Western Australia could be a renewable energy powerhouse
With oil prices at $107 a barrel, Professor Wills said Australia was the Middle East of renewable energy.
“We’ve got the best renewable energy resources for the planet,” he said….
Professor Wills said other nations had to build in the ocean to get the same sort of wind resources Australia could get on land.
It should be obvious solar-thermal renewable energy should be used in a country with abundant sunshine.
Renewable energy can be winner for WA, Farm Weekly, JEAN EKEROTH, 25 Apr, 2011 RENEWABLE energy provides opportunities to restructure and refurbish rural and regional towns, according to Sustainable Energy Association chief executive Ray Wills.
Radiation’s cruel legacy to Australian soldiers
Many of the servicemen began dying of horrific cancers, while others, like Bob, passed their damaged genes onto their children
Nuclear tests ravage family’s health Nine News 24 April 11, A Perth family has been plagued by serious illness and premature deaths for three generations, after inheriting damaged genes from a serviceman used as a human guinea pig for British nuclear tests in Australia more than half a century ago. Continue reading
Australia needs to invest in renewable energy powered electric cars
Senator Milne believes the government needs to take direct action. She criticised the government’s decision to support the local car manufacturing industry via the defunct Green Car Innovation Fund. Senator Milne said the local industry remained focused on making petrol-powered six-cylinder vehicles.
“Investment in truly innovative car manufacturing in Australia would also see a shift towards electric cars, instead of paying companies to make slightly less inefficient six-cylinder petrol cars,” she said.
Investment needed for innovative electric carSydney Morning Herald, Stephen Ottley April 23, 2011 AUSTRALIA is in danger of being left behind by the rest of the world in the race to find an alternative to petrol-powered cars. Continue reading
Julia Gillard reaffirms Australia’s plan for renewable energy, not nuclear
Australia PM: Don’t See Place For Nuclear In Australia’s Energy Mix, Wall St Journal, By Andrew Monahan, Dow Jones NewswiresTOKYO 22 April 11-Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard reiterated Friday that her government doesn’t see any place for nuclear power in the country’s energy policy, and that a review of global nuclear safety is needed in the wake of the crisis at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
“We do not have nuclear energy and we do not plan for it to be part of Australia’s future energy mix,” Gillard said after a speech in Tokyo. “We are a country that has abundant energy resources and we are very focused now on the clean energy sources of the future.” ……http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20110421-705327.html
Dispelling the nuclear lobby’s myth about “base load” power
Firstly, the demand for power during the night is generally low and could be reduced substantially by improving our efficiency of energy use and by the forthcoming phase-out of electric off-peak hot water. This is the reverse of the previous policies, which deliberately encouraged an increase in night-time demand to allow our inflexible coal-fired stations to generate 24/7. Under the present circumstances, where coal-fired generators must be phased out, we can reduce base-load demand and supply.
The base-load myth, Mark Diesendorf , ABC, 21 April 2011 To every complex problem there is a simplistic response, which is usually wrong.
For instance, to the challenge of generating all of Australia’s electricity from renewable energy, the deniers and scoffers repeatedly utter the simplistic myth that renewable energy is intermittent and therefore cannot generate base-load (that is, 24-hour) power.
Continue reading
John Howard and John White’s plan for Australia to import nuclear waste
Australian Strategic Partnership With The US | Independent Australia, 19 April 11,”.…….Howard and his chief nuclear adviser at the time, Dr. John White, were ready to come to the USA’s rescue back in 2006. Both were involved in the developmentof the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, especially White who developed the Business Plan for GNEP.Julie Macken’s articles in the Australian Financial Review detailed the plan: Nuclear waste, including plutonium from the weapons industry would be transported to Darwin by submarine. From there, it would be transferred to Serco Asia Pacific’s Great Southern Railway and transported by train to a supposedly geologically secure destination. Maralinga or Savoury Basin was the bet. Continue reading
Uranium mining is not like other mining
WANFA believes that the costs of uranium mining far outweigh any short term cash payment. We can’t close the gap by increasing the number of radioactive holes in the ground. Aboriginal people should not have to sacrifice the country of future generations, for basic health, education and infrastructure. There are far more jobs and opportunities in a conservation and culture economy, and in caring for country.
“We Can’t Close the Gap by Digging a Deeper Hole” WA Nuclear Free Alliance Conference Statement: The Western Australia Nuclear Free Alliance (WANFA), made up of Aboriginal Traditional Land Owners from the Pilbara, the Kimberley, the Goldfields, the Great Victoria Desert, the Central Desert, the Gascoyne, Perth and the South West and their allies, met from 2-4 April 2011 on Noongar lands near Perth.
Since the beginning of time, Aboriginal people have been the proud custodians of our land Australia. Still today, with new technology, new ways and new friends, Aboriginal people continue looking after country. In Western Australia looking after country means preventing uranium mining. Continue reading
End self-regulation of uranium mines: ERA can’t be trusted
The situation at Ranger added weight to his calls for an end to self-regulation of the Northern Territory’s resources sector.
“Mining companies have consistently shown they can’t be trusted to monitor themselves and the government needs to step in and end this ridiculous situation immediately.”
Uranium mine shutdown sparks environmental fears, Sydney Morning Herald, Lindsay Murdoch DarwinApril 19, 2011 THE largest Aboriginal organisation in northern Australia has warned the Rio Tinto-controlled company Energy Resources of Australia against cutting corners on environmental protection during an emergency shutdown of its Ranger uranium mine in Kakadu National Park. Continue reading
Plan for Australia as international radioactive waste dump
The head of the World Nuclear Association, John Ritch, is one of the many foreign corporate voices calling for Australia to accept the world’s nuclear
garbage.
Foreign nuclear waste, by Dr Jim Green, 19 April 11, Federal resources minister Martin Ferguson says that high-level nuclear waste from other countries will not be dumped at the proposed Muckaty site in the Territory Continue reading
Liberal Party’s plan for Australia as world’s nuclear waste dump
Is the nuclear dump option, which has never been fully shelved by the Liberals, the secret bullet?
We know that storing nuclear waste will be incredibly lucrative, for all concerned, including the nation (and certain Liberal Party donors).
Tony Abbott must be asked to stop the uncertainty and come clean:
Does the Liberal Party plan to turn Australia into the repository for the world’s most dangerous waste? If not, say so and say it clearly, preferably using “carefully prepared, scripted notes”.
Plans for Australia to become the world’s nuclear waste dump
Australian Strategic Partnership With The US | Independent Australia, 19 April 11, “…….Howard’s legacy lives on
Howard may have gone but the legacy of his nuclear fantasy lives on in the true style of things radioactive.
……. Abbott worships John Howard. In return, like all good fathers, Howard has provided a once in a lifetime opportunity to set Tony Abbott and the Liberal Party up for life—if Tony seizes his big chance before the other contender, Russia, does. Continue reading
Malaysian call for Australia to take back radioactive thorium wastes
Protesters said the plant would produce high amounts of the radioactive waste thorium that will endanger them and future generations…….”Malaysia should not be the dumping ground for radioactive waste. We reject the waste and we want Australia to take back
MALAYSIA Radiation Fears Fuel Protest, IPS ipsnews.net, By Baradan Kuppusamy KUANTAN, Apr 18, 2011 (IPS) – Fears of radioactive poisoning have fuelled a protest against an Australian mining company building the world’s largest rare earth processing plant outside China. The protest is directed at Lynas Corp., which will ship rare earth ore from its mine in Port Weld, Western Australia, for processing in the plant in Gebeng outside this city, a fishing port some 250 kilometres north of capital Kuala Lumpur. Continue reading
Australian mining companies’ power to manipulate Aboriginals
I believe we are failing indigenous Australians,” he said.
“What is a multi-billionaire company doing negotiating directly with these people? We’re talking about people who are in general, poor and marginalised and often neglected by the state.
“They’re being offered these employment opportunities and income by a corporate giant and they are not in a position, in my view, to make a fully-informed decision.
Aborigines thrown to the mining wolves: expert, WA Today, Lucy Rickard, 18 April 11, The state government has abandoned Aboriginal people, leaving them to unfairly negotiate multi-million dollar deals with mining corporations and their armies of lawyers, according to an economics policy expert. Continue reading
Famous Kakadu National Park in peril from radiation
For 30 years about 100,000 litres of contaminated water a day has been leaking from the tailings dam into fissures beneath Kakadu
Radioactive water threatens Kakadu, The Age, Lindsay Murdoch, April 16, 2011 Radioactive water is in danger of spilling into an Aboriginal community and Kakadu’s World Heritage-listed wetlands if record rainfalls continue to deluge the vast Ranger uranium mine. Continue reading
Rio Tinto chief avoids discussion of Jabiluka uranium mine
ERA chief executive Rob Atkinson told The Australian that ERA did not want Jabiluka –.. to become part of Kakadu…If Rio approaches the Mirarr people about development and gets knocked back, it is unable to make another approach for four years…
Du Plessis sidesteps questions on Jabiluka uranium * Matt Chambers The Australian * April 16, 2011 RIO Tinto chairman Jan du Plessis has sidestepped questions over the future of the Jabiluka uranium mine in the Northern Territory, with the traditional owners of the area wanting it merged into Kakadu National Park so it cannot be mined. Continue reading
Letter to United Nations from Yvonne Margarula
Yvonne Margarula’s letter to the UN expressing solidarity with the people of Fukushima , | Indymedia Australia, 16 Apr 2011 Below is a letter sent by Yvonne Margarula of the Mirrar people to Ban Ki Moon the Secretary General of the UN on the 6th of April 2011. The Mirrar are the traditional owners of the land that Ranger and Jabiluka Uranium mines are located on. These mines have been developed without the consent of the Mirrar people. The letter expresses solidarity with the people of Japan and sorrow that uraniun from the land of the Mirrar was used in the Fukushima plant. Continue reading
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