Is #NuclearCommissionSAust ignorant, or conflict of interest, as it goes to America?
Kevin Scarce sometimes scarce on nuclear reality, Online opinion, Noel Wauchope, 7 July 15 “……..The Royal Commission next goes to USA and Canada for 8 days, from July 9th. They’re particularly interested in the Small Modular Reactor idea. I hope that they’re aware that Westinghouse abandoned their Small Modular Reactor project, and that Babcock and Wilcox pulled back from this – unable to get any contracts or investors.
What I’m worried about, is that the Commission will end up recommending the plan explained recently by Oscar Archer, on ABC Radio National – that South Australia make an “ironclad commitment [my emphasis] to develop a fleet of integral fast reactors to demonstrate the recycling of the used nuclear fuel”
As for the Commission visiting Canada, Kevin Scarce enthused about the similarity between Canada and Australia. Really? What about the difference in climate, in the amount of sunshine, that surely makes Australia ideal for solar power?
Worst of all, as Scarce enthused about Canada’s “very productive nuclear industry” I wondered if the Commission is aware that the World Bank has Canada at the very top of its Corrupt Companies Blacklist, and that this dubious honour is due entirely to its nuclear industry. In particular SNC Lavalin is the culprit – the very company that is trying to sell thorium reactors overseas.
I would like to think that South Australia’s Nuclear Fuel Chain Commission is both well informed and impartial. I really would. But, listening to Kevin Scarce, I am not reassured. Nor is it reassuring to read the background nuclear industry links of Scarce and his research team. Kevin Scarce is a shareholder in Rio Tinto Group – the owner and operator of Ranger and Rossing uranium mines in Australia and Namibia. His prominent team leader is Greg Ward – Ward is also the director of two companies:Prism Defence (for which he is also CEO) and Protegic. The latter is a project management service provider with clients including the Rio Tinto Group, BHP Billiton and Endeavour Energy. Four of the five members of the research team named on the NFCRC website have known prior or current associations with nuclear industrial entities. http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=17489
Aboriginal elder Kevin Buzzacott speaks at strong anti nuclear protest in Adelaide
Nuclear dump would destroy our land: elder http://www.9news.com.au/national/2015/07/09/15/23/elders-students-protest-sa-nuclear-dump Aboriginal elders from across the country have joined scores of university students camping out in a stand against the storing of nuclear waste in Australia.
Protesters from far and wide have set up a tent community at Flinders University in Adelaide in protest against plans for a nuclear waste dump, in South Australia or anywhere else.
“To the South Australian government, to the federal government, to the mining giants – don’t worry about trying to put the waste dump here,” Arabunna elder Kevin Buzzacott said on Thursday.
It also coincides with South Australia’s royal commission into nuclear power, which is looking at whether the state should expand its involvement in the nuclear industry.
At least one SA Liberal senator says it should, with Sean Edwards recently urging the state to cash in by becoming a global player in the spent nuclear fuel recycling industry.
But Mr Buzzacott said a storage facility would destroy the sacred land of the country’s traditional owners. “We’ve lost a lot of sacred sites as it is,” he said. “We don’t want to lose any more. “We’ve been here 40,000 years. We’ve never touched the land – we love the land.”
BHP’s hypocrisy about climate change.
As a proud non-subscriber to THE AUSTRALIAN, I haven’t been able to read this article. But on past performance of BHP, I reckon that I can have a pretty good guess on what BHP’s enthusiasm for climate action really means.
Last month, all the nuclear big-wigs met somewhere in Europe to plan a campaign about the Paris Climate Summit in December . The idea is to have nuclear power established as a solution to climate change.
BHP would love that – otherwise they couldn’t give a damn about climate change.
BHP embraces climate debate, THE AUSTRALIAN, ? 8 July 15
The private sector needs to play a part in this year’s Paris climate talks, says BHP Billiton’s Dean Dalla Valle…. (subscribers only)
The Nuclear Royal Commission’s whole aim – to build a case for importing global radioactive trash ?
If it did take more than 25 years to build a nuclear power plant then the technology could be made obsolete by renewables.
Last October, South Australia managed for the first time to get more than 100 per cent of its electricity needs for a working day between 9.30am to 6pm, from a combination of wind and solar energy. Overall it gets more than 30 per cent of its power from renewables, and has a target of 50 per cent to be achieved within 10 years.
Prof Diesendorf said it would only take 15 to 20 years to go to 100 per cent renewables in the state.
“The global enrichment market is oversaturated, and no-one credibly believes nuclear power is a realistic proposition for the sparse South Australian grid,” Greens senator Scott Ludlam argued in a column for New Matilda.
“That leaves only the probability that this whole exercise is designed to build the case for a national or international radioactive waste dump.”Is building a nuclear waste dump in Australia really the best idea? THE ADVERTISER, CHARIS CHANG JULY 09, 2 “………….at least one expert believes the [Nuclear expansion] scenario is too good to be true, and would do little to help the state’s economy in the short to medium term. The technology Senator Edwards has suggested is still in development and will not be feasible for more than 20 years.
Retired researcher Richard Leaver, formerly of Flinders University, told news.com.au that no Generation IV reactors had yet been built. These reactors are not generally expected to be available for commercial construction before 2030-40.
“And sodium cooling has, so far, a four-decade history of failure and serious accident,” Mr Leaver said.He said the state government should wait until someone managed to get the reactor working on an industrial scale before accepting anyone’s spent nuclear fuel.
Even if researchers could develop a Generation IV generator as a working technology, this would likely reduce the potential economic benefits. Continue reading
We need to change the Native Title Act and get Real Land Rights for Aboriginal poeple
“we have no rights to say no to mining under native title.”
The court has never once found in favour of holders of native title.
the constitution is not silent. It is actively discriminatory, explicitly enabling authorities to enact race-specific laws. This must end.
Native title yes, but still no land rights, The Age July 8, 2015 Elizabeth Farrelly Sydney Morning Herald columnist, author, architecture critic and essayist
Sacred land must not be dug up and our constitution and laws should assure that. So it’s NAIDOC Week. “We all stand on sacred ground,” protests the starry-eyed tagline. “Learn, respect, celebrate.”
Going by the flood of earnest Indigenous heritage displays, trucked-in smoking ceremonies and family-friendly clips of smiling Koori kids you’d think we meant it. Eighty-five per cent of us, apparently, support removing anti-Aboriginal racism from the constitution. God knows it’s little enough, late enough – but is it also hypocritical?
The most memorable part of that June 22 Q&A program wasn’t Zaky Mallah. It was the nine-minute segment on native title and mining rights. Yet the Mallah story was beaten up nationwide like a thousand-egg free-range souffle, while the land-rights conversation once again sank without trace. Continue reading
#NuclearCommissionSAust – Even Kevin Scarce has big doubts about thorium reactors
Kevin Scarce sometimes scarce on nuclear reality, Online opinion, Noel Wauchope, 7 July 15 On June 29 Kevin Scarce, chief of South Australia’s Nuclear Royal Commission, was interviewed by Ian Henschke on ABC Radio 891 Adelaide. Scarce had just returned from a Royal Commission whirlwind tour of Taiwan, Japan, Europe and the UK. The interview can be heard here.
I was pretty amazed, not only at the speed at which the Commission examined the nuclear industry, at so many places, from 26 May 12 June 2015, and at the complicated facilities that they examined, but also at how much information was left out of Scarce’s report, and at the apparent inadequacy of their grasp of current developments in the nuclear industry.
First and most obvious were two questions, both which Kevin Scarce had emphasised at his pre-tour community forums in South Australia. Scarce had stressed that the Commission would be consulting people on both sides of the nuclear debate – those for the nuclear industry, and those against it. In the whole interview, in all the places and organisations that Scarce described – not one word about meeting anyone remotely anti-nuclear.
Secondly, at the pre-tour meetings, Scarce had repeatedly said that the Commission would be studying renewable energy as well as nuclear. In his talk with Ian Henschke, it was clear that the Commission had not visited any renewable energy organisations or facilities. Indeed, when the interviewer brought up the subject of renewable energy, Scarce glossed over it very quickly – pointing out that Germany was “a way away’ from their renewables goal, and saying “We are certainly looking at renewables”.
Their first visit was to Taiwan, as Scarce said “to talk to the Taiwanese about their spent reactor fuel and about how they were going to manage it.” Well, it’s not surprising that Scarce did not go on to explain how the Taiwanese are going to manage their spent nuclear fuel, because the Taiwanese themselves do not know what to do with it. They are probablyretiring one reactor early, due to its accumulating wastes, and are also trying to work out a plan to export their nuclear wastes, but facing opposition in their legislature to this plan.
Then on to Japan…….
Reporting on France, Scarce was fairly reticent, considering that they spent so much time talking to AREVA, the State owned nuclear company. But that’s understandable. The South Australian Nuclear Royal Commission arrived at AREVA on 4th June. On 3rd June, the French government announced the break-up of AREVA, due to its disastrous financial record, to prevent it from bankruptcy……..
Questioned about new Generation IV nuclear reactors, Scarce emphasised their safety features, and, to be fair to him, he did point out the “enormous uncertainty” about when they would be commercially available – “not much before 2040″. He was asked about thorium reactors, and again, admitted to not knowing much about them, and that “2040 might be optimistic for thorium reactors“. Scarce said that with these reactors, thorium, not uranium, is the source of power. That’s not actually correct, as uranium 233 is the power source in thorium reactors. They need plutonium or enriched uranium to trigger the transformation of the inert thorium, to the fissile uranium.
To give credit to Kevin Scarce, he did mention the fact that this process is not so clean, meaning that plutonium or enriched uranium are a radioactive problem issue. He said “so some of your benefit in terms of a clean fuel source isn’t there”. Also, to be fair to Kevin Scarce, he did point out that thorium reactors have been tried in the past, in America, and closed down, and that he was doubtful about their future.
Henschke asked Scarce if he saw “state of the art” nuclear reactors. Yes, the Commission had been to both Olkiluoto and to Flamanville in France, and had seen the pressurised water reactors – the very ones that are now described as afinancial and safety fiasco. No wonder that Scarce did not elaborate on these visits……. http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=17489
Submission Points to Royal Commission Issues Paper 1 EXPLORATION, EXTRACTION AND MILLING
Submissions to this Paper are due by July 24 POINTS TO CONSIDER
They want you to direct your answers to the points they have set out in http://nuclearrc.sa.gov.au/our-reports/exploration-extraction-and-milling/ SO: here are a few ideas:
1.1 and 1.2. (economics of uranium industry) Australia’s uranium production of 5,000 tonnes in 2014 was the lowest for 16 years. The industry generates less than 0.2 per cent of national export revenue and accounts for less than 0.02 per cent of jobs in Australia. (1)
Nowhere in this Issues Paper is information given on Government funding of the nuclear industry either directly in the form of grants and through government supplied services.
1.12 (Uranium enrichment) and 1.7 (Future of uranium market) The 2006 Switkowski Review concluded that “there may be little real opportunity for Australian companies to extend profitably” into enrichment. (2) Conditions are no more conducive to the establishment of an enrichment industry now than they were in 2006. Former World Nuclear Association executive Steve Kidd noted in July 2014 that “the world enrichment market is heavily over-supplied”.(3)
1.8. (health effects) There is a well established link between uranium mining and lung cancer. (4) Exposure to even low-level radiation is a health hazard. That is the position of all relevant expert bodies such as the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. As the the US National Academy of Sciences’ Committee on the Biological Effects of Ionising Radiation states, “the risk of cancer proceeds in a linear fashion at lower doses without a threshold and … the smallest dose has the potential to cause a small increase in risk to humans.”
1.10 (risks) Enrichment plants can produce both low-enriched uranium for reactors and highly-enriched uranium for weapons.
1.13 (effects on other industries). South Australia’s remarkable success in renewable energy, and its reputation for clean agricultural produce would clearly be threatened by further development in the uranium/nuclear industry
(1) http://www.conservationsa.org.au/images/Nuclear_Royal_Commission_issues_summary.pdf
(2) http://www.ansto.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/38975/Umpner_report_2006.pdf
(3) Nuclear Engineering International Magazine, May 2014
(4) http://www.mapw.org.au/files/downloads/Nuclear-power-uranium-mining-&-public-health_MAPW-Factsheet.pdf
Answer Points to Nuclear Royal Commission on Importing Nuclear Waste
The nuclear-lobby-stacked Royal Commission faces stiff opposition in South Australia
Renewables now! Nuclear not an option, Green Left, July 4, 2015 What about the new South Australian royal commission into the nuclear industry?
“……..South Australia has a nuclear industry the government wants to expand. There is uranium enrichment, but that is an economic non-starter, and then there is nuclear power, which is theoretically possible but very expensive and controversial.
The nuclear lobby is driving the idea that if you import other countries’ high-level waste, those countries would pay billions of dollars to get it off their hands. So there is all sorts of nonsense flying around South Australia, especially in the Murdoch press, that these billions of dollars would cover the entire cost of building nuclear reactors and would also allow the abolition of all state taxes.
But even with that sort of propaganda being circulated in the Adelaide Advertiser — a Murdoch tabloid — they found that fewer than one in six South Australians want a high-level nuclear waste dump.
It is a massive challenge, as the royal commission is stacked by pro-nuclear lobbyists. So it will issue a pro-nuclear report and we are doing the best we can to dull their enthusiasm.
We are building a separate campaign against the expansion. Traditional owners held a meeting in Port Augusta in April and this is the starting point to building an ongoing campaign.
A lot of these traditional owners have already experienced a track record of the industries of pollution and lies and they don’t want to be a part of it. They have seen the outrageous divide and rule tactics used by Heathgate against Adnyamathanha traditional owners. Then there is the long history of Olympic Dam uranium mine, and attempts to dump nuclear waste on Aboriginal land despite their ferocious opposition. Or go back to the Maralinga bomb tests in South Australia — there is a lot of history with people still suffering the varied impacts of that.
There is a lot of campaign strength in South Australia. Certainly we are putting in submissions to the royal commission but we don’t want to get sucked into their campaign too much because it is a fraud and the more important thing for us is to build campaigns and support Aboriginal people who want to build campaigns…..” https: //www.greenleft.org.au/node/59400
Telstra Business Award goes to Family-owned business Country Solar NT
Family-owned business Country Solar NT named 2015 Telstra Northern Territory Business of the Year CRAIG DUNLOP NT NEWS JULY 04, 2015
A FAMILY-owned business has taken out the Territory’s most prestigious business prize just five short years after opening its doors.
Country Solar NT, which is owned by husband and wife team Jeremy and Pam Hunt, was named 2015 Telstra Northern Territory Business of the Year at a gala ceremony at the Darwin Convention Centre last night.
The company, which began with the couple selling solar panels from the back of their ute, now has clients all across the Top End, including schools, supermarkets and remote communities.
Mr Hunt said the business was committed to providing a high quality local service.
“We’re local and we want to ensure that locals are getting the best renewable energy products available at the best prices to meet their energy needs,” he said.
“Amid the ever-changing rules about solar PV and the past performance of fly-in fly-out solar contractors, we have provided a stable alternative for the home, business and government markets.”
Mr Hunt said the business was committed to the local community and providing sustainable energy………http://www.ntnews.com.au/business/family-owned-business-country-solar-nt-named-2015-telstra-northern-territory-business-of-the-year/story-fnk2tq5v-1227428467238
The writing is on the wall for coal-fired power in Australia
Say goodbye to coal power in Australia, The Age July 5, 2015 Mark Diesendorf The writing is on the wall for coal-fired power in Australia. Despite federal government attempts to stop the growth of renewable energy, all they can do is delay the inevitable transition.
Tasmania already has almost 100 per cent renewable electricity, based on hydro supplemented by wind. The ACT is on track to reach its target of 90 per cent net renewable electricity by 2020, based on solar and wind.
South Australia, with no freshwater hydro-electric potential, is the leading mainland state in the transition to renewable energy. Last year 33 per cent of its annual electricity consumption was generated by the wind and 6 per cent from rooftop solar. Furthermore, its electricity system has already operated reliably and stably for hours when the contribution of variable renewable energy reached two-thirds of demand. Recently wind power and gas coped admirably when the coal-fired Northern power station went unexpectedly offline.
Coal power will soon disappear from SA and eventually from the whole country. Because wind has no fuel cost, it can bid the lowest price into the electricity market and so is ranked higher in operating order than coal. The result: coal is displaced from operating as base-load (24/7) power, coal’s economics become worse and incidentally the wholesale price of electricity decreases.
This is the real reason our Prime Minister is trying to stop the growth in wind power. It has nothing to do with aesthetics or the sham ‘wind turbine syndrome’, but everything to do with Mr Abbott’s misguided commitment to coal. Continue reading
Radioactive Exposure Tour visits Sydney’s Lucas Heights Nuclear Reactor
Interestingly, the visit to Lucas Heights revealed another nuclear waste issue that apparently has been forgotten. None of the numerous employees and scientists present at the discussion knew what happened to the radioactive waste water – heavy water – from the HIFAR reactor. Is it still on site, has it been treated or even discharged? The risks in the latter would be enormous and the fact that no one had any information on it therefore both shocking and scary.
This is a strong reminder of the importance of independent monitoring of nuclear activities and the accountability civil society helps to enforce on operators. For Friends of the Earth, this is just the beginning of a tour that will release many more valuable lessons and incredible stories.
ANSTO’s radioactive waste management, Online opinion, By Anica Niepraschk , 3 July 2015 ANSTO, the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, through its nuclear science, industry and medical operations at Lucas Heights in southern Sydney is the largest producer of radioactive waste in Australia.
Since 1959 Lucas Heights is producing ever growing amounts of low and intermediate level waste which it stores on site in designated facilities. The most recent addition to ANSTO’s waste facilities is an newly built hangar for reprocessed fuel, which has to return from France until the end of the year.
Although the construction of a reprocessing plant is currently discussed by the South Australian Royal Commission into the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Australia so far has no capacity to reprocess the highly radioactive contents of ANSTO’s nuclear fuel rods. They are therefore sent overseas for reprocessing. Agreements with France and the UK provide for the resulting intermediate level waste to be returned to Australia, with the French shipping due to arrive in Australia until the end of the year…………..
The so called Radtour has been taking a great number of interested people and anti-nuclear activists to key nuclear sites in Australia for over 25 years, providing an opportunity to learn about the country and affected communities in a way that is rarely part of public narratives. It has thereby created strong bonds with Aboriginal and other communities throughout the country. Continue reading
Uranium investing – some stocks bad, others worse
ERA also has a $290m cash stockpile but faces almost double that to close Ranger. Unlike Amy Winehouse, that’s one rehab to which ERA must go-go-go.
As for Paladin Energy (PDN, 25.5c), being the world’s only listed pure-play uranium miner with two operating mines (albeit on care and maintenance) hasn’t made for unfettered joy either……..
We rate ERA a sell and Alliance and Paladin as specbuys
Uranium stocks a mixed bad for investors THE AUSTRALIAN JULY 03, 2015 Tim Boreham Over the years the uranium caper has been much more fun for investors in the exploration chase, rather than the drudgery of actually mining the toxic substance. Continue reading
Aboriginal landowners reject coal giant Adani
Adani shown the door by traditional owners, SMH July 4, 201Michael West Business columnist The Wangan and Jagalingou people gathered two weeks ago at a convention centre in Carseldine north of Brisbane.
They were there to vote on a proposal to make sure those responsible for their native title claim were truly representative of the Wangan and Jagalingou people. These are the traditional owners of the land in the Galilee Basin, precisely where Indian company Adani aims to build Australia’s biggest coal mine, the controversial $16 billion Carmichael project.
Twice in three years, the Wangan and Jagalingou (W&J) had rejected Adani’s advances to sign a land deal for the mine, and twice Adani had dragged them off to the Native Title Tribunal and sought approval for the state to override their opposition to the mine.
It was just after 9am on Saturday, June 20, when two charter buses turned up at the Tavernetta Function Centre in Carseldine. Adani had bussed in 150 people in a sly bid to force consideration of a new memorandum of understanding they claimed to have with W&J, despite the previous ‘no vote’ from W&J. It was an Adani ambush, and it must have cost a fortune: three days of food, accommodation and transport for 150 people.
“We saw the buses turn up and we were wondering what was going on,” says traditional owner and W&J lead spokesman Adrian Burragubba.
“They tried to organise their own meeting after ours in order to get the people to agree to their MoU – a kind of tricked ILUA [Indigenous Land Use Agreement] when they knew they didn’t have one. Right now we’re in the Federal Court precisely because we refused an ILUA and they have tried to override us.”
But Adani’s cunning stunt backfired. They hadn’t counted on their 150 voters changing their minds after impassioned speeches from the likes of Burragubba. W&J tribal elders are deeply concerned about the effect of the mine on their cultural heritage and the risks it poses to water and wildlife.
By the end of the day, Adani’s reps had been asked to leave the meeting. Of the W&J’s 12 “new applicants”, or claim representatives, at least seven were against Adani, despite all the money flying about to skew the vote, and three were in favour. The views of the other two appear in the balance.
Burragubba says Adani has been engaging in tactical skulduggery for years, excluding him from meetings as he represented families which were not in favour of Carmichael.
“They claimed I was disruptive,” he told Fairfax Media.
“But they need all applicants in a meeting to do a deal. So there cannot possibly be a legally binding agreement.
“Adani has been conniving with these other two people [other Indigenous applicants] to try to get an agreement and undermine the Native Title process and our right to free prior informed consent.”
Before the showdown at the Carseldine convention centre, Adani had co-opted two of the W&J applicants, also directors of the trustee for the W&J’s Cato Galilee Trust……….http://www.smh.com.au/business/comment-and-analysis/adani-shown-the-door-by-traditional-owners-20150703-gi3y2h.html
Tasmania’s Energy Minister hails wind farms, disagrees with Tony Abbott
State Energy Minister Matthew Groom hails wind farms in departure from PM HELEN KEMPTON MERCURY JULY 03, 2015 UNLIKE the Prime Minister, Tasmania’s Energy Minister Matthew Groom is a fan of wind farms and says more infrastructure needs to be built to capitalise on the state’s renewable energy headstart.
“I support the renewable energy broadly,” Mr Groom said after speaking at yesterday’s Tasmanian Minerals and Energy conference at Queenstown. “We have extraordinary resources in Tasmania and some of the best sites on the face of the planet on which to build them
Mr Groom said he was pleased the passing of Australia Renewable Energy Target legislation had given certainty to the wind industry and he looked forward to seeing progress on a new wind farm at Granville Harbour, near Zeehan.
Mr Groom said building a second interconnector cable across Bass Strait to export power was a key part of making the most of our renewable energy advantages. 
He said Japanese investors who recently visited Tasmania were gobsmacked by the state’s energy mix, and we needed to harness that competitive advantage………http://www.themercury.com.au/news/
1 This month.
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PETITION – To: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Australian Labor Government
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