Indecent haste about poorly conceived LNG project
…… A 2010 tourism study conducted by the Curtin University Sustainable Tourism Centre found that:
• Plans for an LNG industrial site near Broome pose a serious threat to the Kimberley’s unique and globally-recognised tourism ‘brand’;……
• Tourism is more valuable to the regional economy than resource projects which return less to the local economy, employ fewer local people and have relatively short lifespans;
Kimberley gas hub Strategic Assessment citizens guide “…….Having slammed the previous Labor government for its handling of the Browse LNG siting issue and the decision by Inpex to process its Browse gas (from the ‘Ichthys’ field) in Darwin, WA Premier Barnett is desperate to have a Kimberley LNG project underway before the next State election (due March 2013). Continue reading
Western Australia’s gas hub discussed by Aboriginal group
Rural Report for Northern WA: May 2nd 2011, ABC Rural By Matt Brann, Kununurra, Kimberley traditional owners prepare for final vote on gas hub Continue reading
Complex, but very feasible, transition to renewable energy
a plausible Australian scenario for the next decade is the phase-out of several coal-fired power stations simultaneously with a rapid growth in efficient energy use, solar hot water, wind power and bio-electricity. These clean technologies would buy us time to commercialise solar thermal and possibly geothermal power and then integrate them on a large scale in the 2020s as the remaining coal stations are shut down. Thus Australia could achieve a sustainable electricity system……
A mix of sources with appropriate transmission links and ‘smart grids’ could provide a reliable system of 100% renewable electricity.
The base-load myth Online Opinion, By Mark Diesendorf – , 2 May 2011“…….Several countries, including Australia with its huge renewable energy resources, could make the necessary transition to an electricity generation system comprising 100 per cent renewable energy over a few decades. Continue reading
Australia’s Liberal Party confused on nuclear policy
Macfarlane says the unthinkable, ABC The Drum, 29 April 11 “………it’s as if Ian Macfarlane has emerged from a disorienting tackle, ball in hand, and started running toward the wrong end of the field…
In 2005, [Liberal Member of Parliament] Ian MacFarlane was saying ‘Only nuclear power has the potential to deliver base-load quantities of cleaner energy in Australia,’ ‘We would be silly not to fully consider the nuclear option’, if we priced carbon ‘nuclear energy will becheaper than clean coal’, and construction could begin before 2016.
Today Macfarlane says ‘We don’t support nuclear energy in Australia… and we’re not doing to go down that route’ — a full 360 degrees, and who knows where to next……..” http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/592538.html
Peak oil adds to urgency for Australia to develop renewable energy
Desperately needed, of course, is a policy to tackle both peak oil and climate change at the same time……Beyond Zero Emissions, with Melbourne University’s Energy Research Institute, published its Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan……Beyond Zero has assembled a team of scientists, engineers and planners working pro-bono on a fully costed, national transport plan that will take in three streams: city passenger and public transport, freight, and intercity transport and high-speed rail. The report is due out by the end of the year.
Peak oil highlights need for a unified policy, Sydney Morning Herald, Paddy Manning, April 30, 2011, The infrastructure Australia needs to respond to the world’s dwindling oil supply is not the sort we are building.
Peak oil is forcing its way to the top of the agenda with stark warnings from the International Energy Agency Continue reading
Australian company Lynas wants Malaysia to take its radioactive wastes
Alarm bells were raised when a report in April questioned how Lynas was going to dispose the waste material from the plant ……
there are questions as to why Lynas did not build the plant in Australia instead if it did not pose any danger to the environment and the people?
Baffling Perak can think of 2nd rare earth project when Japan radiation still fresh, The Star (Malaysia) – By B.K. Sidhu 29 April 11, IT is baffling that Perak can even think of accommodating a second rare earth project when the horrors of radiation in Japan are still fresh on the people’s minds and there was a major disaster involving a rare earth plant in the state just a decade ago. Continue reading
Australian uranium mining shares tumble as Namibia wakes up to foreigners’ exploitation
comments Minister of Mines and Energy Isak Katali made in parliament last week about the Namibian people deserving to benefit more from the country’s resources have set some investors’ nerves on edge.
Extract Resources shares drop onNamibia government plan, Apr 28,2011 MELBOURNE (Reuters)…http://af.reuters.com/article/investingNews/idAFJOE73R06E20110428
Namibia nationalisation anxiety knocks uranium miners TORONTO (miningweekly.com) 29 April 11, – Uranium miner Paladin Energy moved to calm investors after its shares tumbled 7,4% on the TSX over reports that Namibia’s state-owned mining company wanted to claim all uranium mining rights, as well as other “strategic” materials… Continue reading
Australian National University in world leading solar energy research
the new silicon cells will be cheaper to manufacture and … the technology will drive down the cost of solar electricity …Jenny Goddard chairs the Australian Solar Institute (ASI) board…She described ANU’s solar energy research team as world leading.
New solar energy partnership, ABC News, By Adrienne Francis, 29 April 11, The scarcity of high grade silicon is one of the things which pushes up the price of roof top solar panels……Researchers from The Australian National University in Canberra have found a way to use more abundant lower grade silicon components to generate electricity from sunlight. Continue reading
A second Northern Territory Intervention, says Abbott
Abbott wants second NT intervention Herald Sun, April 28, 2011 FEDERAL Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has wrapped up a tour of Alice Springs renewing his call for a “second” indigenous intervention in the Northern Territory.
….., he wants the government to extend intervention conditions to Alice and other major centres of the Northern Territory.
Australian government’s strange delay on environmental laws
”It is curious the government will take longer to respond to the review than it took a team of experts to investigate and write it.”..
Environment laws on hold, The Age Tom Arup, 1April 26, 2011, THE government will wait at least two years until it responds to a comprehensive review recommending a shake-up of national environment laws. Continue reading
South Australia putting all its eggs into uranium basket?
the proposed $21 billion Olympic Dam mine expansion as a future prospect……..”It is expected BHP Billiton will say yes in early 2012 despite the potential for recent developments to affect the future of Japan’s nuclear energy sector – then it would become the world’s largest mine,” the report says. “These prospects shimmer in the future.”
State’s future in mining just became brighter, Greg Kelton , The Advertiser, April 27, 2011 SOUTH Australia will one day be “a titan of the global resource landscape” but is fighting to keep manufacturing jobs, an economic report says. Continue reading
Call for political action on dispossession of Aboriginal land
The core of the latter legal application will focus on the absolute dispossession of Aboriginal lands that has caused us to become internally displaced Peoples and refugees………this country was and always will be Aboriginal land………
Call for dramatic return to proactive political action at Aboriginal summit, Indymedia Australia, By Michael Anderson and Ellie Gilbert, Canberra, 25 April 2011, Anzac Day — The Aboriginal New Way Sovereignty Summit here over Easter was informed that given the state of Aboriginal Affairs in this country today it is now time to make a dramatic return to proactive political action. Continue reading
Pro nuclear propaganda confuses external and internal radiation
Their first piece of disinformation is to confuse the effects of external and internal radiation.
Nuclear apologists play shoot the messenger on radiation, The Age, Helen Caldicott, April 26, 2011 George Monbiot and others are distorting evidence of the dangers of exposure.
TWENTY-FIVE years after Chernobyl, many billions of dollars are at stake if the Fukushima reactor meltdowns cause the so-called “atomic renaissance” to halt or even slow down. This is evident from the nuclear industry’s vociferous attacks on its critics.
We see this especially in Australia, where the industry is conducting a whatever-it-takes propaganda campaign to ensure that nothing stands in the way of vast profits to be made from continuing to export uranium; from the plan to establish a radioactive waste dump at Muckaty Station in the Northern Territory; and from the industry’s desire to dot the continent with reactors.
by reassuring the public that things aren’t too bad, Monbiot and others misrepresent and distort the scientific evidence of the harmful effects of radiation exposure. Continue reading
Time for Australia to phase out its involvement in nuclear
Specifically, ACF has called on the Federal Government to:
• Grant no further approvals to Energy Resources of Australia’s Ranger mine in Kakadu
• Not approve any uranium projects in Western Australia and Queensland, where there are no commercial mines and no bi-partisan political support for uranium mining
• Grant no further uranium sales agreements
• Ensure BHP Billiton’s Olympic Dam project keeps its uranium product and other radioactive mine waste on site and sells only non-radioactive minerals.
Chernobyl anniversary a reminder of the true costs of the uranium trade 26 April 11 On the 25th anniversary of the world’s worst nuclear disaster the Australian Conservation Foundation has called for a halt to uranium exports and a national debate on the full costs and consequences of Australia’s uranium trade. Continue reading
Australian company Lynas meets opposition to its rare earths plan
The Star Online, said that if Lynas claimed the residue from the plant would be safe, it should be shipped back to Australia. “Malaysia cannot afford to keep a health time bomb here and we do not know when it will explode,”
Protests threaten Lynas’s Malaysian rare-earths plant, The Australian, Sarah-Jane Tasker , April 26, 2011 RARE-EARTHS miner Lynas’s plans for a processing plant in Malaysia have been thrown into doubt as local authorities review the proposal in light of concerns about radiation pollution. Continue reading
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