South Australia now supplying electricity to Victoria, as wind power surges
 Victoria now relying on SA for power as wind production rises and coal plants close, Adelaide Now Daniel Wills, State Political Editor, The Advertiser December 3, 2018 Green-powered South Australia is now sending Victoria more electricity than it takes back as wind production surges, leading energy experts to warn that more storage is the key to keeping the local grid stable.
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Nuclear authorities planning for NUCLEAR PROCESSING at Kimba or Hawker dump site!
10,000 CSIRO barrels are stacked decaying within the Woomera Protected Area; & back in 2016 $29 million was budgeted for re-mediation.
CSIRO has been contacted numerous times by different folk seeking information about how that was progressing – no answer has been the firm reply…..
Well, Senator Rex Patrick recently released some documents he obtained under FOI, & within those we find, from an August 2017 DIIS facilitated meeting with very senior officers from CSIRO, ARPANSA, & Department of Defence :
“CSIRO estimates they have 10,000 drums of radioactive waste stored at Woomera. Initial reports indicate these drums represent 80% LLW and 20% ILW. There is both chemical and radiological waste, often mixed together. They have been directed by ARPANSA to undertake measures to characterise, separate, process as appropriate, and repackage. [my caps] HOWEVER, IT IS NOT POSSIBLE TO UNDERTAKE SUCH MEASURES WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF THE CURRENT STORAGE FACILITY AT WOOMERA” p17
……. then on p18
“Preparing any appropriate part of the CSIRO waste at Woomera for transport to the NRWMF once we have clarity on what that facility will deal with (eg. LLW processing, ILW storage)”
So, at August 2017, we have the bosses of Federal agencies flagging the PROCESSING OF RADIOACTIVE WASTE AT THE NRWMF.
The affected communities have not been informed about that – only being told it would be STORAGE ONLY. Also, the ‘temporary’ ‘interim’ holding of ILW in a shipping container, potentially 100 years, requires replacement of the canisters after 40 years, so there would also need to be built what is known as a ‘hot cell’ to undertake that risky venture…
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/2ed7ca0ef6oh1p5/AAB6UaL6iCMWFH2dzwv2q4VBa?dl=0&preview=Woomera+Letter+2.pdf
ENuFF[SA] https://www.facebook.com/sanuclearfree/
Total fire ban South Australia – a dangerous place to put a nuclear waste dump?
Total fire bans declared for most of South Australia, The Advertiser, December 1, 2018 Total fire bans have been issued for most of South Australia on the first day of summer.
The Country Fire Service’s state operation centre is ready to react to any large fires today as the mercury soars to 30C across the state before a possible storm late in the afternoon.
A severe fire danger rating has declared for the following regions:
West Coast, Eastern Eyre Peninsula, Lower Eyre Peninsula, Flinders, Mid North, Yorke Peninsula, Riverland, Murraylands, Upper South East, Lower South East and Mount Lofty Ranges
The official bushfire season has also begun today for Kangaroo Island and will run until April.
When total fire bans are declared, well prepared and actively defended houses can offer safety during a fire.
But the Country Fire Service warns that if residents do not have a bushfire survival plan, leaving early before a fire start is the safest option.
CFS State Duty Commander Nick Stanley told ABC radio certain activities that could cause a fire risk are banned during the fire danger season…..
Multiple bushfires on Yorke Peninsula South Australia
Bushfires in SA after lightning hits https://www.sbs.com.au/news/bushfires-in-sa-after-lightning-hits
A band of lightning moving across South Australia is believed to be the cause of multiple bushfires, in particular on the Yorke Peninsula at Minlaton. 2 Dec 18 Multiple fires are burning in South Australia and are believed to have been caused by a band of lightning moving across the state.
The most serious fire is on the Yorke Peninsula at Minlaton, the SA Country Fire Service said.
Just before 3pm, the CFS was telling nearby residents to “leave if the path is clear to a safer place” however the authority now says the rate of spread of the fire has halted.
However the CFS says it’s concerned that could change when the wind changes in a few hours.
“The CFS has concern that when the wind change arrives, there may be an increase in fire behaviour,” a warning message said.
“People east of the fire ground need to remain alert to this wind change and enact their Bushfire Survival Plan.”
There are smaller grass fires near Ettick in the Murraylands district, the Globe Derby Trotting track in the northern Adelaide metro area, Kangaroo Island, Hindmarsh Island, Kanmantoo, Barabba and Long Plains.
There is a total fire ban for most of the state.
Striking school students are more likely to have successful careers
School strikers are going places but the dole queue isn’t one of them, https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/environment/climate-change/school-strikers-are-going-places-but-the-dole-queue-isn-t-one-of-them-20181202-p50jog.html, By Clive Hamilton 2 December 2018 The resources minister, Matt Canavan, last week told students that the only thing they’d learn by skipping school to protest over inaction on climate change would be how to join the dole queue.
The history of protest in Australia shows the opposite. The protest leaders of the 1960s and 1970s, including many high school students, were denounced by conservatives as long-haired layabouts who would never amount to anything. In fact, they became the next generation of leaders in politics, universities, media, the public service, NGOs and even business.
Take the 1965 Freedom Ride, for instance. “Look at em,” said one RSL stalwart when students turned up to protest against the ban on black diggers. “The brains of Australia! God help you if you ever end up under em.” That’s exactly what happened. The Freedom Ride’s leaders included Jim Spigelman, who would go on to become Chief Justice of NSW and chair of the ABC, Ann Curthoys, later an eminent professor, and Charles Perkins, who became an Aboriginal leader, leading public servant and one of Australia’s Living National Treasures.
Student protesters have become newspaper editors, cabinet ministers, prize-winning poets, much-loved cartoonists, publishers, world-famous authors and Supreme Court judges.
There’s a reason they develop into leaders. It’s those young people who throw themselves into civic engagement who become the best citizens and most productive members of our society. They are the passionate ones willing to stand up. They are not content to “work, consume, die” but commit themselves to making a better Australia.
When we hear Canavan tell 2GB the protesters are “not actually taking charge of their lives” and they should get a real job, he’s telling them they should not be active, motivated citizens but docile consumers who leave politics to the politicians.
The protesting school kids, tired of watching the sacrifice of their future by a government dominated by climate science deniers, had some sharp answers to that, waving placards reading “Why should we go to school if you won’t listen to the educated?” and “I’ve seen smarter cabinets in Ikea”.
The students are carrying on a noble tradition. The great social movements that defined modern Australia—the movements for women’s liberation, gay rights, Indigenous rights, and environmental protection—all inspired school students to get out on the streets, wave banners and chant slogans.
Clive Hamilton is the author of What Do We Want? The Story of Protest in Australia and professor of public ethics at Charles Sturt University in Canberra.
Michael West shows the obstacles to Adani actually starting the Carmichael coal project
Desperate Adani’s bid to kick-start Carmichael before election, Michael West, Dec 2, 2018 The press release does not say they are starting the mine. It says they are starting the mine imminently. They have been starting the Carmichael coal mine imminently for many years. We maintain the view that this mine will not proceed, but the Adani family does have a special new inducement to proceed, besides risk-free income routed to family-controlled entities in tax havens, and that inducement comes from India. Michael West reports.The bankers have long fled the scene, mine “approvals risk” remains, the thermal coal price has tanked, the Carmichael Coal project is more on the nose than ever as Queensland burns.
Yet, last Thursday, Adani chief executive Lucas Dow told the Bowen Basin Mining Club lunch in Mackay that Carmichael would proceed imminently. Adani would now finance the mine itself.
It remains the view of this observer that it won’t happen and that Lucas Dow is jawboning, trying to get something going before the Federal Election next year. There is some urgency to this – an urgency supported by other Galilee Basin coal players Gina Rinehart and Clive Palmer – because a Labor government is less likely to look favourably upon Adani’s aspirations to open up a new coal province.
Officially, Labor still supports the project proceeding, and some unions are in favour, but there is no hard-core coal lobby in the party, unlike in the Coalition Government, pushing it.
This is a project whose ambitions have fallen from $20 billion to $2 billion in project finance for its latest slimmed-down version.
These are the “nays”. The “yays” are few but one significant factor has swung in Adani Australia’s favour.
* The price of high-quality Newcastle coal has fallen to two-year lows at $US58/tonne.
* Adani has no rail access agreement with Aurizon to ship the coal to Abbot Point coal terminal.
* It does have a legitimate ILUA (Indigenous Land Use Agreement) but this has been challenged and may take months to resolve.
* There is no final approval of water rights and the heatwave and fires in Queensland have hardened local opposition to the plan.
* Adani Group in India has not come up with $2 billion yet.
* Sources say that EFIC (Export Finance & Insurance Corporation) has discarded the idea of financing or guaranteeing Adani’s loans.
* Aurizon withdrew its application to NAIF (Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility) earlier this year for finance to build a 388k rail line from the Galilee to the coast.
The Yays
As the project is “vertically integrated”, that is, the coal goes straight to feed the Adani Group’s plants in Indonesia, the price of coal is not absolutely critical to whether it proceeds.
Here is the catch. The poor people of Gujurat Province in India have bizarrely been put on the hook to subsidise coal projects in India for the next thirty years. Why this has happened, one can only guess, but the effect of the deal appears to be to guarantee coal supply to three Indian coal magnates via “cost-plus” arrangements.
This from the Press Trust of India, October 11:
The recommendations of a high-powered committee on stranded power projects set up by the Gujarat government can bring a combined relief of Rs 1.29 trillion for Tata, Adani and Essar’s power plants in the state over the next 30 years, according to a source.
If the recommendations are implemented, the consumers will have to face the brunt of high power tariffs………..
In light of the Indian subsidies, Gautam Adani can probably borrow the $2 billion in project finance. Bear in mind that, thanks to the way the port terminal, and perhaps the rail, corporate entities are structured, the Adani family takes little risk on those revenues. Shipping coal will deliver per-tonne income to Adani family companies.
If the Adani group itself finances the mine – as opposed to external banks – it will bear the mine risk. Gautam Adani is yet to publicly say the deal is financed.
Given the remaining “approvals risks” as detailed above, there are still plenty of obstacles for the project to overcome.https://www.michaelwest.com.au/desperate-adanis-bid-to-kick-start-carmichael-before-election/
Antarctica – the Thwaites glacier is losing ice
Portrait of a planet on the verge of climate catastrophe As the UN sits down for its annual climate conference this week, many experts believe we have passed the point of no return, Guardian, by Robin McKie, 2 Dec 18 “……. Antarctica
It is hard to get a grip of the sheerscale of the Thwaites glacier in west Antarctica. It’s more than 300 miles long and 200 wide – and more than a mile thick. It drains an area of ice that is larger than England and stealthily slides towards the sea by several metres every day. Only from satellite images have we understood the shape and power of this ice monster.
These now show the beast is waking up. Thwaites’s uptake of falling snow was once matched, fairly finely, by snow and ice being lost as icebergs. Now it has begun to flow faster, along with some of its neighbouring glaciers. More ice is being lost into the ocean than is being replaced, speeding up global sea-level rise.
The cause of the disruption at Thwaites is straightforward, researchers have discovered. Increasing amounts of warm ocean water coming from the north have been melting the floating parts of the glacier and this, in turn, is letting the inland glacier run more quickly into the sea. This much we know, but we have still to understand how this process is likely to accelerate. At present, Thwaites contributes around 4% of observed sea-level rise, but it is widely agreed that this could grow exponentially. Indeed, some glaciologists believe that a complete collapse of the Thwaites glacier over coming centuries is now inevitable – and that would raise global sea level by several metres, drowning coastal ecosystems around the world, damaging coastal investments and displacing millions of people………. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/02/world-verge-climate-catastophe
Release of Federal Inquiry Report into community contamination from toxic chemicals
| On Monday December 3rd a cross-party Parliamentary Inquiry will release its report into the Defence Department’s management into PFAS contamination in and around Defence bases. To date 90 sites and communities in every single state and territory of Australia have been contaminated by this toxic and banned chemical which was used in firefighting foams and has leaked into the environment. |
| A seven-year study of 69,000 US residents by an independent panel of scientists concluded these body of chemicals were connected to developmental issues in infants and children, increased cancer risk, high cholesterol levels, hormone disruption and lowered immunity.
For years contaminated communities were kept in the dark about their homes being contaminated. For the last four years they have fought tirelessly for their own Government to take responsibility for compensation and clean-up of their polluted properties. The Inquiry report will detail physical, emotional and financial toll living in a contaminated community has created along with listing recommendations. Contaminated communities are tired of years of inaction and false claims. “To date, the Australian Government is a world leader in managing PFAS contamination.” Letter from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet to Williamtown residents. March 2018 Fact– More than 170 countries have signed a treaty which ban PFAS related chemicals – Australia refuses to. Fact– PFAS is not only still leaking off Defence bases, airports and industrial sites all around Australia in States such as Queensland it’s still in use at over 200 sites. Fact – Defence and the Government continues to refuse to provide blood testing for residents at a number of contaminated sites. It will not release collated blood testing results from other sites. Fact:– Contaminated communities are told not to drink water or eat food from their properties but the Government is dismissive of the international research detailing the health risks of PFAS. Fact – The Inquiry hearings saw both the Defence Department admit they would welcome a third party stepping in to better manage the PFAS contamination and the Federal Government unable to point to who was coordinating the national response to it handling it. |
Adani’s announcement they are ‘ready to go’ must be reality tested
Brisbane, Australia: Galilee Basin Traditional Owners say today’s announcement by Adani Mining that it has decided to fund its massively scaled down Carmichael project must be reality tested. They say the Queensland Government has not extinguished their native title, which is crucial to the mine proceeding.
W&J Traditional Owner and lead spokesperson Adrian Burragubba said, “Even if Adani’s announcement proves to be true, they do not have the final approvals or the financial close needed for the mine to proceed. They are also under investigation for environmental breaches on our country.
“It is a measure of Adani’s failure that they can’t obtain finance for the project they touted to our people.. We rejected it when they first came to us and we reject it now, because Adani offers nothing of worth to our people and will destroy our country forever.
“We demand a guarantee from the Queensland Government they won’t now extinguish our native title for Adani. Queensland Labor has said they recognise that the registration of the Adani ILUA is contested and they acknowledge and respect our right to have our complaints considered and determined by a court.
“We have an appeal before the full bench of the Federal Court. To act before this concludes would be to deny our rights and open the way for a grave injustice. Without our consent, the mine is not ready to proceed”.
Climate change and the Great Barrier Reef
Portrait of a planet on the verge of climate catastrophe As the UN sits down for its annual climate conference this week, many experts believe we have passed the point of no return, Guardian, by Robin McKie, 2 Dec 18 “…………Great Barrier Reef Coral reefs cover a mere 0.1% of the world’s ocean floor but they support about 25% of all marine species. They also provide nature with some of its most beautiful vistas. For good measure, coral reefs protect shorelines from storms, support the livelihoods of 500 million people and help generate almost £25bn of income. Permitting their destruction would put the planet in trouble – which is precisely what humanity is doing.
Rising sea temperatures are already causing irreparable bleaching of reefs, while rising sea levels threaten to engulf reefs at a faster rate than they can grow upwards. Few scientists believe coral reefs – which are made of simple invertebrates related to sea anemones – can survive for more than a few decades.
Yet those who have sounded clear warnings about our reefs have received little reward. Professor Terry Hughes, a coral expert at James Cook University in Queensland, Australia, recently studied the impact of El Niño warmings in 2016 and 2017 on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, the world’s largest coral reef and its largest living entity – and wept when he saw the damage.
“The 2016 event killed 30% of corals, the one a year later killed another 20%. Very close to half the corals have died in the past three years,” he said recently.
For his pains, Hughes has faced demands from tourist firms for his funding to be halted because he was ruining their business. “The Australian government is still promoting new developments of coal mines and fracking for gas,” Hughes said, after being named joint recipient of the John Maddox prize, given to those who champion science in the face of hostility and legal threats. “If we want to save the Great Barrier Reef, these outdated ambitions need to be abandoned. Yet Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions are rising, not falling. It’s a national disgrace.”
This grim picture is summed up by the ethnographer Irus Braverman in her book Coral Whisperers: “The Barrier Reef has changed for ever. The largest living structure in the world has become the largest dying structure in the world.” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/02/world-verge-climate-catastophe
Australia’s climate action schoolkids – more intelligent, better informed, than Australia’s government
“I think what’s striking in Matt Canavan’s comments is how demeaning he is about young people and what they actually know, and how he underestimates their understanding,”
“I heard students today at the rally talking about the IPCC report, talking about the 700 odd days until emissions can peak before we exceed 1.5 degrees.
“These are kids that actually understand the science in a way that I think most of parliamentarians don’t.”
Organiser Deanna Athanosos, who is in year 10, said Mr Morrison’s rhetoric towards the strike made her laugh.
“If you were doing your job properly, we wouldn’t be here,” she said.
Students strike for climate change protests, defying calls to stay in school ABC News Thousands of Australian students have defied calls by the Prime Minister to stay in school and instead marched on the nation’s capital cities, and some regional centres, demanding an end to political inertia on climate change.
Key points:
- Students called for politicians to act on climate change warnings
- Thousands of young people were inspired by 15-year-old Swedish pupil Greta Thunberg’s protest in Stockholm
- Resources Minister Matt Canavan criticised demonstrators for missing out on school
Protests were held in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Coffs Harbour, Bendigo and other cities, as students banded together to pressure the Morrison Government in the lead-up to a federal election.
“The politicians aren’t listening to us when we try to ask nicely for what we want and for what we need,” said Castlemaine student Harriet O’Shea Carre.
“So now we have to go to extreme lengths and miss out on school.”
It follows similar protests in Canberra and Hobart earlier this week, which have spurred on the junior activists……. Continue reading
Government Divides Hawker and Kimba Communities While Hiding Suitable Alternate Radioactive Waste Sites
28 NOVEMBER 2018, Centre Alliance Senator Rex Patrick today called on the Australian Government to reopen consideration of the 122,000 square kilometres of the Woomera Prohibited Area (WPA) as a location for a National Radioactive Waste Management Facility (NRWMF).
Documents released under FOI to Senator Patrick show the Department of Industry undertook analysis of a number of sites, including the WPA, as potential homes for a NRWMF. In a very shallow response to the Department of Industry, Defence dismissed the WPA for its “impracticability” and “intolerable risk”.
Defence’s analysis cannot be reconciled with the fact that Woomera Test Range is already serving as a radioactive waste storage site. CSIRO is storing 10,000 drums of low and intermediate level waste in a hangar at Evetts Field, 1.3 kilometres from the Woomera Range head, while Defence is storing 35 cubic metres of intermediate level waste in a bunker 5 kilometres down range. Both the CSIRO and Defence waste has been stored there for 24 years.
“Defence’s claims are disingenuous and are nimby in attitude,” said Rex.
“If storing radioactive waste in the WPA represents an intolerable risk, why has this considerable store of waste been allowed to stay there for 24 years?”
“It seems that Defence is never stronger in defending territory than when it comes to defending its own.”
At question time today Senator Patrick today revealed the existence of a 414 page report undertaken for the former Department of Education, Science and Training that examines locating a NRWMF inside and nearby the WPA. It recommends Evetts Field inside the WPA as a preferred location.
The 414 page report contradicts Defence’s shallow analysis and addresses all of Defence’s concerns, and more.
“How can the Government tell the deeply divided communities of Hawker and Kimba that there is absolutely nowhere within the more than 122,000 square kilometres of Woomera that would be suitable for a radioactive waste facility,” Rex asked.
“Noting Minister Payne’s apparent lack of knowledge of the Evetts field option in the Senate today, I will definitely be pursuing this further.”
The relevant FOI documents and reports can be found here.
Concerned citizens of Kimba petition the Senate to remove Kimba site from radioactive waste site shortlist
ENuFF South Australia No Nuclear Waste Dump Anywhere in South Australia
“Radioactive Waste
TO THE HONOURABLE PRESIDENT AND MEMBERS OF THE SENATE IN PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLED.
This Petition of Concerned Citizens of Kimbo District, Eyre Peninsula. South Australia and Australia, draws the attention of the Senate that:
The petition of the undersigned concerned Citizens of Kimba District, Eyre Peninsula, South Australia, draws the attention of the Senate to our opposition to the siting of the National Radioactive Waste Management Facility on agricultural land in Kimba or South Australia, as currently proposed. We are particularly concerned about the risks this proposal presents to Kimba and Eyre Peninsula’s clean and green reputation, on which our export industries rely.
We therefore ask the House to:
Your petitioners ask the Senate work to remove both Kimba sites from the shortlist to host the National Radioactive Waste Management Facility, We request that the Federal Government undertake a proper process to seek the best possible site for disposal of all our Nation’s Waste, where it cannot impact on local agriculture, industry or community cohesion. We sincerely hope that this will allow the Kimba community to return to the harmonious, cooperative and civil community life that existed prior to the introduction of this proposal.
by Senator Hanson-Young (from 1039 citizens) (Petition No. 869)” Page 38 of the Hansard record.
://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/…/Senate_2018_11_27_6792.pdf…/pdf https://www.facebook.com/groups/1314655315214929/
Australia’s Resources Minister Matt Canavan scorns children who protest for climate action
A Deadshit Senator Says Students Striking Today Are Headed For The Dole Queue ,Pedestrian, Matt Canavan, the federal minister for resources, has a considered take on today’s student protests against climate change that currently remain on-going across major Australian cities. Unsurprisingly, it’s a piss-awful one.
Canavan, a Liberal senator representing Queensland which is currently being belted by catastrophic and unprecedented bushfires, took to 2GB earlier this morning to make his thoughts on the Strike 4 Climate Action protests, in which thousands upon thousands of school children are literally screaming at politicians like Matt Canavan, abundantly clear.
Chiefly, the big dumbass reckons that students who attend today’s protests are only going to learn one thing: How to join a dole queue………The Minister for Resources then followed that up by suggesting activism solves nothing and instead the students should be in school learning how to build mines and drill for gas which, again in his words, “is one of the most remarkable science exploits in the world.” Incredibly wild that he quite literally used the word “exploits” there……..https://www.pedestrian.tv/news/matt-canavan-looks-like-someone-rigged-a-blobfish-to-a-car-battery/
Western Australia set for a scorching summer
Perth cruises through dry, ‘benign’ November as BOM flags glimpse of hot summer to come, ABC 
News, By Irena Ceranic 30 Nov 18 As Queensland sweltered through heatwave conditions which fuelled catastrophic bushfires, and torrential rain flooded New South Wales, Perth cruised through a mild November, recording its driest in 61 years and coolest in a decade.
Key points:
- Perth’s spring rainfall totalled 78.4mm, compared to the average of 148.9mm
- The average temperature in Perth in November was a cooler-than-usual 25.3C
- The temperature in the city on Monday is forecast to soar to 36C
There were only two wet days in the month and between them, they delivered just 3.2 millimetres of rain to the Perth metro gauge — far less than the 23.2mm average — making it the driest November since 1957.
Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) spokesman Neil Bennett said the days were also cooler than usual, with an average of 25.3 degrees Celsius………
Get set for a summer scorcher
Perth had an unusually cool summer in 2017-18 and did not record a single day over 38C. But above-average temperatures are expected over much of WA this time around, according to the outlook for December to February from BOM.
“We don’t have a strong signal one way or the other for the rainfall, so that sort of suggests that we’re likely to see average rainfall for the next three months,” said Mr Bennett.
“Temperature-wise though, it does look as if the odds are favouring warmer-than-average temperatures.”
Perth will get a glimpse of what is to come on Monday, when the temperature is forecast to soar to 36C. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-30/perths-cool-benign-november-the-driest-in-more-than-six-decades/10571178
1 This month
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/235274195556
20 May – Webinar – The dangerous world of AUKUS, US, military occupation and suppression of dissent
National Webinar, 20th May, 2026, 6.30pm AEST. Confronting laws restricting/suppressing protest speech and action
Speakers: Former Sen. Rex Patrick, Lawyer Nick Hanna ,Arthur Rorris ,Jorgen Doyle, Sen David Shoebbridge,
Facilitator Kelley Tranter.
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
Antinuclear 