Senate inquiry into bushfires hears of climate change impacts
Climate warning at bushfire inquiry, Examiner, 
@dougdingwall
Tainted economic evidence was given to South Australia’s Nuclear Royal Commission
“Such a dump could easily lose money instead of being a bonanza.”
Critics argue Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission skewed by advocacy group’s evidence, ABC 3 Nov 16 by Stephen Long “…….Claims that building a radioactive waste dump would give a massive boost to the South Australian economy rely on a report co-authored by members of an advocacy group for international nuclear storage “solutions”.
A royal commission into the nuclear fuel cycle has urged South Australia to develop a facility for the disposal of international used nuclear fuel and waste, arguing it could provide “significant and enduring economic benefits to the South Australian community”.
It based its finding on a “viability analysis” conducted for the commission that found that a nuclear waste dump could “generate more than $100 billion income in excess of expenditure” over the life of the project, or a $51 billion benefit in today’s dollars.
That analysis was co-authored by Charles McCombie and Mr Neil Chapman, the president and vice president of ARIUS, the Association for Regional and International Underground Storage. The association’s role is to “promote concepts … for storage and disposal of long-lived radioactive wastes” and to “act as an advocate for international and regional storage and disposal options”.
Its motto is: “The world needs nuclear power — nuclear power needs multinational facilities”.
As well as co-authoring the viability analysis, Dr McCombie and Mr Chapman wrote the safety analysis that the royal commission relied upon.
Advocates’ advice tainted analysis: critics
Critics argue that using leading members of an advocacy group to assess the viability and economic benefits of building a nuclear waste dump gives rise to a clear conflict of interest and taints the analysis.
“I think it is really disappointing and I think Australians should be asking fundamental questions about the independence of the economic analysis on which this entire case, on which this entire royal commission, rests,” Barbara Pocock, an economist and research professor at the University of South Australia, told the ABC.
Professor Pocock, who is a member of Mothers for a Sustainable South Australia, said the royal commission appeared to rely entirely on the “viability analysis” for its recommendation of a nuclear waste facility.
“All the economists who have replied to the analysis in that report have been critical of the fact that it is a ‘one quote’ situation.
“We haven’t got a critical analysis, we haven’t got a peer review of the analysis, which appears to have come from an interested source,” she said……..
Its modelling assumes that South Australia will receive $1.75 million per tonne for taking spent nuclear fuel and intermediate radioactive waste and command half the available market, though it says it would still be viable with a lower price and market share.
Critics describe the price forecasts as heroic, and the assumption that the forecast price would not bring rival facilities into market as puzzling.
“The forecast profitability of the proposed nuclear dump rests on highly optimistic assumptions,” Richard Blandy, professor of economics at the University of Adelaide, told the citizens’ jury last week.
“Such a dump could easily lose money instead of being a bonanza.”……… http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-03/radioactive-waste-dump-would-boost-sa-economy-commission-hears/7991170
Mike Baird’s New South Wales government – more “creative accounting” on #climate change
Mike Baird is going rogue on climate change, The Age, Christine Milne , 3 Nov 16.In NSW the Baird government is set to give the green light to land clearing that will increase our greenhouse gas emissions just as the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to 2 degrees and pursue a more ambitious 1.5 degrees limit comes into effect on Thursday. Premier Baird is going rogue on climate.
As the world meets in Morocco for COP22, Australia will be under scrutiny as never before. Not only have we not ratified the Paris Agreement, we are increasingly being seen as cheating the process with rubbery figures. To meet the Paris Agreement objectives, negative emissions will be required. That is pulling CO2 from the atmosphere at the same time as reducing emissions from all sources. The Baird government is doing the opposite, increasing emissions from coal and coal seam gas at the same time as pushing up emissions from land clearing.
The rest of the world is sick of Australia’s creative accounting using land use, land use change and forestry, or LULUCF, as a “get out of jail free card” to “offset” its rising greenhouse gas emissions from industry. Australia has argued that while its emissions from coal-fired power stations, industries, cars and transport fleet vehicles and fugitive emissions from gas are rising, they are offset by our forests.
That is the basis of the Turnbull government’s Emission Reduction Fund. It has spent over $1 billion paying farmers not to clear or to regrow forests so polluters can keep on polluting. People think the fund must be invested in upgrading industry. Wrong, it has been overwhelmingly paid to farmers.
That is why the Baird government’s proposed changes are so bad. Not only will they destroy biodiversity and send species to extinction by destroying habitat, they will undermine efforts to meet our greenhouse gas reduction targets by cancelling out any reductions that may have been made through the ERF……….
In its reports to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Australia said that from 2005- 2013 land use emissions dropped by 10 per cent but admitted that they will increase by 8 per cent from 2013 to 2020. As part of a peer review process, other countries can ask questions and they have leapt at the chance.
The US asked: “Can you explain what caused this reversal from downward trend to upward trend?” Australia has not yet answered but it is obvious that the Liberal governments of Newman, Baird and Malcolm Turnbull are to blame.
The European Union has noted:”Australia updates some details on ‘avoided clearing of native regrowth’, stating that projected increases in land clearing will be offset by low rates of native forest harvesting. Noting that tree-clearing controls were instrumental in Australia meeting its Kyoto commitment, have the emissions projections been adjusted to account for the updates?”…..
This cannot go on. The offsetting, lies and rubbery figures must stop. Carbon in the landscape must be increased, not decreased. The Baird government’s new land clearing laws must be stopped and if NSW won’t act the federal government should step in to make it happen.
Christine Milne is the former leader of the Australian Greens. http://www.theage.com.au/comment/mike-baird-is-going-rogue-on-climate-change-20161102-gsg4zr.html
Nuclear Royal Commission ignored world’s one and only existing deep underground nuclear waste dump
Bias of SA Nuclear Royal Commission finally exposed, REneweconomy, By Jim Green on 4 November 2016 “……….Given the make-up of the Royal Commission, it came as no surprise that numerous questionable claims by the nuclear industry were repeated in the Royal Commission’s report released in May 2016. Critical analyses of the Royal Commission’s findings are posted online. Suffice it here to mention one example here. The Commission’s main recommendation was to import 138,000 tonnes of high level nuclear waste for disposal in a deep geological repository. Yet the Commission’s report only offered a few sentences on the world’s one and only deep geological repository ‒ the Waste Isolation Pilot Plan (WIPP) in the US, shut down since 2014 because of a chemical explosion in an underground nuclear waste barrel.Pivotal role for Australia in promoting the global nuclear lobby
So – the Australian public dreams on – preoccupied with the Melbourne Cup and other sporting events. And the global nuclear lobby continues its machinations. It would be such a strong selling point, to be able to tell South Asian countries that they can go ahead with nuclear power, as Australia will take out the radioactive trash
The machinations of the global nuclear lobby, http://readersupportednews.org/pm-section/27-27/40006-the-machinations-of-the-global-nuclear-lobby-qdown-underq31 October 2016
Australia has been pretty much of a forgotten player in the global nuclear “renaissance”. Not any more. The big nuclear players – USA, Russia, Canada, France, China , Japan South Korea are busily marketing nuclear technology to every other country that they can. Strangely enough little ole non-nuclear Australia, (population 23 million) has a starring role to play in all this.
You see, the global nuclear lobby’s problem is – what to do with the radioactive wastes? I know that the new geewhiz guys and gals are pushing hard for Generation IV reactors that will “eat the wastes”. The trouble is – there is an awful lot of the stuff. World total of high level radioactive wastes was estimated at 250,000 tonnes in 2010 . There must be quite a bit more by now. The other trouble is that even the most geewhiz of the as yet non- existent Gen IV nuclear reactors still would leave a smaller but highly toxic volume of radioactive trash, which would still require disposal.
This leads to a serious marketing issue. If countries such as USA, Japan, Canada, South Korea, are still having trouble dealing with their own domestic accumulation of nuclear waste, how can they persuasively sell nuclear reactors to Asian, Middle Eastern and African countries? The waste problem must be solved!
The wizards of the global nuclear lobby have come up with what they see as the perfect answer. A far away land, with lots of space that’s owned by “unimportant” indigenous people, could import the wastes, and thus remove the problem. It’s a sort of variant on the old “toilet way down the back”. Continue reading
THE CASE FOR A ROYAL COMMISSION TO INVESTIGATE THE NUCLEAR ROYAL COMMISSION.
Jim Green, 3 Nov 16 No High Level International Nuclear Waste Dump in South Australia
The Nuclear Royal Commission was a disgraceful con-job from start to finish.
The SA government chose a nuclear advocate as Royal Commissioner.
The Royal Commissioner stacked his Advisory Committee with three strident nuclear advocates, ‘balanced’ by one token critic.
There wasn’t even one token nuclear critic on the Royal Commission’s staff.
And there isn’t even one token nuclear critic on the SA government’s Consultation & Response Agency which has been exerting influence on the Citizens’ Jury, and which also has strong influence over the statewide ‘consultation’ process (thinly-disguised promotion).
This morning the ABC reveals that the economic modelling commissioned by the Royal Commission was co-authored by the president and vice president of a group which aims to promote nuclear waste “solutions” and which also promotes nuclear power. A clear conflict of interest and an absolute disgrace. (www.abc.net.au/am/content/2016/s4568141.htm)
Royal Commissioner Kevin Scarce told the ABC this morning:
“The conflict of interest would arise if they were the only source of information that we were using to assess the evaluation. They were not.”
Really? In fact, only one, conflicted consultant was used by the Royal Commission for economic modelling. The fanciful speculation of the conflicted consultant was heavily promoted in the Royal Commission’s report and is now being promoted as solid, factual information by the government’s Consultation & Response Agency.
THERE NEEDS TO BE A ROYAL COMMISSION TO INVESTIGATE THE ROYAL COMMISSION.
For a serious discussion on the economics of the plan to turn SA into the world’s high-level nuclear waste dump, see this submission from Prof. Richard Blandy: http://nuclearrc.sa.gov.au/…/upl…/2016/04/Blandy-Richard.pdf
And see also the report by the Australia Institute: http://www.tai.org.au/…/P222A%20Digging%20for%20answers%20-…
A “Minority Report” from South Australia’s Nuclear Citizens’ Jury?
Tim Bickmore Nuclear Citizens Jury Watch South Australia 2 Nov 16
There will be a ‘Minority Report’ & this is being actively collated by a designated juror who volunteered for the task. It’s focus will probably be upon alternate projects which would enhance the SA Great brand & demonstrate better options for the future direction of the SA economy.
The advice we were given at the table was that the legislation does not prohibit the next stages of investigation that are needed to fill the gaps identified in the extremely dubious case for this project. But even if they did this legislation applies only to spending public funds. If this project is such a financial bonanza as some proponents keep insisting it is then maybe the industry should fund the next stage of the feasibility study – and there is absolutely no barrier to spending industry rather than public funds to do this .
One juror gave me the question I’ve been searching for in all of this: Would you want to invest your superannuation funds in this project? If so please feel free to do so – I wouldn’t and I suspect most people with any financial nous (or sense of financial responsibility) wouldn’t either.” Australia https://www.facebook.com/groups/1172938779440750/
South Australian government focus groups Port Pirie – separates the sexes!
Kim Mavromatis No High Level International Nuclear Waste Dump in South Australia, 1 Nov 16 SA Government Nuclear Focus Group in Port Pirie last night.
I got into a SA Govnt Nuclear Focus Group session in Port Pirie last night. 9 
males – no females. There was an all female focus session before the all male session. Males and females were separated, why? Apparently females are predominately against the nuclear waste dumps and males are more open to it.The sniff of desperation in Jay Weatherill’s latest nuclear manipulations
apparatchiks, advisors and academics from both the nuclear industry BHP-Billiton/Santos et al and those in Defence that are pushing for nuclear submarines/capabilities, the Business Council of SA, and in concert with the Murdoch/MSM press, have precision-engineered this campaign to simultaneously blitzkrieg the people of SA with pro-nuke propaganda whilst purposefully obfuscating the SA proposal with that of the Federal government’s search for a dump of our indigenous low-level nuclear waste.
The confusion is of volition and the strategy’s outcome has been immensely effective nationally in not only keeping the topic out of the national spotlight in general but also to make any trickle of dissent that does appear nationally, such as summarised in the slogan “not in our backyard”, appear to be driven by self-interest and, therefore, it’s SA’s problem.
It’s the old divide and conquer with huge resources from both industry and the public purse.
That said, there are fault lines starting to appear in the juggernaut, such as the limited accommodation of the critics in the 2nd Citizens Jury Economic forum, and Weatherill’s failure to attain a mandate motion at least weekend’s ALP State Conference. There will be consternation and increased applied effort from all pro-nuke actors both to guard Weatherill’s back and ramp up inertia through glamorised, potentially high profile events such as the yet-another Nuclear Conference in Adelaide next month.
South Australian Labor comes up with the delaying tactic that Weatherill wanted
convention has delayed making a decision on the proposal for a nuclear waste dump in the state’s north. South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill has run the gauntlet of anti-nuclear protesters as Labor voted to put the question of establishing a high-level nuclear waste dump to a special party convention.
Mr Weatherill was heckled by several hundred anti-nuclear activists while entering the ALP state conference in Adelaide on Saturday, as they called on him to scrap the dump idea, which goes against current party policy.
Dave Sweeney, from the Australian Conservation Foundation, told the protesters South Australia was so much more than a dumping site.
“This is a bad idea, it’s a thought bubble that should have burst on day one,” Mr Sweeney said.
“We will not be burying waste, we will be burying this idea.”
The convention considered a number of motions related to the dump, including one calling for the government to hold a referendum on the issue.
Others called for the government to delay any decision until after the issue was discussed at the next national ALP conference while the Maritime Union of Australia urged the state government to “cease and desist” with any action to consider a dump of any kind.
However, the party endorsed a motion to have the issue put before a special convention at the conclusion of the community consultation process.
The state government remains committed to making a decision on the dump proposal by the end of the year ….http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2016/10/29/special-assembly-weigh-sa-nuclear-dump
The danger of nuclear waste transport, a topic pretty much ignored by the South Australian Nuclear Royal Commission
Jim Green, Facebook, 31 Oct 16 Numerous train derailments involving nuclear materials transport have been documented (but not in the Royal Commission’s report, of course).
Transport incidents and accidents are routine in countries with significant nuclear industries. For example a UK government database contains information on 1018 events from 1958 to 2011 (an average of 19 incidents each year). There were 187 events during the shipment of spent nuclear fuel flasks from 1958−2004 in the UK (an average of four per year) – 46% involved excess contamination and 24% involved collisions and/or low speed derailments.
Tax-payer funding goes to South Australian nuclear propaganda event Nov 15-16
The Weatherill government continues to break South Australia’s law against tax-payer funding of promotion of nuclear waste importing. Of course, they’ve been doing this for nearly two years now, with close to $10 million on the Nuclear Fuel Chain Royal Commission, the Nuclear Citizens’ Juries and on the blanket of pro nuclear propaganda across the State.
The latest is A new conference called “Australian Nuclear Fuel Cycle ’16 – Managing Radioactive Waste & Spent Nuclear Fuel” , being held in Adelaide on November 15-16 to discuss nuclear waste storage prospects.
Sponsors include the University of South Australia (a public university), ANSTO (a Federal gov’t agency) and UCL (whose Australian campus was publicly supported financially).
Victoria’s Point Lonsdale beach – just one example of rising sea levels
Rising sea levels, stronger waves speeding up Victorian coastal erosion, CSIRO says, ABC News 30 Oct 16 By Joanna Crothers Rising sea levels and more frequent storms are increasing the rate of erosion across Australia’s southern coastline, the CSIRO has said, while locals at one Victorian beach are concerned it is not safe for summer holidaymakers.
Key points:
- CSIRO warns of rising sea levels and a statewide trend of more storms
- Since 2010, Government has spent $450,000 on maintenance at Point Lonsdale
- In the past five years, erosion near Apollo Bay has increased from 8cm to one metre per year
Kathleen McInnes, a CSIRO sea level and coastal extremes expert, said more powerful waves were also contributing to the problem. “Sea levels have risen some 20 centimetres over the past 100 years, and are currently rising at about three millimetres per year,” she said. “There is also evidence that winds in the southern ocean are intensifying and this is driving a positive trend in wave energy reaching our coastline. “So this is creating a double whammy for coastal impacts.”
Individual storms have also become more frequent and intense, meaning beaches do not have as much time to recover after a harsh winter.”They’re driving higher waves which means a higher wave energy [is] reaching the shore,” Ms McInnes said.
Point Lonsdale beach ‘dangerous’, not ready for holidays The beachfront at Point Lonsdale, on the Bellarine Peninsula, has been badly eroded over the past decade and local residents said there was a risk children could slipping and cracking their heads open near the seawall…….http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-30/rising-sea-levels-speeding-up-coastal-erosion-csiro-says/7972924
The danger for Australia as Turnbull wants to change Australia’s environment act
None of these decisions would have been possible without the groups’ standing under Section 487 of the EPBC Act. Removing these provisions undermines the foundational objectives of Australia’s national environmental act at a time when its protective capabilities are needed most.
Turnbull wants to change Australia’s environment act – here’s what we stand to lose, The Conversation, Director of the Centre for Energy and Natural Resources Law, Deakin Law School, Deakin University October 31, 2016 Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is seeking changes to Australia’s national environment act to stop conservation groups from challenging ministerial decisions on major resource developments and other matters of environmental importance.
Turnbull is reviving a bid made by former Prime Minister Tony Abbott to abolish Section 487 of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC Act) – a bid rejected in the Senate in 2015. If it goes ahead, the change will significantly diminish the functionality of the act.
The EPBC Act, introduced by the Howard government in 1999, has an established record of success. Judicial oversight of ministerial discretion, enabled by expanded standing under Section 487, has been crucial to its success.
Section 487 allows individuals and groups to challenge ministerial decisions on resources, developments and other issues under the EPBC Act. An organisation can establish standing by showing they have engaged in activities for the “protection or conservation of, or research into, the environment” within the previous two years. They must also show that their purpose is environmental protection.
Repealing this provision would remove the standing of these groups to seek judicial review of decisions. Standing would then revert to the common law position. That means parties would need to prove they are a “person aggrieved” by showing that their interests have been impacted directly.
Many environmental groups will be unable to satisfy the common law test, leaving a very small group of people with the right to request judicial review – essentially, the right to check that federal ministerial power under the EPBC Act has been exercised properly.
This is likely to have a devastating impact on fragile ecological systems and biodiversity conservation strategies.
This is particularly concerning given the dramatic changes affecting the environment from the expansion of onshore resource development and the acceleration of climate change.
Why do we have the EPBC Act?
The hypocrisy of attack on ‘foreign-funded’ environment groups
Why only “environment groups”? Why not take a look at the tax-deductible recipient status of all charities, such as the Institute of Public Affairs?
The IPA is using its tax-deductibility status to raise cash for a third edition of its climate science denial book Climate Change: The Facts, with contributions from US-based and UK-based contrarian scientists, alongside the likes of Clive James and Bjørn Lomborg.
Why the attack on ‘foreign-funded’ environment groups stinks of hypocrisy, Guardian, 
Graham Readfearn, 30 Oct 16 Supporters of coal projects want transparency and proper use of charity status – but only when they support their arguments You might have noticed that all of a sudden, Australians are supposed to be appalled by foreign interests getting in the way of us digging up as much coal as we want, thanks very much.
Last weekend the Australian newspaper started running stories based on a “revelation” from the inbox of John Podesta, the chairman of Democratic nominee for president Hillary Clinton’s election campaign.
One email forwarded to Podesta showed the philanthropic group the Sandler Foundation, based in San Francisco, was a funder of Australian group the Sunrise Project. The emails were published by WikiLeaks.
Sunrise, run by the former Greenpeace campaigner John Hepburn, has been involved in supporting some of the court cases brought against proposed coal projects – chiefly, the massive Adani coalmine in Queensland.
According to an editorial in the Australian, “thinking Australians” should be “appalled” by this news.
On the back of these stories, there have been shouts for more transparency, while Turnbull government ministers have used the coverage as a pivot to call for environment groups to be stripped of their charitable status. The climate change impacts of burning coal, meanwhile, have been summarily discounted or ignored.
So let us count the ways that Australians should not be “appalled” and, on the way, examine some of the bald hypocrisy that has been on display this week. Continue reading
1 This month.
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)
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