Australia’s power companies campaign to undermine renewable energy
Power giants to hit out at renewables, Christine Milne warns, GRAHAM LLOYD, The Australian, September 08, 2011 THE electricity industry was planning a “massive assault” to undermine government policies to promote billions of dollars worth of investment in wind farms and other renewable energy technologies, Greens senator Christine Milne has warned.
Senator Milne’s comments to a renewable energy conference in Brisbane this week coincide with a fresh call by Origin Energy for the government to reconsider the timing of its target of 20 per cent renewable energy by 2020….
Calling on the renewable energy sector to speak out, Senator Milne said an electricity industry backlash threatened many of the so-called “complimentary measures” negotiated by the Greens to secure their support for the federal government’s carbon tax that will be introduced into federal parliament next week.This includes the $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation, which is designed to kick start investment in alternative energy projects…..
Wind power is currently the lowest cost option for electricity companies to meet their obligations under the mandatory renewable energy target.
Time for Australians to act on Murdoch media’s distortion of news
Murdoch media in Australia: malign but excisable, Independent Australia, 9 sept 11, Alan Austin says that the Murdoch media network is a malicious influence on Australia — that the nation has a chance of eradicating.
Rarely is a nation faced with a malicious influence which it has the chance to eradicate. Such is Australia’s luck today with Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, owner of The Australian, Sydney’s Daily Telegraph, Brisbane’s Courier-Mail, Melbourne’s Herald Sun and other ‘news’ outlets.
The Murdoch network in Australia has moved irretrievably away from being a legitimate news provider. It must go.
Essential to free enterprise and democracy is access to information free of distortion. Newspapers are free to say what they will in editorials and opinion pieces, of course. But news data must be untainted.
Most Murdoch publications now openly spruik for conservative politics. Not just in the opinion pieces, but news pages as well. Continue reading
Glencore now HAS to reveal data, let Australians keep an eye on it
Secretive Glencore, Swiss- based international company, has a very bad record – connected with fraud, corruption, environmental degradation (- check it out at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glencore )
Glencore is now more or less forced to reveal some information, seeing that it recently changed from a private company to public. The change was connected to it increasing its share in uranium miner Xstrata . Pretty inportant, as Xstrata is defending an environmental court case run by Friends of the Earth – a win here could be an unwelcome precedent for Glencore’s world-wide activities.
By the way, Glencore’s CEO, South African Ivan Glasenberg, formely of Switzerland, now resident in Australia, and now an Australian citizen, – is Australia’s second richest person, (after mining multi-billionaire Gina Rinehart.) – Christina Macpherson
Glencore’s 1st Sustainability Report Shows 18 Deaths, Planet Ark, s 08-Sep-11 Eric Onstad Commodities group Glencore released its first sustainability report on Wednesday showing it paid $780,000 in major environmental fines last year and had 18 fatalities.
Glencore, one of the world’s largest commodities trader, promised to launch sustainability reporting during the run-up to its listing earlier this year after spending decades as a private company, revealing minimal information about its business to the general public.
Glencore’s total revenues were $145 billion, the bulk from trading activities, and total core profit was $6.2 billion, but the group has historically paid very low taxes on its trading operation, according to analysts.
Liberum Capital has said Glencore, based in the low-tax canton of Zug in Switzerland, has paid a corporate tax rate close to zero on its trading business up until last year due to its partner ownership structure…. http://planetark.org/enviro-news/item/63196
Investor support ‘has evaporated’ from Australian uranium mining companies
Investor support has evaporated and the share prices of most ASX-listed uranium plays have fallen more heavily than the wider market. The share price falls have eroded any chance of capital raisings to fund drilling programs or project development while continued production problems experienced by market leader Paladin Energy have added to the negative sentiment hanging over the sector.
The Merrill Lynch uranium equity index, which tracks global listed stocks, is down 19 per cent over the past month and 23 per cent in the past year.
More pain for uranium sector as price dips, PETER KLINGER, The West AustralianSeptember 7, 2011 Already battered by headwinds, including strong opposition from environmentalists, WA’s fledgling uranium sector is set for more grief amid expectation the nuclear fuel’s low price will fall another 6 per cent within the next few months. Continue reading
The threat of uranium mining to Tanzania’s environment
(relevant because Australian companies are trying to mine in Tanzania) Clear key concerns on uranium mining, The Citizen, 07 September 2011 Tanzania’s quest to allow investors to mine uranium in the Selous Game Reserve faces stiff opposition from some local and foreign wildlife conservationists.
Unesco’s World Heritage Committee maintains that the country should only allow in investors after an environmental impact assessment has been undertaken.And now, a Germany-based group calling itself Tanzania Network, has plunged into the fray. Its secretariat has reportedly written to President Jakaya Kikwete, through Tanzania’s ambassador in Berlin, Mr Ahmada Ngemera, pleading with him to halt plans of awarding uranium mining licences to any international company.
The organisation says it is concerned with the dangers that uranium poses to lives of living organisms as well as to the environment. …
Judging from the arguments by the government and conservationists, one notes that there is a sense of mistrust and some ignorance within the matter.It is evident that environmentalists don’t trust the government. Probably, they feel the country may blindly undertake a project that would have negative ramifications on the lives of its own people and the invaluable wildlife.
BHP, RIO, Xstrata try to control Australian govt on carbon tax
Rio Tinto warns Gillard over carbon tax, The Age, Peter Ker, September 8, 2011 MULTINATIONAL miner Rio Tinto has intensified its opposition to Australia’s carbon tax, urging Prime Minister Julia Gillard to go back to the drawing board and start again on carbon policy….Rio has previously claimed the tax would penalise trade-exposed industries and deter investment in resource projects, but yesterday Mr Peever stepped up the attack by urging the government not to proceed with the tax in its present form…….
Rio was one of three big mining companies – alongside BHP Billiton and Xstrata – invited by Ms Gillard to help shape Labor’s revised mining tax last year.
The government plans to introduce the carbon tax to Parliament next week, and Ms Gillard said its opponents would not stop the bill winning passage through the hung parliament. ”Everybody in the Parliament knows from the statements that have been made by parliamentarians that the legislation has sufficient support to get through and it will,” she said. ”I do expect, as we see constantly from the opposition, that we’ll see all sorts of wrecking tactics, but we will work our way through and ensure that the legislation does go through.”…..
Australia’s carbon tax stimulates foreign investment in renewable energy
We think its a tremendous advantage. We’ve been long supporters of the carbon tax and we think the package the government has come up with will be pretty effective. It seems to be the most economically efficient way to reach any given target.
Foreign company interest in Australian renewable energy, Radio Australia September 7, 2011 , Some of the world’s biggest companies are getting involved in Australia’s renewable energy sector. Large investments are being made in solar technology at a time when the debate around climate change and carbon schemes is highly politicised. Continue reading
Australian government secretive about radioactive waste in its planned Northern Territory dump
Elder’s death won’t affect nuclear waste dump case, ABC News, Anna Henderson and Emma Masters, The Northern Land Council (NLC) says a Federal Court case over a planned nuclear waste dump near Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory has not been affected by the death of the senior elder who nominated the site, September 07, 2011 The elder, now known as Kumanjayi Napurrula Lauder-Dixon, died in Elliot last week.
The matter returns to court next month.
………Meanwhile, an anti-nuclear campaigner says he is concerned the federal Government is not doing enough to dispel the belief that the proposed nuclear waste dump will hold only low-level waste.
Dr Jim Green says government documents show plans for a waste dump at Muckaty Station to hold low and intermediate radioactive waste. Dr Green says some of the waste will have a half-life of thousands of years.
“They really ought to be more upfront with Territorians,” he said. “They are not honest and yet they still expect Territorians to trust the federal Government with this dump proposal. “Yet a number of their claims are contradicted by freely available documents, which are produced by the government itself.”
Dr Green says the Government is not doing enough to communicate what type of waste will be stored.”The spent nuclear fuel reprocessing waste that has been sent to Scotland and France is going to come back, and they want to dump that above ground at Muckaty.”…http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-09-07/20110907death-mackaty-nuclear-dump/2874942
Australian scientists exposing Murdoch media’s climate denial spin
Nowhere has the reliance on spin been more apparent than during the coverage of the climate “debate” by the Murdoch media and allied shock jocks…
In response to all this, and in the absence of politicians with sufficient courage to take on the hate-mongers, some Australian academics have started to provide a platform for accountability by shining a light on the media’s practices.
Using the Conversation, the world’s first daily paper written primarily by academics in co-operation with journalists, academics are beginning to catalogue the excruciating and tortuous daily distortions of climate science by various papers, especially by the Australian, Murdoch’s flagship publication.
Australia’s climate scientists expose shock-jock distortion tactics, Academics catalogue the deluge of spin and misinformation of climate science by various Murdoch-owned papers, Stephan Lewandowsky 1 September 2011, Guardian UK, Australia has unwittingly become a social experiment. A ruthless experiment on the fate of a society when a single media conglomerate, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, owns 167 newspapers and controls around 70% of the printed media market. Continue reading
Oh dear! Uranium price and shares’ inexorable downward slide
Uranium prices plunge causing issues for Australian producers, Herald Sun, Greg Roberts ,September 07, 2011 URANIUM prices have fallen back to levels last seen after Japan’s nuclear accident in March, causing further grief to struggling Australian producers.
The uranium spot price is $US48.85 ($A46.04) a pound, having plummeted from $US67.75 to $US49 immediately after the earthquake and tsunami on March 11.
The spot price had recovered to about $US56.50 after the Fukushima accident. Analyst group Resource Capital Research says the dynamics driving the sector have changed in the aftermath of the meltdown, with Germany planning to close all 17 of its nuclear power reactors by 2022.
The “fund implied price” – an indicator of market price expectations – is signalling a further fall in the spot price to $US45.95. The Merrill Lynch Uranium Equity Index, which measures the performance of uranium equities, has fallen 19 per cent over the past month.
It is down 27 per cent over the past three months and 23 per cent over the past year, according to the latest quarterly report by Resource Capital Research. Shares in Australia’s largest uranium producer, the Rio Tinto-backed Energy Resources of Australia, have fallen 13 per cent in the past month and 73 per cent in the past year.
A year ago, ERA shares were $13.49, compared with $3.65 now, with the company posting a $122 million half-year net loss. http://www.heraldsun.com.au/business/uranium-prices-plunge-causing-issues-for-australian-producers/story-fn7j19iv-1226130940686
Lynas Rare Earths plant to be highlighted in documentary on ionising radiation
Japanese filmmaker to highlight Lynas controversy, Free Malaysia Today, G Vinod, September 6, 2011“….A foreign documentary on the nuclear meltdown in Japan will also highlight the controversy over the Lynas rare earth refinery in Malaysia.
PETALING JAYA: A Japanese filmmaker plans to include the Lynas rare earth controversy in his upcoming documentary on nuclear radiation which is scheduled to be released in October 2011.The filmmaker, Shunji Iwai, decided to highlight the plight of the people in Gebeng, Pahang after hearing about the matter from his Malaysian counterpart, Tan Chui Mui.
Lynas Corporation Ltd plans to build a RM700 million rare earth refinery in Gebeng, to facilitate transportation of its mining products from Western Australia’s Mount Weld to the plant in Gebeng. The plant is expected to be operational by end of this year.
However, the community in Gebeng are up in arms against the project fearing radioactive contamination in the area surrounding the plant. Although the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had said the mine would be safe, Kuantan MP Fuziah Salleh dismissed its report, saying that most of the findings were made based on data given by Lynas itself…….
Tan herself would be directing a few parody educational video called “Survival Guide in Radioactive Village” to create awareness among the public on the Lynas scare. The documentary is scheduled for release in October for the Japanese market. It will subsequently be released to the global audience via the Internet…http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/2011/09/06/japanese-filmmaker-to-highlight-lynas-controversy/.
Australia’s tax advisor advises in the interests of BHP Billiton
Former BHP chair renews carbon tax criticism – ABC Newcastle NSW – Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 5 Sept 11, The former chairman of BHP Billiton, Don Argus, has criticised the Federal Government’s proposed carbon tax, saying it is not in the nation’s best interest..
…Mr Argus also questioned planned investment in renewable energy ……He says the Government should hold off on the [carbon] tax due to the current global financial uncertainty…..
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Mr Argus says he is bemused that carbon capture storage has
been excluded from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation that was recently announced, as he thinks it will be a very worthwhile technology…..Mr Argus also warned the state and federal governments on the current debate over mining royalties.
Former BHP chair renews carbon tax criticism – ABC Newcastle NSW – Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Call to stop transport of radioactive rare earths through Fremantle
Carles moves to ban rare earth ores in Freo – The West Australian, 5 Sept 11,Fremantle MP Adele Carles has called for the transportation of rare earth ores through Fremantle to be halted immediately because she is concerned about potential radioactivity.In a position that puts her at odds with her partner, Transport Minister Troy Buswell, and the State Government, the independent MP has claimed the rare earths, which are mined by Lynas Corporation at Mt Weld near Laverton, could be a hazard to public health and safety…..
The term “rare earths” refers to a range of metallic elements that are used in a range of modern products including high-powered magnets for wind turbines, electric hybrid vehicles, computer hard discs, smartphones and flat panel displays.
The ore contains thorium and uranium oxides, albeit at levels regulators say do not pose a radiation risk…..
Ms Carles said she was concerned Lynas’ proposal “looks like the Magellan experiment all over again”, referring to the problems Magellan Metals has had in complying with its environmental management plan to export lead carbonate through Fremantle……
Ms Carles yesterday hosted protestors from Malaysia, who are opposed to Lynas building a processing plant in Kuantan, the capital of Malaysia’s Pahang state. The protestors are concerned that the strategically important plant – the only rare earths processing facility outside China – could leave the area a toxic site…..Carles moves to ban rare earth ores in Freo – The West Australian
USA ramps up its military machine in Australia
Defence set to give US greater military access Brendan Nicholson, Defence Editor The Australian * September 06, 2011 TEAMS of US and Australian officials are finalising a series of agreements, to be signed at this month’s AUSMIN summit, that will give US forces greater access to Australian military bases.
Shared facilities are expected to include HMAS Stirling naval base in Western Australia, an army base in Townsville as the primary location for operations, the port of Darwin and the Bradshaw Field Training Area in the Northern Territory.
The agreements, a key focus of this year’s talks on defence and foreign affairs issues in San Francisco, will mean the Americans will not just be offered space on a base, they will be there with what Defence calls “full knowledge and concurrence” with full access to intelligence and maintenance facilities…..
The agreement will be similar to that covering the joint intelligence-gathering facilities such as Pine Gap.
Defence set to give US greater military access | The Australian
Queensland’s solar tariff helps create $3.5 billion in new investment
Queensland’s tariff, which pays 45c per kWh, had helped thousands to access clean power…“[Queensland will avoid] going down the path of other states in collapsing their schemes and causing such dislocation amongst a somewhat new and still vulnerable part of the economy.”….Current policies to promote renewable energy in Queensland would create $3.5 billion in new investment and 3500 new jobs.
Solar cuts are ‘foolish’: Roberston – Narooma News, GRAHAM READFEARN, 06 Sep, 2011 Queensland Energy Minister Stephen Robertson has accused other state governments of being “foolish and shortsighted” for cutting payments to promote solar energy.Mr Robertson told the Ecogen renewable energy conference in Brisbane yesterday that recent decisions in Victoria and New South Wales to cut back payments for homeowners with solar power would damage the industry. Continue reading
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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