On uranium sales to India, Malcolm Turnbull should heed Parliament’s Joint Standing Committee on Treaties
Malcolm Turnbull should pay heed to the findings of the JSCOT report and not be rushed by those with poor track records and overt atomic agendas.
Nuclear ambitions must put safety first, http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/comment/nuclear-ambitions-must-put-safety-first-20151030-gkmqtm.html Dave Sweeney, It’s now three years since then-Premier Campbell Newman back-flipped on a ‘crystal clear’ commitment and opened the door for the uranium industry in Queensland. The decision, made without consultation, evidence or any independent analysis was explained on the basis of a potential uranium sales deal with India.
Since this time – and to their considerable credit – the re-elected Labor government has reinstated the state’s long-standing and popular ban on uranium mining.
As the uranium lobbyists and former LNP mines minister Andrew Cripps continue to beat the radioactive drum it is useful to look at the risks and roadblocks that mean there will be no smooth passage to India for any Australian uranium.
In September the federal Parliament’s Joint Standing Committee on Treaties completed a detailed examination of the proposed sales deal and its implications. Despite strong personal support for the sales plan by then PM Tony Abbot the government controlled committee took a far more considered and cautious approach.
The committee’s report identified a range of serious and unresolved nuclear safety, security and regulatory concerns with the proposed sales deal – as well as questioning its uncertain legal basis. Continue reading
McKinley Shire, Queensland, promotes local business with renewable energy initiative
McKinlay Shire in north-west Queensland sheds light on solar cost-saving plans for council, traders http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-30/mckinlay-shire-sheds-light-on-solar-panels-plan/6898430 By Zara Margolis A north-west Queensland council has begun the second stage of a plan to help local businesses reduce their power bills. The McKinlay Shire has awarded a contract to a renewable energy company to install solar panels on nine local businesses and some council buildings.
Mayor Belinda Murphy said the company was finalising the solar designs, which should be installed by the end of the year. “The whole aim of council’s approach with this was really triggered by drought initially as well,” she said. “As I’ve said before, there is help for landholders but there has certainly been no direct help and support for businesses in these rural towns. “We identified this about 18 months ago and they were the ones who told us their biggest impacts are freight and power.”
Councillor Murphy said the panels would also be installed at a number of council assets. “Even just from a council perspective we’re going to have a projected power cost saving of around $60,000 per annum,” she said.
“Now we have a power cost annually of around $340,000, so that’s nearly a 20 per cent saving which council can then use to put back into other services, the community, other assets or into reserve.”
Western Australia’s wave power microgrid – a world first
World-first wave power microgrid to be trialled in WA http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-29/world-first-wave-power-microgrid-to-be-trialled-in-wa/6896994 By Emily Piess A WA energy company is about to trial the world’s first renewable microgrid power station using wave energy as one of its sources.
Perth-based Carnegie Wave Energy will build the pilot project on Garden Island, using wave and solar energy to supply power to the Defence Department and a desalination plant. Chief executive Michael Ottaviano said the technology could be used to provide power to regional townships near the coast, as well as island communities. “This is a model for islands to move away from diesel-power generation into a combination of renewables,” Mr Ottaviano said.
“It’s also [a model for] regional towns in Western Australia, particularly those that are either off-grid and also running on diesel, or those that are on the so-called fringes of a grid, typically on the end of long transmission lines.”
Mr Ottaviano said the technology could reduce WA’s reliance on transmission lines that are expensive to maintain and upgrade. “It can cost hundreds of millions of dollars to upgrade, so as a way to avoid that sort of large expense, embedding renewable microgrids on the end of those transmission lines will be the future of clean power in Western Australia,” he said.
“The Garden Island microgrid project will do the equivalent amount of power for about 2,000 to 3,000 households, so it’s already of commercial scale.” Western Power is partnering with Carnegie and will provide technical expertise on the project.The microgrid, which will cost up to $10 million to build, will produce about five megawatts of energy, a significant portion of the Defence Department’s electricity use on Garden Island.
If the trial is successful, Mr Ottaviano said the microgrid model could be used in regional centres such as Albany and Geraldton. “This potentially could be rolled out to thousands and millions of households across Western Australia and beyond that really across the globe,” he said. “The potential for these sorts of projects is enormous.”Carnegie will undertake a detailed design phase before construction begins next year.
The microgrid is due to be completed by the end of 2016.
Karoonda Council, South Australia, considering floating solar plant
Floating solar power plant mooted for Karoonda to power waste management pump station http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-30/floating-solar-power-plant-mooted-for-karoonda/6899436 The District Council of Karoonda-East Murray says it will look into the possibility of a floating solar power plant at Karoonda in South Australia’s Murray-Mallee region.
Council CEO Peter Smithson said the floating solar plant would provide power for the waste management pump station next to the stormwater dam.
A similar plant is already operating at Jamestown in the state’s mid-north.
Mr Smithson said the council had committed to undertake further due diligence about the green power opportunity.
“We’ve been approached by a company about the possibility of a solar generating power plant at Karoonda which would provide power to our CWMS [Community Wastewater Management System] pumps,” he said.
“We’ve gone and looked at Jamestown.
“There’s quite a long resolution because it really details the fact that there’s no capital outlay by council and it really looks at the fact that we’ve done due diligence and we’ve asked the company to come and address the next council meeting.
MP Rowan Ramsey explains difference between Lucas Heights nuclear waste and the Sean Edwards import plan
A shipload of these rods, which are classified as medium-level waste, sent to France a decade ago for reprocessing is due home soon. With no place to store the radioactive material yet established, a special facility has been built at Lucas Heights in outer Sydney to store them until a location is secured…….
Mr Ramsey, who has a property outside Kimba in South Australia’s west, volunteered, but was told by then Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane, it would constitute a perceived conflict of interest.
Australia’s nuclear/uranium giants don’t want nuclear technology (just waste dumping)
government has guaranteed to pay £92.50 a megawatt hour for power. At current exchange rates that works out at $198.91mwh. The average spot price for electricity across Australia on Tuesday was $39.89mwh.That gap demonstrates the quantum of incentive that Australia might need to attract the capital necessary to establish a footprint in nuclear power.
Nuclear warriors reject power and enrichment, AFR, by Matthew Stevens, 31 Oct 15, Hugh Morgan has been an apostle of the nuclear industry for more than 30 years. Australia’s biggest uranium mine, Olympic Dam, opened under Morgan’s watch as chief executive of Western Mining. And, to the ridicule of many, one of Morgan’s retirement projects was a business set up a decade ago that aimed to build nuclear power stations in Australia.
You might imagine Melbourne’s miner of legend is pretty excited about the quite sudden emergence of some level of national political consensus over South Australia’s attempt to expand its place in the nuclear energy cycle.
But Malcolm Turnbull’s support for a nuclear fuel industry based in South Australia is no Toyota moment for Morgan. And neither is our favourite defender of all things atomic tempted to excitement by Bill Shorten’s observation that an Australian nuclear industry should have been established years ago.
Morgan, you see, remains ever the financial rationalist. Continue reading
NoNukes South Australia comments on the South Australian media
The News’ media in South Australia are daily and nightly having a nuclear field day in what they say promoting human nuclear as saviour of the planet.
It is easy to see who and what this Mr Jacobi and his mob are about.
The human nuclear mob have been intensively above and behind the scenes of the human nuclear movement since early the past century.
IT IS IMPORTANT TO POINT OUT THAT THE DEBATE REGARDING HUMAN NUCLEAR WAS ALREADY DONE – ALREADY COMPLETED – IN THE 1970’s IN AUSTRALIA
THE VERDICT OBTAINED BY ALL EXPERTS ASSEMBLED AT THE TIME FROM NEAR AND FAR WAS
vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv
NO HUMAN NUCLEAR.IN AUSTRALIA
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
and especially since there is an extreme pristine clean perpetual abundance of Sunshine and Natural Gas in over and all around Australia that could last almost forever in a conservative frugal austere sustainable society, such as the People Society who has a record of over 50,000 years of natural pre-Invasion habitation.
Regarding the sudden re-appearance of the erroneous need for human Nuclear evaluation and approval:, the same words of wisdom apply as they did for the mass falsetto of the South Australia State Bank Debt crisis (deliberately engineered by human world finance in the 1980’s) and also the pre-emptive dumping of the Libya-like Gough Whitlam government earlier in the 1970’s
“The World is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes.”
Benjamin Disraeli – British Statesman
NEVER TRUST NEWS
NEVER TRUST HUMAN NUCLEAR
Fed up with the #NuclearCommissionSAust
Yes, I am fed up with the charade of this Royal Commission – its pro nuclear bias is apparent from the very start – with nuclear enthusiasts strongly represented, starting from Commissioner Kevin Scarce.
Today I looked for the transcript of the hearing with Dr Helen Caldicott on 27 October. Well, it’s hard to find. When you go to the appropriate page on the Commission’s website – not a mention of Dr Caldicott, though she was the first speaker that day.
The one that they do mention is Professor Geraldine Thomas, Imperial College London. Prof Thomas is a very well known pro nuclear speaker. She appeared prominently on the nuclear dragon thing soft sell series on SBS. Thomas has spruiked about radioactive iodine, but conveniently has ignored other radioactive isotopes. (I’ve not read her latest spruik to the RC, but you can bet your boots that she is lobbying away there for the nuclear cause. Sadly Imperial College is becoming notorious for this.)
I have been reading through the transcript of Dr Caldicott’s speech, or more correctly, interrogation. by the redoubtable Mr Jacobi.
I am amazed at the aggressive questioning of Dr Caldicott – it seems to me to be aimed at discreditiing her.
Not long ago, Dr Margaret Chan of the World Health Organisation stated “There is no safe low level of radiation”
Yet when Dr Caldicott said that same thing, she was subjected to aggressive questioning and demand for exact sources.
I wonder whether Mr Jacobi would have subjected the head of the WHO to the same insulting inqusition.
Australia’s Minister For Nuclear soon to release shortlist for waste dump site
Seven locations make nuclear waste dump shortlist October 29, 2015, James Massola http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/seven-locations-make-nuclear-waste-dump-shortlist-20151029-gklxu4.html
Resources Minister Josh Frydenberg is poised to release a shortlist of sites that could play host to a permanent nuclear waste storage facility in Australia.
Fairfax Media has been told the shortlist contains seven possible locations for the facility and had been finalised and approved by the Abbott government before Ian Macfarlane was replaced as Resources Minister by Mr Frydenberg.
The list of sites was originally scheduled to be released by August. Mr Frydenberg now intends to release the short list by the end of the year, after consulting with local MPs affected the decision, the opposition and other stakeholders over the politically sensitive issue.
Two locations in South Australia’s Kimba shire, west of Port Augusta, and two in Western Australia, at Leonora, north of Kalgoorlie and Yalgoo, north of Perth, have voluntarily nominated to be considered for the shortlist, while a proposal for the facility to be located at Mt Isa, in remote Queensland, was recently advanced. The full list of possible locations is a tightly held secret.
Once the shortlist has been released, a further period of public consultations will begin before a preferred site is identified in mid-2016, with a detailed business case due in mid-2017 and construction and operation of the facility due by the end of the decade.
The pending decision on the waste facility comes amid renewed debate on a possible future nuclear industry in Australia.
The facility will store low and intermediate-level radioactive waste from Lucas Heights and Australian-produced waste that had been sent to France, the United States and Britain between 1996 and 2009, which is to be returned under an international agreement.
An interim facility has been constructed at Lucas Heights to hold waste being sent back to Australia. A general purpose cargo ship called the BBC Shanghai is currently en route to Port Kembla from the French port of Cherbourg carrying 25 tonnes of waste and is due to arrive at the end of the month. The waste aboard that ship will then be driven to the Lucas Heights facility.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull went further on Wednesday, suggesting that many Australians had a “perfectly reasonable” view that said “we have got the uranium, we mine it, why don’t we process it, turn it into the fuel rods, lease it to people overseas, when they are done, we bring them back and we have got stable, very stable geology in remote locations and a stable political environment”.
“That is a business that you could well imagine here.”
South Australian Labor Premier Jay Weatherill has an ongoing royal commission into the nuclear industry.
The Australian Conservation Foundation’s anti-nuclear campaigner Dave Sweeney, who was also a member of the government’s advisory panel on the permanent waste facility, said achieving consent from residents of whatever area was selected for the site was crucial.
“Successive governments have failed to realise the importance of this [consent], or to achieve it. We are at the point of the process now, which is the test of the government’s commitment to community inclusion and having social licence to do this,” he said.
“We believe there is no environmental or public health reason to rush this [site selection]. The majority of the waste is currently in secured federal facilities and we need to take the time to get it right.”
Opportunity for Port Augusta to be repowered with solar thermal energy
Repower Port Augusta, 30 Oct 15 In incredibly exciting news, after returning from a visit to a massive solar thermal plant in the United States, the federal local member for Port Augusta Rowan Ramsey has revealed to The Transcontinental that US solar thermal giant SolarReserve have made a bid to build solar thermal with storage in Port Augusta!
After a long running community campaign, numerous studies and actions from people like you this revelation is a huge step forward in the community driven push to Repower Port Augusta with solar thermal.
So, what does this mean?
The ACT Government are using a policy called a reverse auction to help them meet their 100% renewable energy target by 2025. This is a policy where they effectively bid for projects to buy renewable power from and early this year they called for bids from projects across the country from solar with stoage.
This is the policy we called on the SA Government to adopt in our submission to the state government that many of you signed onto.
We are still waiting on the result of the bid, but we know the bid for solar thermal from Port Augusta is one of thirty from across the country.
It’s a huge step forward and a testament to the community campaign backed by people across the country that SolarReserve are ready to build solar thermal in Port Augusta.
Seed – Indigenous Youth Declaration for Climate Justice
http://www.seedmob.org.au/indigenous_youth_declaration
“As Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people we are a part of the oldest continuing culture in the world and have lived in harmony with our land for generations.
Right now climate change is disproportionately affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. We are experiencing rising sea levels in the Torres Strait, the loss of sacred country, diminishing food and water accessibility.
For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people the injustices go beyond the climate impacts. The fossil fuel industry has been putting stress on our land, our culture and our communities for decades.
Our vision is for a just and sustainable future with strong cultures and communities, powered by renewable energy. Our vision and the fossil fuel industry cannot coexist. … “
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander’s legal action against coal port at Abbot Point
Seed – Risking the Reef Campaign http://www.seedmob.org.au/risking_the_reef
“Right now, there’s currently a proposal to build the world’s biggest coal port on the Great Barrier Reef at Abbot Point. If built it would unlock the Galilee basin – one of the largest reserves of coal in the world.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities are already facing the impacts of climate change today, we need to be moving beyond coal and gas and transitioning to clean renewable energy, not digging up more of our sacred land. This means ensuring the proposed Abbot Point port expansion,
subsequent railway line and coal mines don’t go ahead. …
The Wangan and Jagalingou Traditional Owners have launched a legal case in the Federal Court to reject this project. … We’re sending a clear message to the banks that if they invest in reef and climate destruction, then were dumping them. …
Take action now by heading to riskingthereef.org.au “
Fijian PM slams Turnbull for giving in to climate denialists
Fiji PM decries Australia’s ‘climate change deniers’ in Turnbull cabinet, Guardian, Oliver Milman, 28 Oct 15, Frank Bainimarama says: ‘The Australian government, in particular, seems intent on putting its own immediate economic interests first’ The prime minister of Fiji has delivered a blistering broadside at his Australian counterpart, Malcolm Turnbull, over the “climate change deniers” in his government who are helping doom Australia’s “unlucky island neighbours”.
Frank Bainimarama criticised Australia and New Zealand for failing to back Pacific island nations over climate change, claiming that the entire region risked being wiped out by rising sea levels, extreme weather and ruined agriculture.
“The Australian government, in particular, seems intent on putting its own immediate economic interests first,” Bainimarama said in a speech delivered in Nadi, Fiji. “The ‘lucky country’ determined to stay lucky, at least for the short term, at the expense of its unlucky island neighbours.
“To Malcolm Turnbull, the new Australian prime minister, I want to send a special plea. Make good on your previous strong stance in favour of deep and binding cuts in carbon emissions. Do not do deals with those who have enabled you to gain high office and betray your principles and our position.”
Bainimarama said Turnbull should halt new coalmines in Australia and embrace an economy based on clean energy. Such a ban has been proposed by a coalition of Pacific nations in the recent Suva declaration. Continue reading
Barrier Reef to become a fossil fuel highway – Senator Larissa Waters
Qld Senator Larissa Waters, Greens Deputy Leader & climate change spokesperson:
Abbot Point EIS confirms Palaszczuk Government’s agenda to turn Reef into a coal highway http://larissa-waters.greensmps.org.au/content/media-releases/abbot-point-eis-confirms-palaszczuk-government%E2%80%99s-agenda-turn-reef-coal-highwa 27 Oct 15:
“The Palaszczuk Government’s lodgement of the Abbot Point coal port expansion final Environmental Impact Statement with Minister Hunt today, confirms it’s forging ahead with its agenda to turn the Great Barrier Reef into a fossil fuel highway.
“The Palaszczuk Government is continuing to do Adani’s dirty work for it,” Qld Senator Larissa Waters Australian Greens Deputy Leader and climate change spokesperson, said. “Labor has paid for this environmental impact statement with taxpayers money, when usually the company itself foots the
bill.
“And now Labor is set to pay for the dredging in this World Heritage Area to create one of the biggest coal ports in the world, which will turn the Reef into a highway for coal ships.
“There’s no guarantee we will get this money back – Adani is mortgaged to the hilt and hasn’t attracted any finance for its Carmichael coal mine. In fact 14 banks internationally have ruled out financing it. …
“Queenslanders care deeply about our Great Barrier Reef and halting global warming. The unprecedented amount of public submissions to the EIS, at 55 000, is testament to
Queenslanders’ love for the Reef. “So many Queenslanders are deeply disappointed that the
Palaszczuk Government has turned out to be just as bad as the Newman Government when it comes to treating our Reef as a highway for climate-destroying fossil fuels,” Senator Waters said.”
Senator Larissa Waters,
Australian Greens Deputy Leader & environment spokesperson
http://larissa-waters.greensmps.org.au/
Malcolm Turnbull favours importing radioactive trash to Australia
Australia could store nuclear waste for other countries, Malcolm Turnbull says, Guardian, Daniel Hurst, 28 Oct 15 PM tells Adelaide radio that he was sceptical Australia would ever build nuclear power stations, but a larger role in nuclear fuel industry was worth exploring….
Australia should “look closely” at expanding its role in the global nuclear energy industry, including leasing fuel rods to other countries and then storing the waste afterwards, Malcolm Turnbull has said.
But the prime minister said he was “sceptical” about whether Australia would ever build its own nuclear power stations to provide electricity to domestic customers, given the country had plentiful access to coal, gas, wind and solar sources.
Turnbull made the observations in a radio interview on Wednesday, a day after he named Dr Alan Finkel, a vocal advocate of nuclear power and the outgoing chancellor of Monash University, as Australia’s next chief scientist.
He was asked to weigh in on the issue during a visit to South Australia, where the state Labor government has launched a royal commission into options for participation in the nuclear fuel cycle. Turnbull praised the premier, Jay Weatherill, for setting up the inquiry…..
“…it’s a perfectly reasonable view: we’ve got the uranium [and] we mine it; why don’t we process it, turn it into the fuel rods, lease them to people overseas; when they’re done, bring them back – and we’ve got very stable geology in remote locations and a stable political environment – and store them?”
“That is a business that you could well imagine here.”….. playing that part in the nuclear fuel cycle I think is something that is worth looking at closely.”
Turnbull was environment minister in the Howard government, which commissioned a study into the feasibility of nuclear power by a task force led by the former Telstra chief, Ziggy Switkowski, who is now chairman of NBN Co……
The Australian Conservation Foundation described Turnbull’s comments as “ill-considered” and warned that radioactive waste was “a complex and contested policy area”.
“Radioactive waste presents serious environment, security and public health challenges – and it lasts a lot longer than any politician’s tenure,” said Dave Sweeney, a foundation campaigner.
Greenpeace dismissed nuclear power as “an expensive distraction from the real solutions to climate change, like solar and wind power”.
“It leaves a legacy of radioactive waste which remains dangerous for hundreds of thousands of years,” said Emma Gibson, head of program for Greenpeace Australia Pacific.
“We only have to look at the Fukushima disaster in Japan to be reminded of the health, social and economic impacts of a nuclear accident, and to see that this is not a safe option for Australians.”
Turnbull is seeking to bolster the Liberal party’s popularity in South Australia, where the government suffered political difficulties after his predecessor, Tony Abbott, backed away from a pre-election promise to build 12 submarines locally……. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/28/australia-could-store-nuclear-waste-for-other-countries-malcolm-turnbull-says
1 This month.
Australians deserve the truth
about
AUKUS – https://aukuspublicinquiry.com/
Australians deserve the truth
about AUKUS
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 