‘Shonky fast-tracked approval’ for Australian company’s rare earths plant in Malaysia
Ire over Lynas ‘sham’ plant consultation, SMH, Vince Chadwick February 13, 2012 Groups opposed to a rare-earths refinement plant in Malaysia plan to appeal against the atomic regulator’s decision to grant Australian miner Lynas a temporary operating licence…
.. Ms Tansaid two separate appeals would be launched this week, one by locals in Kuantan and another in Kuala Lumpur. She said objections would centre on the ”shonky, fast-tracked approval process” in which the licensing board temporarily approved the plant less than a week after public consultations closed.
The president of the Malaysian Bar association, Lim Chee Wee, said last week, ”it beggars belief that [the licensing board] could have adequately and properly considered the 1123 public comments within merely two working days.
”The only natural conclusion is that the whole public consultation process is a sham and charade, ” he said…..
Lynas expects to begin refining rare earths shipped from its $100 million mine in Mount Weld, Western Australia, by the second quarter of this year. It hopes to recycle some waste to make building materials or fertiliser. In the case of iron phosphate gypsum, for which there are no commercial applications, the company said it can store waste safely
for up to 17 years.
Mr Lim said ”the granting of a 10-month period for Lynas to provide the plan and location of the [permanent disposal facility] borders on recklessness: by then, even if the terms of the licence remain unfulfilled and the licence is suspended or cancelled, substantial amounts of radioactive wastes would have been produced”…..
Ms Tan said the ecologically sensitive area near mangroves meant toxic runoff into the South China Sea could affect local fisherman. http://www.smh.com.au/business/ire-over-lynas-sham-plant-consultation-20120212-1sznp.html#ixzz1mIqXT47j
Rural Australia’s economy damaged by stopping wind farms
there have been many credible health studies all over the world and none has ever found that wind turbines can directly cause health problems
wind farms currently proposed in Australia had the potential to generate up to $15 billion worth of investment across the
country and create nearly 10,000 direct jobs.
Wind farm halt would hurt nation, http://www.goulburnpost.com.au/news/local/news/general/wind-farm-halt-would-hurt-nation/2452728.aspx , Goulburn Post13 Feb, 2012 ANY moratorium on wind farm development would drive billions of dollars of investment out of Australia and hurt farmers and regional communities, the renewable energy industry’s peak body says.
The Clean Energy Council said a moratorium on new wind farms, called for by Democratic Labor Party Senator John Madigan and Independent Senator Nick Xenophon in the Senate last week, would hurt rural towns and businesses.
“Wind farms bring investment to regional towns and help farmers diversify to support their businesses and families,” Mr Thornton said. “Placing a moratorium on wind farms would remove this source of support to regional and rural communities. Continue reading
Toro Energy sells out of uneconomic Mt Woods uranium project
Toro Energy: shareholders accept termination terms for Mt Woods uranium project Proactive Investors, , February 14, 2012 by John Phillips Toro Energy (ASX: TOE) has updated the market on the Mt Woods uranium project.
Toro said that shareholders have voted to accept the terms of a termination agreement for the company’s involvement in the Mount Woods uranium project in South Australia….. OZ Minerals has conducted major exploration programs at Mt Woods and, despite extensive drilling campaigns, no potentially economic uranium results have been reported
from the project.
South Australian govt gives uranium company $5 million compensation
SA to compensate Marathon for mining ban, 9 News, 13 Feb 12, Marathon Resources has accepted $5 million in compensation after its hopes of one day mining uranium at Mount Gee were dashed by a proposed ban on mining at the environmentally sensitive Arkaroola area.
The minerals explorer says it is dropping its civil law suit against the South Australian government because months of negotiation had resulted in the goodwill compensation for the ban on exploration and mining at Arkaroola in the northern Flinders Ranges.
The company had its licence to explore a deposit at Mt Gee, one of Australia’s largest undeveloped uranium deposits, renewed before the ban was announced in July 2011.
The plan, still before state parliament, would exclude the Arkaroola area from South Australia’s Mining Act, provide legislated protection for the sanctuary and have it nominated for world heritage listing….
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/8418443/sa-to-compensate-marathon-for-mining-ban
At anti-submarine warfare forum, Yankee urges Australia to lease US nuclear submarines
Australia urged to lease subs,Canberra Times, DAVID ELLERY, DEFENCE REPORTER, 11 Feb, 2012 Australia would save billions of dollars if it leased used US nuclear submarines to replace the troubled Collins-class fleet, an American naval expert says.
”If you want to utilise the submarine force for long-range missions the nuclear submarine is the queen of the seas,” Sam Tangredi, a former US naval captain turned academic and strategic analyst, told The Canberra Times.
Dr Tangredi, who was in Canberra to speak at an anti-submarine warfare forum at the Australian Defence College, said taking over some of the submarines due to be retired early by the US Navy as part of its defence cuts was almost certainly the cheapest way to build an interim Australian underwater capability….
US nuclear submarines regularly use Australian ports and the defence posture review has suggested upgrading the submarine wharf at HMAS Stirling in Western Australia to make it better able to take American SSNs.
Defence Minister Stephen Smith recently reaffirmed nuclear submarines were off the agenda as far as replacing the Collins was concerned…. ”People can put the [nuclear] argument forward but that’s the only option that’s not on the table.”… http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/national/national/general/australia-urged-to-lease-subs/2451846.aspx
Small scale, decentralised solar energy paying off for Queensland
Queensland has embraced small scale solar – and that is set to continue.
Queensland Aims For 9000 Gigawatt Hours Of Renewable Energy Generation, by Energy Matters, 10 Feb 12, Queensland Renewable Energy Plan (QREP) 2012 has been launched by Energy Minister Stephen Robertson – and the future of solar in the state continues to look bright.
“QREP 2012 places Queensland front and centre of Australia’s clean energy future. It positions Queensland to leverage up to $8.9 billion in renewable energy investment and deliver 9000 gigawatt hours of renewable energy generation by 2020,” said Minister Robertson.
The Minister sees the state benefiting from the Australian Government’s Clean Energy Future initiative.
“Substantial opportunities will emerge for Queensland from this national plan. With a strong ongoing program of initiatives and new focus on collaboration and capacity building, QREP 2012 aims to position Queensland as a primary beneficiary.” Continue reading
Secrecy on reports about the nomination of Muckaty Station as nuclear waste dump
The committee recommended in May 2010 that the bill be passed, acknowledging at the time that it did not have access to key documents and information
I find it a shock, as do many supporters of the Australian Labor Party, that coercive attempts to dump radioactive waste out in terra nullius did not end with the election of the Rudd government but have in fact been picked up and cut and pasted exactly where the former government left off. Our leaders may have changed, but our resources minister effectively has not. I continue to recall and remark that the government opened its first term with an apology and that, if this legislation is allowed to proceed, it will close this term owing another apology to Aboriginal Australians. I think the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee missed an important opportunity to right what will be seen, if we entrench it and lock it in, as a historical injustice that should not be allowed to stand.
Report and speech on the evidence provided by the NLC to the legal and constitutional affairs committee inquiry into Muckaty Bill Senator LUDLAM (Western Australia) 8 Feb 2012 ……..This matter is extremely important. A particular community in the Northern Territory has been targeted for a national radioactive waste dump in Australia. We have never had such a facility before. It has been very, very contentious for governments of all kinds, and it is something that has been extremely vexed—an issue that neither Labor nor the conservatives have ever been able to get a grip on.
In this instance, the site has been targeted for a particular cattle station about 120 kilometres north of Tennant Creek, and there is a serious dispute over whether the land should have been nominated from the Northern Land Council to the federal government. It is a site that is explicitly named and targeted in the legislation that is before this chamber. It is not an abstract matter. This is a site that has actually been identified—we had this confirmed again yesterday—as the only site that was in consideration by the federal government. It was named and locked in in the legislation before the parliament, yet the people of that region have taken a very serious dispute to the Federal Court over whether that land should have been forwarded in the first place.
It was up to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee in examining the bill—which it did with extremely truncated and narrow terms of reference the year before last—to decide whether or not this bill should proceed. It did decide, in the absence of quite a number of very important documents that the Northern Land Council refused to disclose to the committee when they gave evidence, to recommend that the bill be proceeded with. At the time my office forwarded quite a detailed dissenting report saying that, in fact, the committee had not done its job; even within its narrow terms of reference, it simply had not done its job.
It had not sought the requisite information to allow it to properly fulfil its function, and it has done so again. Continue reading
Australian government opens series of energy efficiency programs
New Australian government energy efficiency programs opened Eco Business, February 9th, 2012 By : Energy Matters The Gillard Government has just announced the opening of series of energy efficiency initiatives and assistance targeted towards business, local government, households and communities.
A joint statement from Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency Greg Combet, Minister for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government Simon Crean; and Parliamentary Secretary for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency Mark Dreyfus states these programs will make it easier for regional communities and smaller councils to access assistance and support in the transition to a low carbon future.
The programs include:
Community Energy Efficiency Program – $200 million
To assist local government, not-for-profit and community organisations to undertake energy efficiency upgrades to community infrastructure, including council buildings, stadiums, education facilities, town halls and nursing homes.
While funding for wind and solar power systems are not considered eligible for this program, solar hot water systems are eligible as they are not classified as renewable energy generation systems.
Low Income Energy Efficiency Program – $100 million
To support groups of service providers to demonstrate smarter energy use in low income households across Australia.
Purchase and installation of renewable energy generation systems, such as solar photovoltaic, micro-hydro, wind turbine and biomass generation systems are not eligible, but solar hot water is as it is not classed as a generation system.
Energy Efficiency Information Grants program – $40 million
To support small and medium sized businesses and community groups by providing information and advice to make smarter energy choices.
“The programs will enable all Australians regardless of where they live or how much they earn to harness the opportunities of a low carbon future. They will be delivered in partnership with business, councils and community groups,” reads part of the statement.
Applications open on February 13 and the guidelines for each of these programs are now available via the links above. http://www.eco-business.com/news/new-australian-government-energy-efficiency-programs-opened/
UV radiation – a cancer causer just like ionising radiation
Ultraviolet radiation: the entire spectrum of ultraviolet radiation has some of the biological features of ionizing radiation, in doing far more damage to many molecules in biological systems than is accounted for by simple heating effects (an example is sunburn).
Don’t let Clare’s death be in vain, by:Jerril Rechter , Herald Sun, February 10, 2012 HARMFUL UV rays are a fact of life in a sun-drenched country, but solariums are a choice. They are dangerous, unnecessary, outdated and irrefutably linked to cancer. They must be banned in Victoria and nationally, not just in NSW.
Before her death in 2007, Clare Oliver, 26, became a household name. She told her tragic story of skin cancer, and of a life lost far too early, to warn young women about the consequences of solariums.
She made it clear that the pursuit of attractiveness was never worth losing your life over. It has been estimated that each year in Victoria, 51 new melanomas, seven deaths and 294 new cases of deadly squamous cell carcinoma are attributed to solarium use.
Five years after Clare’s death, 475 tanning beds still operate in Victoria, almost twice as many as the 254 in NSW. Clare’s family, elated at the news that NSW will ban them for good in 2014, are eager to see the day this announcement is made in Victoria…. In 2008, a chain of popular Melbourne tanning salons was found guilty by the Federal Court of Australia for posting not one, but eight misleading claims on its website that tanning was a safe activity.
There is no safe level of solarium use. Solariums emit levels of UV radiation up to three times as strong as the midday summer sun. A recent study found that 15 per cent of tanning beds even exceeded this level, and some emitted up to six times more UVA than midday summer sun.
Using a sun bed before you are 35 boosts your risk of melanoma by 75 per cent. And the more you use them the greater your risk increases, at any age.An estimated one in six melanomas in young Australians aged 18-29 could be prevented if solariums were shut down….. http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/dont-let-clares-death-be-in-vain/story-e6frfhqf-1226267190176
Senator Scullion’s Northern Territory deal – $10 million for a radioactive waste dump
Senator Nigel Scullion (Country Liberal Party) – South Australia refused, as a Territory we didn’t have the capacity to refuse…. Territorians generally feel that this should not have gone in the Northern Territory
Senator Scott Ludlum (Australian Greens) – I think it’s totally inappropriate that the Bill is before the Senate while the Government doesn’t yet know whose land they are dealing with…. I find it offensive that in the middle of that court action the Senate’s going to be debating a bill that explicitly names and targets that site.
the doctors and the medical professionals over the last couple of months who’ve come out and said please stop using medical technology as an excuse for producing this waste, because there are other ways of providing for radio pharmaceuticals that don’t result in these long-lived carcinogenic wastes.
Transcript ABC Radio National breakfast, 08-February-2012
FRAN KELLY:
Well more than twenty years after the search started for a nuclear waste dump Labor’s Radioactive Waste Management Bill is listed for debate in the Senate today. The Bill has already gone through the House of Reps, and with Coalition support it will also pass in the upper house, giving the green light to development of Australia’s low- and intermediate-level nuclear waste facility at Muckaty Station in the Northern Territory. This is despite bitter opposition from various Indigenous and environmental groups and from the Northern Territory Government itself. West Australian Greens Senator Scott Ludlam will try to delay a vote on the Bill, and the Country Liberal Party Senator for the Northern Territory, Nigel Scullion, wants an extra $10 million for the Territory. Both join me from Canberra this morning. Senators, good morning. Welcome to breakfast.
FRAN KELLY:
Senator Scullion, let’s begin with you. You once bitterly opposed a nuclear waste dump in the Northern Territory. In fact back in 2005 you said, “there’s not going to be a nuclear waste dump in the Northern Territory. The people of the Northern Territory don’t want anybody else’s nuclear waste. I represent them, so not on my watch”. Continue reading
Australian government bribes Northern Territory – a cancer ward for a nuclear waste dump
United Voice NT secretary Matthew Gardiner said: “There is still a Federal Court case hearing whether Muckaty Station can be used as the site, yet we have politicians bickering over what filthy lucre they can get.
“The waste will affect every Territorian, as it will be in our ports, on our trains and on our roads. “Every major town in the NT will see Australia’s lethal waste being transported past their offices, schools and homes.”
“Territorians pay taxes and deserve those facilities because we’re Australians, not because we sign up to a waste dump.”
Muckaty gets mucked up http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2012/02/09/287821_ntnews.html NT News, NIGEL ADLAM | February 9th, 2012 THE Territory is to charge “rent” for storing radioactive waste. Payments will be put into a special fund and spent on the cancer ward at Royal Darwin Hospital.
Only the NT and federal governments will be allowed to send low-level waste to the Muckaty dump near Tennant Creek free of charge. Canberra will kick off the fund with a $10 million payment. But that money will be taken back out of rent money from states and territories using the dump.
The fund is expected to collect several millions of dollars a year. Territory Senator Nigel Scullion used the fund as the price for the Coalition allowing the National Radioactive Waste Management Bill to be passed by the Senate. Continue reading
Martin Ferguson’s nuclear waste dump Bill faces determined opposition
Muckaty nuclear dump faces more hurdles, SBS World News By Bill Code 08 February 2012 |Indigenous people in the country surrounding the proposed Muckaty nuclear waste dump have reiterated plans to block the Stuart Highway….. The Northern Territory government and various local clan groups are opposed to the plan to build a medium-level nuclear waste dump on the aboriginal land north of Tennant Creek.
Penny Philips, a member of the Wintiku clan, told SBS the federal government will have a fight on its hands if local people block the Territory’s principal road. “We’re going to do it if they’re going ahead with it…we’ll get people to block it, get traditional owners from other countries if they can block it as well.” Continue reading
Sandi Keane explains how Australia’s fossil fuel industries deceive us with ASTROTURFING
The Landscape Guardians, their front group, the Waubra Foundation, with their links to mining interests, skeptics, the Liberal Party and the Institute of Public Affairs, were first exposed by this author in an investigation in July last year. Their bogus health scare campaign is a classic example of how genuine citizens were duped to disregard the mounting evidence by the large and growing body of evidence (now numbering some 17 reviews) from around the world debunking “Wind Turbine Syndrome”.
Deception is our product Independent Australia 9 Feb 2012, http://www.independentaustralia.net/2012/environment/deception-is-our-product/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=IA+Newsletter%3A+PR+astroturfing+-+deception+…&utm_source=YMLP&utm_term=Astroturfing.jpg
Environment editor Sandi Keane exposes the shadowy world of PR, where astroturfing and propaganda is used to coerce the public into sacrificing their own interests for those of big corporations.
Deceiving the public these days is a lucrative industry. Experienced PR practitioners now coerce you through astroturfing and other socially engineered forms of brainwashing to sacrifice your interests for those of their clients – especially those with the biggest war chest – the fossil fuel industry….
Classic examples were Hands Off My Healthcare in the US, and, in Australia, the watering down of tax on miners, the about-turn by the public on the ETS, and the recent success of the Landscape Guardians to stop wind farms replacing coal-fired power in Victoria. Continue reading
Aboriginals’ peaceful protest against extinguishment of native title in Western Australia
The deal, which the government hopes to conclude by the end of the year, would extinguish all future native title claims for the area
Ms Mackay said Mr Barnett was “a coward for running away from us”. “We are never violent. We come and we are loud, but we are peacefully loud,” she said.
Protestors surround Barnett after ‘$1 billion native title whitewash’, SMH February 8, 2012 – Angry Aboriginal protesters have confronted West Australian Premier Colin Barnett in Perth, leading security officers to rush him to the safety of a waiting car.
The protesters delayed the premier’s departure from Fraser’s Restaurant in Kings Park on Wednesday after he addressed Noongar elders about a proposed $1 billion deal to settle native title claims in WA’s southwest.
In a scene reminiscent of the Aboriginal protest in Canberra on Australia Day, around 70 protesters waving placards and Aboriginal flags surrounded Fraser’s, demanding Mr Barnett come out and not hide inside….
No one was hurt in the jostling and police said no arrests were made. Continue reading
BHP might sell Yeelirie uranium project. Fortescue to join Big Uranium Boys
BHP tipped to sell $9.3b worth of assets SMH February 9, 2012 BHP Billiton may consider selling about $US10 billion ($9.3 billion) of aluminum, nickel and coal mines and smelters as it trims its portfolio, Deutsche Bank says….
BHP could also sell its Yeelirrie uranium project in Australia and some petroleum assets, Citigroup said today in a report.
http://www.smh.com.au/business/bhp-tipped-to-sell-93b-worth-of-assets-20120209-1rnn0.html#ixzz1lucfhUlg
FMG pegs swathes of new tenements in major SA copper, gold and uranium districts by: Nick Evans PerthNow, February 07, 2012 FORTESCUE Metals Group has given the clearest sign yet it intends to diversify out of the iron ore and steel supply chain, pegging swathes of new tenements in South Australia’s major copper, gold and uranium districts.
The WA iron ore giant last year applied for 10 exploration licences covering about 4600sq/km of ground, mostly in the Woomera protected area in central South Australia. In its tenement applications, FMG said it was looking for copper, gold
and uranium – a significant departure from its current iron ore business.
According SA Government records, the bulk of FMG’s new tenements sit between OZ Minerals’ Prominent Hill copper-gold mine and BHP Billiton’s massive Olympic Dam project, slated to eventually become one of the biggest copper, gold and uranium mines in the world. …. http://www.perthnow.com.au/business/fmg-pegs-swathes-of-new-tenements-in-major-sa-copper-gold-and-uranium-districts/story-e6frg2qc-1226265102556
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