Nuclear waste storage in Australia
Japan plans to dump a million tonnes of radioactive water into the Pacific. But Australia has nuclear waste problems, too The Conversation,October 23, 2020 Tilman Ruff. Associate Professor, Education and Learning Unit, Nossal Institute for Global Health, School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne, Margaret Beavis, Tutor Principles of Clinical Practice Melbourne Medical School .
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Nuclear waste storage in Australia This is what happens at our national nuclear facility at Lucas Heights in Sydney. The vast majority of Australia’s nuclear waste is stored on-site in a dedicated facility, managed by those with the best expertise, and monitored 24/7 by the Australian Federal Police. But the Australian government plans to change this. It wants to transport and temporarily store nuclear waste at a facility at Kimba, in regional South Australia, for an indeterminate period. We believe the Kimba plan involves unnecessary multiple handling, and shifts the nuclear waste problem onto future generations. The proposed storage facilities in Kimba are less safe than disposal, and this plan is well below world’s best practice. The infrastructure, staff and expertise to manage and monitor radioactive materials in Lucas Heights were developed over decades, with all the resources and emergency services of Australia’s largest city. These capacities cannot be quickly or easily replicated in the remote rural location of Kimba. What’s more, transporting the waste raises the risk of theft and accident. And in recent months, the CEO of regulator ARPANSA told a senate inquiry there is capacity to store nuclear waste at Lucas Heights for several more decades. This means there’s ample time to properly plan final disposal of the waste. The legislation before the Senate will deny interested parties the right to judicial review. The plan also disregards unanimous opposition by Barngarla Traditional Owners. The Conversation contacted Resources Minister Keith Pitt who insisted the Kimba site will consolidate waste from more than 100 places into a “safe, purpose-built, state-of-the-art facility”. He said a separate, permanent disposal facility will be established for intermediate level waste in a few decades’ time. Pitt said the government continues to seek involvement of Traditional Owners. He also said the Kimba community voted in favour of the plan. However, the voting process was criticised on a number of grounds, including that it excluded landowners living relatively close to the site, and entirely excluded Barngarla people. Kicking the can down the road Both Australia and Japan should look to nations such as Finland, which deals with nuclear waste more responsibly and has studied potential sites for decades. It plans to spend 3.5 billion euros (A$5.8 billion) on a deep geological disposal site.https://theconversation.com/japan-plans-to-dump-a-million-tonnes-of-radioactive-water-into-the-pacific-but-australia-has-nuclear-waste-problems-too-148337
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Freakishly warm weather delays development of Arctic sea ice
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Alarm as Arctic sea ice not yet freezing at latest date on record
Delayed freeze in Laptev Sea could have knock-on effects across polar region, scientists say, Guardian, jonathan Watts Global environment editor @jonathanwatts, Thu 22 Oct 2020 For the first time since records began, the main nursery of Arctic sea ice in Siberia has yet to start freezing in late October. The delayed annual freeze in the Laptev Sea has been caused by freakishly protracted warmth in northern Russia and the intrusion of Atlantic waters, say climate scientists who warn of possible knock-on effects across the polar region. Ocean temperatures in the area recently climbed to more than 5C above average, following a record breaking heatwave and the unusually early decline of last winter’s sea ice. The trapped heat takes a long time to dissipate into the atmosphere, even at this time of the year when the sun creeps above the horizon for little more than an hour or two each day. Graphs of sea-ice extent in the Laptev Sea, which usually show a healthy seasonal pulse, appear to have flat-lined. As a result, there is a record amount of open sea in the Arctic. “The lack of freeze-up so far this fall is unprecedented in the Siberian Arctic region,” said Zachary Labe, a postdoctoral researcher at Colorado State University. He says this is in line with the expected impact of human-driven climate change. 2020 is another year that is consistent with a rapidly changing Arctic. Without a systematic reduction in greenhouse gases, the likelihood of our first ‘ice-free’ summer will continue to increase by the mid-21st century,’ he wrote in an email to the Guardian. This year’s Siberian heatwave was made at least 600 times more likely by industrial and agricultural emissions, according to an earlier study. The warmer air temperature is not the only factor slowing the formation of ice. Climate change is also pushing more balmy Atlantic currents into the Arctic and breaking up the usual stratification between warm deep waters and the cool surface. This also makes it difficult for ice to form……… https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/22/alarm-as-arctic-sea-ice-not-yet-freezing-at-latest-date-on-record?CMP=twt_a-environment_b-gdneco&fbclid=IwAR1qZzerjnAanadMi942h7N8XdCf6Drz_-UIO5mECgAzvXqgiIYjuh6BETc |
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Global heating is bringing huge water stress to nuclear and coal-fired power stations
Climate change poses big water risks for nuclear, fossil-fueled plants, S and P Global, Esther Whieldon Taylor Kuykendall, 23 Oct 20,
Climate change-exacerbated water shortage issues pose a near-term and longer-term performance risk to power plants, such as hydropower and nuclear, around the world. And in the Lower 48, more than half of the fossil-fueled and nuclear fleet is located in areas forecast to face climate-related water stress by the end of this decade under a business-as-usual scenario, according to an analysis by S&P Global Market Intelligence.
But electric utilities’ overall exposure to power plant water stress risks could diminish as they pursue decarbonization strategies and replace water-dependent plants with wind and solar generation that require little to no water. Some companies are also implementing water management and related investment strategies to reduce their exposure. ……..
According to projections from the World Resources Institute’s Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas, water stress — when humanity’s competition for water exceeds the rate at which nature can replenish its stocks — could grow materially by 2030 in the drought-prone Western U.S., as well as the upper Midwest and portions of the Northeast and Florida, due to climate change.
About 61.8% of existing fossil-fueled and nuclear power plants in the Lower 48, or a combined 535 GW of operating capacity, is in areas that could face medium-high to extremely high water stress in 2030, based on an analysis of Market Intelligence’s power plant data paired with the Aqueduct water stress projections.
Moreover, 68.6% of the Lower 48’s natural gas-fired fleet, 73.3% of its oil-fueled fleet, 61.0% of its nuclear fleet, and 44.6% of its coal-fired fleet are in areas expected to face medium-high to extremely-high water stress that year.
“As we’re seeing snowpack decline — a natural mountainous reservoir of water — and as we’re getting lower amounts of total precipitation and available water in the U.S. West, this is going to be a really serious issue for the power sector,” said Betsy Otto, director of the Global Water Program at the World Resource Institute, or WRI. Moreover, scientists have said the West is entering a megadrought that could last more than 20 years.
Otto also noted that several other U.S. regions not normally thought of as facing water supply issues are already experiencing chronic water challenges that, if left unchecked, could become a problem if extended droughts, heatwaves, and other major extreme weather events should occur.
A number of utilities use WRI’s Aqueduct tool to assess their water risks in their annual reports to the CDP, formerly known as the Carbon Disclosure Project, and other organizations. But those reports typically focus on the WRI’s current water stress models and not the tool’s future climate projections.
WRI’s current water stress models show a number of regions that are facing water stress will be in the same situation, or worse, at the end of the decade.
Along those lines, Moody’s Investors Service in August reported that about 48 GW of nuclear capacity across the U.S. face elevated exposure to combined heat and water stress, including plants owned by Exelon Corp., Vistra Corp., Entergy Corp., and the Arizona Public Service Co.
In hot water
A plant’s location is not the only factor that will determine its vulnerability to water stress. A plant’s water source, cooling technology and the temperature of the water when it is withdrawn are also key factors, according to scientific reports. The Market Intelligence analysis using the WRI tool does not account for those three factors.
In addition, rising ambient air and water temperatures can also create operational and legal issues for plants. Because plants primarily use water to cool their systems, “if that water is hot or warmer to start with, that’s not so good. That makes the power plant less efficient” and it also means the plant risks violating federal restrictions on how hot water can be when it is discharged, said Auroop Ganguly, director of the Northeastern University College of Engineering Sustainability and Data Sciences Laboratory.
Ganguly co-authored a study that found that by the 2030s, climate-induced water stress in the form of increased water temperatures and limited freshwater supplies will hurt the power production of thermoelectric plants in the South, Southwest, West and West North Central regions of the U.S. According to the 2017 study, U.S. nuclear and fossil-fueled plants at that time used about 161 billion gallons per day, or 45% of the nation’s daily freshwater usage, 90% of which was for cooling.
The technologies used by a power plant can also make a big difference in how much water it needs. Dry-cooling technology uses very little water but is costlier and less efficient than alternatives. And while once-through cooling systems withdraw more water than recirculating systems, once-through cooling returns nearly all of the water to the source while recirculating systems consume more water due to evaporation………. https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/blog/street-talk-episode-69-banks-left-with-pockets-full-of-cash-and-few-places-to-go
Fossil fuels are ”very clean” – in Donald Trump’s world
Guardian 23rd Oct 2020, In Donald Trump’s world – laid bare during Thursday night’s finalpresidential debate with his Democratic rival Joe Biden in Nashville – fossil fuels are “very clean”, the US has the best air and water despite his administration’s extensive regulatory rollbacks, and thecountry can fix climate change by planting trees.
not exist. Humanity has just eight years to figure out how to get climate change under control before the future starts to look drastically worse – multiple-degree temperature increases, global sea-level rise, and increasingly disastrous wildfires, hurricanes, floods and droughts. Doing so will mean that unless there is a technological miracle, humans will at some point have to stop burning oil, gas and coal.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/23/joe-biden-transition-from-oil-industry-rowing-back
More on the presidential debate – about climate change
Independent 23rd Oct 2020 It has been around 20 years since a lengthy discussion on climate change featured in a presidential debate during which time a monumental shift has happened in how America views the crisis.
Two-thirds of Americans think that the US government should do more on climate change and moderator Kristen Welker asked both Donald Trump and Joe Biden how they would step up
on the issue during the final presidential debate on Thursday, with millions of Americans already taking to the polls ahead of election day on 3 November.
Calling it an “existential crisis”, Mr Biden sounded the alarm for the world to address global warming, as Mr Trump took credit for pulling the US out of the 2015 Paris Climate Accord, the international agreement aimed at doing precisely that. Mr Trump said his focus was saving
American jobs, while taking credit for some of the “cleanest air and water the nation has seen in generations” — partly down to regulations passed in the Obama era.
Independent 23rd Oct 2020, President Trump, who has repeatedly called climate change a “hoax”, said he planned for a “trillion trees” before touting America’s “clean air”, “clean water” and lower carbon emissions (all of which are, at best, misleading, as The Independent has reported).
The president then pivoted to an attack on clean energy, taking particular issue with windmills. “He thinks wind causes cancer. Windmills,” Mr Biden noted. “I know more about wind than you do,” Mr Trump replied, before going on to say windmills are extremely expensive, “kill all the birds” and “the fumes coming up, if you’re a believer in carbon emission … for these massive windmills is more than anything we’re talking about with natural gas which is very clean”.
BHP’s rejection of uranium is a sign of the future
Wire 21st Oct 2020, The news this week that mining giant BHP will not continue with its long planned multi-billion dollar expansion of its Olympic Dam uranium and copper project is a sign that the market is turning against the controversial mineral.
It spells good news for the future of renewables but leaves the problem of leftover radioactive waste at Olympic Dam. There is no decision to change tack and mine the many many rare earths which also exist at the site.
http://thewire.org.au/story/bhps-rejection-of-uranium-a-sign-of-the-future/
October 23 Energy News — geoharvey
Science and Technology: ¶ “SAE International Publishes Two New Documents Enabling Commercialization of Wireless Charging for Electric Vehicles” • SAE International announced publication of two documents to enable a safe and efficient method for transferring power from a charging station to an EV. Wireless charging is done through a magnetic field. [CleanTechnica] Charging pad (Courtesy […]
October 23 Energy News — geoharvey
Solar plus storage better than grid connection for remote households — RenewEconomy
Dozens of WA households taken off the grid and given stand alone solar and storage power systems, cutting costs and improving reliability. The post Solar plus storage better than grid connection for remote households appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Solar plus storage better than grid connection for remote households — RenewEconomy
Danish research shows “almost no birds” die in collisions with wind turbines — RenewEconomy
A multi-year scientific study in Denmark has concluded that birds are quite good at avoiding wind turbine blades, and so “almost no birds die in collisions.” The post Danish research shows “almost no birds” die in collisions with wind turbines appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Danish research shows “almost no birds” die in collisions with wind turbines — RenewEconomy
Solar Insiders Podcast: The day South Australia became 100% solar fuelled — RenewEconomy
We look at the day when South Australia reached a world-first peak of 100 per cent solar power, plus the latest rooftop solar PV forecasts, and Victoria opens up for solar business again. The post Solar Insiders Podcast: The day South Australia became 100% solar fuelled appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Solar Insiders Podcast: The day South Australia became 100% solar fuelled — RenewEconomy
South Australian Parliament rejected Kimba nuclear waste dump, but Morrison govt could still impose it
It sounds good that this Motion passed in SA Parliament Legislative Council – credit to Mark Parnell MLC & SA Greens.
Even though Mark Parnell’s motion in the South Australian Parliament was successful last week it may be an illusory outcome as it seems that the Commonwealth government will have the constitutional superiority to override state laws with regard to the nuclear waste facility at Kimba
This is because the Commonwealth will rely on the free trade provision under section 92 of the Constitution as to the transport interstate of the nuclear waste while its storage and disposal falls under the external affairs power of section 51(xxix) as the safe management and disposal of nuclear waste is regulated under international convention and treaty rights
Regrettably the High Court in recent years has based many of its decisions rejecting state legislation on a broad interpretation of the external affairs power which in some circumstances has lead to virtually nonsensical conclusions
For this reason it is still essential to prevent the government’s proposals being carried out by legislative action
The Guardian was grossly unfair to Julian Assange. They could still make up for this.
The Guardian’s Silence Let UK Trample on Assange’s Rights in Effective Darkness https://consortiumnews.com/2020/10/21/the-guardians-silence-let-uk-trample-on-assanges-rights-in-effective-darkness/?fbclid=IwAR16w5kNgLGJ3jyFI6QvKZmxJ5tn_LjZcD90a7FOG-ZQ8jaGzUYKlhnRT8M
Jonathan-Cook.net WISE Up, a solidarity group for Julian Assange and whistleblower Chelsea Manning, is due to stage a demonstration outside The Guardian offices on Oct. 22 to protest the paper’s failure to support Assange as the U.S. seeks his extradition in an unprecedented assault on press freedom.
The date chosen for the protest marks the 10th anniversary of The Guardian’s publication of the Iraq war logs, leaked by Manning to Assange and which lie at the heart of the U.S. case to reclassify journalism exposing crimes against humanity as “espionage.”
Here is my full statement, part of which is due to be read out, in support of Assange and castigating The Guardian for its craven failure to speak up in solidarity with its former media partner:
Julian Assange has been hounded out of public life and public view by the U.K. and U.S. governments for the best part of a decade.
Now he languishes in a small, airless cell in Belmarsh high-security prison in London — a victim of arbitrary detention, according to a UN working group, and a victim of psychological torture, according to Nils Melzer, the UN’s expert on torture.
If Judge Vanessa Baraitser, presiding in the Central Criminal Court in London, agrees to extradition, as she gives every appearance of preparing to do, Assange will be the first journalist to face a terrifying new ordeal — a form of extraordinary rendition to the United States for “espionage” — for having the courage to publish documents that exposed U.S. war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The Guardian worked with Assange and WikiLeaks on vitally important documents – now at the heart of the U.S. case against Assange – known as the Afghanistan and Iraq war logs. The latter were published exactly a decade ago today. They were a journalistic coup of global significance, and the paper ought to be profoundly proud of its role in bringing them to public attention.
During Assange’s extradition hearing, however, The Guardian treated the logs and its past association with Assange and WikiLeaks more like a dirty secret it hoped to keep out of sight. Those scoops furnished by Assange and whistleblower Chelsea Manning enriched the paper financially, and bolstered its standing internationally. They also helped to pave its path into the lucrative U.S. market.
Unlike Assange and Manning, The Guardian has suffered no consequences for publishing the logs. Unlike Assange and Manning, the paper has faced no retribution. While it profited, Assange continues to be made an example of — to deter other journalists from contemplating following in his footsteps.
The Guardian owes Assange.
- It owes him a huge debt for allowing it to share in the journalistic glory of WikiLeaks’ revelations.
- It owes him a duty of care as its partner in publishing the logs.
- It owes him its voice loudly denouncing the abuse of a fellow journalist for doing the essence of journalism — holding the powerful to account.
- It owes him and its own staff, and the young journalists who will one day take their place, its muscle in vigorously defending the principle of a strong and free press.
- It owes him, and the rest of us, a clear profession of its outrage as the U.S. conducts an unprecedented assault on free speech, the foundation of a democratic society.
And yet The Guardian has barely raised its voice above a whisper as the noose has tightened around Assange’s — and by extension, our — neck. It has barely bothered to cover the dramatic and deeply disturbing developments of last month’s extradition hearing, or the blatant abuses of legal process overseen by Baraitser.
The Guardian has failed to raise its editorial voice in condemnation either of the patently dishonest U.S. case for extradition or of the undisguised mistreatment of Assange by Britain’s legal and judicial authorities.
The paper’s many columnists ignored the proceedings too, except for those who contributed yet more snide and personal attacks of the kind that have typified The Guardian’s coverage of Assange for many years.
It is not too late for the paper to act in defence of Assange and journalism.
Assange’s rights are being trampled under foot close by The Guardian’s offices in London because the British establishment knows that these abuses are taking place effectively in darkness. It has nothing to fear as long as the media abdicates its responsibility to scrutinize what amounts to the biggest attack on journalism in living memory.
Were The Guardian to shine a light on Assange’s case — as it is morally obligated to do — the pressure would build on other media organizations, not least the BBC, to do their job properly too. The British establishment would finally face a countervailing pressure to the one being exerted so forcefully by the U.S.
The Guardian should have stood up for Assange long ago, when the threats he and investigative journalism faced became unmistakable. It missed that opportunity. But the threats to Assange — and the causes of transparency and accountability he champions — have not gone away. They have only intensified. Assange needs the Guardian’s support more urgently, more desperately than ever before.
Jonathan Cook is a former Guardian journalist (1994-2001) and winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. He is a freelance journalist based in Nazareth. If you appreciate his articles, please consider offering your financial support.
This article is from his blog Jonathan Cook.net.
OLympic Dam uranium mine – NOT the great white hope for South Australia
The Olympic Dam silver bullet is forever tarnished
“From the BHP side BFX is dead and buried… I suggest a new name: “OD-PERHAPS” for short.”
It’s time to stop looking to one mine in the state’s Far North for the answer to our economic problems
BHP, and our politicians, should be wary of rolling out the “expansion” tag to a state weary of spin around Olympic Dam, writes Business Editor Cameron England.
Cameron England, Business Editor, The Advertiser, October 20, 2020 ,
South Australians can take today’s announcement from BHP that its expansion plans have been shelved again as a signal that it’s time to step off the Olympic Dam silver bullet train once and for all…………
hanging our hopes on a big bang – or even a small bang – expansion of the project as a pivotal turning point for the state’s economy is a fool’s game.
The initial $30 billion open pit expansion – which was shelved in 2012 – would genuinely have been a game-changer for the state.
It included plans for an open pit bigger than the Adelaide CBD, new ports, and a surge in annual royalties for the State Government. But it was not to be.
The BFX expansion – which was shelved today – was a more modest $3.7 billion proposal, and while the spending would have been a boon to the state, it alone would have not moved the dial in a significant way for the state’s economy.
A broadbased approach, based around SA being a great place to do business – which the government is actually pursuing – stands a better chance of being the tide which lifts all boats.
Unfortunately the idea of an Olympic Dam expansion seems to be enough to make state ministers lose their equilibrium.
Back in 2011, former Infrastructure Minster Pat Conlon, with the caveat that it wasn’t his decision to make, declared the project a “goer” and said “I can tell you, having been regularly updated by my colleague Kevin Foley, Olympic Dam is a goer, it will get a sign-off.
“I’m very, very confident we’ll start up soon.’’
It didn’t of course.
And now current Mining Minister Dan van Holst Pellekaan says, similar to the results from Pantene, it won’t happen overnight, but it will happen…..
From the BHP side BFX is dead and buried, although they are committed to an incremental $500 million smelter maintenance plan and do want to gradually increase production.
But what most people would understand is an “expansion plan” is off the cards for now.
BHP needs to learn to manage expectations around this project, in a state which does have a tendency to hope for silver bullet solutions.
They’re between a rock and a hard place with their obligation to keep investors up to date, and not get people too excited with projects that invariably have billion dollar price tags attached.
I suggest a new name: the Olympic Dam Project Evaluation, Risk, Holistic Analysis and Potential Scheme – or “OD-PERHAPS” for short.
Kimba residents have been sold a lemon – dubious financial gain from nuclear waste dump
Sandra Kanck Nuclear Fuel Cycle Watch Australia, 22 Oct 20,How ANSTO’s Synroc nuclear waste solution turned out to be a dud
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HOW SYNROC’S SCIENCE-PUSH FAILED AS THE PANACEA FOR NUCLEAR WASTE, https://www.aumanufacturing.com.au/how-synroc-s-science-push-failed-as-the-panacea-for-nuclear-waste by Peter Roberts, 21 Oct 20, CSIRO’s Synroc synthetic rock method for safely storing radioactive waste is making headlines again (more on that later), but as someone who has been around for a while it all just demonstrates yet again the topsy turvy way we see innovation in Australia. Synroc was unveiled in 1978 by a team led by Dr Ted Ringwood at the Australian National University, and further developed by CSIRO as the answer to nuclear waste. After a process of hot isostatic pressing, in which cannisters of waste are compressed at high temperature, Synroc ceramic was created and said to be a massive step forward from today’s techniques of storing high level waste in glass. But despite decades of trying to commercialise the technology both CSIRO and the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation have failed to get it adopted commercially – it is simply not seen by customers as that much better than what they were already doing. The process Synroc went through is typical of the science-push model of innovation in which researchers are seen as being the font of brilliant ideas that only need to be picked up by a grateful private sector. ANSTO’s Michael Deura said in a statement: “I am pretty excited to see the HIP system in action at ANSTO. This type of innovation will change the industry and how it operates in the longer term.” And Synroc technical director Gerry Triani said: “This HIP system is a global first for nuclear waste management.” Not a word in ANSTO’s media release about the three decades plus work and expenditure that has gone into Synroc, and not a word about the meagre uptake of the technology internationally. Really, you would hope we might learn the lessons of the past. |
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1 This month
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
