Indonesia ratifies nuclear weapons ban treaty. Australia should too.
MARIANNE HANSON, https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/indonesia-ratifies-nuclear-weapons-ban-treaty-australia-should-too
Why does the government remain at odds with the vast majority of its neighbours?
Indonesia’s parliament last month agreed to ratify the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). This is an important political development, and it deserves attention – across the region and in Australia. The approval of ratification was done very symbolically, just ahead of the second meeting of States Parties of the TPNW at the United Nations, held last week. The meeting at UN headquarters in New York was attended by most of the TPNW’s 69 parties, as well as by representatives from 35 non-parties, including Australia as well as NATO members Belgium, Norway and Germany.
Indonesia will soon deposit its instrument of ratification at the UN, formally becoming a state party. By ratifying the TPNW, Indonesia is making it clear that it rejects the most destructive of all weapons of mass destruction, nuclear weapons. That is good news. It’s a recognition that there are still around 12,500 nuclear weapons in existence, many of them vastly more destructive than the Hiroshima bomb, and a reminder that the world still lives under the very real – indeed growing – threat of complete annihilation.
Indonesia is a leading member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, a grouping which, decades ago, made its stance against nuclear weapons clear by creating the Southeast Asian Nuclear Weapon Free Zone (SEANWFZ). Nine of the ten ASEAN members have signed or ratified the TPNW (as has ASEAN observer Timor-Leste), but Indonesia’s ratification is especially important because it signals a clear commitment by one of the world’s largest states to work towards the global elimination of these inhumane weapons.
Indonesia is also a founding member of the 120 nation Non-Aligned Movement, a grouping which marshals considerable collective diplomatic clout on the international stage. For the great majority of non-aligned states, nuclear weapons are seen not just as weapons of horrific destruction, but also as instruments of continuing domination and exploitation. Many formerly colonised states are asking the large and powerful countries to listen to them and to consider their security preferences. They have a point: nuclear weapon states effectively hold the entire world to ransom.
Indonesia’s ratification should make Australians ask why its government remains at odds with the vast majority of its neighbours. Most of the South Pacific states, Southeast Asia, and New Zealand clearly oppose the threat of nuclear weapons. The TPNW makes these inhumane weapons illegal, as other treaties do for biological and chemical weapons, landmines, and cluster munitions.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has supported the TPNW, stating that “nuclear weapons are the most destructive, inhumane, and indiscriminate weapons ever created”, and that “the struggle for nuclear disarmament is the most important struggle for the human race”. Labor’s national policy platform, repeated in August this year, commits Australia to signing and ratifying the TPNW. But the government is yet to do so, leaving Australia now out of step with its largest neighbour and the region more broadly.
The AUKUS arrangement with the US and the UK signals a faith in the old-fashioned militarism of the Anglosphere more than the promising dynamics and peaceful potential of the region. Indonesia, Malaysia, and other states expressed concern about Australia’s plan to acquire nuclear-powered submarines. Proceeding with AUKUS makes it even more important that Australia credibly reassure the world it has no intention of acquiring nuclear weapons. Signing the TPNW would make that commitment concrete.
Clearly there has been pressure from the United States on Canberra not to sign. But fears of endangering the ANZUS alliance are overblown; Washington will be displeased when Australia signs the TPNW, but Canberra can remain an invaluable (conventional weapons) partner for the United States in the Asia-Pacific region. Signing the TPNW does not void the ANZUS alliance, nor does it mean Australia cannot proceed with AUKUS, although this pact would have to be managed carefully.
Several US allies have already signed the TPNW and even some NATO states have explored the option of joining. Australia can take a principled stand. Nuclear weapons are immoral and threaten the existence of everyone, the environment and life on Earth.
And a closer alignment by Canberra with the views of Australia’s region will be important.
Indonesia has a population of around 280 million people and is a secular democratic country with a Muslim-majority population, the largest in the world. Its economic growth is strong, with predictions that it will be among the top five world economies within a few decades. It has a growing middle-class, with an overwhelmingly young population (a quarter are aged under 14). Indonesia is a vibrant and vital part of Australia’s local geography and will become an increasingly important trading partner. All this suggests that Canberra should be paying more attention to the security wishes of its near neighbours. By signing the TPNW, Australia will be on the right side of history and be more in sync with its region.
Indonesia and other Asia-Pacific neighbours are showing the way. It’s time to work towards a common future with them, not a future blighted by the danger of nuclear annihilation.
Radiation leaked from cancer treatment room at Monash Medical Centre in Melbourne, documents reveal
ABC By Danny Tran,8 Dec 23
- In short: Monash Medical Centre discovered a cancer treatment room did not have adequate shielding to prevent radiation exposure to staff
- It self-reported to the Victorian health department, which told the hospital it had provided misleading information about the thickness of the concrete slabs separating the building’s floors
- What’s next? A doctor has raised concerns about radiation risk to hospital staff, however the health department says radiation levels are too low to be of concern
……………………………………………………………………………………………more https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-12-08/monash-medical-centre-radiation-leak-cancer-treatment-room/103201728
Summary of the nuclear push at COP 28
As the FT <https://www.ft.com/content/bc486d67-8f92-46b3-9072-f0357d7f0336>
puts it, one thing is clear about COP28, the spotlight is on nuclear power
with an unprecedented amount of attention at this year’s gathering. Over 20
countries, including the US, UK, and United Arab Emirates, have signed a
declaration to triple nuclear capacity
<https://www.france24.com/en/environment/20231202-more-than-110-countries-join-cop28-deal-to-triple-renewable-energy-by-2030>
by 2050. Whether the world can deliver on these nuclear promises is
questionable — the sector is notorious for high construction costs and
lengthy project timelines, not to mention hazardous waste. The goal of
tripling the world’s nuclear output would require deploying an average of
40 gigawatts of nuclear power
<https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/nuclear/20-plus-countries-pledge-to-triple-the-worlds-nuclear-energy-by-2050>
every year through 2050, according to the World Nuclear Association.
Despite the hype, global nuclear power generation declined 4 per cent in
2022 to its lowest level in four decades, according to the new World
Nuclear Industry report <https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/>
.
Not a Penny Nor a Bullet Off the Table
Hundreds more civilians have been slaughtered since Blinken’s remarks. In other words, Israel ignored him. As long as it’s only talk, Israel can afford to.
So far not one bullet, nor one penny has been withheld from Netanyahu’s vicious regime
The U.S. vice president, secretary of state and defense secretary are using unusually blunt language against Israel’s massacres of Palestinians. But the money and weapons keep flowing, says Joe Lauria.
By Joe Lauria / Consortium News, December 8, 2023,,
more https://scheerpost.com/2023/12/08/not-a-penny-nor-a-bullet-off-the-table/
In the midst of an Old Testament-style genocide against the Palestinian people, there is a paraphrased line from the Book of Daniel that has come into full view for the Biden administration: “The writing is on the wall.”
Everywhere in the U.S. that prominent administration officials go, they are hearing it from a public increasingly alarmed about their complicity in genocide. It is not criticism they can easily ignore.
For one thing, if they have a shred of conscience left they cannot avoid seeing that Israel’s military campaign is “deliberately inflicting on the group [Gazans] conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part,” as the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines the supreme crime.
But even if their hearts are stones, political warnings are scratched on the wall in a fast-approaching presidential election in which increasing numbers of Democrats are affixing “genocide” to Biden’s first name.
Thus Biden, though not Biden himself, was spurred in the past few days to dispatch his top deputies to deliver the sternest message to Israel.
At the climate summit in Dubai on Saturday, Vice President Kamala Harris told a press conference: “The United States is unequivocal: International humanitarian law must be respected. Too many innocent Palestinians have been killed.”
On the same day Harris spoke, in what appears to have been coordinated by the White House, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a speech at the Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, CA, that, “I have repeatedly made clear to Israel’s leaders that protecting Palestinian civilians in Gaza is both a moral responsibility and strategic imperative.”
“In this kind of a fight, the center of gravity is the civilian population,” Austin said. “And if you drive them into the arms of the enemy, you replace a tactical victory with a strategic defeat.” Even then, Austin couched his remarks in military and not moral terms. Still the message was clear to Israel: Stop killing so many civilians.
Harris’s and Austin’s remarks followed by two days comments by Secretary of State Antony Blinken during his third jaunt to Jerusalem since Oct. 7.
After meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Blinken told the press:
“We discussed the details of Israel’s ongoing planning and I underscored the imperative for the United States that the massive loss of civilian life and displacement of the scale that we saw in northern Gaza not be repeated in the South. …
As I told the prime minister, intent matters, but so does the result. … Israel has one of the most sophisticated militaries in the world. It is capable of neutralising the threat posed by Hamas, while minimising harm to innocent men, women and children. …
That means taking more effective steps to protect the lives of civilians, including by clearly and precisely designating areas and places in southern and central Gaza, where they can be safe and out of the line of fire.”
Israel responded with some maps supposedly outlining safe areas for civilians to go to. But the bombing in the south of Gaza, where 1.8 million Gazans are displaced from the north, has been among the most intense in two months of Israeli attacks.
Hundreds more civilians have been slaughtered since Blinken’s remarks. In other words, Israel ignored him. As long as it’s only talk, Israel can afford to.
An unconfirmed report from Israel’s Channel 12 following Blinken’s meeting with Netanyahu said the secretary of state supposedly “linked American military support to certain conditions, including proof that the I.D.F. plans to take into consideration the civilian population in Gaza, reduce civilian evacuations from their homes to a minimum, and provide more safe areas for non-combatants.”
Leverage
On Monday, Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Biden ally, said according to the AP: “’The truth is that if asking nicely worked, we wouldn’t be in the position we are today,’ Sanders said in a floor speech. It was time for the United States to use its ‘substantial leverage’ with its ally, the Vermont senator said. ‘And we all know what that leverage is,’ he said, adding, ‘the blank-check approach must end.’”
Until such leverage is used — and Washington has let two months go by with more than 16,000 dead, 7,000 missing and 40,000 injured — these are mere words.
Such talk from these Biden officials and allies will not fool many people, except for fools, and will not scare Netanyahu.
So far not one bullet, nor one penny has been withheld from Netanyahu’s vicious regime.
This is Biden’s quandry: continue to support Israel’s genocide and see his poll numbers continue to plummet. The dilemma he must answer is: what would damage him more, sticking with Israel through its murderous campaign or risk the Israel Lobby’s consummate skill at destroying American politicians?
On Nov. 5, 2024, American voters will weigh Biden in the balance and, as Daniel told King Belshazzar, he may be found wanting.
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The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) at COP 28. – let’s call it what it really is – a nuclear marketing company.
IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi was at a COP28 event on 1 December 2023 in Dubai. He kicked off the nuke lobby push the IAEA Statement on Nuclear Power as a climate solution .
This slimy, silver-tongued propagandist is adept at couching the nuclear push in mealy-mouthed weasel words that are blandly acceptable to the public. The mantra will be “making use of all low-carbon energy sources”. The theme will be nuclear-not as the major star of climate action, but “part of the energy mix”, – and of course – requiring tax-payer funding.
You’ve got to hand it to Grossi – a master at deceptive language . He will cover himself, mouthing some concerns about proliferation, about the safety of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station, but his essential message is that nuclear is safe, clean, and deserves government funding. He minimises nuclear power’s history of accidents.
This UN agency wields huge influence internationally. It was set up – post the Hiroshima bombing, to make the nuclear industry look good.
At the climate summit The UK and USA governments eagerly jumped on the bandwagon, pushing for a tripling of nuclear power by 2050. Another 20 governments joined the push, but 179 other governments did not.
The sad reality is – that Mr Grossi and all these currently powerful politicians do not know how to cope with the obscene costs and horror of scrapping the world’s old toxic crumbling nuclear facilities . So forf thdem, their best option is to push on with the nuclear madness.
After all, they’ll soon retire on their fat superannuations, and leave the next generation with this horrible problem in a heated world.
A damning new report on the present and future of nuclear power
Nuclear who? https://www.pv-magazine.com/2023/12/06/nuclear-who/
Authors of the “World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2023” define the future role of nuclear energy in the global energy mix as “irrelevant” and “marginal.” The authors add that there were 407 operational reactors producing 365 GW in the middle of the year, which is less than installed capacity predictions for solar by the end of the year.
DECEMBER 6, 2023 ANGELA SKUJINS AND EMILIANO BELLINI
The “World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2023” overseen by French nuclear energy consultant Mycle Schneider shows that despite the significant global presence of the nuclear industry, which produced 2,545 TWh of energy last year, the sector is shrinking, with renewables looming large due to cheap costs and popularity.
Schneider told pv magazine that as costs between solar and nuclear continue to widen PV continues to come out on top.
“In the longer term, soft costs determine solar electricity prices and their key factor is the density of installations,” he said.
“This is no doubt the main reason why China was able to add over two-thirds of its gigantic 85 GW 2022 solar additions as decentralized, mainly rooftop, installations, systematically implementing programs through entire counties thus super high density of projects.”
Diverging LCOEs
Schneider said the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) for solar and wind projects is lower than nuclear. He cited 2022 data collected by US-based Lazard showing the LCOE for combined solar and wind can be $45–130/MWh which is well below nuclear’s estimated mean of $180/MWh.
Schneider said there has only been one nuclear reactor construction license awarded in the United States, given to the NuScale with Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS), but operations were terminated in November as the project “did not identify enough subscribers for the projected power output at the projected price.”
“Estimated construction costs, long before construction starts, as the design has not been certified yet by the safety authorities hit $20,000/kW, which is about twice the cost estimate of the most expensive European pressurized reactors (EPRs) in Europe,” he said.
Schneider said fourth-generation reactors, described as “PowerPoint Reactors”, would not be able to compete with renewables as they “hardly exist on the drawing board” and have not been certified by licensing authorities.
“How can we discuss potential competitiveness if there is no design, no existing fuel chain, no safety analysis?” he said. “However, these ideas are decades away from implementation at any scale if ever. Many of these conceptual ideas, like fast neutron reactors or molten salt reactors, have been talked about for decades. The probability that they will ever exist is shrinking with the widening cost gap of existing designs with renewables.”
New reactors
Schneider said renewable energy and nuclear energy will never be complementary energy sources. He used Olkiluoto-3, the first European enterprise resource planning project, as an example. The nuclear facility had “hardly” started commercial operations in April 2023 when its output was reduced in May due to unprofitable wholesale market energy prices. It could not compete with the flexibility of renewables, Schneider said.
“Increasing penetration of variable renewables like wind and solar need fine-tuned, flexible, complementary elements like demand-response, storage, efficiency, sufficiency, hydro, and biomass,” he said. “Nuclear power needs to run as many hours as possible to amortize the huge upfront investment.”
Schneider said wind and solar technologies work well together and can produce a large chunk of the energy grid’s base load. Not only this, he said, but they also “eat” into nuclear’s profitability. “There are many systemic characteristics that clearly illustrate that not only are renewables and nuclear not complementary but they are increasingly contradictory as renewables increase their share,” Schneider said.
What is in the “World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2023”
The report states that renewable technologies – consisting of solar, hydropower, and wind – are the main area of “optimism” for energy security. “Nuclear power remains, at best marginal and all too often irrelevant to the challenges ahead,” the document reads.
The report also states last year and this year were pivotal for examining and improving the international energy sector. Insecurities exposed by the Ukraine war and the climate emergency forced countries to develop new industrial and economic strategies to strengthen domestic supply chains and manufacturing.
As a result, solar’s total installed capacity at the end of 2022 reached 1,047 GW. The industry increased its annual production at an “unprecedented” speed, with an annual production of 1,309 TW/h. In more than a decade the LCOE for utility-scale solar projects has decreased by 83% but rose by 47% for nuclear, meaning that nuclear power is “the most expensive generator.”
“Aside from natural gas peaking plants at discount rates of less than 5.4 percent, nuclear turned out always the most expensive resource on an LCOE basis,” the analysts said. “The growth of renewable energy is now not only outcompeting nuclear power but is rapidly overtaking fossil fuels and has become the source of economic choice for new generation.”
Nuclear fleet
Global energy power generation for nuclear dropped by 4% last year, according to the report. This is despite a net addition of 4.3 GW in operating nuclear power capacity and four reactors being decommissioned.
As of the end of June, however, 58 new reactors were under construction, which is five more reactors than last year, the document states. The share of the nuclear global commercial gross electricity generation fell to 9%, which, according to the report authors, is the largest dip since 2012 – the year following the major Fukushima nuclear accident.
“At the end of 2022, the nominal net nuclear electricity generating capacity had peaked at 368 GW, two having added 5.3 GW during the year, 1 GW more than the previous 2006 record of 367 GW, but it dropped again to 364.9 GW by mid-2023,” the authors of the report stressed.
They also explained that at the end of June, 407 operational reactors in 32 countries produced 365 GW. This is less than the 413 GW of installed solar capacity expected to be reached by the end of 2023, according to forecasts provided by New York-based research firm BloombergNEF.
Construction time
Reactor construction times now average six years, which is a drop since last year, the report states. Despite the expedited process, however, other challenges loom, such as year-long delays, “lengthy” licensing procedures, complex financing negotiations and site preparations.
China is developing the most new nuclear facilities, clocking in 39 from 2012 to 2021. The country also deployed the only SMRs in 2023: the twin-High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor units, according to the report. But the authors write they were subject to a “historical pattern of cost escalations and time overruns,” meaning it will be “less likely” for SMRs to be commercialized in the future
“Despite optimistic numerical targets for expansion, the proposed role for nuclear power in a decarbonized world faces continued competitive pressures on both cost and technical capabilities,” according to the report.
“This includes the economics of operating reactors and the funding of new ones.”
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 