Defence Dept blocks access to advice on location choice for Australia’s nuclear submarines base
Labor’s defence spokesperson, Brendan O’Connor, questioned whether the government was “hiding their advice because the prime minister has made a political decision in shortlisting three east coast submarine bases”.
“Australians deserve to know if the government went through rigorous processes or if these bases have been chosen on a whim close to an election.”
“The timing of this announcement just before an election and the fact that it departs from the Navy’s previous analysis is quite inexplicable,” Patrick said.
Defence blocks access to advice on location choice for Australia’s nuclear submarines base https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/apr/09/defence-blocks-access-to-advice-on-location-choice-for-australias-nuclear-submarines-base
Labor demands government reveal how it shortlisted Brisbane, Newcastle and Port Kembla as potential sites for base Daniel Hurst Foreign affairs and defence correspondent, @danielhurstbne, Sat 9 Apr 2022
Voters will be kept in the dark on how Scott Morrison’s government selected three potential bases for Australia’s planned nuclear-powered submarines, after the advice was blocked from release.
With the prime minister preparing to formally call the election within days, Labor demanded the government reveal how it shortlisted the locations to prove the announcement was “not just a marketing ploy”.
Morrison named Brisbane, Newcastle and Wollongong’s Port Kembla as three contenders for a new eastern submarine base, and revealed Aukus-related infrastructure works would cost up to $10bn, in a keynote national security speech last month.
The government is expected to lock in one of these sites late next year, once further studies and negotiations are completed.
Morrison said the “three preferred locations” were identified “following significant work by Defence reviewing 19 potential sites”, although a minister later said it was the cabinet’s national security committee that had “narrowed it down to three”.
Guardian Australia applied to the Department of Defence under freedom of information laws seeking the site analysis. The request also covered any advice, briefings or submissions prepared for the defence minister, Peter Dutton, regarding the preferred locations.
Continue readingU.S., NATO push Asia-Pacific bloc against Russia, China, with Ukraine as pretext
On Tuesday, the US, the UK and Australia announced they would cooperate to develop hypersonic weapons under the framework of the new AUKUS alliance, a move that analysts said is to build a NATO replica in the Asia-Pacific to serve US hegemony.
US, NATO seek united front with Asia-Pacific allies to isolate Russia, pressure China over Ukraine crisis
Global Times, By Liu Xin and Xu Yelu, 8 Apr 22, South Korean and Japanese foreign ministers were invited to join the high-profile NATO session on Thursday for the first time as NATO seeks to gain cooperation from Asia to isolate Russia and pressure China over the Ukraine crisis. But analysts said the US is coercing more countries to choose sides in the crisis and using it as an opportunity to help NATO’s global expansion.
South Korean and Japanese foreign ministers were invited to join the high-profile NATO session on Thursday for the first time as NATO seeks to gain cooperation from Asia to isolate Russia and pressure China over the Ukraine crisis. But analysts said the US is coercing more countries to choose sides in the crisis and using it as an opportunity to help NATO’s global expansion.
The NATO Foreign Ministers meeting in Brussels agreed to sustain and further strengthen support for Ukraine, and step up cooperation with partners, given the global implications of Russia’s action in Ukraine, according to a statement released after the meeting on Thursday.
The ministers also agreed that NATO’s next Strategic Concept, which will be finalized at the Madrid Summit in June, must take account of NATO’s future relations with Russia, and “China’s growing influence” on allied security, it said.
NATO will increase its cooperation with Asia-Pacific partners in areas like cyber, new technologies, disinformation, maritime security, climate change, and resilience, according to the statement.
South Korean Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong was in Brussels to attend a meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) foreign ministers on Thursday. He was the first South Korean foreign minister to join a high-profile NATO session, Yonhap News reported. Aside from South Korea, three countries – Japan, Australia and New Zealand – also attended the NATO session. Nikkei Asia reported this was the first time a Japanese minister attended such a meeting.
By inviting the four Asia-Pacific countries, NATO and the US wanted to draw more countries to form a united front against Russia over the latter’s conflict with Ukraine, and such a move will also help NATO’s global expansion, especially to Asia, as the US has always sought to build a more effective framework to contain China in the Asia-Pacific region, Li Kaisheng, a research fellow and deputy director at the Institute of International Relations of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.
As important US allies in Asia, South Korea and Japan have always wanted to play a bigger role in regional and international affairs and they may work more closely with the US as it is coordinating NATO with Asia-Pacific alliances, including the Quad mechanism of the US, Japan, India and Australia, and AUKUS of the US, the UK and Australia, Li said, noting that South Korea may also lean to the US after President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol takes office in May.
Yoon, who emphasized further promoting the South Korea-US alliance on security, was elected as the country’s next president in March. With the US cajoling its allies into joining a united front in bashing China, Yoon will be tested on whether he will keep his country’s relations with China free from the influence of its alliance with the US, analysts said.
Nikkei Asia said on Wednesday that NATO is looking to deepen its cooperation with Asia-Pacific countries to “discourage China from backing Russia in the war in Ukraine” and the bloc worries that Chinese financial and military assistance could drag out the conflict.
China has refuted disinformation spread by the US and some Western media, which claimed that China was considering supplying Russia with weapons to support its operation in Ukraine.
So-called remarks on discouraging China from supporting Russia are excuses. The US and NATO are using the conflict for their own strategic purposes, exploiting the crisis to revive NATO’s influence and turning it into a “battle” between so-called “democracy” and “autocracy,” Yang Xiyu, a senior research fellow at the China Institute of International Studies, told the Global Times.
Yang said that since the beginning of this century, the US has used NATO to shift its global strategic focus and alliance system to the east. From the Iraq war to the Afghan and Syria wars, we have witnessed NATO’s more frequent military operations outside NATO and more NATO members’ presence in the South and East China Sea and the Asia-Pacific region. The strategic purpose for the NATO meeting is to start its global expansion.
On Tuesday, the US, the UK and Australia announced they would cooperate to develop hypersonic weapons under the framework of the new AUKUS alliance, a move that analysts said is to build a NATO replica in the Asia-Pacific to serve US hegemony.
By gathering NATO and US allies in the Asia-Pacific together at the NATO meeting, NATO will become a platform for the US to lead its global allies and realize its expansion from Europe to the Asia-Pacific, analysts said, noting that NATO’s expansion is the root of the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine, but the bloc never reflects on its problems and is still working to expand.
According to media reports, Finland is considering joining NATO. In response, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said at Thursday’s press briefing that China’s position on NATO’s eastward expansion is very clear. NATO is a product of the Cold War and should have become history long ago. “We advise relevant countries to exercise caution in developing relations with NATO.” Zhao said.
Yang warned that while the US is coordinating allies to contain China and Russia and spread confrontations globally, China should work harder to unite more countries to oppose the Cold War mentality and deepen cooperation with countries with shared interests, including South Korea and Japan.
As a product of the Cold War, NATO represents confrontations and targets certain countries. Its global expansion brings polarization and clashes. Its expansion in the Asia-Pacific region will surely target China, undermine the regional security environment and bring turbulence, Li said, urging regional countries to have a clear understanding of the disastrous results.
The choices: fight to the last Ukrainian, or choose Macron’s dialogue path.
It will have to offer President Putin some kind of escape hatch.
“So the settlement will have to have an escape hatch. And everyone knows pretty much what it is.
“It will have to be a settlement that agrees on the neutralisation of Ukraine and some diplomatic finesse to put aside for the time being the status of Donbas and Crimea to be negotiated at a later stage, and a ceasefire and withdrawal of troops.
“Washington’s position now is to fight to the last Ukrainian,”
Chomsky’s nuclear war fear: Fight to last Ukrainian or choose Macron’s dialogue path https://www.thenationalnews.com/world/uk-news/2022/04/08/noam-chomskys-nuclear-war-fear-fight-to-last-ukrainian-or-choose-macrons-dialogue-path
Distinguished US professor sees a 30-year descent into conflict between Russia and the West
Damien McElroy, Apr 08,
Noam Chomsky has no truck with those who would explain away the brutality of the war in Ukraine, but he does warn that there only two outcomes of the seven-week conflict.
“One possibility is to move on to facilitate the destruction of Ukraine and possibly a nuclear war,” Prof Chomsky told The National. “That’s one possibility.
“So when you read a headline in a main journal in the United States calling for Russia delenda est (we must destroy Russia), what that is saying is I want to kill everybody in Ukraine and I want to move on to a nuclear war which will end human life on Earth.
“The other possibility is to abandon that stance to move in the direction that [French President] Emmanuel Macron was moving towards in his abortive discussions with [Russian leader Vladimir] Putin.”
The phrase “Russia delenda est” is an echo of Cato the Elder’s formula that declared Carthage must be destroyed to stop the enemies of Rome and was indeed published in recent weeks in Washington publications.
It is not an irony that it was updated by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy in 1899, in a famous attack on militarism and promotion of pacifism by the writer of the epic War and Peace.
For Prof Chomsky, 93, whose father was born in what is now Ukraine (his mother was born in what is now Belarus), the obvious path forward has been well promoted as an alternative to the Cold War settlement for more than 15 years.
To give Mr Putin the kind of security landscape he seeks for Russia avoids a bleak escalatory pathway with a country that has an enormous nuclear arsenal.
“Now that kind of settlement will be ugly,” he said. “That’s a fact. It will have to offer President Putin some kind of escape hatch.
“If it doesn’t offer an escape hatch then, when the hard men in Moscow have their backs to the wall and are told there’s nothing left for you, the only choice for them is to use all their power.
“So the settlement will have to have an escape hatch. And everyone knows pretty much what it is.
“It will have to be a settlement that agrees on the neutralisation of Ukraine and some diplomatic finesse to put aside for the time being the status of Donbas and Crimea to be negotiated at a later stage, and a ceasefire and withdrawal of troops.
“That’s basically the framework and it’s understood out of all sides.”
For one with an enormous following in radical leftist politics, Prof Chomsky evinces great respect for diplomatic expertise.
One scenario is that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy could reach a ceasefire with the Kremlin but Washington would effectively scupper it by refusing to unwind sanctions.
Continue readingIndia’s Inadvertent Missile Launch Underscores the Risk of Accidental Nuclear Warfare
Complex weapon systems are inherently prone to accidents, and this latest launch is one of a long history of military accidents in India, Scientific American By Zia Mian, M. V. Ramana on April 8, 2022
Last month, while most of the world focused on the war in Ukraine and worried that a beleaguered Russian leadership might resort to nuclear weapons, thus escalating the conflict into a direct war with the U.S.-led NATO nuclear-armed alliance, a nearly tragic accident involving India and Pakistan pointed to another path to nuclear war. The accident highlighted how complex technological systems, including those involving nuclear weapons, can generate unexpected routes to potential disaster—especially when managed by overconfident organizations.
India and Pakistan possess more than 300 nuclear weapons between them, and have fought multiple wars and faced many military crises. On March 9, two years after their dispute over Kashmir escalated into attacks by jet fighters, the Pakistan Air Force detected “a high speed flying object” inside Indian territory change course and veer suddenly toward Pakistan. It flew deep into Pakistan and crashed. The object was a BrahMos cruise missile, a weapon system developed jointly by India and Russia. India soon stated the launch was an accident.
The firing of the BrahMos missile falls within a long history of accidents involving military systems in India. Military aircraft have strayed across the borders during peacetime. India’s first nuclear submarine was reportedly “crippled” by an accident in 2018, but the government refused to divulge any details. Secrecy has prevented the investigation of an apparent failure of India’s ballistic missile defence system in 2016. Engagements between India and Pakistan can arise from such accidents, as in 1999 when a Pakistani military plane was shot down along the border by India, killing 16 people. Pakistan has had its share of accidents, including a Pakistani fighter jet crashing into the capital city in 2020.
All these weapons systems are inherently accident-prone because of two characteristics identified by organizational sociologist Charles Perrow decades ago—interactive complexity and tight coupling—that combine to make accidents a “normal” feature of the operation of some hazardous technologies. The first characteristic refers to the possibility that different parts of the system can affect each other in unexpected ways, thus producing unanticipated outcomes. The second makes it hard to stop the resulting sequence of events. For Perrow, “the dangerous accidents lie in the system, not in the components,” and are inevitable.
Perhaps the best and most troubling proof of this proposition is in the realm of nuclear weapons—which embody all the properties of high-risk technological systems. Despite decades of efforts to ensure safety, these systems have suffered many failures, accidents and close calls. During 1979–1980, for example, there were several false warnings of Soviet missile attacks, some of which resulted in U.S. nuclear forces being put on alert.
……………………………………The mistake that is of greatest concern is a false alarm of an incoming nuclear attack, possibly directed against nuclear forces. Indian or Pakistani—or Russian or NATO—policy makers may find themselves under immense pressure to launch a preemptive attack, thereby compounding the crisis. The terrible dilemma confronting them would be whether to use their nuclear weapons first or wait for the bombs from the other side to land. Nuclear war, even of a limited nature, between India and Pakistan could lead to millions of deaths in the short term and even graver consequences in the longer term for the region and beyond.
…………… As the legendary analyst of nuclear command and control Bruce Blair warned, among nuclear weapon system managers and operators there is an “illusion of safety” that masks “the systematic potential for tragedy on a monumental scale.” Whether it is India and Pakistan preparing for a fifth war, or the forces of a nuclear-armed Russia struggling ever more violently to subdue Ukraine and stem the flow of lethal NATO weapons, such illusions threaten the destruction of cities and may lead to the killing of nations. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/indias-inadvertent-missile-launch-underscores-the-risk-of-accidental-nuclear-warfare/
In France, the nuclear waste keeps piling up: new reactors will add to the dilemma
France inches towards nuclear waste solution as more reactors planned
President Macron’s ‘French Nuclear Renaissance’ aims to provide energy independence and greener electricity for France – but the nuclear waste keeps piling up Connexion, By George Kazolias, 8 Apr 22,
Emmanuel Macron has announced plans to launch construction of six new nuclear reactors by 2050, along with studies for a possible eight further ones.
He also wants to prolong the life of existing reactors beyond 50 years in what he is calling the “French Nuclear Renaissance”.
Mr Macron’s vision to “take back control of [France’s] energy and industrial destiny” might be a winner with his electorate, but it clashes with the proposals of most of the left-wing presidential candidates, who want to reduce reliance on nuclear power.
New reactors will add to waste dilemma
Solutions for dealing with the waste already produced by existing power stations, however, are still struggling to get out of the starting blocks – and there is no plan for what would be done with waste from a potential 14 additional ones…………..At present, however, none of France’s nuclear reactor waste has been dealt with in a long-term way. All waste considered radioactive, almost two million cubic tonnes of it, is stored at surface level, in treatment centres and pools, or shallow repositories.
Some 60% of this comes from reactors and the rest is from medical, research, military and other sources.
The other waste, which includes items such as tools, clothing, mops and medical tubes, is not highly radioactive,
……… More problematic is what to do with France’s intermediate and high-level nuclear waste.
In 1998, a site near the village of Bure in the Meuse in north east France was chosen as the final storage place for most of it. It will be stored half a kilometre below ground in a vast network of tunnels and galleries known as a Deep Geological Repository (DGR).
The facility will be big enough for all the nuclear waste accumulated so far, but on-site studies, administrative procedures and opposition to the programme, including court cases and civil disobedience, have slowed its opening.
Deep underground storage could be three years away
The Bure DGR will store the waste in galleries carved out of 160-million-year-old compacted clay rocks. Known by its French acronym, Cigéo, the project currently holds 84% of the 665 hectares required to build the facility. The prefecture of the Meuse gave it a declaration of public utility (DUP) in December – a formal recognition that a proposed project has public benefits that must be obtained for most large construction and infrastructure projects before work can begin.
Once the Conseil d’Etat gives its consent, the prime minister can sign his own DUP. Andra will then have the power to get the rest of the property it needs.
In the meantime, work has continued with digging of wells and galleries to test reversible techniques of stocking waste for up to 100,000 years.
The prime minister is expected to sign off only after the presidential elections, but the final green light might be three years away as the rigorous and independent Nuclear Security Agency studies the permit request to move and store the spent nuclear fuel and other radioactive matter.
Plans are for existing not future waste
Activity at the Cigéo remains high, nevertheless. This year, a 1,700m² building, called The Eclipse, is being built to house companies working on underground trials.
A 100m-long cavity will also be dug to test technologies and conduct experiments. This is the length each cavity will have to be for intermediate-level waste, which is often solidified into concrete.
The nuclear authority is hoping to start storing this type of waste in 2025.
It is impossible to bury the high-level radioactive waste. This is turned into a glass-like substance, but then requires a cooling period of at least 50 years.
The clay storage facilities cannot handle temperatures above 90C.
Senator Sido said: “It is true that the most recent batches cannot be stocked in their present state. They are too hot and need a cooling-off period of several decades. But the first batches can be stocked now.”
The remaining high-level waste might not arrive before 2060. By then, France will have produced at least as much nuclear waste again. For that, it might have to create a new underground facility.
“As far as I know, there is no project in the pipeline for high-level and long-lived waste which will be produced in the future,” Mr Sido said. https://www.connexionfrance.com/article/Practical/Environment/France-inches-towards-nuclear-waste-solution-as-more-reactors-planned
Expert warning that UK’s nuclear plans mean that there won’t be room for all the new radioactive wastes.
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Nuclear power plant plans could mean UK might run out of room for radioactive waste, says expert
https://inews.co.uk/news/nuclear-power-plant-plans-uk-could-run-out-room-radioactive-waste-1563015?ito=facebook_share_article-top&fbclid=IwAR2IxsDYG9O8oNJoXYfiKRKF18v2H-zI_l2NqC3VMWj5O8bGLZGYRMLQtssCurrent policy only allows for disposal of radioactive waste from 16GW of new nuclear capacity, far short of government’s new ambitions
By Madeleine Cuff, 8 Apr 22, Environment Reporter The UK could run out of room to store radioactive waste if the government presses ahead with plans to build eight new nuclear power stations across the country, a nuclear waste expert has warned.
Ministers today set out plans to accelerate the development of new nuclear power stations to bolster the UK’s energy security and push the country to net zero.
The long-awaited energy security strategy set out plans for trebling the UK’s nuclear generation, with up to 24GW of nuclear capacity planned for 2050.
But one of the country’s leading nuclear waste experts has told i the UK could “run out of room” to store the waste produced by so many plants.
Officials have spent the last 50 years hunting for a permanent way to dispose of radioactive waste produced by the UK’s fleet of nuclear plants.
In 2019 fresh search was launched to find a community willing to host the radioactive waste, which would be buried hundreds of metres below the Earth’s surface.
“The policy at the moment is that it can take all of the legacy waste – everything we have generated in the last 70 years, plus up to 16GW of new nuclear build,” said Professor Claire Corkhill, an expert in nuclear waste at the University of Sheffield.
But if the UK builds 24GW of new nuclear it could run into a storage problem, she warns. “My worry is that if we go to 24GW of nuclear energy then we might run out of room to store the radioactive waste,” she said. “We’ve jumped the gun a little bit in saying that we are going to have this much new nuclear energy without thinking really about whether we have got anywhere suitable to put the waste.”
She said it the government could look for a second storage site, but finding one could take decades.
US Officials Admit They’re Literally Just Lying To The Public About Russia
Former MI6 chief John Sawers told The Atlantic Council think tank in February that the Biden administration’s “intelligence” releases were based more on a general vibe than actual intelligence, and were designed to manipulate rather than to inform.
Just as the smear campaign against Julian Assange trained mainstream liberals to defend the right of their government to keep dark secrets from them, we may now be looking at the stage of narrative control advancement where mainstream liberals are trained to defend the right of their government to lie to them.
https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/us-officials-admit-theyre-literally?s=w— Caitlin Johnstone, Apr 7, 22, NBC News has a new report out citing multiple anonymous US officials, humorously titled “In a break with the past, U.S. is using intel to fight an info war with Russia, even when the intel isn’t rock solid“.
The officials say the Biden administration has been rapidly pushing out “intelligence” about Russia’s plans in Ukraine that is “low-confidence” or “based more on analysis than hard evidence”, or even just plain false, in order to fight an information war against Putin.
The report says that toward this end the US government has deliberately circulated false or poorly evidenced claims about impending chemical weapons attacks, about Russian plans to orchestrate a false flag attack in the Donbass to justify an invasion, about Putin’s advisors misinforming him, and about Russia seeking arms supplies from China.
Excerpt, emphasis mine:
It was an attention-grabbing assertion that made headlines around the world: U.S. officials said they had indications suggesting Russia might be preparing to use chemical agents in Ukraine.
President Joe Biden later said it publicly. But three U.S. officials told NBC News this week there is no evidence Russia has brought any chemical weapons near Ukraine. They said the U.S. released the information to deter Russia from using the banned munitions.
It’s one of a string of examples of the Biden administration’s breaking with recent precedent by deploying declassified intelligence as part of an information war against Russia. The administration has done so even when the intelligence wasn’t rock solid, officials said, to keep Russian President Vladimir Putin off balance.
So they lied. They may hold that they lied for a noble reason, but they lied. They knowingly circulated information they had no reason to believe was true, and that lie was amplified by all the most influential media outlets in the western world.
Another example of the Biden administration releasing a false narrative as part of its “information war”:
Likewise, a charge that Russia had turned to China for potential military help lacked hard evidence, a European official and two U.S. officials said.
The U.S. officials said there are no indications China is considering providing weapons to Russia. The Biden administration put that out as a warning to China not to do so, they said.
On the empire’s claim last week that Putin is being misled by his advisors because they are afraid of telling him the truth, NBC reports that this assessment “wasn’t conclusive — based more on analysis than hard evidence.”
I’d actually made fun of this ridiculous CIA press release when it was uncritically published disguised as a breaking news report by The New York Times:
Continue readingWhy renewables are key to Australia’s national security
Why renewables are key to Australia’s national security
Christopher Joye
We need to eliminate the country’s 80 per cent dependence on foreign oil and beef up electrification of key infrastructure.
Latest IPCC report offers key lessons for Australia but is anyone listening?
Latest IPCC report offers key lessons for Australia but is anyone listening?
The climate authority has warned it is now or never to cut emissions but will MPs on the campaign trail heed its warning?
Today: Hypersonic missiles for Australia. We sure will be in danger now – another nuclear target, like Pine Gap.
Australia’s ruling party Liberal-National Coalition, and Australia’s pale copy of it, the Labor Party in opposotion – all seem happy to keep Australia’s fine tradition of Deputy Sheriff to the militaristic American empire.
Well, we already do form some sort of a sacrifice zone for the USA in time of war. I’m pretty sure that the last Australian government that had the guts to resist this was quickly removed – surely under the indfluence of the USA – Gough Whiltlam’s effort to prevent Pine Gap military spy centre.
Now Australia has cemented itself as a USA patsy – with AUKUS, nuclear submarines, and now the plan for hypersonic missiles based here. No earthly use for Australia’s own defence, but a helpful target place to put USA’s military paraphernaia, – for which we will pay – to add to the $171 billion that the nuclear submarines will cost us.
AUKUS hypersonic announcement will ‘escalate global tensions’, warns CND
”………………… In a joint statement on Wednesday, the trio announced that they would now “commence new trilateral cooperation on hypersonics and counter-hypersonics, and electronic warfare capabilities. ”
Growing proliferation
Australia is already co-operating with Washington on hypersonic weapon development as part of the Southern Cross Integrated Flight Research Experiment (SCIFiRE). UK officials said they will not be formally joining SCIFiRE. They will instead co-operate in research and development in the area so they can expand their options.
Hypersonic missiles travel at five times the speed of sound and can be armed with either conventional or nuclear warheads. Faster than cruise missiles, they can in theory evade existing air defence systems. The US, Russia, and China have all undertaken testing of the weapon.
CND General Secretary Kate Hudson said: “The latest expansion of the AUKUS military pact will further escalate global tensions, at a time when the threat of nuclear war is at its highest in decades. The announcement that a programme initially centred on providing a non-nuclear state with nuclear-powered submarines – in itself risking wider nuclear proliferation – will now include hypersonic missiles, is of great concern. This AUKUS expansion will accelerate arms racing in the Asia-Pacific region, leading to increased militarisation, and potentially helping provoke conflict over Taiwan. Not to mention the fact that military budgets are already escalating – what will the opportunity cost be for embarking on a whole new class of weaponry be?” https://cnduk.org/aukus-hypersonic-announcement-will-escalate-global-tensions-warns-cnd/
No – it turns out that the nuclear submarines not likely to be built in Australia – Morrison
I am in awe. The man is a marketing genius. He managed to make sure that the submarine development plan for Adelaide was shut down – by promising an even better nuclear submarine development in Adelaide. Now that wondeful new job-making enterprise vanishes into the ether. But – no worries – he”ll be able to convince us that an attack on Australia by China is imminent, -so natioal security tops employment. So no doubt Australians will rejoice and re-elect the champion marketer.
PM won’t commit to build nuclear subs locally Joseph Brookes,, https://www.innovationaus.com/pm-wont-commit-to-build-nuclear-subs-locally/ 6 April 2022 Prime Minister Scott Morrison will not commit to building Australia’s nuclear powered submarines locally, saying any industry development considerations will be trumped by the need to acquire the capability as soon as possible.
The refusal, made Wednesday as the AUKUS arrangement was expanded to other technologies, follows Defence Minister Peter Dutton also flagging Australia would need to “get the balance right” between supporting local industry and securing capabilities in response to rising foreign threats.
The AUKUS arrangement was announced in September and the “intent” to build new nuclear powered submarines in Australia was a welcome direction for the local defence industry because the new plan also meant the previous submarine program was being scrapped.
A taskforce is continuing to assess options for acquiring the new submarines, including which vessel type and where they will be built.
In February, Defence Minister Peter Dutton had to address concerns about local industry missing out after a high-ranking Defence official told an industry conference the department is “maturing beyond ascribing a percentage” of local industry involvement and was unlikely to set a minimum like previous major ship builds.
A few weeks later the minister suggested a decision on submarine type would be revealed before the election after the taskforce made significant progress earlier this year.
But he was promptly contradicted by Prime Minister Scott Morrison who said a decision was not anticipated before the election because of the processes that would be required stretching into a caretaker period.
On Wednesday, during an announcement about the expansion of the AUKUS arrangement to hypersonic technologies and electronic warfare, the Prime Minister backed away from any commitment to local industry.
He was asked if he could guarantee if the new submarines, beyond the nuclear reactor, would be built in Australia.
“We’re working through all of those issues at present what, and that is certainly our intention to maximise all of that [local manufacturing]. Of course it is,” he told reporters.
“But it’s also the paramount goal is to ensure we get that capability as soon as we can, and it’s in the best form that it can be working with our partners.”
Australia’s contribution to global nuclear risks
Jim Green Nuclear fuel cycle watch Australia. 7 Apr 22, Australia has uranium export agreements with all of the ‘declared’ nuclear weapons states, all of them breaching their disarmament obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; countries with a history of weapons-related research based on their civil nuclear programs; countries that have not ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; countries expanding their nuclear weapons capabilities; and undemocratic, secretive states with appalling human rights records.
Australia has uranium export agreements with all of the ‘declared’ nuclear weapons states, all of them breaching their disarmament obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; countries with a history of weapons-related research based on their civil nuclear programs; countries that have not ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; countries expanding their nuclear weapons capabilities; and undemocratic, secretive states with appalling human rights records.
Australia’s uranium export agreements with Russia and Ukraine were much of a muchness: federal parliament’s treaties committee issued strong warnings about the inadequacy of nuclear safeguards, the government of the day ignored those warnings, and no-one has any idea about the security or whereabouts of Australian uranium and its by-products in Russia or Ukraine.
And the Australian government’s pursuit of submarines powered by weapons-useable, highly-enriched uranium undermines global non-proliferation efforts. If it’s okay for Australia’s military to have access to weapons-useable nuclear material, then it’s okay for the world’s other 190-or-so countries to have access to weapons-useable nuclear material. What could possibly go wrong? https://www.facebook.com/groups/1021186047913052—
Small nuclear reactors for Australia- a sneaky way to lead to making Australia the world’s nuclear waste dump?
Dan Monceaux , Nuclear Fuel Cycle Watch, 7 Apr 22
It strikes me that the most recent push for SMRs in the West is being driven by militarism, not climate change nor commerce as some may allude to. The Western nuclear estate is flagging, while Russia’s and China’s are maintaining or growing. SMRs present an opportunity to continue producing Pu as a fission byproduct.
The military has expressed interest in using SMRs to power mobile units/bases. This comes as civilian nuclear power declines or phases out in many Western nations.
But to recover the Pu (and U) from the spent fuel from from these SMRs they will need to reprocess it somewhere. Is Sellafield still reprocessing at all? Are there eyes on Australia for providing this service in the future? Does the West hope that SMRs can be deployed in Australia (the mining angle), along with nuclear subs, and the importation of spent nuclear fuel from other countries so that eventually, Australia will become a full-blown nuclear industrial service centre for the Western nuclear estate/war machine?
This was a vision the American Ford administration had for Australia in the 1970s. I referenced this in a submission I made to government following the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission in South Australia. The supporting evidence is available in Wikileaks’ archive of historic documents from that period.
Conservation Council of Western Australia continue their long fight for the environment, and to stop uranium mining.
This week we are celebrating a huge step forward in our sustained campaign to keep the door closed to uranium mining in Yeelirrie. We have received word that a request made by the Canadian mining company Cameco to extend the environmental approval for the Yeelirrie uranium project has been rejected by Minister for Environment Reece Whitby. In 2018 and 2019, we challenged this approval in court. Now it has expired and time is running out for the uranium trade in WA.
This is a huge win for the local area, the communities and for life itself. The special and unique lives of the smallest of creatures, endemic subterranean fauna found nowhere else on earth would have most likely been made extinct had this project gone ahead, according to the WA EPA.
We are now pushing for further protection. Under new provisions in the Environmental Protection Act s47A – Minister Whitby can withdraw approvals where the “commencement” condition has not been met. We are calling on the Minister to withdraw approvals for Yeelirrie, Wiluna and Kintyre – as all three projects have failed to meet these commencement conditions. For over five decades Traditional Custodians from the Yeelirrie area have fought to protect the site from uranium mining.
Hundreds of supporters have spent time on country with Traditional Custodians, listening, walking, connecting with the country and standing up for a nuclear-free future. Traditional Owners, unions, faith groups, health groups, the WA and Australian Greens and WA Labor, and environment groups, we’ve all had a big part to play. For the full report and to heart what Traditional Owners, Kado Muir and Vicki Abdullah had to say please click here.
We are currently growing our campaign to protect Mulga Rock on Upurli Upurli Nguratja country, east of Kalgoorlie. This is WA’s one uranium project that has so far slipped through the next and last week through a merger this project is now being advanced by a team with links to the destruction at Juukan Gorge and dodgy mining operations in Malawi and Namibia. And we will continue to push for a withdrawal of approvals for Yeelirrie, Kintyre and Wiluna.
1 This month.
20 September –National Day of Action in Melbourne on the International Day of Peace
Help Aunty Sue Protect Her Land and Sacred Sites From Destructive Rocket Testing.
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Australians deserve the truth
about
AUKUS – https://aukuspublicinquiry.com/
PETITION – To: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Australian Labor Government
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
Antinuclear 