How Murdoch news holds back Australia’s action on climate change
The only place that they can publish their junk science is in outlets such as The Australian, where they are welcomed with open arms…..
The Murdoch media empire has cost humanity perhaps one or two decades of time in the battle against climate change. Each lost decade greatly increases the eventual economic costs, the devastation to our ecosystems, and the suffering of future generations.
Murdoch media’s battle against climate change action | Independent Australia, 4 Sept 11, Professor Michael Ashley says the science underpinning anthropogenic climate change is rock solid and the Murdoch media empire has cost humanity one or two decades we could have used to battle it.
“………It is in this room that Chris Mitchell, editor-in-chief of The Australian, holds editorial meetings. And it is in this room that reality becomes so distorted that The Australian was able to state earlier this month, “it is in keeping with this newspaper’s rationalist pedigree that we have long accepted the peer-reviewed science on anthropogenic climate change,” while at the same time engaging in a campaign to misrepresent and distort climate science…..
The problem is that on one side of the debate you have 97% of the world’s published climate scientists and the world’s major scientific organisations, and on the other side you have fools. Continue reading
Organised climate change denial by some Conservative White Males in Australia
“organised climate change denial” had spread from US conservative think-tanks to other nations, including New Zealand and Australia……conservatives were unduly confident about their own views on climate change “also makes them less open to differing views or able to accept that they might be wrong”…..Only 38 per cent of Liberal-National politicians thought humans were causing global warming, compared to 89 per cent from Labor….
The CWM effect: What climate change’s biggest sceptics have in common, The Age, Graham Readfearn, August 18, 2011 (This article also shows pictures of Cardinal Pell, Andrew Bolt, Alan Jones, Christopher Monckton) When it comes to climate change, most people have heard of the greenhouse effect, but what about the “conservative white male” effect?
A US-based study has found that white men with politically conservative views are far more likely than the rest of the population to doubt the science of human-caused climate change.
And the “conservative white male effect” has been linked to Australia, with one prominent researcher citing the existence of a successful, politically engaged and outspoken coterie operating in high-profile positions that attract wide media coverage. Continue reading
Fossil fuel industries have a stranglehold on Australia’s renewable energy development
Part of the problem is that Australia’s renewable energy industry is, by and large, a subset of the fossil fuel industry. Origin, AGL and Truenergy have a stranglehold on electricity markets and they want to decide the pace of our response to climate change…..
Renewable energies are the only zero emission solution that we know will work, at scale – and once a plant is built we get free fuel forever.
Body politic sapping energy from climate change plans, SMH, September 3, 2011 The wheels of clean energy are turning in ever-diminishing circles as politics hogs its place in the sun, writes Paddy Manning. PARTY-POLITICKING on the carbon tax is to be expected. It would be scandalous if a Coalition state government came out and backed the multiparty climate change committee’s ”clean energy future” package.
What is galling is watching the clock turn back on state policies designed to help tackle climate change. Backsliding on support for renewable energy in Victoria and NSW is a foretaste of life under Tony Abbott.
According to the Clean Energy Council, Premier Ted Baillieu happily kissed goodbye to as much as $3 billion in wind farm investment this week – a perverse outcome given Victoria’s excellent wind resource. What will that do for the state’s competitiveness in clean energy, let alone for Australia’s response to climate change? It seems Baillieu and his colleagues couldn’t care less. Continue reading
Latest promotion from Australian Uranium Industry – lacking in confidence
“…an extended period of uncertainty…..A mistake by one operator or explorer or project developer in our industry affects all of us.”
Fukushima puts Australia’s uranium industry on the
defensive Independent Australia, 2 Sept 11, The Australian nuclear industry feels the heat after the Fukushima calamity, but spins on gamely. Noel Wauchope reports.
With plummeting uranium prices, and increasinglybad news about Fukushima radiation, Australia’s uranium industry is well and truly on the back foot. But the industry battles on with religious fervour in its belief in the future uranium boom. Continue reading
Australia’s Liberal Party out to kill Renewable Energy – but what’s their alternative?
There must come a point where the nation’s Liberal leaders and aspiring leaders come clean on their plans for renewable energy. If it is not something they want to support then they should be ready to let us know what is their alternative.
New laws toss energy jobs to the wind, The Age,2 Sept 11, The nation is poorer for the Liberals’ stance on the ‘green-collar’ sector. IT IS a telling coincidence that Premier Ted Baillieu’s new anti-wind farm laws have been sharing the headlines with Australia’s manufacturing malaise. The Clean Energy Council estimates the laws will drive $3.6 billion of investment away from Victoria. Continue reading
Flooding in Paladin and Rio Tinto uranium mines in Namibia
Namibia Q2 uranium production down | Industrial Fuels and Power August 30th, 2011 Uranium production in Namibia decreased from 2.35mlb to 2.09mlb in the second quarter of 2011 when compared with the previous quarter.“This was largely due to adverse weather conditions, with some of the mines becoming flooded with the abnormally heavy rains seen this year,” financial group Capricorn Investment Holdings said.Namibia’s uranium is produced by Rio Tinto and Australia’s Paladin Energy.
Namibia Q2 uranium production down | Industrial Fuels and Power
China may link Australian uranium imports to Australia importing Chinese nuclear reactors
an “envisioned” bilateral nuclear co-operation agreement with the Chinese would be broad enough to cover “all eventualities” — including a possible deal under which Labor would import nuclear reactors in the future.
Chinese ‘coy’ in talks on importing uranium, MARK SCHLIEBS, The Australian, August 31, 2011 CHINESE officials were “a bit coy” about whether they were still developing weapons-grade fissile material during initial negotiations over the importation of Australian uranium, according to a diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks. Continue reading
Australia plotted with USA against atomic energy chief – Wikileaks
US, Australia ‘schemed against IAEA chief’, SBS World News, 31 August 2011 Source: AAP, The United States and Australia schemed unsuccessfully in 2005 to block Mohamed ElBaradei’s election to a third term as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, a newly leaked US diplomatic cable shows.
Both countries were unhappy with ElBaradei’s “unhelpful” response to Iran’s nuclear program, but the bid to prevent his re-election to the nuclear regulatory agency’s leadership ultimately failed for lack of international support.The February 18, 2005 State Department cable released by WikiLeaks on Tuesday opens a window into the effort, describing a lunch conversation between Australian officials and a US special envoy for nuclear non-proliferation, Jackie Sanders.
The cable spotlights US and Australian concerns over the Egyptian diplomat’s interpretation that Iran had a “right” to civilian nuclear power, and his reluctance to declare Iran in non-compliance with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Australian officials said there weren’t the 12 votes on the IAEA board of governors needed to deny ElBaradei re-election, “but that did not stop them from speculating on ways to try to prevent his re-election,” said the cable.
John Carlson, then head of Australia’s nuclear safeguards agency and one of the officials at the lunch, said Canberra strongly supported limiting IAEA chiefs to two terms, according to the cable…… The cable also included an informal document forwarded by Carlson, who had not yet cleared it with his government, entitled The case against ElBaradei….
Wind power a financial winner for South Australian farmers
they will receive about $15,000 per year for each turbine on their properties. Each turbine requires about half a hectare of space. A wheat crop on the same amount of land would yield about $300
Farmers to reap more from wind than crops, Adelaide Now, Katrina Stokes , September 01, 2011THIRTY Yorke Peninsula landowners will reap an average of $90,000 a year to host wind turbines on their land in a $1.3 billion development.Residents have embraced the proposal that will 180 wind turbines on farms near Ardrossan and provide 25 per cent of the state’s daily energy needs. Continue reading
Big loss for uranium miner Paladin miner , and fall in share price
Paladin Energy Q4 loss widens to US$47.7M, The Canadian Press08/31/2011 PERTH, Australia – Paladin Energy Ltd (TSX:PDN), an Australia-based miner that lists on the TSX, cited higher financing costs Wednesday among reasons for a widening of its fourth-quarter and full-year loss.
Paladin Energy, which reports in U.S. dollars, said its after-tax loss for the three months ended June 30 was US$47.7 million or 6.3 cents per share, compared with a loss of US$25.2 million or 3.5 cents in the same year-earlier period….profits were affected an impairment of inventory expense of US$26.4 million at the company’s Kayelekera mine due to higher operating costs during ramp-up and the lower prevailing uranium spot price since last March’s earthquake-induce nuclear disaster in Japan.
The company also faced an earlier, US$6.3-million early buyback of convertible bonds. On the Toronto Stock Exchange, Paladin Energy shares were down nine cents at $2.16 at midday Wednesday.
Uranium miner Paladin calling for more money to be invested
More uranium investment needed, says Paladin CEO, Mining Weekly, 31st August 2011 PERTH − Uranium miner Paladin Energy CEO John Borshoff said that more investment was needed the uranium sector, as supply and demand dynamics would become more strained.
“Discoveries of new deposits have to be made, exploration and high-risk capital needs to be sunk into these programmes, because these programmes determine the long-term future of the mining industry,” Borshoff told delegates at the Africa Downunder conference in Perth on Wednesday…..
“Uranium is still suffering from the impact of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, and the parallel damage to the Fukushima nuclear reactors. The supply sector and the nuclear industry have suffered a bruising effect from this event…
No nuclear power for Western Australia – State government rules
Government rules out nuclear power for WA mines, Perth Now, AAP , August 30, 2011 THE WA government has rejected a call by mining giant Rio Tinto for it to consider using nuclear energy plants to supply some of the state’s future electricity needs. In submissions to the government’s peak energy advisory body, Rio asked why the option of nuclear power was not at least being canvassed.
But WA Energy Minister Peter Collier said there was simply no demand for nuclear energy in WA and it would not be used in the state in the next two decades.
`We have sufficient capacity through other fuel sources such as gas and coal and renewables,” he told ABC Radio on Tuesday.
Opposition Leader Eric Ripper said there was no public support for nuclear power and Labor also would not support its introduction….http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/western-australia/government-rules-out-nuclear-power-for-wa-mines/story-e6frg13u-1226125360975
Victoria’s Liberal Government kills off the future for the wind industry
The Clean Energy Council estimates the decision will kill off around $3 billion of potential wind farm developments. …Victoria’s decision removes some of the best wind resources in the eastern states.
What bothers the industry most about the Victorian decision is that the government has refused to explain its rationale and the analysis behind the rulings, or why they have not been applied to other industries, such as coal seam gas. The government is accused of delivering on all of the demands of the anti-wind groups, and more, despite the fact that many of its claims had been dismissed in the recent Senate wind inquiry
Have we blown the RET? Climate Spectator, Giles Parkinson, 30 Aug 11, “….Victoria’s imposition of a 2km setback for wind farms (giving the right of veto to any householder within that area), to exclude vast tracts of the best resources (the prettiest areas along the coast near the Great Ocean Road, the Mornington Peninsula, the Yarra Valley, and Mt Macedon ranges), and an unexpected addition – a 5km setback from 21 regional centres – means that options in that state are fast running out. Continue reading
Victoria’s Professor Maria Forsyth’s research team – developing solar storage
Can we store solar energy for when the sun doesn’t shine?, The Age, 30 Aug 11, A question for Professor Maria Forsyth”….one of Australia’s top researchers with an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellowship, Professor Forsyth and her research team are developing battery technologies and materials so industries can capture green energy and store it, too….
“..we’re looking at it more from a point of view of stationary applications — so any small industry that can generate its own power on-site, and has storage capacity and capability, doesn’t have to rely on the grid….
How soon could these materials be available?
I have a desire to see the first generation of these devices available within three years. In five to 10 years, we should be getting towards the high-quality end of these devices. But it does require industry involvement — worldwide, and especially in Australia.
Tasmania already 86% renewable energy, but going for 100%
Renewable energy push, The Mercury, DAVID KILLICK | August 30, 2011 TASMANIA should become Australia’s renewable energy state, producing 100 per cent of its own needs and selling clean power to rest of the nation by 2020, a report recommends. The state should also aim to become a proving ground for the new generation of electric and hybrid vehicles, the Tasmanian Renewable Energy Industry Development Board report says.
The board yesterday handed its advice to the State Government on a Tasmanian renewable energy strategy with recommendations including more funding for clean power projects on the Bass Strait islands…. Tasmania generates 86 per cent of its energy from renewable sources and last year was a net exporter of energy for the first time via the Basslink cable…http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2011/08/30/257231_tasmania-news.html
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