Illawarra Mercury, By Marion Rae, August 14 2024 –
AGL Energy has staked millions more on the clean energy transition as higher power prices and fewer outages generate stellar profit growth and spare cash.
Australia’s biggest emitter announced on Wednesday the $250 million acquisition of Firm Power and Terrain Solar, adding solar power and battery storage across all states.
Their combined projects, at 8.1 gigawatts, will add to renewable sources of electricity as coal-fired power plants close from coast to coast.
However, recent polls show that many Australians don’t believe the transition is feasible or on track for the national target of 82 per cent renewable energy by 2030.
“We’re investing back into the transition … it’s well underway,” AGL managing director Damien Nicks told AAP.
He said big batteries would ultimately assist renewable generation by responding to market demand in milliseconds, along with pumped hydro and other firming assets including fast-start gas.
“It is the most complex transition this country has seen but you’re right, community engagement through this time is going to be critical … whether that’s on our sites or outside of our sites,” Mr Nicks said.
“We’re also trying to utilise the infrastructure and grid that’s available to us today, whilst the transmission gets built out around the rest of the country – that’s incredibly important.”
But he dismissed the option of nuclear reactors, which the coalition has promised to build if it wins power in 2025.
“Nuclear is not part of our plans, nor our strategy … we cannot sit around and wait for nuclear,” Mr Nicks said.
“The rationale for that is both cost and time to get there.
“We need to find 12 gigawatts of renewable and firming assets by 2035.”
AGL earlier posted an underlying net profit of $812 million for the year to June 30, up 189 per cent, while underlying earnings rose 63 per cent to $2.22 billion.
WA Mines Minister David Michael has ruled out any change to the Cook government’s long-standing policy on uranium mining.
There is an effective ban on mining the mineral in WA, where only one uranium mine is permitted to operate.
Peter Dutton says the ban is “ideologically based” and should be overturned.
Western Australia’s mines minister has rejected calls from federal Liberal leader Peter Dutton to overturn the state’s long-standing ban on uranium mining and insisted that future energy needs will be met by renewable sources.
The state has had an effective ban on mining the nuclear fuel since Labor was swept to power in 2017, while Mr Dutton has made nuclear power development the centrepiece of the Coalition’s energy policy.
Speaking on the sidelines of this week’s Diggers and Dealers Mining Forum in Kalgoorlie-Boulder, Mr Dutton said the WA policy should be scrapped.
But WA Mines Minister David Michael, who attended the final day of the forum, poured cold water on the idea and said the state government’s stance on uranium would not be changing anytime soon.
“WA Labor, for two elections, has committed to not approving any uranium mines and there is no intention to change that policy,” Mr Michael said……………………………………………………………………………………..
Mr Michael said he spoke with officials from Deep Yellow at Diggers and Dealers and believed renewables such as wind, solar and battery storage were a safer bet than uranium.
“I think it’s more important to focus on critical minerals in terms of the renewable future,” he said.
“We know that renewable energy is what the world moves to sooner or later.
Preposterous’: AUKUS creates more problems than solutions THE AUSTRALIAN, The timelines for Australia’s transition from ageing Collins-class to its first nuclear-powered sub just don’t add up. There is hardly a single strategist in the country who believes it will happen.By CAMERON STEWART10 Dec 21
Now that Australia has finally weathered the diplomatic fallout caused by the creation of the three-nation AUKUS pact, it is time to work out exactly what it means for the nation’s security.
The Morrison government faces a series of critical multi-billion dollar decisions in the coming year that will set the course of Australia’s maritime defence for the next half a century.
These will require Canberra to test the limits of its alliance with both the US and the UK to ensure they make good on their AUKUS promise to share their sensitive nuclear know-how to help Australia acquire a nuclear-powered submarine fleet.
………….But the not-so-good news is that AUKUS has delivered as many conundrums for Australia as it has solutions.
………. the AUKUS announcement and the related scrapping of the French submarine project offers far more problems than solutions.
The timelines for Australia’s transition from its ageing Collins-class submarines to its first nuclear-powered submarine just don’t add up. Put simply, unless something changes, Australia risks having either no submarine fleet or a grossly antiquated one in the late 2030s and early 2040s……..
The government has given itself up to 18 months from the AUKUS announcement in September to study its options, although it says it hopes to decide on a plan of action earlier.
………………… The trouble is that the government’s initial projection for the completion of the first of eight nuclear-powered submarines, which it claims will be built in Adelaide, is not until 2038, meaning it would not be brought into naval service for another two years after that, in 2040, with one new nuclear boat every three years after that. This timetable is hugely ambitious and there is hardly a single strategist in the country who believes this will happen. The lessons of naval shipbuilding in Australia is that a first-of-class boat is never completed on time, much less the building of a nuclear submarine – easily the most complex construction of its kind in the country’s history.
……….
The solutions that have been floated, in no particular order, are to shorten the process by building at least some of the nuclear submarines overseas rather than in Australia; lease nuclear submarines from the US or UK; build a new conventional submarine in Australia as an interim measure; or extend the life of the Collins for a second refit cycle, meaning they would be sailing into the 2050s.
Every one of these proposals is problematic.
………………….. if the government chooses not to build a new conventional submarine and it deems that the Collins can be extended only for a decade, rather than two decades, then the only option is to acquire nuclear submarines more quickly than the current 2040 guideline.
This is the option that Dutton is pursuing but it requires delicate diplomacy with Australia’s AUKUS partners. First, Dutton must decide whether to ditch the government’s intention to build the eight nuclear submarines in Adelaide. While building all boats here will maximise Australian defence industry content, it will almost certainly slow the project down compared to a decision which would allow at least the first few boats to be constructed in US or UK shipyards.
Second, Dutton must choose between acquiring the US Virginia-class or the UK’s Astute-class submarines. Neither the UK nor the US production lines have room to include Australian boats in the foreseeable future. Dutton would need to lean heavily on London or Washington to make room for Australian boats to be constructed in their own shipyards. In the US, it would probably require Australia to partly fund a third shipyard to build the Virginia-class boats because the current two shipyards are struggling to keep up with the orders of the US Navy.
Hellyer believes the choice between the two countries is simple. “With nuclear submarines, we are not just picking a boat we are picking a strategic partner and that can only be the US,” he says…….
However, ditching the British submarine option would require delicate diplomacy from Canberra given that Britain’s prime minister Boris Johnson promised that the AUKUS deal would create “hundreds” of highly skilled jobs across the UK and would reinforce Britain’s place “at the leading edge of science and technology”.
The Morrison government appears to have gone cold on the option of leasing nuclear submarines to get them into the navy earlier. On closer inspection, neither the UK or the US have submarines available to lease. And in any case, Australia does not have the crews or the skills to sail them.
It will take at least a decade and probably longer for Australia to be able to train enough crew to the high levels required to man a nuclear-powered boat. A vast amount of that training will need to be done in the US or UK while Australia builds up the nuclear infrastructure and knowledge that will be needed to crew, maintain and manage a nuclear fleet.
All of these options amount to multi-billion dollar decisions by the government. If the wrong option is chosen, it will not only hit taxpayers, but it could severely compromise the country’s defence for decades.
The lease on the Northern Territory’s Jabiluka uranium mine will not be renewed, months after its remote surrounding area was granted new protections.
Energy Resources Australia (ERA) had applied for a 10-year lease renewal on the Jabiluka uranium mine, but was knocked back on Friday.
The NT mining minister, Mark Monaghan, said the decision to not renew was based partially on advice from the federal government.
“We have gone through a thorough process to ensure that all stakeholder views have been considered in this decision,” he said.
“The federal government advice, along with the wishes of the Mirarr people, were critical to this process and outcome.”
The Northern Territory government declared special reserve status over the Jabiluka area, which is in the surrounds of Kakadu national park, in May.
This prevents any future applications for the grant of a mineral title over the Jabiluka area once the current lease ceases on 11 August.
The Australian Conservation Foundation welcomed the decision, calling it a “huge win” for traditional owners.
“This decision allows a line to be drawn under the divisive era of uranium mining in Kakadu,” a statement read.
“This is a responsible decision that ends the threat that has hovered over this very special place for four decades.”
Mirarr people have long opposed any mining in the area, holding protests in the late 1990s and early 2000s when more than 5,000 people travelled to Kakadu to prevent uranium mining at Jabiluka.
Energy Resources of Australia, a subsidiary of the Rio Tinto Group, has been contacted for comment
Shoalhaven City Councillors voted unanimously to remain a nuclear-free zone at Monday night’s ordinary meeting. A motion was tabled seeking council reaffirm its 2006 position that it would oppose any plan or attempt to establish a nuclear reactor or power plant in the region or in the Jervis Bay Territory. It comes after federal Opposition Leader Peter Dutton flagged seven nuclear sites across Australia in June.
So why is Gina Rinehart buying? She has no interest as a shareholder in making money. She wants to buy influence.
In 1979, Gina’s father, Lang Hancock argued: “We can change the situation so as to limit the power of government,” before concluding: “it could be broken by obtaining control of the media and then educating the public”.
The Conversation, By Andrew Jaspan, Editor, 11 Feb 12, News of Gina Rinehart’s tilt at Fairfax Media is a circuit breaker in the never-ending story of the media company’s decline. As a former editor of The Age, one of Fairfax’s prized mastheads, I have spent the day wondering where this might end. Whichever way, it looks bad for quality, independent journalism. This is a defining moment for the kind of Australia we want….
Fairfax’s papers have an awful lot of clout. The combined audience for The Age in print and online is about 1 million readers per day, and the SMH just above. For those who follow these things, that’s higher than for any Channel 7, 9, 10 or ABC news bulletins. And more importantly, the audience for the Fairfax papers, including The Australian Financial Review, is the influential and affluent “AB” market. For these people, what the Fairfax papers report, matters.
Unlike the tabloids read by the bulk of Australians. The Age, SMH and The Fin, along with The Australian, set Australia’s news agenda and are slavishly followed by the radio talk-back and TV news shows.
So why is Gina Rinehart buying? She has no interest as a shareholder in making money. She wants to buy influence. In 2007 she placed full page ads in The Age and SMH against then-Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s proposed mining tax. That campaign ended with the removal of Rudd and the collapse of the tax. Now instead of buying pages, she wants to buy the papers.
Such motivation is deep in the Rinehart family genes. In a 1979 polemic called Wake up Australia, Gina’s father, Lang Hancock argued: “We can change the situation so as to limit the power of government,” before concluding: “it could be broken by obtaining control of the media and then educating the public”.
And on the miners’ right to mine anywhere, he wrote: “Nothing should be sacred from mining whether it’s your ground, my ground, the blackfellow’s ground or anybody else’s. So the question of Aboriginal land rights and things of this nature shouldn’t exist.” The Murdoch press in Australia is already favourably disposed to the miners and the Minerals Council view of the world. Fairfax provides an alternative view. And one that Gina no doubt wants neutered, silenced or turned around. Perhaps by Gina’s favourite columnist, Andrew Bolt?
Political friction appears to be building in the seven regions set to host government-built nuclear reactors as part of the Coalition’s vision for the future of Australia’s energy mix.
Opposition leader Peter Dutton has visited the Callide coal-fired power station in Queensland, where he has talked up job creation and cheaper energy.
Meanwhile, community organisations in the areas selected in the Coalition’s nuclear policy have joined forces in an anti-nuclear campaign.
Featured: Peter Dutton, Opposition leader Wendy Farmer, Voices of the Valley president James Khan, Collie traditional owner
……………………………….Jon Daly: The Coalition’s earmarked seven sites across five states where it wants to co-locate nuclear reactors with retiring coal-fired power stations. Two will be in Queensland, two in New South Wales and one each for Victoria, South Australia and West Australia. The Opposition claims the sites would make good use of existing transmission lines and local workforces, though Mr Dutton is yet to reveal how much the nuclear builds would cost taxpayers.
Peter Dutton: We’ll have more to say about costings in due course and again as we know in somewhere like Ontario they’re paying a fraction for electricity compared to what we’re paying here. It’s a really important point that nuclear provides cheaper electricity. There’s a big up-front capital cost.
Jon Daly: The Coalition claims the first nuclear plant could be up and running by 2035. The Coalition has flagged two and a half years of local community consultation, but communities would not ultimately be given a chance to veto nuclear plans in their area. In Victoria’s coal heartland of the La Trobe Valley, Voices of the Valley President Wendy Farmer says that’s not consultation, that’s dictation.
Wendy Farmer: In other words, we are going into communities to tell them exactly what the Coalition wants to do and don’t argue with us because that’s what we’re going to do to your regions. That is not the way any community would expect to be treated.
Jon Daly: Voices of the Valley and other community organisations in the seven selected regions have launched an alliance opposing the current plan.
Wendy Farmer: So we thought that by the seven regions getting together, it just gives strength to all the regions and we can support each other. And we can actually do a much louder call for Australians to support the regions to say no to nuclear.
Jon Daly: What’s been the reaction from, say, your local community as the details of this proposal have unfolded?
Wendy Farmer: There’s a mixed reaction, Jon. You know, some do support having nuclear. They want the jobs. Then you’ve got the other people that are just saying we do not want nuclear reactors at all, ever, in our region.
Jon Daly: In West Australia, Collie’s coal-fired power station is closing by 2029 and the town is trying to find industries to replace those lost jobs. The Coalition has picked the town as a site for nuclear power. James Khan is a traditional owner of the area. He’s a Wilman man of the Bibbulmun Nation and he says he’s dead against nuclear energy being built there.
James Khan: Well, my thoughts on that there is negative. It’s a negative. It’s why are we going into something that we don’t know nothing about and it could affect everything, the vicinity of it. Nuclear reactors is too dangerous, too slow and it’s too expensive.
Peter Dutton has hit the sticks to promote his controversial nuclear energy plan but remains mum on how much the “essential” project will cost.
news.com.au Nathan Schmidt, July 22, 2024
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has for the first time spruiked the Coalition’s controversial nuclear energy plan in an electorate earmarked for a new “modular reactor”, promising the ambitious project will be more efficient than replacing wind turbines “every 25 years”.
The Liberal leader on Monday championed the contested energy project in Mount Murchison, a town of little more than 100 people in the Shire of Banana on Queensland’s central coast, following the unveiling earlier this year of the Coalition’s nuclear energy plan.
Mr Dutton flagged seven sites – two in Queensland and NSW and one each in South Australia, Victoria, and Western Australia – for potential new small-scale nuclear reactors under the plan that he promised to take to the next federal election in 2025.
Despite pushback from energy experts about the proposal’s feasibility, Mr Dutton said nuclear power would be “good for jobs” and “the underpinning of 24/7 reliable power into the future”, blaming Labor for warnings about future power shortages.
“The Coalition’s policy of renewables and gas and of nuclear (power) is absolutely essential to keeping the lights on, to having cheaper power and to making sure that we can reduce our emissions,” Mr Dutton said on Monday alongside Liberal Flynn MP Colin Boyce.
He claimed warnings by the energy regulator about brownouts were based on Labor policies. “The PM and Chris Bowen have us on this 100 per cent renewables-only path which is what’s driving up the price of your power bill. It’s what is making our system unreliable,” Mr Dutton said.
“If we want to have cheaper power, if we want greener power, and if we want reliable power, then nuclear is the way in which we’ll provide that 24/7 power into the future … let’s have an honest discussion because Australians are really struggling under this government.”…………………………………………………..
Clare Silcock, 21 July 2024, https://www.queenslandconservation.org.au/nuclear_option_shutting_off_cheap_solar Queensland Conservation Council (QCC) has today released a new analysis showing that the equivalent of 45,000 Queensland household solar systems would need to be shut off every day to allow just one nuclear power station to operate in 2040. With the renewable energy rollout well underway, by the time we have built a nuclear power station in Queensland, we won’t have the need for it.
Clare Silcock, Energy Strategist at QCC, said:
Nuclear power stations can’t easily turn off, which means by 2040, we’d have to turn off a staggering 3,700 GWh of cheap renewable energy every year just to run one nuclear power station. We would be shutting off cheap energy to allow expensive nuclear power to run.
This report shows that nuclear power simply doesn’t fit into a modern grid and isn’t what we need to meet our future energy demands at the least cost.
Our energy system is changing rapidly. We’ve nearly doubled renewable energy in Queensland in five years. A large part of this has been from rooftop solar systems which have fundamentally changed when we need energy to support the grid.
Baseload generation is what our power system was built on, but it’s not what we need in the future. Saying that we need baseload generation is like saying that we need floppy disks to transfer files between computers.
What we need is flexible generation and storage which can move energy from when we have lots of it, in the middle of the day, to when we need it overnight. That is not how nuclear power stations work.
The earliest we could possibly build a nuclear power plant in Australia is 2040 – by then we will have abundant renewable energy and technology like batteries and pumped hydro will be providing the flexible storage we need to support that renewable energy.
Nuclear is also much more expensive than renewable energy backed by storage. CSIRO estimates nuclear could be up to four times more expensive to build. It’s as clear as day that the Federal Coalition’s nuclear plan is a fantasy to delay the closure of Australia’s polluting coal-fired power stations.
We would like to see the Federal Opposition focus on a real plan for bringing down emissions and power prices and that would mean backing renewable energy and storage.
Earmarking Port Augusta for the opposition’s nuclear plan has proved wildly unpopular with Indigenous leaders, who say mining and dumping nuclear material is akin to “killing your mother”.
Others say they believe Australia is lagging behind and needs to embrace nuclear energy.
What’s next?
Questions remain, with voters saying they are still in the dark about how much the plan will cost and how the privately owned land would be acquired.
Earmarking Port Augusta for Peter Dutton’s nuclear plan has proved wildly unpopular with an Indigenous leader, who says he feels so strongly about the issue that he is willing to go to court to fight the proposal.
Nukunu elder Lindsay Thomas said his community was against mining fissionable elements, such as uranium as a whole.
“Our people don’t believe in this, we don’t believe it should have even been dug out of the ground anywhere in Australia,” he said.
When the federal and state governments were deciding on a location to announce a funding deal that will underwrite South Australia’s final leap to its remarkable goal of 100 per cent net renewables within the next three years, Port Augusta was the obvious choice.
The city at the top of the Spencer Gulf, like the neighbouring Whyalla, is everything that the climate deniers, the renewable naysayers, the conservative media and the federal Coalition say is not possible.
Port Augusta once played host to the state’s ageing and incredibly dirty coal generators. Whyalla was the subject of taunts from former prime minister Tony Abbott that it would be rendered a ghost town by a carbon price.
Now the two cities are host to thriving renewable energy hubs, new green industries and technologies that will help propel the state into a clean energy future.
And it is remarkable how little is actually known about the achievements of South Australia beyond its borders. Already it is at an annual average of 70 per cent renewables, and by 2027 it intends to be the first in the world to reach 100 per cent net renewables primarily through wind, solar and storage.
Just to be clear, that does not mean that it will consume only renewables. “Net” means that the amount of power it produces from wind and solar during the year will be equivalent to the amount it consumes. But it will still export and import as needs must.
It’s a stunning achievement, and still one that the naysayers insist is not possible. The state has become a globally significant testing ground in technologies – it hosted the first Tesla big battery that helped change the thinking on future grids around the world – and it is addressing and solving complex engineering issues that many experts thought were too difficult and some still say are insurmountable.
More importantly, it is doing this as a result of bipartisan policy. Labor kicked it off more than a decade ago by making itself the most welcoming state for wind and solar.
The Liberal state government set the target of reaching 100 per cent renewables by 2030. Labor is now back in power and has accelerated that target to 2027. It is marvellous what can be achieved when the coal lobby is removed and not pulling the strings of the politicians and public mood.
Despite all this, the achievements in South Australia remain largely ignored by the rest of the country.
The announcement by federal energy minister Chris Bowen and state energy minister Tom Koutsanstonis about the funding deal for a gigawatt of new wind and solar and 600 MW (2,400 MWh) of battery storage – to ensure the 100 per cent net renewable target is met – barely rated a mention in mainstream media outside the state.
Yet it is here, in Port Augusta, that federal Opposition leader Peter Dutton has decided should be one of seven sites – along with Collie, Liddell, Mt Piper, Loy Yang, Callide and Tarong – that should play host to their nuclear power plant proposals.
They were chosen, the Coalition tells us, because they are locations that still have or once supported coal fired power generators, and – they claim – would have available transmission capacity. But as Koutsantonis pointed out during his visit this week, that is simply not the case. That capacity has already been taken up by other projects.
“This site here where the Port Augusta power station once sat is now at capacity in terms of our renewable transmission lines to Adelaide,” he told journalists. “So the idea you can just plug in a nuclear power station here is just folly.
“I haven’t seen Peter Dutton here. I haven’t seen the Commonwealth Opposition here at all talking to the state government about their pretend plans for nuclear power in South Australia.”
Indeed, it is not surprising that Dutton has not shown up: South Australia is not just shining a path to the future, it is a real life repudiation of the folly of the federal Coalition’s nuclear plans, and the sheer nonsense of its claims.
Let’s remember that the Coalition and the conservative media’s nuclear arguments are based almost entirely around the assumption that wind and solar cannot power a modern economy.
South Australia proves them wrong, emphatically so. The grid is reliable, wholesale power prices are falling, and will continue to do so as it free itself from the yolk of fossil gas. Legacy industries are being revived by the growth of wind and solar, new industries are being established, and big business with big loads are being attracted to the state.
The once broke Whyalla steelworks, for example, has based its revival around plans for “green steel” underpinned by wind and solar, and BHP will power its giant Olympic Dam mine with a unique “firmed renewables” contract sourced from the state’s biggest wind project and a big battery.
The state’s transmission operator ElectraNet reports inquiries amounting to several gigawatts of new load from industries attracted to cheaper and greener power, and apparently not the least bit concerned about the scare campaigns that the lights will surely go out.
South Australia is already at the stage where enough rooftop solar is generated in the middle of the day to meet all local demand. That will soon occur in other states too, including Western Australia, effectively eliminating grid demand and requiring storage or new load or exports to soak up the excess.
As every major utility in Australia makes clear, the era of always-on base-load power is well and truly passed in such grids. South Australia has not just shut down its last coal generators, and is closing down its remaining combined cycle gas plants, which perform a similar role. The gaps will be filled by facilities that are fast and flexible. There is simply no room in the grid for an always-on nuclear plant.
“This site is taken. So I’m not quite sure where he’s planning to build this or how he’s planning to build this,” Koutsantonis said.
“If Peter Dutton was serious about what he was talking about, he would have come to us earlier and spoken to us about it, consulted with us. For whatever reason, he hasn’t even stepped a foot on this site to actually have a look at it.”
Bowen has been taking that message across the country. “This whole precinct’s being transformed … into a renewable energy hub, a green cement hub and a critical minerals hub,” he said at Port Augusta.
The next day, Bowen popped up in Lithgow, at the site of another mooted nuclear site, the Mount Piper coal generator, where the asset owner Energy Australia also outlined plans to build pumped hydro, a giant battery and to convert its coal plant into a “flexible” asset rather than an “always on” baseload asset in the interim.
“Traditionally Mount Piper has been a full-load, continuous load power station, and today it’s becoming much more flexible,” EnergyAustralia’s head of operations and projects Sue Elliott said. “It now operates during the day and seasonally depending on renewable availability in the market.
“We are progressing planning for a Lake Lyell Pumped Hydro Project … and we’re also planning a 500 megawatt, four hour Mount Piper Battery Energy Storage System right here on site to take advantage of transmission assets.”
As Bowen pointed out, this is real investment happening now, not some time in the distant future.
“I’m not sure if Mr Dutton and (Opposition energy spokesman Ted) O’Brien have been here yet, but they have a plan for nuclear power, which is at least 30 years away,” he said.
“They admit 2035 at its earliest; even that is wildly ambitious and optimistic and unrealistic. But that doesn’t fix the problems today.
“It doesn’t create jobs today. It doesn’t create investment today and, indeed, it will chill investment. It will stop people investing in the alternative plans because of the investor uncertainty created by having a nuclear plan, which is never going to happen – it’s a fantasy.”
South Australia, and its charge towards 100 per cent renewables, is very real. And worth talking about.
And to underline the difference in federal politics, the announcement was made at Port Augusta, the site of a former coal fired power station that the federal Coalition wants to turn nuclear, but which has already become a hub for green energy and green industry.
And to underline the difference in federal politics, the announcement was made at Port Augusta, the site of a former coal fired power station that the federal Coalition wants to turn nuclear, but which has already become a hub for green energy and green industry.
South Australia has locked in federal funding to ensure that it becomes the first non-hydro grid in the world to reach 100 per cent net renewables.
The funding deal – through what’s known as a Renewable Energy Transformation Agreement – means that the federal government will underwrite a minimum one gigawatt of new wind and solar generation capacity and another 400 MW (1,600 MWh) of storage – to ensure it meets its target of 100 per cent net renewables by 2027.
South Australia already leads Australia – and the world – with a wind and solar share of around 70 per cent over the last 12 months. The addition of the new capacity, along with the new Project Energy Connect transmission link from NSW, will enable it to become the first in the world to reach 1`00 per cent net renewables based around wind and solar.
That does not mean it will be powered at all times by wind and solar. But the amount of wind and solar generated and stored each year will be equivalent to what it consume each year. The state will export power at times and import at other times, and can fall pack on existing peaking gas plants to fill in the gaps.
Reaching that milestone will be a landmark for the state, and for advocates of the renewable energy transition, particularly as conservative and legacy fossil fuel interests continue to push back on the idea that a modern economy can be powered by renewables and storage.
The irony about South Australia is that the target of 100 per cent net renewables was originally committed by the state Liberal government. The state Labor government merely accelerated it from 2030 to 2027.
And to underline the difference in federal politics, the announcement was made at Port Augusta, the site of a former coal fired power station that the federal Coalition wants to turn nuclear, but which has already become a hub for green energy and green industry.
“South Australia has been a renewable energy pioneer – so much so that we recently brought forward our renewable energy target by three years, committing to ensure electricity generation can be sourced from net 100 per cent renewables by 2027,” state energy minister Tom Koutsantonis said in a statement.
“So we warmly welcome this agreement to accelerate the roll out of renewables while ensuring the reliability of the energy system.
“Our government is committed to working with the Commonwealth to establish a secured grid, supporting the power needs of South Australian households and businesses.”
South Australia has not added a new wind or solar project to the grid for around two years, although the biggest wind project in the state – the 412 MW Goyder South wind farm – is about to connect and send its first power to the grid.
Several new battery projects are also under construction – at Blyth, Hallett, Clements Gap and Templers and another, Tailem Bend, still waiting to be commissioned.
These projects will help propel the state towards 80 per cent renewables over the coming year, while the additional capacity of 1,000 MW of wind and solar, 400 MW of battery capacity (plus the minimum 200 MW included in the current CIS auction) will take it towards 100 per cent net renewables by 2027.
South Australia is also building the world’s first green hydrogen power plant at Whyalla, which will be accompanied by a 250 MW green hydrogen electrolyser and storage facilities, which will also be the world’s biggest when complete.
The state is also fielding huge number of inquiries from industry keen to source zero emissions and low cost green energy – with the local transmission company ElectraNet reporting that more than 2 gigawatts of load inquiries have been made.
Federal energy and climate minister Chris Bowen says the signing of the Renewable Energy Transformation Agreement means that South Australia is the first state to lock in the funding required to meet its targets under the federal government’s Capacity Investment Scheme.
The CIS aims to contract an additional 32GW of renewable generation and storage across the country to help it deliver most of the capacity needed to meet its 82 per cent renewable energy target by 2032.
The first tender of 6 gigawatts of new wind and solar capacity has been flooded with interest, with more than 40 GW of projects showing interest, while the first storage tender – for 600 MW, 2,400 MWh in Victoria and South Australia – was also heavily oversubscribed with some 19 GW of proposals.
Bowen says the bilateral agreements have been designed specifically to address the barriers developers, communities, and governments face in delivering renewable projects, and to replace ageing infrastructure that was built half a century ago.
“The Albanese Government is delivering the certainty and confidence the market spent a decade asking for,” Bowen said in a statement.
“The more renewable energy we have in our grid, the more downward pressure it puts on energy bills because it is the cheapest form of energy to power households and industry.
“Giving the market the confidence to build new projects is good; signing an agreement to collaborate with South Australia on practical steps to get the best out of this energy transformation for South Australian workers, communities and industry, is great.
“The Albanese Government’s Reliable Renewables Plan is the only plan supported by experts to deliver the clean, cheap, reliable and resilient energy system that Australians deserve. This is in sharp contrast to Peter Dutton’s anti-renewables nuclear plan – which remains uncosted and unexplained.”
As part of the deal, South Australia, will establish its own specific grid reliability mechanism and benchmark to be used in place of the national framework, and to be responsible for identifying and delivering new projects and technologies that will maintain reliability to that standard.
Renew Economy is seeking more information to understand what that means in practice.
“Don’t dump on us again”, says Wendy Farmer, president of the Latrobe Valley community group Voices of the Valley and a local community organiser for Friends of the Earth. The Latrobe Valley is one of Liberal Party leader Peter Dutton’s proposed sites for nuclear power reactors, which would replace the Loy Yang coal power station.
The region is already saddled with several toxic industries. As Farmer explains to Red Flag, “We have a waste-to-energy, we have a lead smelter, we have a magnesium smelter, we have the power stations … Just today I’ve gone outside and you should see the coal dust on my rubbish bins. It is just everywhere. People are like, ‘Why are we being the dumping ground again? Why are we just being told once again what’s good for us and what we need?’”
Wendy knows what it’s like for a community to be treated as expendable. She became an activist in 2014 during the Hazelwood coal mine fire, which lasted for 45 days. The fire blanketed the area with smoke, causing the deaths of at least 60 people according to extensive research carried out by Voices of the Valley. This was no accident, but a result of the owner ENGIE’s cost-cutting and negligence. “They knew the risks two days before the fire got into the mine and chose to ignore it. I think they put a couple of extra staff on over the weekend, when we were gonna have the hottest, windiest weekend. Any fool could have read that.”
The fire might also have been prevented through the mine’s watering system, a critical safety measure meant to keep the coal face wet and guard against bushfires, which the owners had previously dismantled.
“My husband at the time worked at Hazelwood”, Wendy says. “Hazelwood knew that things needed to be repaired. Hazelwood knew that they didn’t have the water where they needed it.” You can never completely trust a company, she says. “Industry has known about asbestos, yet they’ve used it. Industry has known about the stone [in kitchen bench-tops], yet they’ve used it. Industry has known about dangers before and covered them up.”
If companies like ENGIE axe safety measures and governments cover up their crimes, why should we expect nuclear to be any different? Wendy describes Dutton’s nuclear proposal as a fantasy: “No plan, no proposal, no detail”. But her objections run deeper than that. The risks of a nuclear failure weigh heavily on a community with such a recent history of disaster and injustice.
“If there’s a failure and the kids are at school or anywhere else”, Wendy says, “nuclear disaster would kill … That sort of radiation you don’t have much chance. If the kids are at school, it’s too late to go and get them. And if they’re not dead, the damage is done. You can’t reverse the damage”. Worse still, Wendy explains, the valley sits on an earthquake fault line. “We’ve had many earthquakes. It’s only a matter of time before we have a big one.”
Fortunately, through Hazelwood the community taught itself how to fight toxic industries. On the morning Dutton’s proposed sites were revealed, Wendy organised a snap protest outside local Nationals MP Darren Chester’s office. “The people who joined the anti-nuclear rally were pretty upset, pretty pissed off”, Wendy says. “‘How dare they? We don’t want nuclear reactors.’”
Not everyone is opposed to nuclear, however; the community’s views are mixed. According to a News Corp survey last month (which polled only 113 people), 59 percent of Latrobe Valley residents would be comfortable with a nuclear reactor being built in their state or region. “A lot of people who support nuclear are supporting it because there will be jobs. But in fact there won’t be jobs for 30 or 40 years”, says Wendy. Construction on the nuclear power plant cannot begin, Wendy explains, until after Loy Yang has been shut down and rehabilitated, which won’t be for at least a decade.
Affordable energy is the other argument opening people to nuclear. But nuclear-generated power is far more expensive than renewables, given the extensive capital costs. According to the GenCost 2023-24 report published by the CSIRO and the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), while wind and solar PV combined are estimated to cost between $73 and $128/MWh, large-scale nuclear will cost between $141 and $233/MWh, or $230 to $382/MWh for small modular reactors.
“Hazelwood was a David and Goliath”, Wendy says. “I felt the community won. For sure the company weren’t punished enough, but the community won. We have to stand together and we can win this.”
While Peter Dutton gets headlines for his nuclear fairytale and the Labor Government presses on with its AUKUS submarines, the fallout from nuclear bomb testing in the Pilbara in 1956 finally reaches court. Sue Roff reports from London.
In 1956, on the remote Montebello Islands off Western Australia, an atomic bomb was tested. It was supposed to be no more than 50 kilotons, but in fact measured 98 kilotons, or more than six times the strength of the bomb dropped over Hiroshima in 1945.
Ever since then, Australian and UK Governments have suppressed the facts and denied compensation to the victims. That may finally be about to change.
Three months ago, veterans of Britain’s Cold War radioactive weapons tests formally launched proceedings against the UK Ministry of Defence, alleging negligence in its duty of care to the men themselves and their families before, during and after the tests that began at the Montebellos in 1952.
MWM,“The opening phase seeks the full disclosure by the Ministry of Defence of all records of blood and urine testing conducted during the weapons trials, with compensation sought for MoD negligence and recklessness if they were lost or destroyed.”
At the same time, the veterans have made an offer to resolve their claim through the creation of a Special Tribunal with statutory powers to investigate and compensate if decades of cover-up are established.
A very big bomb
In October 1955, the Director of British atomic and thermonuclear tests in Australia, Professor William Penney, wrote to the Chair of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority about the two detonations that were planned for the Montebello Islands in May and June 1956:
‘Yesterday I think I gave you the impression that the second shot at Montebello will be about 80 K.T. [kilotons]. This is the figure to which we are working as far as health and safety are concerned. We do not know exactly what the yield is going to be because the assembly is very different from anything we have tried before.
We expect that yield will be 40 or 50, but it might just go up to 80 which is the safe upper limit.
In fact, in recent years, it has been listed on the website of ARPANSA [the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency] as 98 kilotons.
The politics
A UK memo found in the UK National Archives that is undated but filed around August 1955, states:
“TESTS IN Montebello ISLANDS (CODE NAME ‘MOSAIC’) 25 7.
“We had agreed with the Australian Government that we would not test thermo-nuclear weapons in Australia, but [Australian Prime Minister] Mr. Menzies has nevertheless agreed to the firings taking place in the Montebello Islands (off the North-West coast of Western Australia), which have already been used before for atomic tests [emphasis added].”
“As already explained, the Australians are very sensitive on the question of thermo-nuclear explosions, and although the true character of these tests is understood by the authorities immediately concerned, knowledge of the trials is restricted to a very small circle and no public statement has so far been made; when it is made, it will therefore require very careful handling.”
“Apparently it is still being very carefully handled by government agencies. 70 years after the British atomic and thermonuclear tests started in Australia scores of files held in the Australian National National Archives are marked ‘Not yet examined’. We urgently need to create an independent archive of Australia’s nuclear past.”
The fallout
In Roeboure, some 200km away from the blast, a witness – then seven-year-old John Weiland wrote later of “hearing and feeling the blast before going outside to see the cloud. My mother said she remembers material falling on her. I was in primary school at the time and we all stood out on the verandah to watch the cloud.”
Weiland later wrote to ARPANSA asking “if any testing was done or any follow up done particularly with the 30 or so children of the school. But I was told there was no radiation blown across from the islands.”
In December 1957, eighteen months after the second G2 Operation Mosaic blast at the Montebellos, the five scientific members of the Atomic Weapons Safety Committee (AWSC) appointed by the Australian government published a report titled ‘Radioactive Fallout in Australia from Operation ‘Mosaic’ in The Australian Journal of Science.
without approaching the mainland of Australia.’ However ‘a pronounced stable layer produced a marked bulge on the stem which trapped a small quantity of particulate material and this was spread to the south-east of the Montebello Islands …The more finely suspended material’ or ‘debris’ was dispersed in the first 48 hours …’ although there was light rain over Marble Bar.
Thirty years after this AWSC report, the Royal Commission into British Nuclear Tests in Australia issued its 1987 report after 18 months of hearings around Australia and in London. In relation to Mosaic G2 it reported:
“7.4.25 The post-firing winds behaved similarly to those after Gl, i.e. they weakened and then began to blow to the south and east. An analysis of the trajectories of fallout particles showed that fallout at Port Hedland occurred 24 hours after the explosion and consisted of particles that originated from 20,000 feet in the region of the top of the stem and the bottom of the cloud….[RC 270, T24/57).”
“Clearly part of the main cloud did cross the mainland.”
The Royal Commission also concluded, “The Safety Committee communications with the Minister for Supply soon after the second explosion, when it reported that the cloud had not crossed the coast, with the implication that there was no fallout on the mainland, were misleading.”
Nearly forty years later, in January 2024, John Weiland submitted a query to the Talk to A Scientist portal of ARPANSA, asking for information. The unsigned response four days later referred him to Appendices B & C of a 32 year old document attached to the official response. A report, ‘Public Health Impact of Fallout from British Nuclear Tests in Australia, 1952-57, has a diagram annotated ‘Trajectories taken by radioactive clouds across Australia for the nuclear tests in the Mosaic and Antler Series. The main debris clouds from Mosaic Rounds 1 and 2 are not shown as they remained largely over the Indian Ocean, moving to the northeast parallel to the coast.’ (emphasis added).
This diagram [ on original) doesn’t correlate with the maps in the Royal Commission Report north of Broome nor those of the AWTSC report in 1957 south of Port Hedland.
I have published extensive archival evidence about the score of coverups that have occurred over the past 70 years.
The cover-up
They range from the agreement of Prime Minister Menzies to the progressive testing of hydrogen/thermonuclear devices in preparation for the full assembly in 1957 for the Grapple tests at Christmas Island, including testing less than two months before the start of the 1956 Olympic Games in downwind Melbourne, and Menzies’ hope of getting tactical nuclear weapons for Australia by his collusion. They also include the submission of ‘sanitised’ health data on Australian test participants to the 1985 Royal Commission into British Nuclear Tests in Australia.
I presented my concerns about the role of UK official histories of the tests in a seminar hosted by the Official Historian of the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office by invitation in February 2024.
Representing the victims, Oli Troen adds that “The Veterans previously sought redress through the English Courts, losing in the Supreme Court in 2012 when they could not prove they experienced dosages of radiation exposure. This meant they could not demonstrate their injuries resulted from that exposure.”
Blood tests taken at the time and in the years after presence at a test site are key to proving whether the legacy of rare illnesses, cancer and birth defects reported by the veterans is due to radiation from the nuclear tests and whether the government is culpable and can now be held accountable for their suffering.
A Freedom of Information tribunal has ordered the handing over of the blood tests of veteran and decorated hero Squadron Leader Terry Gledhill, who led ‘sniff planes’ into the mushroom clouds of thermonuclear weapons on sampling missions. This new case seeks to force the government to hand over such records for up to 22,000 UK veterans.
Kakadu traditional owners are worried the Coalition’s nuclear policy will drive demand for uranium mining on their land at Jabiluka.
Energy Resources of Australia (ERA) and traditional owners have asked the NT and federal governments to decide whether to extend the Jabiluka uranium mining lease.
What’s next?
ERA’s majority shareholder Rio Tinto is worried the Jabiluka lease stoush could drive up the costs of rehabilitating its closed Ranger Uranium Mine.
Mirarr traditional owner Corben Mudjandi is desperate for his spectacular land at Jabiluka to be incorporated into Kakadu National Park, which surrounds it, rather than mined for its uranium.
“Its sacred to us, and it’s a piece of human history, 65,000 years, we want Jabiluka not mined; we want to show people the beauty of nature, and what we call home,” he said.
Mr Mudjandi is worried the federal Coalition’s plan to open nuclear plants if it wins government could drive demand for Jabiluka’s uranium.
The Mirarr are also concerned that almost a year after Energy Resources of Australia (ERA) applied to extend its uranium mining lease over Jabiluka for another decade, the Northern Territory and federal governments have not yet decided whether to reject or approve it.
ERA’s current lease expires on August 11.
“The government are following process, but of course we hope they don’t support the application extension,” Mr Mudjandi said.
Senior Mirarr traditional owner Yvonne Margarula said she was worried that although ERA’s Jabiluka lease agreement enabled traditional owners to veto mining, they felt under constant pressure to change their minds.
“The mining companies might come back asking again and again, it’s annoying them asking more, enough is enough, so I hope the government is going to help us,” she said………………………………..
……………………….Professor of Archaeology at Griffith University Lynley Wallis said the Mirarr had a strong case for Jabiluka to be incorporated into Kakadu instead of mined, because of its 65,000 year-old-evidence of occupation.
“Archaeologically the escarpment that’s encapsulated within the Jabiluka mineral lease is unparalleled,” she said.
“There are hundreds of rock shelter sites, almost all of which have paintings in them, of which are incredibly well preserved, and then there are amazing objects that have been cached in those rock shelters, ceremonial wooden objects, grinding stones, spear points and scrapers.
………. the lease agreement includes a traditional owner right to veto mining……………
Lynley Wallis said the Jabiluka mining lease did not provide adequate protection.
“While a company holds a mineral lease over Jabiluka it is possible for them to apply to develop the resources in that land, and any development would pose imminent threat to the cultural sites that are within the lease,” she said.
While some of ERA’s minority shareholders want to keep the Jabiluka lease, which they estimate is worth $50 billion, its majority shareholder Rio Tinto does not.
Jabiluka is ERA’s only potentially valuable asset, but Rio Tinto estimates the rehabilitation costs would be much more than potential profits.
The cost of ERA’s rehabilitation of its neighbouring closed Ranger Uranium Mine on the Mirarr’s land has now blown out to more than $2.5 billion.
ERA is expected to run out of funds by September, and Rio Tinto has promised to fund Ranger’s rehabilitation.
But the ABC understands Rio Tinto is concerned ERA’s application to extend the Jabiluka lease is worrying Mirarr traditional owners so much, that they could delay further agreements needed on how the Ranger mine rehabilitation continues, adding to the project’s soaring costs.
Dave Sweeney, the Australian Conversation Foundation’s nuclear policy spokesman, has called on both governments to end the prospect of mining at Jabiluka.
“ERA are not making any money,” he said.
“They should be focused on getting the assured financial capacity on delivering on their legal obligations rather than appeasing minority shareholders in a fanciful push for a project that will never happen, but increases pressure on traditional owners who’ve had too much for too long.”
A spokesman for the federal Resources Minister Madeleine King said it was up to the NT government whether to renew ERA’s lease.
The spokesman said when Ms King provides her advice to NT government, she would “consider information about Jabiluka in good faith and with appropriate consultation”.
The NT Mining Minister Mark Monaghan would not explain why his government had not made a decision on the lease.
“We’re not delaying the decision, the decision is going through what is a process,” he said.
NT Opposition leader Lia Finocchiaro has backed ERA’s argument on why the lease should continue.
“Importantly that maintains the veto rights for the Mirarr people which we believe continues to be a very important right for them to have,” she said. worried
Antinuclear 