Antinuclear

Australian news, and some related international items

A lot of nuclear and related news this week

Some bits of good news –  27 New UK Tree Cities of the World.   How Stockholm Is Sprouting Healthy Trees From Concrete. Degraded Lands Transformed into Productive Farms: With Science, We Can Create Wonders. Once feared extinct, Australia’s most endangered marsupial has had a comeback

TOP STORIES .

 “Difficult-to-Return” zones. 

Jeffrey Sachs: Negotiating a Lasting Peace in Ukraine. Zelensky’s hostility to peace triggered White House meltdown. 

British journalists are celebrating the lack of opposition to war in parliament.

 Failure After Failure: Let’s Ditch Small Modular Reactors. 

We’ve failed to stop climate change — this is what we need to do next ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2025/03/09/1-a-weve-failed-to-stop-climate-change-this-is-what-we-need-to-do-next/

Climate. Earth’s strongest ocean current could slow down by 20% by 2050 in a high emissions future. Global Ocean Treaty two years on: Australia’s chance for international cooperation. 

Half of world’s CO2 emissions come from 36 fossil fuel firms, study shows. UK’s richest can boost climate action but need to cut outsized emissions – study. 

First Trump threatened to nuke hurricanes. Now he’s waging war on weather forecasters.

Noel’s notes. Does the Deep State really exist? And if so, is it being dismantled?

AUSTRALIA. Surface tension: could the promised Aukus nuclear submarines simply never be handed over to Australia?
   How US Military Bases in Australia Threaten Our Future & How to Remove Them., More Australian nuclear news at https://antinuclear.net/2025/03/05/australian-nuclear-news-headlines-week-to-11-march/

NUCLEAR ITEMS.

CLIMATE. Nuclear Power Is the Cuckoo in the Climate Policy Nest.Turbine, cooling: these unforeseen events that keep the Flamanville EPR at a standstill.
ECONOMICS. East Lindsey District Council wants to claim costs for nuclear waste site work.

EDUCATION. University of Suffolk co-opted by the nuclear industry..
EMPLOYMENT. EDF considers plans to revive ‘fish disco’ at Hinkley Point plant ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2025/03/06/3-b1-edf-considers-plans-to-revive-fish-disco-at-hinkley-point-plant/
ENERGY. Most Contaminated U.S. Nuclear Site Is Set to Be the Largest Solar Farm.
ENVIRONMENT. Air Force picks remote Pacific atoll as site for cargo rocket trials. Radioactive pollution is increasing at Britain’s nuclear bases. Fish disco plan revived to protect salmon from Hinkley Point C ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/?s=%E2%80%98Fish+disco%E2%80%99+plan+revived Has common sense finally prevailed at Hinkley Point C?
EVENTS. Uranium’s Poison Power in Leafy Cheshire –Remembering Fukushima.
INDIGENOUS ISSUES. Mi’kmaw Chiefs send stinging rebuke to Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston.
LEGAL. Fukushima victims angered, saddened by TEPCO acquittals. 9-year lawsuit fails to stop Ikata nuclear plant operationsSupreme Court steps into debate over where to store nuclear waste.Nuclear waste at Chalk River: opponents defeated in court – ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2025/03/08/1-b1-nuclear-waste-at-chalk-river-opponents-defeated-in-court/
OPPOSITION to NUCLEAR . Campaigners attend East Lindsey District Council meeting to call on Lincolnshire County Council to withdraw from Geological Disposal Facility process.
PERSONAL STORIES. Nuclear fallout: why Karina Lester is calling on Australia to sign the treaty banning atomic weapons.

POLITICS

POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY.

SAFETY.Ripping up the rules on nuclear power heightens the risk to us all.Cybersecurity in the Nuclear Industry: US and UK Regulation and the Sellafield Case .Is giving old reactors new life the future of nuclear energy?Continued Incidents Raise Concerns Over Nuclear Security, Says UN More than 145 Reports Added to IAEA Incident and Trafficking Database in 2024.
SECRETS and LIES. Israeli technician accused of offering country’s nuclear secrets to Iranian regime.
TECHNOLOGY. The SMR Gamble: Betting on Nuclear to Fuel the Data Center Boom.
URANIUM. Fearing toxic waste, Greenland ended uranium mining. Now, they could be forced to restart – or pay $11bn.
WASTES. American companies profit from Canada’s radioactive waste.Supreme Court wrestles with nation’s frustrating search for nuclear waste storage.East Lindsey overwhelmingly backs GDF withdrawal call to Lincolnshire County Council. Bank Head Estate residents attend public meeting over nuke dump blight. ‘Vote out!’: Protestors win motion at ELDC full council to urge county council to withdraw from  nuclear dump  talks.
WAR and CONFLICT. UN summit ‘delivers strongest condemnation yet’ of nuclear deterrence.

WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES.

March 10, 2025 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Britain’s nuclear submarines bill spirals by £5bn

The MoD blames inflation as the cost of replacing the UK’s at-sea deterrent hits £37bn

Szu Ping Chan Economics Editor. Matt Oliver Industry Editor

The cost of replacing the submarines carrying Britain’s nuclear deterrent
has ballooned by more than £5bn in just three years, according to official
documents. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has raised its estimate for the
lifetime cost of manufacturing and maintaining four new ballistic missile
submarines to £36.7bn as of March last year, up from an estimate of
£31.5bn in 2020-21. It is also £2.5bn more than projected in March 2023.

 Telegraph 9th March 2025, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/03/09/cost-for-britains-new-nuclear-submarines-spirals-by-5bn/

March 10, 2025 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Does the Deep State really exist, and if so, is it being dismantled?

March 9, 2025, https://theaimn.net/does-the-deep-state-really-exist-and-if-so-is-it-being-dismantled/

What is the Deep State? Does it really exist?

These questions are hard to answer. I had heard the term Deep State over many years, and I connected it with all sorts of conspiracies – not just about U.S. politics and intelligence systems, but with wild ideas about satanism, reptilian shapeshifters, the antichrist, child-trafficking, blood harvesting – and all connected with extreme right-wing and pro- Trump propaganda. So I just dismissed and ignored them – there was no such thing as the Deep State !

It is not that simple.

Indeed, it is very complex.

If you start delving, the term Deep State takes you back to Turkey, over 100 years ago, where the concept of a “shadow government” a “secret state within the state” was a real thing. In more modern times the Deep State is defined as:

“The deep state conspiracy theory in the United States is an American political conspiracy theory that posits the existence of the deep state, a clandestine network of members of the federal government (especially within the FBI and CIA). The theory argues that there exist networks of collaborators within the leadership of the high-level financial and industrial entities, which exercise power alongside or within the elected United States government” – Wikipedia

So, OK it’s still just a theory – a conspiracy theory pushed by Donald Trump’s supporters in order to discredit USA’s Biden Democrat administration? And various extreme religious and other wacky groups tacked the more sinister stuff onto it.

The trouble is, as with many problems, there is some truth in it. Over the decades since World War 2, successive U.S. Presidents have turned to secret discussions with unelected officials from the CIA in particular, but also from other agencies and business circles, relying on their advice to make decisions. The decisions were then pretty much rubber-stamped by a complacent and oblivious Congress.

The following (annoying advertisement-afflicted) video from early 2024, is unmistakably a propaganda piece for the Trump campaign. But it does contain some telling information. Even from its first example, we see that J.F. Kennedy, in the Cuban missile crisis, went not to his advisors, but to a social group of very secret members of the CIA to decide what to do. The development of the very powerful, very secretive CIA, in partnership with military leaders, rocket scientists from Germany, media and business leaders, produced an information network on which Presidents relied for decision-making. The CIA’s spying powers that were appropriate in war against the enemy are now directed also against the American public, even in peacetime. Huge well-funded resources went to secret activities that included misinformation and disinformation against civil rights and peace activists. Congress accepts these secret programmes in the name of security.

That video – however pro-Trump it might be, does not mention satanism, etc. If you separate that wacky stuff from the Deep State story – it is all remarkably convincing. To an American public, fed up with the secrecy, the endless expensive pointless wars – Vietnam, Iraq Afghanistan …, Donald Trump’s promise of change, and of dismantling the Deep State sounded attractive.

And hey – presto ! Trump is doing it! He’s sacking those unelected officials, thousands and thousands of them. He’s purging law enforcement and intelligence agencies, and plans to cut 70 percent of staff from various government agencies — freezing of billions of dollars in funding,

Ain’t that great!

Actually, no.

We might welcome the disruption of a Deep State system based on militarism, with the USA forever fomenting trouble overseas, and spending unknown $squillions on military gimmickry. A phrase springs to mind – “Throwing the baby out with the bath-water” . That’s a very corny metaphor. But what is really happening is this:

Trump’s aim is nothing to do with the “Deep State” . Trump’s goal and methodology was set out, detailed in Project 2025, the Center for Renewing America and the America First Policy Institute. The goal is the destruction of democracy – removing or rendering useless the laws, regulations, protocols and rules that prevent autocratic power. No more compromise, limited power, checks and balances and accountability. He made a good start in getting control over the Supreme Court

And I don’t know if everybody noticed two salient points in Trump’s “defeat of the Deep State”

  1. the power and unaccountable funding of the Pentagon will continue.
  2. Trump’s getting rid of “unelected officials” – but apparently taking orders from unelected Elon Musk.

The end goal is the dictatorship of Donald Trump. It would be funny if it were not so deadly serious. The first step – the “Trump’s Birthday and Flag Day Holiday Establishment Act” gives a clue as to what will follow.

The President Trump phenomenon will end eventually, for sure in chaos. Western World leadership is in the hands of a powerful, but unhinged , dictator, who is taking the advice of another powerful unelected unhinged billionaire, Elon Musk.

The whole process is far too much to pay for the destruction of the Deep State. Yes, it is welcome that the secretive decision-making by unelected officials and business leaders – taking the USA into endless wars – has been stopped. But its replacement is a terrifying fascism.

And at the end of it all, after the chaos, what will emerge? If we’re lucky enough to avoid catastrophes of global heating, and war, will we again get a government of men that are happy to have decisions made by macho men in bureaucracy and industry, who are itching for war – another Deep State in the name of “security”?

March 10, 2025 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

‘Sacrifice’: Four Corners looks at the Australian War Memorial’s weapons ties.

Tonight, ABC’s Four Corners, with Michelle Fahy as a researcher, investigates the War Memorial’s ties to weapons makers and its controversial transformation and expansion.

Undue Influence, Michelle Fahy Mar 10, 2025

This is an update on what’s been happening at Undue Influence.

As this newsletter shows, our detailed work last year on Australia’s weapons exports to Israel and the National Anti-Corruption Commission’s refusal to investigate the Robodebt referrals proved critical, given the mainstream media’s lack of interest in properly pursuing either of these issues.

Revolving door database update

You may recall that in August 2023 we announced that we had been successful in securing a grant to research and develop a database to highlight the extent of the revolving door between the government/military/public service and the weapons industry in Australia. We had expected to complete the project in 2024.

However, then came the shocking and deadly terror attacks led by Hamas on southern Israel on 7 October 2023. These were followed by the vastly disproportionate response from Israel against Palestinians in Gaza in what had already been termed a “plausible” genocide by the world’s highest court in January 2024. (Amnesty International has since concluded Israel is conducting a genocide. See Amnesty’s December 2024 report.)

The Israeli military has been using its F-35 fighter jets during its indiscriminate carpet bombing of Gaza. Every F-35 fighter jet built, including Israeli ones, contains Australian parts and components.

To our dismay, the Australian government developed and repeated for many months a simplistic, misleading sentence claiming that Australia was not sending weapons to Israel and had not done so for five years. The Australian mainstream media failed in its duty to scrutinise and expose this propaganda.

As a result, we decided we had to set aside the database project temporarily and dig out what facts we could about Australia’s weapons exports to Israel.

Weapons exports

We lodged a freedom of information request for weapons export approvals data for several Middle East countries, including Israel.

The Defence Department ignored our request that the data be supplied in the same format the department had been willing to use in previous years (showing munitions list and dual use export approvals separately). Instead, the department amalgamated the data into a single set of figures, obscuring the picture of recent weapons exports to Israel. The department neither acknowledged nor explained its refusal to meet the terms of our FOI request using the same format it had been happy to use previously.

We next researched and produced a list of Australian companies involved in the F-35 supply chain as part of a collaborative global project being coordinated by researchers in the UK (see it here).

Then we investigated the government’s misinformation about Australia’s arms exports – into the F-35 global supply chain in particular – in a series of ground-breaking articles. See here, here and here.

Our detailed reporting forced additional disclosures from the Defence Department during parliamentary hearings. It also forced senior government ministers into admitting – after months of stonewalling – that Australia was still supplying parts and components into the F-35 global supply chain, something that international law prohibits when there is a risk those exports would or could be used in serious human rights violations.

Both Deputy Prime Minister (and Defence Minister) Richard Marles and Foreign Minister Penny Wong attempted to gloss over this forced disclosure by describing Australia’s F-35 exports as “non-lethal”.

This was one of the lowest points in public commentary on weapons exports by senior members of the Australian government we have witnessed, particularly given the grave context.

National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) and Robodebt

The second half of last year was equally intense………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… We have so far published three articles on this subject. The investigation is continuing.

WATCH! Four Corners, 8:30pm tonight (Monday 10 March)

In the final months of what was an exceptionally full year, Michelle was invited to join the ABC’s Four Corners team as a researcher for a program reported by Mark Willacy and produced by Jonathan Miller.

The program, Sacrifice, investigates the Australian War Memorial’s ties to weapons makers and its controversial expansion and transformation.

** Watch the promo here. **

Revolving door database: where to next?

Our main priority for this first half of 2025 is to complete work on this, our largest investigative project to date…………………..

We are continuing with additional smaller investigative projects alongside the database project. We’ll keep in touch about developments with those.  https://undueinfluence.substack.com/p/sacrifice-four-corners-looks-at-the?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=297295&post_id=158694610&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

March 10, 2025 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Radioactive pollution is increasing at Britain’s nuclear submarine bases.

7 Mar 25 https://cnduk.org/radioactive-pollution-is-increasing-at-britains-nuclear-bases/

Radioactive air emissions have been increasing year-on-year at Coulport one of Britain’s nuclear submarine bases in Scotland. This development is of some concern as it would lead to increased health risks wherever the emissions were inhaled. 

Investigations by The Ferret and The National newspaper found that emissions of radioactive tritiated water vapour had doubled at the Royal Navy’s nuclear weapons storage depot at Coulport on Loch Long between 2018 and 2023. According to the Scottish Pollution Release Inventory, tritiated water vapour emissions at Coulport were 1.7 billion becquerels (units of radioactivity) in 2018, rising steadily to 4.2 billion units in 2023. Tritiated water vapour is  harmful when inhaled, ingested or absorbed through the skin as its radiation causes cancer and cardiovascular diseases including strokes.

The investigation also found that eight miles from Coulport at Faslane, where Britain’s nuclear submarines are based, tritiated water containing over 50 billion units of radioactivity had been dumped into the Gareloch. The level of dumping peaked in 2020, when 16.6 billion units were discharged. 

The Ferret noted that in 2019,  the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) “changed the rules to allow certain tritium-contaminated effluents from nuclear submarines at Faslane to be discharged into the Gareloch.” Both SEPA and the MoD claim these emissions are within official safety limits.

However Dr Ian Fairlie, CND’s science advisor, states that these limits are unreliable, as official estimated doses from tritium contain “large uncertainties.”

CND General Secretary Sophie Bolt said: 

“From faulty nuclear-armed subs on dangerously extended patrols to crumbling nuclear waste sites, Britain’s nuclear industry is putting us all at great risk. Instead of enforcing the highest levels of environmental standards, the government is just redefining what ‘acceptable risk’ means. All so it can allow the dumping of radioactive water, putting local people at greater risk of cancer. This is beyond reckless. It’s time to scrap Trident and its replacement, and decommission the nuclear industry.”

March 10, 2025 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

‘In Defence of Dissent’

Mapping the repression of protest rights in Australia and identifying strategies communities can use to protect them.

Our new report in collaboration with Grata Fund analyses key trends in the restriction of protest rights in Australia – corporate clampdown on opposition, criminalisation of peaceful protest, over-policing, government misuse of emergency powers and the use of notification systems as approval regimes for protests. Using data from legal observer organisation and independent media sources, the report provides a picture of protest repression around Australia between 2019-2024.

The report identifies litigation and legislative pathways to protecting the right to protest that can be used by protestors, advocates, community organisations and campaigners.

Read the report here

Email the report to your MP

1. Find your local State and Federal MP’s email using this tool: https://heymp.com.au/


2. Email your State and Federal MP and cc’ing in anastasia.radievska@australiandemocracy.org.a

3. If you don’t get a response and have capacity, please call your MP to follow up.

A report from Australian Democracy Network and Grata Fund has found that protest rights in Australia are being severely restricted through corporate clampdown on opposition, criminalisation of peaceful protest, over-policing, government misuse of emergency powers and the use of notification systems as approval regimes for protests.

Key findings include:

Imprisonment sentences for civil disobedience have increased ten-fold in the last five years, with nine activists engaged in civil disobedience have been sentenced to a combined total of 50 months imprisonment.

Police appear to be engaging in over-policing, particularly at protests by marginalised groups including protests carried out by First Nations communities and South West Asian and North African (SWANA) communities.

Communities peacefully engaging in protest have been increasingly subject to heavy-handed militarised policing, including more frequent deployment of dangerous police weapons such as OC spray (pepper spray), tear gas, batons, rubber bullets and flash-bang grenades.

The use of OC spray has increased in the last year, having been used at 11 protests in 2023-24, compared to seven in the five years prior.

People with physical disabilities and children are being seriously impacted by heavy-handed, militarised policing. For example, three incidents involved people with disabilities, with police removing a person from their wheelchair in one instance, and forcefully moving and damaging a wheelchair in another. Four involved children, including four children aged 16 and under being pepper sprayed and a child in a pram caught up in a police kettle, a controversial police tactic also known as containment or corralling.

Protest notification and pre-approval regimes are increasingly operating as de facto ‘authorisation’ systems, which runs counter to Australia’s democratic obligations under international law. The use of permit systems as de-facto authorisation regimes has had a particular influence on First Nations groups, with a First Nations group in the NT having been required to pay for their own traffic control in January 2024 as a precondition to obtaining authorisation from police to carry out protests when there are no recorded instances of other groups having to do so.

Sign the Declaration of our Right to Protest

March 9, 2025 Posted by | politics | Leave a comment

Nuclear fallout: why Karina Lester is calling on Australia to sign the treaty banning atomic weapons

The late Yami Lester was blinded due to fallout from British nuclear testing at Emu Field. His daughter Karina addressed the UN in New York this week.

 https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article/nuclear-fallout-why-karina-lester-is-calling-on-australia-to-sign-the-treaty-banning-atomic-weapons/su09vd95k  7 March 2025

In the 1950s the British Government conducted a series of nuclear weapons tests at Maralinga and Emu Fields in South Australia.

Yankunytjatjara-Anangu woman Karina Lester, whose father the late Yami Lester went blind due to effects from the tests, wants to ensure no-one forgets.

On Thursday she spoke at the United Nations in New York as part of an International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear weapons (ICAN) delegation at the Third Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

“Australia hasn’t signed and ratified the treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons,” Ms Lester told NITV from New York.

“It’s really important to voice our concerns, and in particular as victims or affected communities of the British nuclear testing, so as a second generation survivor.”

On October 15, 1953, the British Army, with the support of the Australian Menzies Government, detonated a 9 kiloton nuclear bomb, called Totem 1, at Emu Field, 480km north-west of Woomera in South Australia, without warning any of the Anangu communities living nearby.

“Totem 1 was the first mainland test in Australia. The radiation fallout drifted over Dad’s community, Walyatjatjara community, where Anangu and Yankunytjatjara people were living and working on their traditional lands none the wiser of what was being conducted under 160km south,” Karina said.

“But they did witness the black mist rolling over their traditional lands, and there was huge impact for our people.

“For Dad, four years after those tests, his world turned into complete darkness.

“People on that day became really ill. Many of the older, weaker generation passed.”

Karina says there were ripples that are still felt today, more than 70 years later.

“Because we had the fallout fall onto our environment, our trees, animals, our sand dunes, our grasses, our food that we eat as well.

“So it’s been a long, generational story for my family, where the onus is always on the victim to be continuing to speak about these things and to speak about nuclear injustice.”

As part of the Aukus security treaty between Australia, the United Kingdom and the US, Australia has signed up to acquire nuclear-powered attack submarines and will be responsible for radioactive waste generated through operations, maintenance and decommissioning.

“Us South Australians are very concerned because we often are pressured to be the nuclear waste dump of the nation,” Karina said.

“There’s been many struggles in that area where Indigenous peoples and Aboriginal people of South Australia have needed to fight against government pressure looking for a nuclear waste dump and nuclear powered submarines will produce this waste.”

Karina also has concerns about Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s plan for nuclear power.

“These power plants are on traditional lands of Indigenous peoples across our nation and while there are seven locations that have been identified, yet the Coalition has not come to address and talk to Aboriginal people of those communities,” she said.

“There’s a strong message coming from South Australia that we certainly do not want nuclear power in our state, when we have been struggling and fighting against nuclear mining, nuclear waste dumps and nuclear testing.”

The nuclear industry has impacts on Indigenous peoples across the world, Karina pointed out.

“In our very own state of South Australia, they mine uranium, they tested in the 50s and 60s, they put pressure on the Aboriginal community to be the waste dump of the nuclear waste that is produced by industry,” she said.

“And now coming up with a bright idea of nuclear power.

“Aboriginal voices of South Australia have been strong to say ‘no nuclear power plants in our state’.

“So our strong message is, ‘no, we don’t want nuclear power’.”

Karina is disappointed that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has not yet ratified the treaty against nuclear weapons.

“For us affected communities in very remote South Australia who carry the scars and carry this burden and this trauma of this lived experience through generations, now our government has failed us,” she said.

“We are out of sight and out of mind.”

March 8, 2025 Posted by | aboriginal issues, personal stories, reference | Leave a comment

It’s time to ditch Virginia subs for AUKUS and go to Plan B

In this op-ed, Henry Sokolski argues Australia should switch its focus from buying Virginia-class submarines and instead put that money towards Pillar 2 technologies.

 Breaking Defense   Henry Sokolski March 06, 2025 

Earlier this month, the Australian government made its first payment of $500 million toward eventually obtaining US nuclear-powered submarines under the 2021 AUKUS agreement. Because the submarine deal is unlikely to overcome budgetary, organizational, and personnel hurdles, that payment should be Australia’s last.

Rather than sacrificing much of its defense program to buy nuclear submarines, Canberra should instead adopt an AUKUS Plan B that would field new defense technologies such as uncrewed systems and hypersonic weapons that would enhance Australia’s security faster, and for far less.

Most experts believe funding AUKUS’s nuclear submarine plans will be challenging. Australia’s defense budget this year is almost $35 billion USD, and is planned to rise to almost $63 billion annually by the end of this decade when Australia would begin buying US nuclear submarines. At more than $3 billion per boat, each Virginia sub will eat up five to ten percent of the Australia defense budget that year, assuming Australia can double its defense spending in five years. Already, a former top officer has warned that the submarine pact will “cannibalize” other priorities and require deferring future surface warships or eliminating some ground units.

Another potential stumbling block is what’s needed to manage a nuclear propulsion program. More than 8,000 people work for the US Naval Nuclear Propulsion program. Today only about 680 people work at the Australian Submarine Agency. If Australia wants a sovereign submarine force that isn’t dependent on Washington’s oversight, it will need thousands of additional skilled civilian workers.

Military personnel is also a challenge. The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) includes about 16,000 sailors today. Each Virginia-class submarine has a crew of about 130 people, and about 400 sailors per ship to account for training, shore duty, and maintenance. With retention already difficult for the Australian Defence Force, the RAN may be hard-pressed to find and keep the thousand-plus highly-qualified personnel it needs to crew the nuclear sub fleet……………………………..
https://breakingdefense.com/2025/03/its-time-to-ditch-virginia-subs-for-aukus-and-go-to-plan-b/

March 8, 2025 Posted by | weapons and war | Leave a comment

Surface tension: could the promised Aukus nuclear submarines simply never be handed over to Australia?

Guardian, Ben Dohert, 7 Mar 25.

The multi-billion dollar deal was heralded as ensuring the security of the Indo-Pacific. But with America an increasingly unreliable ally, doubts are rising above the waves.

Maybe Australia’s boats just never turn up.

To fanfare and flags, the Aukus deal was presented as a sure bet, papering over an uncertainty that such an ambitious deal could ever be delivered.

It was assured, three publics across two oceans were told – signed, sealed and to-be-delivered: Australia would buy from its great ally, the US, its own conventionally armed nuclear-powered attack submarines before it began building its own.

But there is an emerging disquiet on the promise of Aukus pillar one: it may be the promised US-built nuclear-powered submarines simply never arrive under Australian sovereign control.

Instead, those nuclear submarines, stationed in Australia, could bear US flags, carry US weapons, commanded and crewed by American officers and sailors.

Australia, unswerving ally, reduced instead to a forward operating garrison – in the words of the chair of US Congress’s house foreign affairs committee, nothing more than “a central base of operations from which to project power”.

Reliable ally no longer

Officially at least, Aukus remains on course, centrepiece of a storied security alliance.

Pillar one of the Australia-UK-US agreement involves, first, Australia buying between three and five Virginia-Class nuclear-powered submarines from the US – the first of these in 2032.

Then, by the “late 2030s”, according to Australia’s submarine industry strategy, the UK will deliver the first specifically designed and built Aukus submarine. The first Australian-built version will be in the water “in the early 2040s”. Aukus is forecast to cost up to $368bn to the mid-2050s.

But in both Washington and Canberra, there is growing concern over the very first step: America’s capacity to build the boats it has promised Australia, and – even if it had the wherewithal to build the subs – whether it would relinquish them into Australian control.

The gnawing anxiety over Aukus sits within a broader context of a rewritten rulebook for relations between America and its allies. Amid the Sturm und Drang of the first weeks of Trump’s second administration, there is growing concern that the reliable ally is no longer that…………………….

‘The cheque did clear’

On 8 February, Australia paid $US500m ($AUD790m) to the US, the first instalment in a total of $US3bn pledged in order to support America’s shipbuilding industry. Aukus was, Australia’s defence minister Richard Marles said, “a powerful symbol of our two countries working together in the Indo-Pacific”.

“It represents a very significant increase of the American footprint on the Australian continent … it represents an increase in Australian capability, through the acquisition of a nuclear‑powered submarine capability … it also represents an increase in Australian defence spending”.

………….. just three days after Australia’s cheque cleared, the Congressional Research Service quietly issued a paper saying while the nuclear-powered attack submarines (known as SSNs) intended for Australia might be built, the US could decide to never hand them over.

It said the post-pandemic shipbuilding rate in the US was so anaemic that it could not service the needs of the US Navy alone, let alone build submarines for another country’s navy…………………………………………………………………………………………………..

‘Almost inevitable’

Clinton Fernandes, professor of international and political Studies at the University of New South Wales and a former Australian Army intelligence analyst, says the Aukus deal only makes sense when the “real” goal of the agreement is sorted from the “declared”.

“The real rather than declared goal is to demonstrate Australia’s relevance to US global supremacy,” he tells the Guardian.

“The ‘declared goal’ is that we’re going to become a nuclear navy. The ‘real goal’ is we are going to assist the United States and demonstrate our relevance to it as it tries to preserve an American-dominated east Asia.”

Fernandes, author of Sub-Imperial Power, says Australia will join South Korea and Japan as the US’s “sentinel states in order to hold Chinese naval assets at risk in its own semi-enclosed seas”.

“That’s the real goal. We are demonstrating our relevance to American global dominance. The government is understandably uneasy about telling the public this, but in fact, it has been Australia’s goal all along to preserve a great power that is friendly to us in our region.”

Fernandes says the Aukus pillar one agreement “was always an article of faith” based on a premise that the US could produce enough submarines for itself, as well as for Australia.

“And the Congressional Research Service study argues that … they will not have enough capacity to build boats for both themselves and us.”

He argues the rotation of US nuclear-powered submarines through Australian bases – particularly HMAS Stirling in Perth – needs to be understood as unrelated to Aukus and to Australia developing its own nuclear-powered submarine capability.

“Submarine Rotational Force-West (SRF-W) is presented by the spin doctors as an ‘optimal pathway’ for Aukus. In fact, it is the forward operational deployment of the United States Navy, completely independent of Aukus. It has no connection to Aukus.”

The retired rear admiral and past president of the Submarine Institute of Australia, Peter Briggs, argues the US refusing to sell Virginia-class submarines to Australia was “almost inevitable”, because the US’s boat-building program was slipping too far behind.

“It’s a flawed plan, and it’s heading in the wrong direction,” he tells the Guardian.

Before any boat can be sold to Australia, the US commander-in-chief – the president of the day – must certify that America relinquishing a submarine will not diminish the US Navy’s undersea capability.

“The chance of meeting that condition is vanishingly small,” Briggs says.

It now takes the US more than five years to build a single submarine (it was between three and 3.5 years before the pandemic devastated the workforce). By 2031, when the US is set to sell its first submarine to Australia, it could be facing a shortfall of up to 40% of the expected fleet size, Briggs says.

Australia, he argues, will be left with no submarines to cover the retirement from service of the current Collins-class fleet, weakened by an unwise reliance on the US.

The nuclear-powered submarines Australia wants to buy and then build “are both too big, too expensive to own and we can’t afford enough of them to make a difference”.

He argues Australia must be clear-eyed about the systemic challenges facing Aukus and should look elsewhere. He nominates going back to France to contemplate ordering Suffren-class boats – a design currently in production, smaller and requiring fewer crew, “a better fit for Australia’s requirements”……. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/07/surface-tension-could-the-promised-aukus-nuclear-submarines-simply-never-be-handed-over-to-australia

March 7, 2025 Posted by | politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

$480 million facility to train Australia’s nuclear submarine builders

COMMENT. I wonder which services will be cut to fund this folly? Health? Education? Welfare? The regular military?

By Gus Macdonald • State Political Reporter Mar 5, 2025,  https://www.9news.com.au/national/training-centre-australia-nuclear-powered-submarines-aukus/772e5e1d-4cae-4ee1-bab7-d048b46e7241
Australia’s nuclear-powered submarines are one step closer to fruition, with work starting on the academy to train builders in South Australia.

The $480 million facility is being described as the cornerstone of the nation’s naval future under the AUKUS partnership, and promised to provide students in South Australia with safe and sustainable employment for life.

“This is the single biggest industrial endeavour that our nation has ever attempted and today is a day that marks that endeavour is well underway,” Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles said.

The Skills and Training Academy in Osborne will provide education in various disciplines, ranging from new trades to nuclear engineering. 

It aims to accommodate 800 to 1000 students, mirroring the successful model of the Barrow-in-Furness academy in the United Kingdom, where students contribute to building Britain’s nuclear-powered fleet.

While sourcing teachers to skill workers with the tools to create nuclear submarines will be a challenge, the government confirmed today it will recruit internationally with the intention to eventually have Australians teaching at Osborne.

March 7, 2025 Posted by | weapons and war | Leave a comment

How US Military Bases in Australia Threaten Our Future & How to Remove Them

March 5, 2025 AIMN Editorial, By Denis Hay,  https://theaimn.net/how-us-military-bases-in-australia-threaten-our-future-how-to-remove-them/

US military bases in Australia endanger our environment and security. Discover the damage they cause and how Australians can push for their removal.

Introduction

Picture this: A farmer in Williamtown, NSW, watches helplessly as his once-fertile land becomes toxic. His water source is contaminated, his livestock is sick, and his family’s health is deteriorating. The culprit? The nearby U.S. military base is leaking toxic PFAS chemicals into the environment.

Australians have long been told that hosting U.S. military bases makes the country safer, but at what cost? The presence of these bases has led to severe environmental degradation and heightened national security risks. This article explores the damage caused by U.S. military installations in Australia and how citizens can push for their removal.

The Environmental Destruction Caused by U.S. Military Bases in Australia

PFAS Contamination – Poisoning Our Water and Soil

Families in towns like Williamtown and Oakey are forced to buy bottled water because their groundwater is contaminated with per and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). These toxic chemicals, used in firefighting foams on U.S. military bases, have been linked to cancer, liver damage, and immune system disorders.

Environmental reports indicate that PFAS contamination from military bases has made land unusable and driven down property values. This is not an isolated issue—similar contamination has been reported in the U.S. and other host countries.

Real-World Example: Residents of Oakey filed a class-action lawsuit seeking compensation for the damage caused by PFAS contamination, highlighting the devastating impact on their health and livelihoods.

Land Degradation and Destruction of Ecosystems

Military exercises have wreaked havoc on Australian ecosystems. Take Puckapunyal, where years of heavy military training have led to severe soil erosion, deforestation, and destruction of native habitats. The Australian Defence Force (ADF) has had to implement large-scale rehabilitation projects to restore these lands, but the damage is still significant.

Additionally, invasive species such as fire ants have spread due to poor biosecurity measures on military bases, further threatening Australia’s fragile biodiversity.

Historical Context: During World War II, military use of Australian land led to long-term damage, including unexploded ordnance in training zones, which is still an issue today.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions – A Major Polluter

The ADF is one of Australia’s largest carbon emitters, generating over 1.7 million tonnes of CO₂ annually. The U.S. military is even worse – if it were a country, it would rank as the world’s 47th largest carbon emitter. Hosting U.S. military operations means Australia bears part of that environmental burden, contradicting national climate goals.

Expert Opinion: Environmental scientists have called for stricter regulations on military emissions, arguing that they undermine Australia’s commitment to reducing its carbon footprint.

The National Security Threat of Hosting U.S. Military Bases

U.S. Military Presence Makes Australia a Target

Imagine a future conflict between the U.S. and China. Australia automatically becomes a military target with Darwin, Pine Gap, and Tindal bases. A Chinese missile strike on these bases would devastate Australian communities, dragging us into wars we did not choose.

Experts warn that hosting U.S. bases places Australia in a dangerous position, increasing the likelihood of conflict instead of deterring it.

Military Analysis: Former Australian Defence officials have voiced concerns that U.S. bases undermine our national security by making Australia an extension of American military strategy.

Imagine a future conflict between the U.S. and China. Australia automatically becomes a military target with Darwin, Pine Gap, and Tindal bases. A Chinese missile strike on these bases would devastate Australian communities, dragging us into wars we did not choose.

Experts warn that hosting U.S. bases places Australia in a dangerous position, increasing the likelihood of conflict instead of deterring it.

Loss of Sovereignty – Who Controls Our Defence Policy?

Successive Australian governments have signed defence agreements with the U.S. without public consultation. AUKUS, the latest military deal, commits Australia to long-term U.S. military priorities, undermining our independence.

When Australia allows U.S. forces to operate freely on its soil, it loses control over its military decisions. This compromises Australian sovereigntyand prioritises American interests over national security.

Political Insight: Documents leaked in 2023 revealed that U.S. military officials exert considerable influence over Australian defence planning, reinforcing concerns about eroded sovereignty.

How Australian Citizens Can Demand the Removal of U.S. Military Bases

Raising Public Awareness

The first step is education. Many Australians are unaware of U.S. bases’ environmental and security risks. Sharing this information through independent media, social movements, and community discussions can build momentum for change.

Pressuring Politicians to Take a Stand

• Demand transparency in defence agreements.

• Call for national referendums on foreign military bases.

• Support politicians who prioritise Australian sovereignty over U.S. interests.

Protesting and Direct Action

• Organise mass demonstrations against U.S. military expansion.

• Boycott defence contractors profiting from war.

• Push for divestment from institutions supporting militarism.

Historical Success: The Philippines removed U.S. bases in the 1990s after public outcry and political pressure, proving that citizen activism can lead to change.

Conclusion – Time for an Independent Australia

For decades, Australia has allowed foreign military bases to dictate its defence policies. These bases have contaminated our environment, threatened our sovereignty, and increased our risk of war.

The time for action is now. Australians must demand accountability, advocate for policy changes, and work towards a truly independent national defence strategy.

March 7, 2025 Posted by | weapons and war | Leave a comment

Australian nuclear news headlines – week to 11 March

Headlines as they come in:

March 5, 2025 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Delve into details before voting for Dutton’s nuclear vision

John Bushell, Surry Hills, NSW,  https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/delve-into-details-before-voting-for-dutton-s-nuclear-vision-20250304-p5lgrs 4 Mar 25

Examination of detail will quickly demonstrate that the (would be) emperor has no clothes (“Dutton’s nuclear bid short on detail, but who cares?”).

From 2018 to 2023, electricity delivered globally to customers from various energy sources changed as follows: utility solar, plus 193 per cent; onshore wind, plus 80 per cent; nuclear, minus 1.1 per cent.

Independent international investment bank Lazard advised last year that the average electricity costs from these same energy sources, in US dollars per megawatt hour, were: utility solar 61; onshore wind 50; nuclear 182.

The International Energy Agency advised in January that solar and wind energy generation is being installed five times faster than all other new electricity sources combined, and it forecasts that renewable generation capacity globally from 2024 to 2030 will be triple that added from 2017 to 2023.

So, who do you think is right? Peter Dutton or the rest of the world?
It might be a good idea to find out before the federal election rather than after it.

March 5, 2025 Posted by | politics | Leave a comment

Nuclear could cost households an extra $450 or more a year by 2030

Australians for Affordable Energy , https://theaimn.net/nuclear-could-cost-households-an-extra-450-or-more-a-year-by-2030/

New modelling confirms a shift to nuclear power could significantly increase household electricity bills, with Australians for Affordable Energy (AFAE) urging policymakers to back the most affordable energy option.

The analysis, released by the Clean Energy Council, found households could face a 30 per cent increase in power bills by 2030 under a nuclear pathway, with households paying an additional $450 annually.

“Australians want affordable and reliable energy now. Every independent study we’ve seen suggests nuclear power will be a guaranteed hit to household budgets now and in future,” AFAE spokesperson Jo Dodds said.

“The cost of living is what it’s all about for most Australians, with energy prices a major concern. From everything we know so far, nuclear is the far more expensive option, and cheaper practical alternatives exist.

“While we wait decades for expensive nuclear plants Australians will be forced to rely on expensive gas and aging coal plants, driving bills even higher. A 30 per cent hike in power bills would place even more strain on Australian households who are already grappling with cost-of-living pressures. Our energy policies must prioritise affordability.”

The findings mirror concerns raised in the Climate Change Authority’s recent report, which found nuclear energy could add 2 billion tonnes of emissions and delay Australia’s clean energy transition until 2042.

“It says small businesses could expect an $877 increase in their bills by 2030 if we slow down our clean energy rollout,” Ms Dodds said.

“There’s a clear choice here between affordable energy now or higher bills for decades to come.”

“Any energy policy that doesn’t put affordability front and centre is out of touch with what voters actually want. These are tough times for households, we shouldn’t allow energy policy to make them worse.”

Australians for Affordable Energy is urging policymakers to focus on practical, cost-effective energy solutions that can deliver more affordable power right now.

March 5, 2025 Posted by | business | Leave a comment

Peter Dutton’s nuclear plan could blow out household electricity bills by up to $600 a year by 2030

 https://reneweconomy.com.au/peter-duttons-nuclear-plan-will-blow-out-household-electricity-bills-by-up-to-600-a-year-by-2030/ Sophie Vorrath, Mar 4, 2025

A new report has torpedoed Peter Dutton’s claim that the Coalition’s nuclear power plan for Australia would be 44 per cent cheaper than Labor’s plan for renewables, finding instead that it would inflate average consumer electricity bills by up to 41 per cent between now and 2030.

The report, commissioned by the Clean Energy Council, models the outcomes on electricity prices across Australia’s main grid, the NEM, if the build rate of utility scale renewable generation capacity was reduced significantly – as it promises to be under a Coalition government.

The modelling, conducted by global consultancy, Jacobs, sets a base case using the Australian Energy Market Operator’s (AEMO) Integrated System Plan Step Change Scenario, where 26 gigawatts (GW) of renewables in 2025 grows to 72.7 GW by 2030.

This base case is then contrasted against two scenarios based on the modelling by Frontier Economics for the federal Coalition, which restricts renewables to 49.1 GW by 2030 and relies on coal and gas while waiting for nuclear power.

In that report, Frontier Economics reduced the build rate for renewables, in particular, onshore and offshore wind, big solar and big batteries, in a world where longer term, post 2035 nuclear capacity is installed to meet customer electricity needs.

Frontier’s economic modelling has since been used to underpin claims from Liberal Peter Dutton that his plan for a power system including a significant role for nuclear will be 44% cheaper than a system relying predominantly on renewables. 

As Tristan Edis writes in a series of articles starting here, a range of energy analysts and economists have found an array of problems with how this number was derived, but this hasn’t stopped the LNP leader from repeating it every chance he gets.

The Clean Energy Council has therefore decided to fight fire with fire.

March 5, 2025 Posted by | business | Leave a comment

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