Australia at COP26 – a damaging presence
COP26: it’s half-time at the crucial Glasgow climate change summit – and here’s the score, The Conversation, Wesley Morgan, 5 Nov 21, Research Fellow, Griffith Asia Institute and Climate Council researcher, Griffith University
………………….Missing the moment: The Australian Way
While the rest of the world is getting on with the race to a net-zero emissions economy, Australia is barely out of the starting blocks. Australia brought to Glasgow the same 2030 emissions target that it took to Paris six years ago – even as key allies pledged much stronger targets.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison arrived with scant plans to accompany his last-minute announcement on net-zero by 2050. The strategy titled The Australian Way, which comprised little more than a brochure, failed to provide a credible pathway to that target. It was met with derision across the world.
On the way to Glasgow, at the G20 leaders meeting in Rome, Australia blocked global momentum to reduce emissions by resisting calls for a phase out of coal power. Australia also refused to sign on to the global pledge on methane.
Worse still, Australia is using COP26 to actively promote fossil fuels. Federal Energy Minister Angus Taylor says the summit is a chance to promote investment in Australian gas projects, and Australian fossil fuel company Santos was prominently branded at the venue’s Australia Pavilion.
The federal government is promoting carbon capture and storage as a climate solution, despite it being widely regarded as a licence to prolong the use of fossil fuels. The technology is also eye-wateringly expensive and not yet proven at scale……. https://theconversation.com/cop26-its-half-time-at-the-crucial-glasgow-climate-change-summit-and-heres-the-score-170869
Few realistic options for Defence to fill its submarine ‘capability gap’ before new nuclear fleet
Few realistic options for Defence to fill its submarine ‘capability gap’ before new nuclear fleet, ABC By defence correspondent Andrew Greene 4 Nov 21 In a blistering National Press Club address on Wednesday, France’s ambassador warned that Australia may have created a submarine capability gap of up to 20 years by cancelling the contentious $90 billion project with his nation.
Much of what Jean-Pierre Thebault said during his hour-long critique of the federal government is rigorously contested, but what is clear is that the navy faces a looming headache on how to replace its ageing Collins Class submarine fleet.
Acquiring nuclear submarines will take decades, and over the next year or so Defence is studying the numerous American
and British options available, as well as the various regulatory and workforce hurdles involved……………….
The scrapped French design was considered the best conventionally powered option, so now there are few options for the government if it wants to replace the operational capability provided by the ageing Collins Class submarines before nuclear-powered boats arrive.
Build, buy or borrow? None of the options are easy
Soon after the AUKUS bombshell was dropped in September, government ministers floated the prospect of Australia leasing submarines, but most military experts don’t believe this option is viable.
Very few nations have ever leased a submarine, and Australia’s AUKUS partners — the United States and United Kingdom — don’t appear to have any “spare” nuclear-powered boats lying around.
A similar option being discussed would be the forward deployment of one or two Virginia Class American submarines in Western Australia, or even the permanent basing of the US boats in Fremantle. ………………. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-04/few-realistic-options-to-fill-submarine-gap/100592100
Chris Hedges: The Assange case is the most important battle for press freedom in our time
Chris Hedges: The Assange case is the most important battle for press freedom in our time, Rt.com29 Oct, 2021
If the WikiLeaks founder is extradited and found guilty of publishing classified material, it will set a legal precedent that will effectively end national security reporting.
For the past two days, I have been watching the extradition hearing for Julian Assange via video link from London. The United States is appealing a lower court ruling that denied the US request to extradite Assange not, unfortunately, because in the eyes of the court he is innocent of a crime, but because, as Judge Vanessa Baraitser in January concluded, Assange’s precarious psychological state would deteriorate given the “harsh conditions” of the inhumane US prison system, “causing him to commit suicide.” The United States has charged Assange with 17 counts under the Espionage Act and one count of trying to hack into a government computer, charges that could see him imprisoned for 175 years.
Assange, with long white hair, appeared on screen the first day from the video conference room in HM Prison Belmarsh. He was wearing a white shirt with an untied tie around his neck. He looked gaunt and tired. He did not appear in court, the judges explained, because he was receiving a “high dose of medication.” On the second day he was apparently not present in the prison’s video conference room.
Assange is being extradited because his organization WikiLeaks released the Iraq War Logs in October 2010, which documented numerous US war crimes – including video images of the gunning down of two Reuters journalists and 10 other unarmed civilians in the ‘Collateral Murder’ video, the routine torture of Iraqi prisoners, the covering up of thousands of civilian deaths and the killing of nearly 700 civilians that had approached too closely to US checkpoints. He is also being targeted by US authorities for other leaks, especially those that exposed the hacking tools used by the CIA known as Vault 7, which enables the spy agency to compromise cars, smart TVs, web browsers, and the operating systems of most smart phones, as well as operating systems such as Microsoft Windows, macOS, and Linux.
If Assange is extradited and found guilty of publishing classified material, it will set a legal precedent that will effectively end national security reporting, allowing the government to use the Espionage Act to charge any reporter who possesses classified documents, and any whistleblower who leaks classified information.
If the appeal by the United States is accepted, Assange will be retried in London. The ruling on the appeal is not expected until at least January.
Assange’s September 2020 trial painfully exposed how vulnerable he has become after 12 years of detention, including seven in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. He has in the past attempted suicide by slashing his wrists. He suffers from hallucinations and depression, takes antidepressant medication and the antipsychotic quetiapine. After he was observed pacing his cell until he collapsed, punching himself in the face, and banging his head against the wall, he was transferred for several months to the medical wing of the Belmarsh prison. Prison authorities found “half of a razor blade” hidden under his socks. He has repeatedly called the suicide hotline run by the Samaritans because he thought about killing himself “hundreds of times a day.”
James Lewis, the lawyer for the United States, attempted to discredit the detailed and disturbing medical and psychological reports on Assange presented to the court in September 2020, painting him instead as a liar and malingerer. He excoriated the decision of Judge Baraitser to bar extradition, questioned her competence, and breezily dismissed the mountains of evidence that high-security prisoners in the United States, like Assange, subjected to Special Administrative Measures (SAMs), and held in virtual isolation in supermax prisons, suffer psychological distress. He charged Dr. Michael Kopelman, emeritus professor of neuropsychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London, who examined Assange and testified for the defense, with deception for “concealing” that Assange fathered two children with his fiancée, Stella Moris while in refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. He said that, should the Australian government request Assange, he could serve his prison time in Australia, his home country, after his appeals had been exhausted, but stopped short of promising that Assange would not be held in isolation or subject to SAMs…………………
There is no legal basis to hold Assange in prison. There is no legal basis to try him, an Australian citizen, under the US Espionage Act. The CIA spied on Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy through a Spanish company, UC Global, contracted to provide embassy security. This spying included recording the privileged conversations between Assange and his lawyers as they discussed his defense. This fact alone invalidated the trial. Assange is being held in a high security prison so the state can, as Nils Melzer, the UN special rapporteur on torture, has testified, continue the degrading abuse and torture it hopes will lead to his psychological if not physical disintegration. The architects of imperialism, the masters of war, the corporate-controlled legislative, judicial and executive branches of government and their obsequious courtiers in the media, are guilty of egregious crimes. Say this simple truth and you are banished, as many of us have been, to the margins of the media landscape. Prove this truth, as Assange, Chelsea Manning, Jeremy Hammond, and Edward Snowden have by allowing us to peer into the inner workings of power, and you are hunted down and persecuted.
Assange’s “crime” is that he exposed the more than 15,000 unreported deaths of Iraqi civilians. He exposed the torture and abuse of some 800 men and boys, aged between 14 and 89, at Guantánamo. He exposed that Hillary Clinton in 2009 ordered US diplomats to spy on UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and other UN representatives from China, France, Russia, and the UK, spying that included obtaining DNA, iris scans, fingerprints, and personal passwords, part of the long pattern of illegal surveillance that included eavesdropping on UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in the weeks before the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. He exposed that Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and the CIA orchestrated the June 2009 military coup in Honduras that overthrew the democratically-elected president, Manuel Zelaya, replacing him with a murderous and corrupt military regime. He exposed that George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and General David Petraeus prosecuted a war in Iraq that, under post-Nuremberg laws, is defined as a criminal war of aggression, a war crime, which authorized hundreds of targeted assassinations, including those of US citizens in Yemen. He exposed that the United States secretly launched missile, bomb, and drone attacks on Yemen, killing scores of civilians. He exposed that Goldman Sachs paid Hillary Clinton $657,000 to give talks, a sum so large it can only be considered a bribe, and that she privately assured corporate leaders she would do their bidding while promising the public financial regulation and reform. He exposed the internal campaign to discredit and destroy British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn by members of his own party. He exposed how the hacking tools used by the CIA and the National Security Agency permit the wholesale government surveillance of our televisions, computers, smartphones, and anti-virus software, allowing the government to record and store our conversations, images, and private text messages, even from encrypted apps.
He exposed the truth. He exposed it over and over and over until there was no question of the endemic illegality, corruption, and mendacity that defines the global ruling elite. And for these truths alone he is guilty. https://www.rt.com/op-ed/538822-assange-battle-for-press-freedom/#comment-5589120643
Australia’s credibility at a low point, with Scott Morrison’s lying and appalling performance at COP26
Bonne chance? Australia might need it on AUKUS nuclear submarines deal https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7492847/bonne-chance-australia-might-need-it/ 2 Oct 21,
The AUKUS nuclear submarines deal had better pay off, because the costs for Australia are beginning to appear far greater than first suggested.
In case Prime Minister Scott Morrison really thought some time, and some space, would quell Emmanuel Macron’s anger at the announcement – which abruptly ended a $90 billion submarines contract with France’s Naval Group – the French president disabused him of that idea on Sunday.
Mr Macron knew very well what he was doing when he spoke to Australian journalists about the AUKUS deal, and Mr Morrison’s actions. There was an air of calm calculation about his words. If his intent was to express the depth of his disappointment, the damage the nuclear submarines deal had done to the Australia-France relationship, and to raise questions about Mr Morrison’s handling of the AUKUS move, then he was bang on target.
He didn’t overplay his anger, and even couched his disapproval of Mr Morrison’s actions with a respectful recognition of Australia and France’s friendship and shared history.
With two words, he also highlighted what is becoming increasingly clear about the AUKUS nuclear submarines arrangement: As an exercise in Australian defence procurement, it appears chimeric.
“Good luck,” he said, noting that far from a signed contract, Australia right now has to wait 18 months for a review before the next steps in its new quest for submarines. Bonne chance, Australia.
This is where the nation sits less than a couple of months after the AUKUS deal, in a region with heightening geopolitical tensions and unresolved questions about Australia’s ability to defend itself. Australia is falling out with its friends (France), while its closest ally gives a different version of events in the lead-up to the AUKUS announcement (it was “clumsy”, Joe Biden says).
In hindsight, the AUKUS announcement seems true to form for Mr Morrison. It was high in marketing, fanfare and gloss, but lacking in substance, ham-fisted in execution and questionable in the respect it afforded to those who deserved it.
Add Australia’s reputation as obstructing progress in international climate talks, its pathetically bare minimum net zero by 2050 position, and its refusal to support international agreements phasing out coal, and the nation cuts an increasingly lonely figure on the world stage.
Mr Morrison’s trip overseas for both G20 and COP26 is, at this stage, disastrous. Australia’s credibility seems to be ebbing, not just because of AUKUS but on climate action, too. Middle powers cannot afford to put their reputations at risk like this.
Tony Abbott wants Australia to buy second-hand ”retired” nuclear-powered submarines, for training purposes.
Abbott calls for Australia to use retiring nuclear-powered submarines as training boats, SMH, By Anthony Galloway November 1, 2021 Australia should consider buying retiring nuclear-powered submarines from either America or Britain for training purposes and as insurance in the event of a conflict in the region in coming years, former prime minister Tony Abbott has said.
Speaking from Washington, where he is travelling in a private capacity, Mr Abbott said that he had been canvassing the idea in the US of Australia acquiring some older-model nuclear submarines “within months, rather than decades”……………
“One of the issues which I’ve been informally discussing here in Washington and elsewhere in the United States is: Might it be possible for Australia to acquire a retiring LA-class boat or two, to put it under an Australian flag, to run it if you like as an operational training boat, but it would be an addition to the order of battle in the Western Pacific should that be necessary?……………… https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/abbott-calls-for-australia-to-use-retiring-nuclear-powered-submarines-as-training-boats-20211101-p594yk.html
US and UK must stop’: Chinese diplomat warns New Zealand audience of Australia’s nuclear ambitions
US and UK must stop’: Chinese diplomat warns New Zealand audience of Australia’s nuclear ambitions, Stuff, Thomas Manch , Nov 02 2021 A senior Chinese diplomat has warned a New Zealand audience that Australia will not only acquire nuclear-powered submarines in the coming decades, but nuclear weapons.
And it was claimed Australia’s purchase of nuclear-powered submarines would mean “more nuclear arms race … more nuclear tests, and nuclear pollution” in the Pacific.
China’s deputy chief of mission in New Zealand, Wang Genhua, made the claim about Australia’s nuclear ambitions during an event about the new defence pact between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States – dubbed AUKUS – on Monday evening.
“Australia is going to own nuclear-powered submarines. It will be almost necessary for them to equip nuclear weapons as the next step. The step just couldn’t be prevented,”
The AUKUS pact, announced in September, has Australia acquiring nuclear-powered submarines from the UK and US in the coming decades, in a bid to counter China’s growing influence in the Asia-Pacific region. The move grates against New Zealand’s anti-nuclear stance.
China, which has expanded its footprint into the contested waters of the South China Sea, was quick to condemn the AUKUS pact as irresponsible, “Cold War zero-sum mentality” that would undermine peace in the region.
The comments from Wang come as the fallout from AUKUS continues, with French President Emmanuel Macron accusing Australia’s Scott Morrison of lying about the deal.
Morrison, along with US and UK leaders, have insisted the nuclear-powered submarines Australia intended to acquire in the coming decades would only be equipped with conventional (non-nuclear) weapons, and the countries’ nuclear proliferation obligations will be met………… https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/126854210/us-and-uk-must-stop-chinese-diplomat-warns-new-zealand-audience-of-australias-nuclear-ambitions
UK Astute class nuclear submarine visits Perth
British nuclear-powered sub visits Perth
1 November 2021
A Royal Navy nuclear-powered submarine has conducted a port visit to Perth, one of the first since the announcement of AUKUS in September.
The Astute class submarine went alongside HMAS Stirling in Rockingham, WA on Friday.
The submarine has been part of the UK Carrier Strike Group deployment to the Indo-Pacific which had recently exercised with a range of RAN units alongside numerous engagements with regional partners……………. https://www.australiandefence.com.au/news/british-nuclear-powered-sub-visits-perth
France’s President Macron quite clear that Scott Morrison lied to him
I don’t think, I know’: French President Macron says Scott Morrison lied to him. SMH, By Bevan Shields, November 1, 2021 Rome: French President Emmanuel Macron says Scott Morrison lied to him over the cancellation of a mammoth submarine contract, in a dramatic escalation of tensions between the two leaders.
Asked by The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age at the G20 summit in Rome whether he could trust Morrison again, Macron replied: “We will see what he will deliver……..
When also asked whether Morrison lied, Macron said: “I don’t think, I know.”………
In Rome, Macron noted Australia had ditched a signed contract for a known submarine program in exchange for an 18-month review into how it can acquire nuclear-powered submarines from the US and UK……….
US President Joe Biden used a meeting with Macron on the eve of the G20 to claim he was unaware that France had not been given advance notice that Australia had resolved to tear up a $90 billion submarine contract……I was under the impression that France had been informed long before that the deal was not going through…..https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/i-don-t-think-i-know-french-president-macron-says-scott-morrison-lied-to-him-20211101-p594sx.html
Correcting Alan Finkel’s nuclear fallacies.
30 Oct 21 Friends of the Earth has written to Dr. Alan Finkel, Special Adviser to the Australian Government on Low Emissions Technology, correcting a number of his recent statements regarding nuclear power. The letter is online.
Dr. Jim Green, national nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth, said:
“Dr. Finkel is honest and intelligent ‒ which is more than can be said for some of the ideologues and idiots promoting nuclear power ‒ but his recent statements regarding nuclear power contain a number of inaccuracies.
“Dr. Finkel’s claim that the Fukushima disaster resulted in a “handful” of radiation deaths is inaccurate. The World Health Organization projects increases in all solid cancers, breast cancer, leukaemia and thyroid cancer. In addition, around 2,000 indirect deaths have been recorded. The economic costs amount to hundreds of billions of dollars and there is an incalculable human toll for the 160,000 evacuees from the disaster.
“Dr. Finkel’s claim that safety is the number one imperative underpinning the design of modern reactors is an industry claim that cannot be substantiated. Nuclear power is, in the words of Bob Carr, “cripplingly expensive” and far more expensive than renewables. The nuclear industry is trying to compete economically ‒ mostly by gouging taxpayers and electricity ratepayers ‒ and that is the number one imperative driving everything the industry does.
“Dr. Finkel’s comments about the ‘beauty’ of small modular reactors ignore the fact that the only SMR operating anywhere in the world, a Russian plant, was nine-years behind schedule, six times over-budget, produces power at an exorbitant A$270 per megawatt-hour, and is used to power fossil fuel mining operations in the Arctic. It is ugly in every respect.
“Dr. Finkel’s claim that high-level nuclear waste is being disposed of in a deep underground repository in Finland is false. The 2006 Switkowski report anticipated completion of this repository in 2010. Now, completion is anticipated in the mid-2020s. No waste has been disposed of.
“The only operating deep underground repository for nuclear waste is in the United States and was closed for three years after a chemical explosion in an underground waste barrel in 2014 ‒ the culmination of staggering mismanagement and regulatory failures.
“Here in Australia, the federal government is trying to establish a national nuclear waste dump on farming land near Kimba in SA despite the unanimous opposition of Barngarla Traditional Owners and NH&MRC guidelines which state that farming land should not be used for nuclear waste repositories.”
“The viability of renewables coupled with multiple storage technologies and demand management is a work in progress but there are promising signs. For example, South Australia has reached a 60% renewable share and the Liberal state government is enthusiastically pursuing a 100% net renewables target by 2030. Moreover, the SA Liberal government states that nuclear is not viable now and will not be viable for the foreseeable future.
“Calls for a discussion about nuclear power overlook the fact that there have been four inquiries over the past five years. The Prime Minister said just a few days ago that the federal government has no intention of repealing legislation banning nuclear power, and no state government is interested.
“Surely this is the time to have a breather from the seemingly endless nuclear debate, rather than starting yet another discussion?”
Australians should remember our past and continuing uranium/nuclear environmental disasters
Australia has a nuclear past, we just like to forget it, St George and Sutherland Shire Leader, Chris McLennan, 29 Oct 21, No sooner did Australia announce it was going to buy a nuclear submarine fleet, there was talk of nuclear power plants as well.
Am I the only one who fears they unknowingly contracted COVID-19 or some other nasty and it has somehow warped their mind?
Nuclear this and nuclear that – everyone needs to have a nice lie down.
Australia has a poor record when it comes to nuclear power………….
One of the biggest fans of nuclear power in this country is a Senator from the Northern Territory, a veterinarian in her former life, Sam McMahon.
As someone from the Territory, she should know better
I’ll explain why in a bit.
One of the biggest fans of nuclear power in this country is a Senator from the Northern Territory, a veterinarian in her former life, Sam McMahon.
As someone from the Territory, she should know better. There are quite a few thumping great holes in the ground in her patch which need mending first.
It’s one of our dark secrets and remains one of the biggest environmental disasters in Australian history…..
Australia’s first large scale uranium mine was dug at Rum Jungle on behalf of our “Allies” in the UK and USA to fuel their nuclear weapon programs in the 1950s….
The NT Government has recently lodged plans for another go at the rehabilitation of the old mine which is today filled with water.
If it goes ahead, this will be the second go.
The mine was the first large industrial enterprise undertaken in the NT……
At Rum Jungle, a total of 863,000 tonnes of uranium ore was mined in a project under the ownership of the Commonwealth Government through the Australian Atomic Energy Commission.
The 200 hectare site closed in 1971 and was abandoned.
About $20 million was later spent trying to clean up the NT site, but the pollution continues and may continue for thousands of years.
Large volumes of radioactive mine waste (tailings) are still on the site. In 2003, an investigation of the tailings piles found that capping which was supposed to help contain this radioactive waste for at least 100 years, had failed in less than 20 years.
The latest rehabilitation efforts at Rum Jungle from 1983 to 1986 cost $18.6 million. Although at the time of the 1980s works the objectives were deemed to have been achieved, more recent studies have documented the gradual deterioration of the original rehabilitation works.
The NT and Federal Government agree there needs to be an improved rehabilitation strategy for the site.
These latest plans say the clean up would take at least five years.
No estimate was given for how much it would cost or who is going to pay for it.
The soil is contaminated, as is the groundwater and there is still waste rock needing disposal on the site.
In short, it’s a mess…….
There’s Ranger.
There is still no logical explanation as to how a big uranium mine could be allowed in the middle of perhaps Australia’s most famous national park, Kakadu, but it was.
Ranger has recently been closed and the site is somehow to be rehabilitated after more than 130,000 tonnes of uranium oxide was pulled from the place over the past three decades.
Energy Resources Australia, a subsidiary of Rio Tinto, says it has spent more than $642 million in the past eight years on rehabilitation of the mountains of tailings complicated by a lake created from a vast flooded pit.
Their work is only a few years from being finished.
Only time will tell if that scar ever heals…………. https://www.theleader.com.au/story/7485098/australia-has-a-nuclear-past-we-just-like-to-forget-it/?cs=9676
Indonesia wants non-peaceful nuclear submarines to be subject to nuclear non-proliferation treaty (surprise, surprise, Australia doesn’t agree)
Caution over nuclear treaty covering subs, Canberra Times, Dominic Giannini, 29 Oct 21,
Australian officials say they don’t believe there is merit in expanding the nuclear non-proliferation treaty to nuclear-powered submarines.
Indonesian officials have said they would seek a “fourth pillar” to include the non-peaceful usage of nuclear technology, closing a “loophole” exposed by Australia’s nuclear-submarine deal with the US and UK.
They say other countries could seek to follow Australia, which would be the first non-nuclear weapons state to acquire nuclear submarines.
Foreign affairs department officials rejected the need to expand the treaty, saying the acquisition of nuclear-propelled submarines was in accordance with Australia’s non-proliferation requirements……
The Indonesians raised concerns about the potential for an arms race in the region after Australia announced its plans to acquire nuclear-powered submarines through the AUKUS partnership…….. https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7488125/caution-over-nuclear-treaty-covering-subs/
Tony Abbott, (highly unpopular former PM) on the pro nuclear bandwagon.
Take nuclear power to election: Abbott AAP. Paul Osborne and Matt Coughlan October 29, 2021 Former prime minister Tony Abbott says Scott Morrison should go to the election promising nuclear power as a major point of difference to Labor.
Mr Abbott’s comments came as Mr Morrison flew to Rome for this weekend’s G20 summit before attending the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow on Monday.
The Morrison government’s technology roadmap – which forms the basis of its net-zero by 2050 emissions policy – includes the prospect of small modular nuclear reactors in the future.
But Australian law currently bans nuclear power and polls show Australians remain concerned about its safety…………. https://www.aap.com.au/news/labor-warns-of-global-climate-consequences/
Too expensive, too slow: Even the baseload argument doesn’t work for nuclear.
Too expensive, too slow: Even the baseload argument doesn’t work for nuclear. ReNeweconomy, Mark Diesendorf 29 October 2021 With the Glasgow climate summit approaching and the government’s announcement that Australia would buy nuclear-powered submarines instead of diesel, the nuclear industry and News Corp have predictably renewed their campaign for nuclear power stations in Australia.
This is of concern, because every dollar invested in nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse by diverting investment from renewable energy technologies. Having recently participated in a nuclear debate, I report here on the pro-nuclear arguments and expose their weaknesses.
The old baseload myth
Nuclear proponents still claim that electricity grids need baseload power stations, such as coal or nuclear, that can run 24/7 at full rated power, except when they break down or undergo maintenance and refuelling.
But, as readers of RenewEconomy know, the variability of wind and solar can be balanced with storage, new transmission links, demand response, and/or flexible power stations that can start up in seconds to minutes and can vary their output rapidly.
The latter include hydroelectricity with a single dam, pumped hydro (with two dams), other forms of gravitational energy storage, batteries, concentrated solar thermal with storage, and open-cycle gas turbines that can burn biofuels and green hydrogen and ammonia.
Despite the claims of proponents, modern nuclear reactors cannot compete in flexibility with the above technologies and measures. Furthermore, operating in a slightly flexible mode carries economic penalties for nuclear, whose electricity already costs 3–5 times that of wind and solar PV––see Lazard and CSIRO.
Dark doldrums (Dunkelflaute in German) are extended periods of low wind and solar. In the debate, a pro-nuclear speaker modified the baseload myth by claiming falsely that a recent report on dark doldrums by the leading German solar energy research organisation, the Fraunhofer Institute, admits that solar energy has failed.
However, the only report on dark doldrums by that institute identifies the issues and then sets out the solutions to maintaining generation reliability, namely the flexible technologies and methods listed above………………………………
The scale of the disaster resulted from the choice of nuclear technology. Yet at Kamisu, on the coast to the south of Fukushima, a wind farm located in the surf survived the tsunami and continued to generate electricity until the grid went down.
Proliferation
It’s well documented (see here and here) that India, Pakistan, South Africa and North Korea used “peaceful” nuclear energy to develop nuclear weapons and to cloak that development.
Furthermore, the UK supplemented its military-produced weapons-grade plutonium with plutonium reprocessed from its first generation of nuclear power stations. In France, the military and civil nuclear industries are entwined.
In addition, the following countries used “peaceful” nuclear energy to commence the development of nuclear weapons, but fortunately discontinued their programs: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, South Korea, Sweden and Taiwan, and probably Algeria and Libya. For Australia’s attempt in the 1960s, see the books by Richard Broinowski and Wayne Reynolds.
Nuclear submarines built by the USA and UK use highly enriched uranium that could be used directly in nuclear weapons. The AUKUS alliance could lead to increased pressure from members of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, the Lowy Institute and others for Australia to develop nuclear weapons.
Even if the Australian government rejects that scenario, the perception exists and AUKUS could lead to a regional nuclear arms race.
Nuclear wastes
The standard pro-nuclear line is that the sum total of all the world’s nuclear wastes occupies a very small volume and therefore, by implication, is not a major problem. But nowhere in the world is there an operating, long-term, underground repository for high-level wastes.
Furthermore, the pro-nuclear line ignores the vast volumes of low-level wastes at uranium mines that are uncovered allowing radioactive dust to blow in the wind. The waste mountain at the Olympic Dam uranium-copper mine is already over 150 million tonnes.
Although the number of cancers caused annually will be very small, the total summed over thousands of years will be large.
High-level nuclear power wastes are stored temporarily in pools of water at nuclear power stations. The USA spent US$13.5 billion preparing an underground repository at an unsuitable site, Yucca Mountain, and then had to abandon it.
Finland has just commenced building its repository, Sweden is still thinking about building a final repository, and that’s about it.
Retired nuclear power stations have highly radioactive sections and are a major nuclear waste problem. The cost of decommissioning them and managing their wastes is comparable with their construction cost, but the nuclear industry only pays a fraction. …………………
Energy density
Another tactic used by nuclear supporters in recent years is based on “energy density”, the claim that 100 per cent renewable electricity scenarios would occupy vast areas of land, compete with food production and reduce biodiversity.
Yet the reality is that most wind and solar farms are erected on agricultural or marginal land. Although wind farms can span large areas, the land area actually occupied by the turbines, access roads and substation typically amounts to 1 to 2 per cent of the land spanned.
Wind farms are compatible with agriculture. Although the presence of solar farms excludes some forms of agriculture, they can be erected sufficiently high above ground for sheep to shelter beneath them. Both wind and solar farms contribute valuable rent to farmers. And, of course, rooftop solar occupies no land.
Too slow for climate mitigation
If national governments commit to net zero emissions by 2050 (which is likely to be too late for keeping global heating below 1.5 degrees), then they must achieve zero emissions from all energy (electricity, transport and heat) by about 2040. This is because energy is the least difficult sector to transition to zero emissions.
Agriculture and non-energy industrial processes will need more time to reduce emissions and, if possible, to capture carbon dioxide in order to offset emissions they cannot reduce.
Achieving zero energy emissions by 2040 entails achieving zero emissions from electricity by 2035, because electrifying transport and heat will take longer than transitioning electricity to renewables. Wind and solar farms can be planned and built in just three years.
Introducing nuclear power to Australia — including convincing the electorate, local governments and local populations, and building the infrastructure — would take at least 15 years, while taking financial resources away from renewables.
So new nuclear power stations could not contribute in time to assist the rapid electricity transition needed for climate mitigation. And once 100 per cent renewable electricity is established with the bulk of energy generation by cheap solar and wind, nuclear power could not compete economically. It’s a technology whose time has passed.Dr Mark Diesendorf is honorary associate professor, Environment & Governance Group, School of Humanities & Languages at the Faculty of Arts, Design & Architecture at UNSW. https://reneweconomy.com.au/too-expensive-too-slow-even-the-baseload-argument-doesnt-work-for-nuclear/
No likelihood of Australian jobs in nuclear submarine construction, nor in big Pacific vessel
as the government comes under fire from Labor over hundreds of submarine construction jobs being at risk, Defence officials also revealed that a vessel intended to conduct disaster relief missions to the Pacific would now be built overseas instead of locally.
Hybrid nuclear submarine ‘unlikely’, navy chiefs say, AFR, Andrew Tillett
Political correspondentThe Royal Australian Navy has signalled it is unlikely to select a hybrid nuclear submarine design that combines British and American technology, in a significant concession to mitigate the risk of delays.
The head of the nuclear submarine taskforce, Vice-Admiral Jonathan Mead, told a Senate estimates hearing on Wednesday that Defence wanted to have at least one nuclear submarine before 2040 in a worst-case scenario and was looking to accelerate deliveries.
Officials also downplayed the possibility of leasing a submarine from the United States or the United Kingdom to avoid a capability gap with the ageing Collins class submarines, at a time China is rapidly shifting the balance in the Indo-Pacific with its military build-up.
But as the government comes under fire from Labor over hundreds of submarine construction jobs being at risk, Defence officials also revealed that a vessel intended to conduct disaster relief missions to the Pacific would now be built overseas instead of locally.
Among the mooted options are acquiring US-designed Virginia class submarines, the British Astute class, partnering with the UK on the design of its new attack submarines or a hybrid of the British and American boats.
| However, it is unclear what level of Australian content will be incorporated into the submarine despite the government’s intention to build them in Adelaide, nor whether it would be possible to use an American combat system in a UK-designed boat……….. As part of the Pacific Step-up announcement in 2018, the government said it would acquire a large-hulled support vessel for humanitarian missions in the south-west, but the committee heard the government had confirmed in recent months to buy the ship from overseas. “This is another Morrison government announcement not delivered,” Senator Wong said.Foreign Minister Marise Payne said a lack of capacity in Australian shipyards in Adelaide and Perth meant there was no room to build the new Pacific vessel…….“I don’t regard it as reneging on the commitment,” Senator Payne said. https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/hybrid-nuclear-submarine-unlikely-navy-chiefs-say-20211027-p593j3 |
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