Wave Energy for Australia – the Island Continent
recent technological innovations may make that coastline as attractive to renewable energy investors as to sunbathers.
A new wave energy project is being planned for development off the coast of Garden Island in Western Australia, near Perth
Australia Developing Wave Power, Oil Price.com by John Daly, 02 January 2012 Consider. Australia’s 2,966,140 square-mile landmass is ringed by 16,006 miles of coastline. Most of the population is concentrated along the southeast coast of the country, in an arc running from Brisbane to Adelaide along the “boomerang coast.”
Virtually all of Australia’s large cities – Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, and Adelaide – are on the coast. About 80 percent of Australia’s population lives within 30 miles of the coast.
So, where do the Aussies get their energy to support their affluent lifestyles? Continue reading
Ian Plimer and co. manufacturing doubt on Climate Change?
Could their real agenda be in manufacturing doubt rather than the search for scientific truth?
If so, it wouldn’t be a first, as Naomi Oreskes points out in her recent book Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming.
Cherry-picking contrarian geologists tend to obscure scientific truth, THE AUSTRALIAN, BY:MIKE SANDIFORD December 31, 2011 GINA Rinehart notoriously claims she has never met a geologist who believes “adding more CO2 to the atmosphere will have any significant effect on climate”.
To listen to prominent “contrarian” geologists such as Ian Plimer, you might imagine she never could. But, despite the bluster, our contrarian geologists are out of kilter with their own community and seem deeply confused about the way the greenhouse effect – by adding more CO2 to the atmosphere, for example – has shaped both the past and the present.
All geology students learn of the importance of the greenhouse effect. It’s simply impossible to understand the geological record without it……. Continue reading
Solar energy costs, especially small scale, overestimated by 2 Australian agencies
renewable energy is coming down in price and fossil fuels are going up. In a carbon-constrained world, renewable energy is an investment in a lower electricity cost future for all Australians compared to the one they would face without it. Solar power will cost far less and provide far greater benefits over the medium term.”
Productivity Commission And EUAA Blinkered On Solar by Energy Matters, 3 Jan 2012, Two Australian bodies criticising the cost of solar power have again failed to factor in all the benefits of the technology.
A Productivity Commission report from June this year was widely criticised by the solar power industry and supporters for stating rooftop solar has “generated little abatement for substantially higher cost”.
According to a recent article in The Australian, the backlash saw the Productivity Commission check over its figures recently and the Commissions has revised the cost of the small-scale component of the federal government’s Renewable Energy Target and state-based feed-in tariffs downwards – by tens of millions of dollars.
However, the Productivity Commission continues to dig its heels in relating to small scale solar’s cost generally. Continue reading
Northern Territory radioactive river spill causes wave of concern
Environment Centre NT calls for EPA investigation radioactive spill, 2 Jan 2012 The train derailment at Edith River spilling 1200 tonnes of copper concentrate into the flooded environment, which may have contained 0.01% of uranium, has urged the Environment Centre NT to call on the EPA for a full investigation.
“We have now learnt that the NT Government approved the transport of these toxic materials in substandard casing, covered only by a tarp. We want to know which department and which minister had signed off on this outrageous exemption” Said Cat Beaton, Nuclear Free NT Campaigner at the Environment Centre NT.
“This incident is a serious warning, that must trigger serious action. We will be writing to the EPA requesting a full investigation”.
“NT Government should not approve any increased transport of radioactive materials by rail until such an independent investigation has been undertaken,” continued Ms Beaton.
The Northern Territory is at the dawn of increased transport of toxic and radioactive materials. The expansion of BHP’s Olympic Dam mine in SA is set to see 1.6 million tonnes a year of uranium infused copper concentrate transported daily by 1.8km long trainloads for the next 80-plus years.
The Territory could also face the reality of radioactive waste transport for a proposed nuclear waste dump at Muckaty, 120ks north of Tennant Creek.
“Right now the Territory Government cannot be trusted to ensure the safe transport of dangerous goods and we all need to think about the risks to our rivers, environment and the outdoors lifestyle that Territorians enjoy,” concluded Ms Beaton.
Mr Fraser said. “The Cold War was still in progress. It was a different world. “We’ve gotten far too close to the Americans.”……
In 1985, the then PM Bob Hawke withdrew support for the missile tests after a meeting with US Secretary of State George Shultz.
US planned to fire missile at Australia, secret Cabinet papers from 1980s reveal By 
Samantha Maiden The Sunday Telegraph January 01, 2012
- Fraser agreed for US missiles to be fired at Australia
- Were to be fired into Tasman Sea off Cape Pillar
A SECRET US plan to test MX missiles by firing them from California to the coast of Australia was signed off on by then prime minister Malcolm Fraser. And it can be revealed that the federal Cabinet agreed to keep the intercontinental ballistic missile tests secret because it was “preferable for the matter not to become an election issue”. Continue reading
Toxic spill might raise insurance costs for uranium transport from planned BHP new mine
it was unclear whether the incident would raise premiums for miners
By far the biggest user of the railway will be BHP Billiton, which, if it approves its expected expansion of the Olympic Dam copper and uranium mine in South Australia, will run a train a day from the mine to Darwin. …..
OZ Minerals’ insurance claim for derailment loss may face complication over pollution BY: MATT CHAMBERS The Australian January 02, 2012 OZ Minerals may recoup through insurance some of the losses from the up to 1200 tonnes of copper concentrate that disappeared into the Northern Territory’s Edith River last week after a train derailed. In an announcement to the stock exchange on Thursday, OZ said the value of the lost concentrates was between $US7 million ($6.85m) and $US8m, or about 4 per cent of its 2010-11 underlying net profit of $189m. Continue reading
Chinese owned company to ship uranium concentrates to Shanghai
Australia’s Energy Metals to Ship Uranium Concentrates to Shanghai, Commodities and Futures 30 Dec11, By Esther Tanquintic-Misa | Australia will be soon seeing its first uranium concentrate shipment, after Chinese-owned Energy Metals signed an agreement to ship third-party uranium from Adelaide to its parent company in Shanghai.
China Guangdong Nuclear Power Co. (CGNPC) owns 60 per cent of Australian-listed Energy Metals. It is one of two Chinese companies authorized to import and export uranium in China, Energy Metals will export 150,000 pounds (68 tonnes) of uranium oxide concentrate to Shanghai at $53 a pound, no later than April 30, 2012.
Energy Metals, however, will not identify the seller of the $8 million shipment. Energy Metals said it is still discussing with CGNPC to sell the concentrate, where it expects to generate a profit from the sale. Before the Fukushima nuclear disaster affected uranium markets, Energy
Metals had received federal government approval to export third-party uranium.
Data from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade showed that since 2006, uranium expors to China have been controlled. The first was in 2008 by Energy Resources of Australia, while BHP made a trial in 2009. Uranium displacements from Australia last year reached a record 431 tonnes. However, this represents only 7 per cent of the 5,926 tonnes transferred, where half went to the US. http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/274333/20111230/australia-s-energy-metals-ship-uranium-concentrates.htm
Northern Territory train derailment raises danger of uranium transport in tropical weather
Audio Questions raised over toxic goods transport in the Northern Territory ABC Radio AM December 29, 2011 While government officials are investigating the cause and the environmental impact of a serious train derailment in the Northern Territory, a Territory Environment group has raised questions over the safety of transporting uranium in tropical weather conditions.
Michael Coggan MICHAEL COGGAN: Forty-eight hours after floodwaters swept part of a large freight train into the Edith River and cut off the Stuart Highway north of the Top End town of Katherine, several investigations are underway into the cause of the train derailment and the environmental impact of tonnes of copper concentrate spilled into the flooded Edith River from the freight train.
Jim Grant is the head of the Northern Territory Environment Department. JIM GRANT: Well it’s not a highly toxic substance but it’s not to be ingested or inhaled. We think it’s washed all over the place…..
MICHAEL COGGAN: Environment Centre director Stuart Blanch says the accident shows why dangerous goods including uranium oxide should not be carried on the Alice Springs to Darwin railway.
STUART BLANCH: A much bigger risk to Top End rivers would be derailment of trains carrying uranium oxide from the Roxby Uranium Mine in South Australia. The Territory Government should call a halt on approving the transport of more and more trains of uranium oxide up to Port Darwin until there are really adequate, safe measures in place to stop such a derailment ever happening with uranium on the track.
MICHAEL COGGAN: But Chief Minister Paul Henderson doesn’t want to speculate about the implications for the transport of uranium in the Northern Territory…. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-12-29/questions-raised-over-toxic-goods-transport-in-the/3750842?section=nt
Australia should rethink policy on uranium sales to India – safety and corruption risks
Australian senator slams India’s nuclear sector, Australia network news, 27 Dec 2011 An Australian Greens Senator has said India’s nuclear sector is set to become more irresponsible, and wants Australia to rethink its policy to sell uranium to the country. Senator Scott Ludlum made his comments after India announced plans to replace its independent nuclear regulator with a government-controlled body.
The decision comes just weeks after Australia announced it would begin selling uranium to India’s civilian nuclear program. Senator Ludlum told Connect Asia after Japan’s nuclear disaster in March this year, governments around the world were having second thoughts about how to regulate uranium.
“Because the technology is so unforgiving, and when things go wrong they go so seriously wrong, you need to have an exquisite safety culture to maintain this equipment,” the Western Australian Senator said.
Corruption risk The Atomic Energy Regulatory Board will be replaced with a safety authority answerable to government ministers, which Senator Ludlum said could suffer from government interference. “On a day to day basis they will actually have the ability, from the prime minister down, to direct the regulator, force it to investigate or not investigate certain kinds of activities and, I think, quite improper use of national interest tests to decide what the regulator should do.
“Not just in India, but everywhere around the world where this technology is used, you need to be completely at arms length and you need have a fiercely independent regulator to stick its nose in wherever it thinks it’s appropriate,” he said.
“The last thing you want is something that’s just a puppet of the top tiers of government and that’s what the Indian movement and Indian officials are telling us is occurring here,” the senator said. http://australianetworknews.com/stories/201112/3398569.htm?desktop
Greens Senator helping Julian Assange, amid silence from Australian government on Assange’s human rights
Scott Ludlam (left) in Europe to ‘protect Julian Assange’s human rights’ Herald Sun, : AAP December 26, 2011 SWEDISH officials have met an Australian senator to discuss the future of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. As extradition proceedings against the 40-year-old Australian continue in London, Greens Senator for Western Australia Scott Ludlam has
embarked on a European mission to secure guarantees about Assange’s human rights, should he be extradited to the Nordic nation. Swedish prosecutors want Assange in Stockholm for questioning over allegations that he sexually assaulted two women in the capital inAugust 2010.
Assange denies the claims and is refusing to return to Sweden, fearing that the country will hand him over to the United States, where his secret-leaking website is the subject of a major investigation……
From February 1, Assange will face a panel of seven British supreme court justices for a two-day hearing where he will appeal the rulings of lower courts that he should be extradited to Stockholm.
Senator Ludlam plans to take the information he has learned in Stockholm to the Australian Parliament and seek cross-party support for the Government to do “everything possible to prevent this
extradition”. http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/greens-senator-scott-ludlum-in-europe-to-protect-julian-assanges-human-rights/story-e6frf7lf-1226230346843
Experts said the evidence may open Assange to a charge of conspiracy to commit espionage. Assange to face US spy charges Courier Mail, December 25, 2011 JULIAN Assange may face spying charges in the US for his alleged role in stealing military documents. During this week’s hearing into the Private Bradley Manning case at
Fort Meade, Maryland, lawyers produced online chat logs which purport to show that the 40-year-old Australian coached Mr Manning on how to break passwords and gain anonymous access to military computer networks, The (London) Times reported. Continue reading
Success for Australia’s coal lobby, with new laws against wind farms in N.S.W. and Victoria
The state’s conservative Premier, Barry O’Farrell, .. has said that he personally opposes any no new wind farms.
public concerns about turbines have been “aided and abetted” by climate sceptics who have launched a Tea Party-style fear campaign. The campaign has featured local lobby groups protesting under the banner of “landscape guardians” – believed to be based on Britain’s Country Guardian.
The NSW Greens said the proposal would kill off the wind-generation sector in favour of coal seam gas projects
Australian state launches world’s toughest wind turbine laws, Telegraph UK 24 Dec 11 Australia’s most populus state has proposed the world’s toughest laws on wind turbines, with a plan to give all residents within 1.25 miles a veto over new projects.By Jonathan Pearlman in Sydney 23 Dec 20111. The New South Wales Government proposed the new rules following controversial rural wind farms which angered residents over noise and raised claims the vibrations cause stress and illness.
Under the proposals, turbines will be subject to a noise limit of 35 decibels, five decibels less than in the state of Victoria, which has similar guidelines. The NSW planning minister, Brad Hazzard, said the measures were “some of the toughest wind-farm guidelines in the country, possibly the world”. “One hundred per cent of neighbours have to be happy within that
two-kilometre zone,” he said. Continue reading
Australian Conservation Foundation calls on Labor to reverse decision to sell uranium to India
And none of this was clear or apparent at the time that 55, only 55 per cent of delegates at the ALP national conference put their hand in the air and said let’s sell uranium to India.
India has given nothing away and in return India has eroded global will, including Australia’s, and has been welcomed into the nuclear fraternity. …
ACF concerned by change in India’s nuclear regulation, http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2011/s3397198.htm ABC Radio – The World Today Samantha Donovan reported this story , December 23, 2011
TANYA NOLAN: Environmentalists are urging the Federal Government to reverse its decision to sell uranium to India after that country announced it will dismantle its independent nuclear watchdog. The Australian Conservation Foundation says it’s to be replaced by a new government-run body.
Samantha Donovan reports. SAMANTHA DONOVAN: The Indian parliament is considering legislation to replace the expert panel that acts as its nuclear watchdog with a body largely made up of government ministers and chaired by the prime
minister.
It’s only a couple of weeks since Labor’s national conference voted to overturn its longstanding ban on selling uranium to the subcontinent and the Australian Conservation Foundation’s national nuclear campaigner Dave Sweeney says he’s deeply concerned by India’s plans.
DAVE SWEENEY: It is a troubling development. It is a development that has a material bearing and interest on the decision made by the Australian Labor Party narrowly at the start of December to open the door to uranium sales to India. We have started the month with the Australian Government opening the door to uranium sales; we’ve ended the month with the Indian government closing the door on nuclear
scrutiny. Continue reading
Australia’s part in the USA war machine, and the arms bazaar
Happy Christmas (the war is not over) The Drum, Kellie Tranter 22 Dec 11 “……..You’ll be chuffed to know our country is doing its bit for ‘world peace’ this Christmas.
The Australian Army is preparing for longer “campaigns”; we voted against Palestine’s admission to the UNESCO and we lobbied to weaken the international ban on cluster bomb munitions.
We also decided to sell uranium to India, a country standing outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, a country whose nuclear program is stimulated by its neighbour (Pakistan) having the fastest-growing nuclear weapons program in the world, and a country whose government has been prepared to bribe MPs to secure the votes for a nuclear future, as evidenced by the Indo-US nuclear deal in 2008.
Last but not least, Australia was the fourth largest purchaser of US arms in the 2011 fiscal year.
Tune into the radio for the morning history trivia question. Seldom does a day pass when the answer doesn’t relate to the beginning of a war, the fighting of a war, the ending of a war or some remembrance of a war. Is mankind preordained to a fate of perpetual war mongering?
Mainstream media reports “voila”, the end of the Iraq war, as promised. But the public announcements don’t mention that the United States has left behind in Iraq the world’s largest “embassy”, housing 16,000 people. Or that private security contractors (which may include the infamous Blackwater, renamed Xe and now Academi) will be returning to Iraq because the United States government failed to negotiate immunity for its troops or to renegotiate the Status Of Forces Agreement which requires all US forces to be gone from Iraq by January 1, 2012. And we don’t hear a peep about the rules of engagement for private US security contractors.
But are the US soldiers going home? Or are they joining the US and NATO forces who allegedly have landed outside of Syria and are training militants to overthrow the regime of president Bashar al-Assad. Don’t worry about that – it’s Christmas time: we’ll just have to wait for the White House to spin the bottle on the world map to find out which country our young soldiers will go to next. Syria? Iran? China?
In the spirit of “dealing toughly with your banker” earlier this year the Pentagon revealed a new battle concept – The Air Sea Battle concept- which reportedly is the “start of what defence officialssay is the early stage of a new Cold War-style military posture toward China”.
Naturally Australia and the United States each attempted to reassure China that expanding military US ties with Australia are not aimed at containing China, and so far China has remained rather stiff upper lipped, but wars are fought on borrowed money so it will be interesting to see how US Treasury Bonds go (or don’t). Guan Jianzhong, the head of China’s biggest ratings agency, Dagong Global Credit Rating, offered a fairly frank assessment of the US economy.
But fortunately we should be kept safe and warm this Christmas by the Australian Intelligence Community. ASIO costs us $438 million per year, but we have the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, the Office of National Assessments, the Defence Intelligence Organisation, and the Defence Imagery & Geospatial Organisation as well! And the list is growing: the relatively newCyber Security Operations Centre is housed inside the Defence Signals Directorate, an organisation that partners with the United States National Security Agency, now notorious for itsOrwellian domestic spying program…. http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3742938.html
New report shows steady growth of renewable energy in Victoria, despite Baillieu govt
Sustainability Victoria reports wind generation from the existing 432MW of installed capacity has increased to 1,280GWh on a 12 month rolling basis to September 2011. Another 537 MW of capacity is under construction at three locations and due to be on line by 2013. Unfortunately these projects are likely to be the last to make it out of the planning pipeline due to the draconian new rules introduced by the Baillieu government to give a veto to any resident within 2km of a proposed wind project.
The whole story on Victorian renewables Climate Spectator, Andrew Herington, 22 Dec 11 In April 2011, the Victorian Auditor-General tabled a report Facilitating Renewable Energy Development which took a dim view of the potential of renewable energy.
There was widespread media coverage of this report, which focussed heavily on his finding that the proportion of electricity from renewable sources has only increased from 3.6 per cent in 2002 to 3.9 per cent in 2009. This was widely taken as proof that attempts to expand renewable energy had failed and is now often quoted by renewable opponents.
A new Clean Energy Australia 2011 report from the Clean Energy Council demonstrates the Auditor General’s conclusions were flawed and that renewable energy is strongly growing and is now providing around 11 per cent of Victoria’s electricity consumption. Continue reading
Martin Ferguson’s Energy White Paper got renewable and other energy costs wrong
Draft Energy White Paper Gets Renewables Cost Wrong – Bloomberg , Energy Matters, 20 Dec 11 It’s a good thing the Australian Government’s recent Energy White Paper was a draft, because it appears they will be busy rewriting it. According to an article on The Australian, analysis by Bloomberg reveals figures in the Draft Energy White Paper overestimated the cost of solar power threefold and wind power by 50 per cent. Bloomberg says the paper has also underestimated the price of geothermal energy.
Bloomberg points out, as others have done, that some analysts fail to understand just how fast the cost of renewables is dropping. While calculations may be based on figures just a few years old, such data is ancient history given the evolutionary pace in the renewables sector. The Draft Energy White Paper has been widely panned by those committed to a renewable energy future for Australia and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson’s apparent enthusiasm for nuclear power has been treated with suspicion.
The increase in nuclear costs has been attributed to subsidies to nuclear-hosting communities and expenses related to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, although whether the increase is sufficient to account for the unsettled costs of the disaster is being questioned by some.
While the Draft Energy White Paper played down the role of renewable energy, it also attempted to bolster the reputation of fossil fuel sources such as coal seam gas (CSG). Greens Senator and environmental lawyer Larissa Waters last week claimed the White Paper sung the praises of coal seam gas without recognising any of its devastating costs.
“This paper appears to have been written by someone living in a last-century bubble, with no consideration of the impacts of coal seam gas beyond the industry spin,” Senator Waters said. “How can you possibly plan for Australia’s energy future without factoring in the true costs of this energy source – the costs to water, to land, the environment and the climate, as well as the economic impacts on other industries?” http://www.energymatters.com.au/index.php?main_page=news_article&article_id=1942
1 This month
Help Aunty Sue Protect Her Land and Sacred Sites From Destructive Rocket Testing.
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PETITION – To: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Australian Labor Government
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
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