Western Australian groups reject the aims of Nuclear Safety Bills 2023 [Provisions] and call for public hearing
Australian Naval Nuclear Power Safety Bill 2023 [Provisions] and Australian Naval Nuclear Power Safety (Transitional Provisions) Bill 2023 [Provisions] Submissions Close 1st February 2024 Please make a submission and call for a public hearing in WA*2
The proposed Bill would create the laws to regulate the nuclear safety aspects of the proposed nuclear-powered submarine enterprise. The Bill is about regulating certain activities relating to AUKUS submarines. It would establish a regulator, safety duties for people conducting the regulated activities and creates monitoring and compliance powers.
Stop AUKUS WA and NFWA are preparing a submission making the following points:
- We are opposed to AUKUS and reject the stated objectives of the Bill.
- The Bill includes wording “conventionally-armed nuclear powered submarines” in other arena’s the Government has indicated there is a “don’t ask don’t tell” or “neither confirm nor deny” policy on nuclear weapons. There must be an explicit prohibition of nuclear armed vessels and public scrutiny and reporting.
- The Bill is far reaching and broad,
- The Bill does not include regulatory requirements for visiting US and UK nuclear submarines which under AUKUS will be continuously present in Australia.
- There is no public accountability – there are no reporting requirements to the public, regulators are given immunity from public scrutiny and overrides the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) – which does face public scrutiny.
- The Bill is not consistent with our obligations under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty in that there is the potential for nuclear armed US and or UK vessels to be home ported in Australia
- Overrides local and state laws
- It does not apply to foreign military personnel
Perth nuclear waste storage facility planned for AUKUS submarines at HMAS Stirling on Garden Island
ABC, By Rebecca Trigger and Isabel Moussalli,18 Dec 2023
Low-level radioactive waste generated by nuclear-powered submarines stationed in Perth could be stored elsewhere, WA’s Premier says, despite new documents revealing plans for a local waste facility.
Key points:
- The ABC has revealed AUKUS nuclear waste will be stored at HMAS Stirling
- WA’s Premier believes it could still be sent elsewhere
- Experts say they aren’t overly concerned, but community perception may be negative
Federal government AUKUS briefing notes obtained by the ABC reveal details of a nuclear waste storage facility being planned as part of general infrastructure works at the HMAS Stirling defence base on Garden Island, south of Perth.
The notes, made public through a Freedom of Information application, say the radioactive material will at least be temporarily stored in WA from 2027.
But WA Premier Roger Cook said where the waste ultimately goes remained unclear.
“Around the issue of low-level radioactive waste, well obviously we have significant capability in that, particularly in South Australia, but that will be an issue that will be decided into the future,” he told reporters on Monday.
Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said any plans for a nuclear waste management facility in Western Australia wouldn’t be popular among the community.
“Australians are vehemently opposed to nuclear waste being stored in Australia, in particular international nuclear waste,” she said.
“We know the South Australian community have been very opposed to this for a long time, our cousins in WA are not going to look on this fondly, either.”
A South Australian government spokesperson said it would listen to advice on the best place to store the waste……………………………………..
he question of what to do with the nuclear waste is an ongoing debate, with a dedicated national agency to manage the subs only created in July………………………………….
However when nuclear-powered subs are decommissioned it will create intermediate and high-level waste that will need to be closely managed as it is weapons-grade material.
Federal government plans for a dump near the South Australian town of Kimba were scrapped earlier this year after traditional owners, the Barngarla people, mounted a Federal Court challenge.
Is there any cause for concern?
Griffith University emeritus professor Ian Lowe said low-level radioactive waste was usually relatively benign but communities have historically rejected proposals to store it in their region.
“We still have no system for managing our low-level radioactive waste let alone the much more intractable waste from nuclear submarines,” he said.
“I wouldn’t be particularly concerned about low-level waste, because if that’s under a couple of metres of earth the radiation at the surface isn’t much more than the background radiation to which we’re all exposed.
“What I would be worried about is that this might be the forerunner to a proposal to store the used reactors from nuclear submarines there, and that’s very nasty waste that I certainly would not want either in my backyard or within 20 kilometres of where I live.”
Professor Lowe, also a past president of the Australian Conservation Foundation, said once the most recent proposal to store low-level radioactive waste at Kimba in South Australia, the federal government then said it would be used to store intermediate-level waste.
“If I were in the environs of this proposal in Western Australia I’d be worried that the same thing might happen,” professor Lowe said……………………………………. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-12-18/aukus-submarine-nuclear-waste-disposal-in-perth-hmas-stirling/103242730
Military interests are pushing new nuclear power – and the UK government has finally admitted it
……………… the latest announcement, Civil Nuclear: Roadmap to 2050, - in this supposedly “civil” strategy – are multiple statements about addressing “civil and military nuclear ambitions” together to “identify opportunities to align the two across government”.
French president Emmanuel Macron summarises: “without civil nuclear power, no military nuclear power, without military nuclear, no civil nuclear”.
Andy Stirling Professor of Science & Technology Policy in the Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex, Philip JohnstoneResearch Fellow, SPRU, University of Sussex, January 19, 2024 https://theconversation.com/military-interests-are-pushing-new-nuclear-power-and-the-uk-government-has-finally-admitted-it-216118
The UK government has announced the “biggest expansion of the [nuclear] sector in 70 years”. This follows years of extraordinarily expensive support.
Why is this? Official assessments acknowledge nuclear performs poorly compared to alternatives. With renewables and storage significantly cheaper, climate goals are achieved faster, more affordably and reliably by diverse other means. The only new power station under construction is still not finished, running ten years late and many times over budget.
So again: why does this ailing technology enjoy such intense and persistent generosity?
…………………………………………………………………………….. A document published with the latest announcement, Civil Nuclear: Roadmap to 2050, is also more about affirming official support than substantively justifying it. More significant – in this supposedly “civil” strategy – are multiple statements about addressing “civil and military nuclear ambitions” together to “identify opportunities to align the two across government”.
These pressures are acknowledged by other states with nuclear weapons, but were until now treated like a secret in the UK: civil nuclear energy maintains the skills and supply chains needed for military nuclear programmes.
The military has consistently called for civil nuclear
Official UK energy policy documents fail substantively to justify nuclear power, but on the military side the picture is clear.
For instance, in 2006 then prime minister Tony Blair performed a U-turn to ignore his own white paper and pledge nuclear power would be “back with a vengeance”. Widely criticised for resting on a “secret” process, this followed a major three volume study by the military-linked RAND Corporation for the Ministry of Defence (MoD) effectively warning that the UK “industrial base” for design, manufacture and maintenance of nuclear submarines would become unaffordable if the country phased out civil nuclear power.
A 2007 report by an executive from submarine-makers BAE Systems called for these military costs to be “masked” behind civil programmes. A secret MoD report in 2014 (later released by freedom of information) showed starkly how declining nuclear power erodes military nuclear skills.
In repeated parliamentary hearings, academics, engineering organisations, research centres, industry bodies and trade unions urged continuing civil nuclear as a means to support military capabilities.
In 2017, submarine reactor manufacturer Rolls Royce even issued a dedicated report, marshalling the case for expensive “small modular reactors” to “relieve the Ministry of Defence of the burden of developing and retaining skills and capability”.
The government itself has remained coy about acknowledging this pressure to “mask” military costs behind civilian programmes. Yet the logic is clear in repeated emphasis on the supposedly self-evident imperative to “keep the nuclear option open” – as if this were an end in itself, no matter what the cost. Energy ministers are occasionally more candid, with one calling civil-military distinctions “artifical” and quietly saying: “I want to include the MoD more in everything we do”……………………………………………………………………………………..
This is even more evident in actions than words. For instance hundreds of millions of pounds have been prioritised for a nuclear innovation programme and a nuclear sector deal which is “committed to increasing the opportunities for transferability between civil and defense industries”.
An open secret
Despite all this, military pressures for nuclear power are not widely recognised in the UK. On the few occasions when it receives media attention, the link has been officially denied.
Other nuclear-armed states are also striving to maintain expensive military infrastructures (especially around submarine reactors) just when the civilian industry is obsolescing. This is true in the US, France, Russia and China.
Other countries tend to be more open about it, with the interdependence acknowledged at presidential level in the US for instance. French president Emmanuel Macron summarises: “without civil nuclear power, no military nuclear power, without military nuclear, no civil nuclear”.
This is largely why nuclear-armed France is pressing the European Union to support nuclear power. This is why non-nuclear-armed Germany has phased out the nuclear technologies it once lead the world in. This is why other nuclear-armed states are so disproportionately fixated by nuclear power.
These military pressures help explain why the UK is in denial about poor nuclear performance, yet so supportive of general nuclear skills. Powerful military interests – with characteristic secrecy and active PR – are driving this persistence.
Neglect of this picture makes it all the more disturbing. Outside defence budgets, off the public books and away from due scrutiny, expensive support is being lavished on a joint civil-military nuclear industrial base largely to help fund military needs. These concealed subsidies make nuclear submarines look affordable, but electricity and climate action more costly.
The conclusions are not self-evident. Some might argue military rationales justify excessive nuclear costs. But history teaches that policies are more likely to go awry if reasons are concealed. In the UK – where nuclear realities have been strongly officially denied – the issues are not just about energy, or climate, but democracy.
The Conversation asked the UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero to comment but did not receive a reply before the publication deadline. https://theconversation.com/military-interests-are-pushing-new-nuclear-power-and-the-uk-government-has-finally-admitted-it-216118
Weatherwatch: UK push for civil atomic power highlights link with nuclear weapons
Government previously denied evidence countries with nuclear weapons favour atomic power over renewables
Paul Brown, Fri 19 Jan 2024, https://www.theguardian.com/news/2024/jan/19/weatherwatch-uk-push-civil-atomic-power-highlights-link-nuclear-weapons
There is long running debate about whether nuclear power has a role in combatting the climate crisis. The UK government decided last week it was vital and is planning a vast expansion. Most environmental groups remain sceptical, preferring quicker and cheaper renewables.
Whatever the merits of the case there was, buried deep in the government’s nuclear roadmap, a complete somersault on the relationship between civil and military nuclear power. Back in the 1980s and 1990s when the Guardian carried reports from Sussex University’s Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU), among others, showing there was a link between the two, the government continuously denied it.
SPRU persevered with its work and noted that despite the UK’s denials, across the world it has become more obvious that states with nuclear weapons remain keen on atomic power while those without them put renewables centre stage.
Last week the government’s arguments in favour of new civil nuclear power swept aside any lingering doubt its predecessors had been covering up the link. The roadmap policy document mentioned 14 times in different sections the need to continue to strengthen the existing cooperation and tie-ups between the civil and military industries to the benefit of both. The logic is to keep to a minimum the training and development costs for both the weapons and power sectors.
The Greenland ice cap is losing an average of 30m tonnes of ice an hour due to the climate crisis.
The Greenland ice cap is losing an average of 30m tonnes of ice an hour
due to the climate crisis, a study has revealed, which is 20% more than was
previously thought. Some scientists are concerned that this additional
source of freshwater pouring into the north Atlantic might mean a collapse
of the ocean currents called the Atlantic meridional overturning
circulation (Amoc) is closer to being triggered, with severe consequences
for humanity. Major ice loss from Greenland as a result of global heating
has been recorded for decades. The techniques employed to date, such as
measuring the height of the ice sheet or its weight via gravity data, are
good at determining the losses that end up in the ocean and drive up sea
level. However, they cannot account for the retreat of glaciers that
already lie mostly below sea level in the narrow fjords around the island.
In the study, satellite photos were analysed by scientists to determine the
end position of Greenland’s many glaciers every month from 1985 to 2022.
This showed large and widespread shortening and in total amounted to a
trillion tonnes of lost ice.
Guardian 17th Jan 2024
How the Gaza War Can Be Big News and Invisible at the Same Time
coverage of the Gaza war by the New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times “showed a consistent bias against Palestinians.” Those highly influential papers “disproportionately emphasized Israeli deaths in the conflict” and “used emotive language to describe the killings of Israelis, but not Palestinians.”
what actually happens to people being terrorized, massacred, maimed and traumatized — has remained close to invisible for the U.S. public. Extensive surface coverage seems repetitious and increasingly normal, as death numbers keep rising and Gaza becomes a routine topic in news media.
By Norman Solomon, World BEYOND War, January 18, 2024, https://worldbeyondwar.org/how-the-gaza-war-can-be-big-news-and-invisible-at-the-same-time/—
Zen wisdom tells us that the finger pointing at the moon is not the moon. Yet it’s easy to fall into the illusion that when we see news about the Gaza war, we’re really seeing the war.
We are not.
What we do routinely see is reporting that’s as different from the actual war as a pointed finger is from the moon.
The media words and images reach us light years away from what it’s actually like to be in a war zone. The experience of consuming news from afar could hardly be more different. And beliefs or unconscious notions that media outlets convey war’s realities end up obscuring those realities all the more.
Inherent limitations on what journalism can convey are compounded by media biases. In-depth content analysis by The Intercept found that coverage of the Gaza war by the New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times “showed a consistent bias against Palestinians.” Those highly influential papers “disproportionately emphasized Israeli deaths in the conflict” and “used emotive language to describe the killings of Israelis, but not Palestinians.”
What is most profoundly important about war in Gaza — what actually happens to people being terrorized, massacred, maimed and traumatized — has remained close to invisible for the U.S. public. Extensive surface coverage seems repetitious and increasingly normal, as death numbers keep rising and Gaza becomes a routine topic in news media. And yet, what’s going on now in Gaza is “the most transparent genocide in human history.”
With enormous help from U.S. media and political power structures, the ongoing mass murder — by any other name — has become normalized, mainly reduced to standard buzz phrases, weaselly diplomat-speak and euphemistic rhetoric about the Gaza war. Which is exactly what the top leadership of Israel’s government wants.
Extraordinary determination to keep killing civilians and destroying what little is left of Palestinian infrastructure in Gaza has caused extremes of hunger, displacement, destruction of medical facilities, and expanding outbreaks of lethal diseases, all obviously calculated and sought by Israeli leaders. Thinly reported by U.S. media outlets while cravenly dodged by President Biden and the overwhelming majority of Congress, the calamity for 2.2 million Palestinian people worsens by the day.
“Gazans now make up 80 per cent of all people facing famine or catastrophic hunger worldwide, marking an unparalleled humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip amid Israel’s continued bombardment and siege,” the United Nations declared this week. The UN statement quoted experts who said: “Currently every single person in Gaza is hungry, a quarter of the population are starving and struggling to find food and drinkable water, and famine is imminent.”
Israel is waging a war toward extermination. But for the vast majority of Americans, no matter how much mainstream media they consume, the war that actually exists — in contrast to the war reporting by news outlets — remains virtually invisible.
Of course, Hamas’s Oct. 7 murderous attack on civilians and its taking of hostages should be unequivocally condemned as crimes against humanity. Such condemnation is fully appropriate, and easy in the United States.
“Deploring the crimes of others often gives us a nice warm feeling: we are good people, so different from those bad people,” Noam Chomsky has observed. “That is particularly true when there is nothing much we can do about the crimes of others, so that we can strike impressive poses without cost to ourselves. Looking at our own crimes is much harder, and for those willing to do it, often carries costs.”
With the U.S.-backed war on Gaza now in its fourth month, “looking at our own crimes” can lead to clearly depicting and challenging the role of the U.S. government in the ongoing huge crimes against humanity in Gaza. But such depicting and challenging is distinctly unpopular if not taboo in the halls of government power — even though, and especially because, the U.S. role of massively arming and supporting Israel is pivotal for the war.
“For the narcissist, everything that happens to them is a huge deal, while nothing that happens to you matters,” scholar Sophia McClennen wrote last week. “When that logic translates to geopolitics, the disproportionate damage only magnifies. This is why Israel is not held to any standards, while those who question that logic are told to shut up. And if they don’t shut up, they are punished or threatened.”
Further normalizing the slaughter are the actions and inaction of Congress. On Tuesday evening, only 11 senators voted to support a resolution that would have required the Biden administration to report on Israel’s human-rights record in the Gaza war. The sinking of that measure reflects just how depraved the executive and legislative branches are as enablers of Israel.
The horrors in Gaza are being propelled by the U.S. war machine. But you wouldn’t know it from the standard U.S. media, pointing to the moon and scarcely hinting at the utter coldness of its dark side.
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Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. He is the author of many books including War Made Easy. His latest book, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine, was published in 2023 by The New Press.
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