga Rock Project Implementation Plan.
“Vimy can now advance Mulga Rock to the next stage of development and will continue to work closely with State and Federal departments to secure the remaining approvals required to bring the project into production by 2025,” he said.
However Vimy is yet to make a final investment decision or nail down a funding solution for the $US255m ($355m) project.
Its shares closed up 1.5c, or 8 per cent, at 20.5c on Thursday.
Why Nuclear Power Is Bad for Your Wallet and the Climate
Fashionably rebranded “Small Modular” or “Advanced” reactors can’t change the outcome. Their smaller units cost less but output falls even more, so SMRs save money only in the sense in which a smaller helping of foie gras helps you lose weight.
They’ll initially at least double existing reactors’ cost per kWh; that cost is ~3–13x renewables’ (let alone efficiency’s); and renewables’ costs will halve again before SMRs can scale. Do the math: 2 x (3 to 13) x 2 = 12–52-fold. Mass production can’t bridge that huge cost gap—nor could SMRs scale before renewables have decarbonized the US grid.
Even free reactors couldn’t compete: their non-nuclear parts cost too much. Small Modular Renewables are decades ahead in exploiting mass-production economies; nuclear can never catch up. It’s not just too little, too late: nuclear hogs market space, jams grid capacity, and diverts investments that more-climate-effective carbon-free competitors then can’t contest.
Why Nuclear Power Is Bad for Your Wallet and the Climate, https://news.bloomberglaw.com/environment-and-energy/why-nuclear-power-is-bad-for-your-wallet-and-the-climate, 17 Dec 21, Amory B. Lovins, Stanford University
As Congress and the Department of Energy pile new subsidies on nuclear power and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission seeks to gut its regulation, its marginal output additions have shrunk below 0.5% of the world market, says physicist Amory B. Lovins, adjunct professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University. He explains why nuclear energy is not the answer to climate change, but actually worsens it due to climate opportunity cost.
Does climate protection need more nuclear power? No—just the opposite. Saving the most carbon per dollar and per year requires not just generators that burn no fossil fuel, but also those deployable with the least cost and time. Those aren’t nuclear.
Making 10% of world and 20% of U.S. commercial electricity, nuclear power is historically significant but now stagnant. In 2020, its global capacity additions minus retirements totaled only 0.4 GW (billion watts). Renewables in contrast added 278.3 GW—782x more capacity—able to produce about 232x more annual electricity (based on U.S. 2020 performance by technology). Renewables swelled supply and displaced carbon as much every 38 hours as nuclear did all year. As of early December, 2021’s score looks like nuclear –3 GW, renewables +290 GW. Game over.
The world already invests annually $0.3 trillion each, mostly voluntary private capital, in energy efficiency and renewables, but about $0.015–0.03 trillion, or 20–40x less, in nuclear—mostly conscripted, because investors got burned. Of 259 US power reactors ordered (1955–2016), only 112 got built and 93 remain operable; by mid-2017, just 28 stayed competitive and suffered no year-plus outage. In the oil business, that’s called an 89% dry-hole risk.
Renewables provided all global electricity growth in 2020. Nuclear power struggles to sustain its miniscule marginal share as its vendors, culture, and prospects shrivel. World reactors average 31 years old, in the U.S., 41. Within a few years, old and uneconomic reactors’ retirements will consistently eclipse additions, tipping output into permanent decline. World nuclear capacity already fell in five of the past 12 years for a 2% net drop. Performance has become erratic: the average French reactor in 2020 produced nothing one-third of the time.
China accounts for most current and projected nuclear growth. Yet China’s 2020 renewable investments about matched its cumulative 2008–20 nuclear investments. Together, in 2020 in China, sun and wind generated twice nuclear’s output, adding 60x more capacity and 6x more output at 2–3 times lower forward cost per kWh. Sun and wind are now the cheapest bulk power source for over 91% of world electricity
Nuclear Power Has No Business Case
Nuclear power has bleak prospects because it has no business case. New plants cost 3–8x or 5–13x more per kWh than unsubsidized new solar or windpower, so new nuclear power produces 3–13x fewer kWh per dollar and therefore displaces 3–13x less carbon per dollar than new renewables. Thus buying nuclear makes climate change worse. End-use efficiency is even cheaper than renewables, hence even more climate-effective. Arithmetic is not an opinion.
Unsubsidized efficiency or renewables even beat most existing reactors’ operating cost, so a dozen have closed over the past decade. Congress is trying to rescue the others with a $6 billion lifeline and durable, generous new operating subsidies to replace or augment state largesse—adding to existing federal subsidies that rival or exceed nuclear construction costs.
But no business case means no climate case. Propping up obsolete assets so they don’t exit the market blocks more climate-effective replacements—efficiency and renewables that save even more carbon per dollar. Supporters of new subsidies for the sake of the climate just got played.
Continue readingNuclear Energy Cannot Meaningfully Contribute to a Climate-Neutral Energy System
Nuclear Energy Cannot Meaningfully Contribute to a Climate-Neutral Energy System https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/12/16/nuclear-energy-cannot-meaningfully-contribute-to-a-climate-neutral-energy-system/, BY SCIENTISTS FOR THE FUTURE 16 Dec 21, In light of the accelerating climate crisis, nuclear energy and its place in the future energy mix is being debated once again. Currently its share of global electricity generation is about 10 percent. Some countries, international organizations, private businesses and scientists accord nuclear energy some kind of role in the pursuit of climate neutrality and in ending the era of fossil fuels. The IPCC, too, includes nuclear energy in its scenarios.
On the other hand, the experience with commercial nuclear energy generation acquired over the past seven decades points to the significant technical, economic, and social risks involved. This paper reviews arguments in the areas of “technology and risks,” “economic viability,” ’timely availability,” and “compatibility with social-ecological transformation processes.”
Technology and risks:
Catastrophes involving the release of radioactive material are always a real possibility, as illustrated by the major accidents in Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima. Also, since 1945, countless accidents have occurred wherever nuclear energy has been deployed. No significantly higher reliability is to be expected from the SMRs (“small modular reactors”) that are currently at the planning stage. Even modern mathematical techniques, such as probabilistic security analyses (PSAs), do not adequately reflect important factors, such as deficient security arrangements or rare natural disasters and thereby systematically underestimate the risks.
Moreover, there is the ever-present proliferation risk of weapon-grade, highly enriched uranium, and plutonium. Most spent fuel rods are stored in scarcely protected surface containers or other interim solutions, often outside proper containment structures. The safe storage of highly radioactive material, owing to a half-life of individual isotopes of over a million years, must be guaranteed for eons. Even if the risks involved for future generations cannot be authoritatively determined today, heavy burdens are undoubtedly externalized to the future.
Nuclear energy and economic efficiency: The commercial use of nuclear energy was, in the 1950s, the by-product of military programmes. Not then, and not since, has nuclear energy been a competitive energy source. Even the continued use of existing plants is not economical, while investments into third generation reactors are projected to require subsidies to the tune of billions of $ or €. The experience with the development of SMR concepts suggests that these are prone to lead to even higher electricity costs.
Lastly, there are the considerable, currently largely unknown costs involved in dismantling nuclear power plants and in the safe storage of radioactive waste. Detailed analyses confirm that meeting ambitious climate goals (i. e. global heating of between 1.5° and below 2° Celsius) is well possible with renewables which, if system costs are considered, are also considerably cheaper than nuclear energy. Given, too, that nuclear power plants are not commercially insurable, the risks inherent in their operation must be borne by society at large. The currently hyped SMRs and the so-called Generation IV concepts (not light-water cooled) are technologically immature and far from commercially viable.
Timely availability: Given the stagnating or – with the exception of China – slowing pace of nuclear power plant construction, and considering furthermore the limited innovation potential as well as the timeframe of two decades for planning and construction, nuclear power is not a viable tool to mitigate global heating. Since 1976, the number of nuclear power plants construction starts is declining. Currently, only 52 nuclear power plants are being built. Very few countries are pursuing respective plans. Traditional nuclear producers, such as Westinghouse (USA) and Framatome (France) are in dire straits financially and are not able to launch a significant number of new construction projects in the coming decade. It can be doubted whether Russia or China have the capacity to meet a hypothetically surging demand for nuclear energy but, in any event, relying on them would be neither safe nor geopolitically desirable.
Nuclear energy in the social-ecological transformation: The ultimate challenge of the great transformation, i. e. kicking off the socio-ecological reforms that will lead to a broadly supported, viable, climate-neutral energy system, lies in overcoming the drag (“lock-in”) of the old system that is dominated by fossil fuel interests. Yet, make no mistake, nuclear energy is of no use to support this process. In fact, it blocks it. The massive R&D investment required for a dead-end technology crowds out the development of sustainable technologies, such as those in the areas of renewables, energy storage and efficiency.
Nuclear energy producers, given the competitive environment they operate in, are incentivized to prevent – or minimize – investments in renewables. For obvious technical as well as economic reasons, nuclear hydrogen – the often-proclaimed deus ex machina – cannot enhance the viability of nuclear power plants. Japan is an exhibit A of transformation resistance. In Germany the end of the atomic era proceeds, and the last six nuclear power stations will be switched off in 2021 and 2022, but further steps are still needed, most importantly the search for a safe storage facility for radioactive waste.
By way of conclusion: The present analysis reviews a whole range of arguments based on the most recent and authoritative scientific literature. It confirms the assessment of the paper Climate-friendly energy supply for Germany – 16 points of orientation, published on 22 April 2021 by Scientists for Future (doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4409334) that nuclear energy cannot, in the short time remaining before the climate tips, meaningfully contribute to a climate-neutral energy system. Nuclear energy is too dangerous, too expensive, and too sluggishly deployable to play a significant role in mitigating the climate crisis. In addition, nuclear energy is an obstacle to achieving the social-ecological transformation, without which ambitious climate goals are elusive.
This article is the English language summary of the findings of the German report by Scientists for Future (S4F) International.
‘Catastrophic’: Warning as Australia scorched
‘Catastrophic’: Warning as Australia scorched
Australia has been warned of “catastrophic” fire danger as multiple states brace for a heatwave after weeks of wet weather.
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CSIRO GenCost: Wind and solar still reign supreme as cheapest energy sources — RenewEconomy
PepsiCo Australia goes 100 per cent renewable with PPAs and rooftop solar — RenewEconomy
Solar powered Twisties: Australian arm of food and beverage giant meets early 100% renewables mark with mix of power purchase agreements. The post PepsiCo Australia goes 100 per cent renewable with PPAs and rooftop solar appeared first on RenewEconomy.
PepsiCo Australia goes 100 per cent renewable with PPAs and rooftop solar — RenewEconomy
December 17 Energy News — geoharvey
Opinion: ¶ “2021 Brought Promise For Clean Air” • Though unwinding four years of Trump polluter giveaways is time consuming, we at the Natural Resources Defense Council hope for quick action from the EPA in 2022 that will bring with it cleaner air for all. Here’s what happened in the world of clean air this […]
December 17 Energy News — geoharvey
Antinuclear 