Lucas Heights nuclear reactor shut down. Fire has been brought under control
“The OPAL reactor is shut down and is safe.
Some sources say that the fire broke out as the city sweltered through a heat wave, which has caused dozens of bushfires, but the ANSTO saidthe incident was not related to the current weather conditions.
Fire has broken out at a nuclear research facility in Sydney, but its
operators say the blaze has been brought under
control.http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/01/08/282384/fire-breaks-out-at-sydney-nfacility/
The fire broke out at the Lucas Heights nuclear plant in southern
Sydney on Tuesday (local time)
The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organization (ANSTO)
raised the alarm at 10.36 a.m. local time (12.36 p.m. NZT) after smoke
was detected in an electrical substation at the rear of the facility,
which contains two nuclear reactors. Continue reading
Lucas Heights nuclear reactor has fire in two rooms
Fire burning at Lucas Heights nuclear reactor http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-01-08/fire-burning-at-lucas-heights-nuclear-reactor/4456538 MAP: Lucas Heights 2234
A fire has broken out in an electrical substation building at the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor in Sydney’s south.
Fire crews are attending the scene.
A Fire Brigade spokesman says smoke has been reported in two rooms.
The fire is believed to have been started by an electrical failure.
Aboriginal people need to be aware of their rights, about Native Title Trusts
Native title trusts outline the rights of these people to own certain
assets within the country. Remain up-to-date on the developments to
prevent misunderstandings regarding Australian Aboriginals’ native
title
Why Native Title Trusts are Important for Australian Aboriginals by
Icezen January 3, 2013 Native title trusts are important to
Australian aboriginals because the trusts establish land rights of
indigenous people. These trusts also entitle the indigenous people to
compensation in the event of extinguishment. Continue reading
Victoria’s Baillieu government is making the State’s climate problem worse
Environment Victoria chief executive Kelly O’Shanassy accused the Baillieu government of neglecting efforts to
reduce Victoria’s greenhouse gas emissions – such as by dumping the
state’s emissions reduction target.
”It defies logic that our government could understand the risks
climate change poses to Victorians and then knowingly make the problem
worse.”….
Climate threat to state assets, The Age, January 7, 2013 Tom Arup
VITAL public infrastructure in Victoria including hospitals, schools
and police stations is under increased threat of damage as climate
change intensifies.
A consultancy report has warned that billions of dollars worth of
infrastructure covered by the Victorian Managed Insurance Authority is
exposed to the impacts of natural disasters such as bushfires and
floods.
The intensity and frequency of such disasters are forecast to increase
as the planet warms. Continue reading
ASIO urges govt to tighten security on Internet servers
cyber-risk that worries agencies is the emergence of anarchic
non-state organisations motivated to dislocate our way of life to
express dissent about public decisions. The most high-profile example
is Anonymous, a cellular and leaderless group of hactivists.
Attorney-General Nicola Roxon has referred the proposals to the
Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. She
recognises that a signal issue remains – “whether the government needs
to obligate the telecommunications industry to protect their networks
from unauthorised interference”.
It’s global cyber war out there, Financial Review, Christopher Joye, 1
Jan 13, “……with the privatisation
of so many utilities over the past three decades, government has
unwittingly delegated national security to business. …..ASIO
believes national security reforms need to be made to the regulations
governing essential infrastructure, including telecommunications….. Continue reading
Plea to Vice Chancellor of The University of Adelaide – stop promoting nuclear power as climate solution
Brett Burnard Stokes, 5 Jan 13, I persist with my challenge to Adelaide University over the ongoing Nuclear Advocacy Fraud.
I am currently fighting against pro nuclear (and anti renewables) lies being told by Adelaide University.
See the Notice of Demand 121212 at
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=497582423606035&set=a.497576736939937.113968.100000628465779&type=3
I plan to make a lot of noise in the days and weeks ahead.
My primary target is Warren Bebbington, the Vice Chancellor of The University of Adelaide.
The Vice Chancellor is a newcomer to the scene and can claim “no blame” while cutting the fraudsters away from the Uni.
But to do so, the VC needs to act within the next few weeks, or he will be seen by history to be part of the problem.
Please feel free to offer advice and support and to spread the word.
I hope you can lend me a hand by:
Please comment on the The Environment Institute FaceBook page
https://www.facebook.com/TheEnvironmentInstitute
Please comment on the 6th December post on The Environment Institute FaceBook page
https://www.facebook.com/TheEnvironmentInstitute/posts/440332289359898
Please email to the Vice Chancellor of The University of Adelaide
vice-chancellor@adelaide.edu.au
Please post public advice and expressions of support on my FaceBook pages, including the Notice of Demand 121212
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=497582423606035&set=a.497576736939937.113968.100000628465779&type=3
Please email me with private advice and expressions of support
brettstokesadelaide-byebyebarrybrook@yahoo.com
Heaven help us if Abbott gets into power – listen to his top business advisor Maurice Newman
From Wikipedia – Maurice Newman on Climate change and Wind Energy
In a speech to senior ABC staff on 10 March 2010 he said climate change was an example of “group-think”. According to an ABC PM account of the speech: “Contrary views had not been tolerated, and those who expressed them had been labelled and mocked. Mr Newman has doubts about climate change himself and says he’s waiting for proof either way.”
Interviewed by Brendan Trembath he said: “But climate change is at the moment an emotional issue but it really is the fundamental issue about the need to bring voices that have authority and are relevant to the particular issue to the attention of our audiences so that they themselves can make decisions. So that we are seen to trust and respect them sufficiently that they can make up their own minds about the various points of view that are being expressed through the medium of the ABC.”[7]
In answer to the question of whether he was a climate change denier he replied: “I am an agnostic and I have always been an agnostic and I will remain and agnostic until I’ve found compelling evidence on one side or the other that will move me. I think that what seems fairly clear to me is that the climate science is still being developed. There are a lot question marks about some of the fundamental data which has been used to build models that requires caution.”[8]
Wind farms
In an article published in The Spectator, Newman expresses views in opposition to wind energy. He wrote “I am not a conspiracy theorist, but we have witnessed the birth of an extraordinary, universal and self-reinforcing movement among the political and executive arms of government, their academic consultants, the mainstream media and vested private sector interests (such as investment banks and the renewables industry), held together by the promise of unlimited government money. It may not be a conspiracy, but long-term, government-underwritten annuities have certainly created one gigantic and powerful oligopoly which must coerce taxpayers and penalise energy consumers to survive.” His article concluded “But don’t expect help from academia, mainstream media or the public service. They are members of the same establishment and worship together at the altar of global warming. By ruthlessly perpetuating the illusion that wind farms can somehow save the planet, they keep the money flowing. All the while the poor become poorer, ever more dependent on welfare and colder in winter.” (“Against the wind”, 21 January 2012, http://www.spectator.co.uk/australia/7589188/against-the-wind.thtml) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Newman
Queensland’s poor uranium market future
Australian Uranium Association’ Michael Angwin fights the science on radioactive waste, even as Queensland’s bid for uranium mining has poor economic prospects.
LNP on fission trip with uranium industry dream
John McCarthy
The Courier-Mail
January 05, 2013 THE promised $18 billion industry from uranium mining
in Queensland is a pipe dream and would never eventuate, according to
environmental group Australian Conservation Foundation.
In its submission to the State Government’s Uranium Implementation
Committee, ACF said Queensland would be gambling on an industry that
would have environmental impacts across generations for a relatively
low economic benefit.
ACF said exports of uranium from Australia totalled only $700 million
last year and that was for about a third of the global market…… Continue reading
University of Adelaide pushing the false idea that nuclear power is “zero carbon”
The University of Adelaide has set up The Environment Institute – claiming to tackle some of the most serious environmental challenges facing Australia and the world. What a pity that this wonderful sounding think tank or whatever it is is looking very much like nothing more than a front group for the nuclear lobby.
Led by Barry Brook and Ben Heard, this pro nuke spruikfest is now claiming that nuclear power is “a zero-carbon generation source”
Well – it’s just not true. )and the diagram below doesn’t even include the carbon emissions from digging the burial places for nuclear wastes and dead reactors)
They make the statement on their Facebook page. Brett Stokes challenges them with this comment:
Warning to The University of Adelaide.
“nuclear power, a zero-carbon generation source”
This is a false statement.
The making of this statement amounts to fraud with malfeasance.
Please qualify or retract this statement immediately.
=============================
So it has now been 29 days that this false statement has been published here.
So it has now been 29 days that I have been requesting immediate retraction or qualification of this false statement.
This is unacceptable behaviour by The University of Adelaide.
The persons responsible need to be identified and dismissed.
The false statement needs to be retracted and repudiated by The University of Adelaide.
This fraud must stop. Corrective action is needed now.
I now warn The University of Adelaide.
Former Prime Minister Howard aimed to take away any real land rights from Aboriginal people
In his endeavours to protect country for non-Aboriginal people, John
Howard was unclear and ambiguous as to “which land areas should be
classified in the ‘national interest’, but (this) was done with a
clear desire to take away any rights for Aboriginal people”
Australia: Howard Knew Aborigines Had A Sovereignty Based Land Right
Indigenous Peoples Issues and Resources, 2012, 3 Jan 2013,
A prominent Aboriginal sovereignty campaigner argues that former prime
minister, John Howard, amended the Native Title Act in 1998 because he
was fully aware of the inherent power of Aboriginal peoples based on
their continuing sovereignty.
“With the passage of time it is now painfully obvious that former
Prime Minister, John Howard, fully realised that Aboriginal peoples
maintain a very powerful position in Australia,” Michael Anderson
writes. Continue reading
Call to Adelaide University to stop endorsing nuclear energy as “zero emissions”
ADELAIDE UNIVERSITY IS WRONG IN 2013.
IT SHOULD CORRECT ITS ERRORS IN THE SAME MANNER OF INTEGRITY IT IS
SUPPOSED TO CORRECT ANY LEARNED PAPER.
Is Nuclear Power Zero Emissions and Carbon Neutral, Paul Langley’s
Nuclear History Blog, 3 Jan 2013,“………..MAY THE Vice C hancellor OF ADELAIDE UNIVERSITY MODIFY HIS ENDORSEMENT OF THE ZERO
EMISSION STATEMENT HIS INSTITUTION PUBLISHES. IT IS IN ERROR.
IN 2006 SHORTLY AFTER ADELAIDE UNIVERSITY FOUND THAT NUCLEAR VETERANS
SUFFERED A FAR HIGHER CANCER RISK THAN NON VETERANS, BLAMING THIS
INCREASE NOT ON THE BOMB TESTS BUT ON PETROL FUMES IN THE DESERT (IN
ITS DRAFT REPORT) AND BY COMPLETE IGNORANCE OF ANY POSSIBLE CAUSE,
DISMISSING THE BOMBS COMPLETELY, THE AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT PROPOSED
THE BUILDING OF A NUCLEAR POWER PLANT IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA’S NORTH.
CLOSE TO THE PEOPLE MOST AFFECTED BY THE BOMB FALLOUT Continue reading
Australia’s government shifts stand from nuclear non proliferation, to marketing uranium
Australian uranium sales overlook India’s nuclear history Crikey, NAJ TAYLOR | NOV 16, 2011 So with prime minister Julia Gillard yesterday proposing Australia begin selling uranium to India, it appears to me successive Labor governments are fumbling their way through nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament issues……
Over the past 12 months, Labor’s position has shifted from one giving primacy to international arms control norms so that Australia had in place a non-negotiable recipient adherence requirement, to one in which Gillard has deemed those very same principles as incurring “all pain with no gain” since exports to India “will be good for the Australian economy, and good for Australian jobs”…..
Quite simply, India acquired nuclear weapons outside of the NPT, and has belatedly complied with IAEA at a level far below that required of NPT signatory states, with few of the consequences since what cooperation is given is fully outside of many of the instruments of international law. That says nothing of the added complexity nuclear weapons have had on existing India-Pakistan tensions.
According to the Australia and Japan-led International Commission on Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament report in 2009:
“10.5… One criticism – frequently voiced since the India agreement – is that [Nuclear Suppliers Group] members may be driven by commercial incentives to be less rigorous in their approach to countries not applying comprehensive safeguards or not party to the NPT.”
“10.7 The main substantive problem with the deal is that it removed all non-proliferation barriers to nuclear trade with India in return for very few significant non-proliferation and disarmament commitments by it. The view was taken that partial controls – with civilian facilities safeguarded – were better than none.”
Two years after these dire warnings – by an International Commission co-chaired by our former foreign minister Gareth Evans and instigated by then prime minister Rudd – Gillard also appears to be primarily “driven by comercial incentives”…….
I believe what Senator Ludlam seemed to suggest yesterday was right: Australia’s priority must be nuclear security not sales, and all sales – not just those earmarked by Ferguson to go to India – must be subject to stricter controls if Australia is to continue to help drive global nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation….
Ploughshares president Joe Cirincione’s interview with ABC is telling. Joe highlights how the US deal – which influenced Gillard’s shift – on nuclear energy “encouraged India to expand nuclear weapons programme” and “fuel arms race”. Pity there’s little other debate along these arms control lines with analysts here.
Senator Ludlum has chimed in again on National Community Radio surmising: “what we are doing is freeing up their domestic [uranium] supply for nuclear weapons” …. http://blogs.crikey.com.au/this-blog-harms/2011/11/16/australian-uranium-sales-overlook-indias-nuclear-history/
1982 – Northern Territory government’s secret plans for uranium enrichment plant
Plan for nuke plant NT News, NIGEL ADLAM | January 1st, 2013 THE
Territory Government was keen to set up a uranium enrichment plant in
the NT, according to Cabinet documents from 1982 made public today
under the 30-year rule. Paul Everingham’s administration wanted to
process yellowcake from the Ranger mine, which had opened a year
earlier. ..The project was stillborn because it failed to win Federal
Government approval.. Yellowcake is trucked 220km from Ranger, near
Jabiru, to Darwin for export.
The trade used to attract fierce opposition. Protesters often tried to
halt the shipments, which left from Fort Hill wharf until the East Arm
port was built, by climbing cranes. It would usually take several
hours for police to get them down….
Joh Bjelke Petersen’s secret plans for uranium enrichment at Ipswich
The revelation came as a shock to Cr Tully, elected to the Ipswich
City Council in 1979.
Cr Tully had no inkling the Bjelke-Petersen government had Ipswich in
its sights.
“That’s news to me. It’s outrageous that any government would consider
Ipswich or any other city as a potential site and keep it secret from
the city,” he said.
Cr Tully said government documents should be released after 10 years
“What are governments thinking about now? They are talking about
uranium mining in Queensland now; will we have to wait 30 years to
hear about it?”
Papers reveal Bjelke-Petersen uranium plant plan for Ipswich
http://www.qt.com.au/news/papers-reveal-uranium-plant-plan-for-ipswich/1702063/
Kieran Banks 1st Jan 2013
Sunshine Coast Daily Archives – 21 June 1976
IPSWICH was identified as a possible site for a uranium enrichment
plant following a secretive government investigation in the 1980s,
confidential cabinet documents reveal today. Continue reading
The nuclear fuel cycle is a big emitter of greenhouse gases
ADELAIDE UNIVERSITY,
…………HAS COME ON BOARD AS PART OF THE PUSH TO ESTABLISH NUCLEAR
POWER IN AUSTRALIA….. DR JIM GREEN HAS WRITTEN EXTENSIVELY ON THE CARBON CONTRIBUTION OF
NUCLEAR POWER
Is Nuclear Power Zero Emissions and Carbon Neutral ?, Paul Langley’s
Nuclear History Blog, 3 Jan 2013, NO. OVER THE PAGES OF THIS BLOG I
HAVE EXPLAINED THE NATURE OF BOTH THE EMERGENCY (FUKUSHIMA) AND NORMAL
EMISSIONS OF RADIO NUCLIDES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS.
THE MINING, MILLING, TRANSPORT, VERY OPERATION, WASTE STORAGE AND
WASTE DISPOSAL OF SPENT FUEL ALL INVOLVE CARBON INTENSIVE SOURCES OF
POWER.
THE DIESEL SUBSIDY RECEIVED BY URANIUM SUPPLIES IS HUGE AND COSTLY,
AND DIESEL IS NOT CARBON NEUTRAL. THE TRANSPORT AND STORAGE OF SPENT
FUEL IS NOT CARBON NEUTRAL.
RATHER THAN REDUCE EMISSIONS NUCLEAR POWER CREATES BOTH RADIO CHEMICAL
AND CARBON EMISSIONS.
NUCLEAR POWER HAS A CARBON FOOTPRINT THROUGHOUT THE FUEL CYCLE.
I WOULD URGE READERS TO CONTEMPLATE THE RELATIVE ADVANTAGES AND COSTS
OF NUCLEAR AS A RADIO CHEMICAL AND CARBON EMITTER OVER OTHER SOURCES
OF ENERGY WHICH EMIT NEITHER.
I QUESTION ANY STATEMENT BY ANY LEARNED INSTITUTION WHICH CLAIMS
NUCLEAR POWER IS CARBON NEUTRAL, FOR IT IS NOT. Continue reading
1 This month.
20 September –National Day of Action in Melbourne on the International Day of Peace
Help Aunty Sue Protect Her Land and Sacred Sites From Destructive Rocket Testing.
.
Australians deserve the truth
about
AUKUS – https://aukuspublicinquiry.com/
PETITION – To: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Australian Labor Government
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
Antinuclear 