Australia’s carbon tax – dispelling the scare campaign against it.
the great tragedy of this is the groups behind this ludicrous scare campaign – the Minerals Council of Australia, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Australian Coal Association, and the Housing Industry Association – will never be brought to justice for the misleading conduct they’ve engaged in over the last two years.
One working week down, sky still above, Climate Spectator, 6 Jul 2012, Tristan Edis One working week after doomsday and as usual the media is still running tripe about the carbon pricing package. Gerry Harvey has realised that the carbon tax will actually be good for retailers like him. And finally some people are being brought to justice for scaremongering by the ACCC (ACT Renewable Energy and Polaris Solar), if only their powers extended to industry associations…… Continue reading
Tony Abbott does not understand that the Muckaty nuclear waste dump plan is a national issue
Abbott weighs in on dump dispute, 06 Jul, 2012 http://tennantcreek.yourguide.com.au/news/local/news/general/abbott-weighs-in-on-dump-dispute/2615884.aspx FEDERAL Opposition Leader Tony Abbott will be just as despised as Resources Minister Martin Fergushima if he keeps banging on about dumping nuclear waste in the pristine Barkly.
Speaking in Darwin this week, Mr Abbott said that a nuclear waste facility would be in the national interest.
“I am confident that any waste arrangements here in the Territory will be conducted in the most effective way, with the least possible risk to the environment,” he said.
“You know, sometimes local concerns do have to give way to the national interest.
“The Territory waste centre will be a long, long way from built-up areas … and this is why it is appropriate to find a remote location for these kinds of facilities.”
National environment group, Beyond Nuclear Initiative (BNI), rejected Mr Abbott’s comments, saying the proposal to build the radioactive dump at Muckaty was based on politics rather than science. BNI spokesperson, Nat Wasley, said a senior departmental official admitted to a senate inquiry that the push for a remote dump site was political.
“Mr Abbott is also trying to dismiss concern about the Muckaty dump as ‘local’,” she said.
“Yet the Australian Council of Trade Unions and Australian Conservation Foundation – the peak trade union and environment bodies in the country – as well as other unions, health and human rights organisations have clearly stated opposition to the proposal. “Territory and national concerns reach beyond the environmental risks of transporting and storing radioactive waste in remote areas to include the social aspects of the flawed process that led to Muckaty being nominated.”
Ms Wasley said any attempts to advance the Northern Territory dump plan would be met with fierce national resistance.
Australian invention – laser uranium enrichment raises nuclear weapons proliferation risks.
a tension between the United States’ goal of safely commercializing nuclear-power technology and its efforts to control the proliferation of nuclear materials. “When there’s a conflict, generally speaking, the policy to spread nuclear technology overrides the non-proliferation policy.”
Laser-based uranium enrichment plant sparks controversy 07/05/2012 Laser Focus World by Gail Overton Senior Editor Washington, DC–A July 4 Nature news story from Sharon Weinberger says that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s decision to open a plant that uses laser-based uranium enrichment will be considered in private. Although the controversial laser uranium-enrichment technology is on the cusp of making it cheaper to create fuel for nuclear power plants, some non-proliferation experts are concerned that the efficiency of the laser-based technology will also smooth the path for bomb makers. Continue reading
Prime Minister Gillard holding firm on climate change action, rejecting nuclear power
Julia Gillard answers your questions about the carbon tax in live blog Annika Smethurst Herald Sun July 05, 2012 PRIME Minister Julia Gillard answered tough questions on the carbon tax in an exclusive live blog with Herald Sun readers today. The Prime Minister tackled questions on nuclear power, pension increases and the controversial carbon pricing scheme for an hour….
Ms Gillard reiterated her stance not to resort to nuclear energy due to the country’s wealth in alternative energy
sources such as wind, sun, tidal and geothermal energies. “What nation on earth has more access to abundant renewable energy sources than us? A clean energy future makes sense for our nation?” she said.
Ms Gillard also assured readers Australia’s economy and employment would continue to grow based on the country’s advantages in renewable energy….. Ms Gillard said that around the world other nations were moving to cut carbon pollution with Australians joining 850 million people around the world who live with a carbon pricing. “500 million Europeans live with carbon pricing and 200 million Chinese. And then there are nations like South Korea and Mexico
deciding to price carbon,” she said….http://www.heraldsun.com.au/ipad/julia-gillard-answers-your-questions-about-the-carbon-tax-in-live-blog/story-fnd2zcc1-1226418083783
Another Ugly Australian Uranium Mine in a World Heritage Park
Tanzania gets U.N. nod for uranium mine in game park DAR ES SALAAM, July 5 (Reuters) – Tanzania has received U.N. approval for Australia-based miner Mantra Resources to build a $400 million uranium mine in a world heritage game reserve despite pressure from environmental groups opposed to the project, it said on Thursday.
Green groups have warned that toxic mining activities at the plant would harm the ecologically sensitive Selous Game Reserve in the east African country… http://af.reuters.com/article/tanzaniaNews/idAFL6E8I57YN20120705
Huge wind farms to go ahead in South Australia and Western Australia
Go-ahead given for huge wind farm http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/go-ahead-given-for-huge-wind-farm/story-e6frea6u-1226418325533 5 July 12, FINAL State Government approval has been given for the construction of a $900 million, 105-turbine wind farm in the state’s mid-north.
The 315 megawatt Hornsdale wind farm, to be built 15km from Jamestown, would be the state’s largest, with the capacity togenerate 1,050,000 megawatt hours of electricity a year. The Development Assessment Commission gave provisional approval to the development in May, with Planning Minister John Rau yesterday giving developer Investec Bank Australia the green light to begin the development. Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis said the project would create up to 250 construction jobs locally.
Mega wind farm for Mid West Daniel Mercer, The West Australian July 6, 2012, State-owned power generator Verve is planning to significantly increase WA’s share of renewable energy supplies by spending $600 million to build the State’s biggest wind farm. Continue reading
Jumbo sized solar pergola at Perth zoo
Perth Zoo unveils ‘jumbo’ solar plant http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/perth-zoo-unveils-jumbo-solar-plant-20120705-21je4.html WA Today July 5, 2012 Perth Zoo has completed its jumbo-sized solar panel installation – stretching partly across its elephant enclosure – making it the city’s largest single source of sun power.
A new 102-metre “solar pergola” was unveiled today, completing the $2.7 million clean-energy project that began last year with the installation of 303 solar panels on eight zoo structures. They include the elephant barn, reptile display, retail shop,
maintenance and administrative buildings.
A total of 755 solar panels are now used by the zoo, with the potential to generate about a third of its energy needs – 370,000kW hours a year – saving the popular tourist attraction about $100,000 a year. The installation was jointly funded by the state and federal governments as part of the nation’s $94 million Solar Cities program.
While the steel-framed solar pergola is the centrepiece of the Perth Zoo project, it also doubles as a bus shelter, running along the northern perimeter road and propping up 452 solar panels with a power rating of 145kW.
The entire system is rated at 237kW, making it the largest single solar generator in Perth – the world’s sunniest capital city, with an average eight hours sunshine a day over the entire year. Perth Zoo hosts about 610,000 visitors a year.
Solar Dawn confirms its plan to rise Ecogeneration, , 5 July 2012 The Solar Dawn consortium has advised the Federal Government that its Solar Flagships Program-winning project is well-advanced and remains Australia’s best prospect for a large-scale solar thermal facility, despite the consortium failing to meet the recent financial close milestone and the Queensland Government’s decision to withdrawn from its project support agreement.
Solar Dawn Project Director Anthony Wiseman said that while the project delay represented a set-back, the consortium – made up of AREVA Solar and Wind Prospect, after CS Energy pulled out – will pursue discussions with the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) and the Queensland Government to move Solar Dawn forward based on the project’s advanced status and the strong economic and environmental benefits it offers to the state and the country…..
Australia’s nuclear priesthood, Barry Brook etc, dazzle us with science about Integral Fast Reactors
It will be great pity if Australians let themselves be mentally paralysed and muzzled by the nuclear technocrats into thinking they can’t understand nuclear issues. Frankly, events like Fukushima show ordinary people probably have a much better grasp of issues surrounding the environment, economics, safety, nuclear radiation, and weapons proliferation than the nuclear hierarchy does.
IFRs needs plutonium or enriched uranium as fuel. So, to have fast reactors, Australia would need to import these, or set up nuclear reprocessing or uranium enrichment here.
In dispraise of Integral Fast Nuclear Reactors Independent Australia, 5 July 12, Can only nuclear technocrats discuss nuclear issues — leaving the great unwashed out of the debate? Noel Wauchope considers the latest – but not necessarily the greatest – nuclear gizmo — Integral Fast Reactors. “….. the nuclear priesthood is pretty safe in all this. They keep the argument narrowly technical, with pages and pages on the various technicalities of cooling systems, reprocessing of fuel systems, passive safety systems and so on; in other words, they induce in the public a kind of mindless torpor as they dazzle us with science.
At the same time, the nuclear priesthood, like some gifted but autistic child with specialist knowledge in just one area, seems to have little grasp of other issues concerning nuclear power — blinkered as they are in their apparent view that the technicalities are the whole story. This is the case with their latest propaganda for the ‘Integral Fast Reactor’ or IFR. Continue reading
Nuclear waste dumping is fine: local communities don’t matter, according to Tony Abbott
Nuclear waste dump in ‘national interest’: Abbott ABC News By James Glenday, July 03, 2012 Tony Abbott says local concerns sometimes do have to give way to the national interest. (AAP: David Crosling)
Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says he is confident a nuclear waste dump can be built safely in the Northern Territory……”Sometimes local concerns do have to give way to the national
interest.” http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-07-03/abbott-on-muckaty-nuclear-waste-dump/4107768
interest.
World’s Biggest Wave Energy Turbine for Victoria
World’s Largest Wave Turbine Gets New Grant from Australian Government Clean Technica, JULY 3, 2012 BY GILES PARKINSON The Australian government as upped its investment in two nascent, Australian-developed wave energy technologies, announcing new grants worth almost $10 million to help bring the two new systems to the market, including what is believed to be the world’s biggest wave energy turbine.
The government is providing $5.6 million to BioPower Systems to install a 250kW full-scale pilot plant of its bioWAVE technology off the coast of Victoria, and is also providing just under $4 million to Oceanlinx, to install a 1MW demonstration plan of its Greenwave technology in South Australia.
Both grants are being made under the $126 million Emerging Renewables program, and follow an earlier $9 million grant to Carnegie Wave Energy, which is building a $31 million, 2MW grid-connected demonstration of its CETO technology near Fremantle in Western Australia.
BioPower CEO Tim Finnigan said the grant, along with a $5 million grant from the Victorian state government, means that its $15 million project was now fully funded. “This puts us into a position to complete the project, get it on the grid, and prove the technology at scale,” he told RenewEconomy. “It’s a pretty big development for us.”…… http://cleantechnica.com/2012/07/03/worlds-largest-wave-turbine-gets-new-grant-from-australian-government/
Globe company mining rare earths, but sending them to China for processing
Globe tests waters with new rare earth spinoff Kate Emery | View Archive, The West, June 11, 2012, “……..Uranium had its pre-GFC day in the sun and, more recently, it was rare earths’ time to shine, with prices for the not-actually-so-rare metals soaring on the back of moves by China to restrict supply. Prices for the handful of Australian-listed rare earths players rocketed in response and investors were suddenly talking about the likes of scandium and yttrium.
Fast forward to mid-2012 and the heat has decidedly come out of rare earths stocks.
There’s no one reason for the fall, most likely a combination of the dramas encountered by Australia’s sole rare earths miner, Lynas Corp, at its Malaysian processing plant, global macroeconomic conditions and a realisation that the surge in prices is unsustainable.
Globe Metals and Mining knows something about how quickly investor sentiment can turn when it comes to commodity bubbles, having lived a past life as Globe Uranium….. Arafura has encountered its share of obstacles and, as with Lynas, they have been largely associated with the processing side of the business.
Globe hopes to sidestep that potential pitfall by establishing Mount Muambe as a mining-only operation, shipping the product to China for processing….. http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/opinion/post/-/blog/13920051/globe-tests-waters-with-new-rare-earth-spinoff/
Support grows for Aboriginal traditional owners’ legal battle to stop Muckaty nuclear waste dump
Muckaty traditional owners fight Ferguson’s nuclear dump, July 3, 2012, Jim Green, Four Muckaty traditional owners — Penny Phillips, Jeannie Sambo, Kylie Sambo and Delvine Spiteri — visited Melbourne on June 25 to attend a federal court hearing concerning the nomination of Muckaty, 120 kilometres north of Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory, for a national nuclear waste dump.
Legal proceedings against the federal government and the Northern Land Council began in June 2010 and a trial is anticipated in the first half of 2013. A small group of traditional owners support the dump proposal, in return for a financial package. But most are opposed and are challenging the right of the government to establish the dump at Muckaty without their consent.
Legislation pushed through parliament by federal resources minister Martin Ferguson — the National Radioactive Waste Management Act — allows for the imposition of a dump without consultation with or consent from traditional owners. In a previous federal court hearing, lawyers for the Commonwealth argued that the Muckaty nomination was valid even if the wrong traditional owners were consulted.
The most pressing issue for the government is the return of spent nuclear fuel reprocessed waste from France and Scotland in coming years. The government is aware that its Muckaty plan is unravelling and has moved to firm up an alternative plan — interim storage of the reprocessing waste at the Lucas Heights nuclear research reactor site south of Sydney, from where the spent fuel originated. Plans are in train to increase storage capacity at Lucas Heights.
Trade unions & emergency services
Some of Australia’s most powerful unions have pledged support for the campaign. The Maritime Union of Australia’s Victorian Secretary, Kevin Bracken, attended a media event with traditional owners after the June 25 court hearing, and traditional owners briefed MUA members the following day.
In Darwin, the MUA is organising a protest at Stokes Hill Wharf on July 12, marking seven years since the NT was first targeted for a nuclear waste dump. The MUA is sending delegates from around the country to attend this event.
In May, the Australian Council of Trade Unions Congress passed a resolution expressing disappointment that the Muckaty site will continue to be pursued under the National Radioactive Waste Management Act. It affirmed that the ACTU “stands in solidarity with traditional owners and communities resisting federal government plans for a radioactive waste dump and commits to supporting trade unions refusing to cooperate with implementation of the policy.”
The ACTU Congress resolution further states that “the recent application by ANSTO for reprocessed spent fuel waste to return to the Lucas Heights facility in Sydney and acknowledges this as an opportunity to review radioactive waste management in Australia by conducting an independent and comprehensive public commission into all aspects radioactive waste transport, storage and management in Australia”…… www.greenleft.org.au/node/51545
USA out to get Julian Assange, and Australian govt not helping him,
Foreign Minister Bob Carr… claimed last week that there was “not the remotest 
evidence” of any US government desire to prosecute the WikiLeaks founder.
Fresh call on Assange ‘espionage’ SMH Philip Dorling July 2, 2012 THE head of the United States Senate’s powerful intelligence oversight committee has renewed calls for Julian Assange to be prosecuted for espionage. The US Justice Department has also confirmed WikiLeaks remains the target of a criminal investigation, calling into question Australian government claims the US has no interest in extraditing Mr Assange. Continue reading
Queensland’s anti solar energy government swings into action
Campbell Newman Government axes Queensland solar energy scheme, nation’s largest by: Darrell Giles The Courier-Mail July 02, 2012 AUSTRALIA’S biggest solar energy scheme is dead in the water, torpedoed by the withdrawal of funding by the Newman Government. The State Government is pulling $75 million out of a renewable energy power project, effectively killing off up to 400 jobs.
Regional Queensland was set to be home to one of the biggest combination solar and gas power plants in the world under a $1.2 billion scheme, a joint Federal-State Government and private partnership.
The Solar Dawn project would have used Australian-pioneered technology and transformed Chinchilla and the western Darling Downs into the nation’s mixed-energy capital. But the Liberal National Party has found a way to back out of an earlier Bligh government agreement and halt its contribution.
Premier Campbell Newman signalled soon after winning the March state election that he would look at pulling the plug on the $75 million investment if he could do it without risk to taxpayers. Minister for Energy and Water Supply Mark McArdle wrote to federal Energy Minister Martin Ferguson last week to confirm he had cut the Queensland contribution. Mr McArdle was understood to have told Mr Ferguson Solar Dawn was unable to meet the State Government’s funding agreement.
As a result, the agreement between the two governments was “terminated”…… Prime Minister Julia Gillard had committed $464 million, saying the project would support Labor’s carbon tax and keep the environment clean…… http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/campbell-newman-government-axes-queensland-solar-energy-scheme-nations-largest/story-e6freoof-1226413831562
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