Adelaide branch of University College London (UCL) to close (and good riddance)
With UK import Tim Stone, and Prof Stefaan Simons leading the charge, this UCL branch has been a useful propaganda piece for the global nuclear lobby. South Australia has enough nuclear shills without UCL. It will be good to see it gone.
UCL Australia ‘to wind down by 2017’ https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/ucl-australia-to-wind-down-by-
2017/2018581.article#comment-5146
Future of branch campus in Adelaide under review as funds dry up and London focuses on partnerships
February 19, 2015University College London is set to close its Australia branch within two years as part of a wider review of its overseas campuses.
UCL’s Adelaide campus is likely to be wound up in 2017 on the completion of research deals with energy and mining companies Santos and BHP Billiton worth about A$20 million (£10 million).
Support from South Australia’s regional government is also due to expire that year, which led the university to carry out a review of UCL Australia’s long-term sustainability.
It is now undertaking a consultation process with its staff about a “move away from a stand-alone presence in Adelaide”, although it says this is “not a fait accompli”. Continue reading
Nov 16 Royal Commission public hearing with Maralinga Tjarutja & Yalata Community Incorporated
In all the drama about nuclear waste returning from France, we need to be mindful that this has nothing to do with the Royal Commission proposal to import the world’s radioactive trash to Australia.
On 16 November the RC’s public hearing topic will be COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT & NUCLEAR FACILITIES – ENGAGEMENT WITH ABORIGINAL COMMUNITIES. TThe speakers will include two representing the Maralinga Tjarutja & Yalata Community Incorporated – a group whose Submission to the RC was not negative.
Strong objections to nuclear waste dump sites
Why is it that THE AUSTRALIAN and most media go on about medical wastes, but don’t mention the REAL problem – Lucas Heights nuclear reactor wastes returning from France?
Nuclear waste dump goes against the grain, THE AUSTRALIAN, REBECCA PUDDY ANDREW BURRELL, 14 Nov 15, Grain farmer Cameron Scott is no green activist, but he promises to fight any move to build the nation’s first nuclear waste dump on his doorstep in South Australia’s wheatbelt.
Mr Scott is a key member of a coalition of neighbours in the town of Kimba, almost 500km northwest of Adelaide, who are strongly opposed to the region hosting a facility to store the nation’s low-level and mediumlevel radioactive waste.
“The first thing that hit me was safety — we’ve got kids, we’ve been here for three generations and we want to look after their future,” Mr Scott said yesterday, as he acknowledged deep tensions in his local community over the issue.
“What will this do for our price of land, who wants to buy land next to a radioactive waste dump and what will happen to the price of our grain?”
Kimba is ground zero in the deeply personal battle over the location of the dump, with two of the six shortlisted sites across Australia — all of which were voluntarily nominated by landholders — located in the district……… Continue reading
Yami Lester, victim of nuclear testing urges communities to fight nuclear waste dumping
SA Government ‘open’ to nuclear waste dump proposal despite previous opposition: Weatherill, ABC News, 13 Nov 15, “…… Greens MP Mark Parnell said he wanted to see more detail on the proposal, but was suspicious of the agenda from Canberra. He was concerned accepting a site in South Australia could lead to the storage of high level radioactive waste.
“It’s no surprise that the Federal Government has its eyes on South Australia for its nuclear waste dump,” Mr Parnell said. “But what will worry people in this state is whether this is a precursor to a high level radioactive waste dump.”…
Indigenous man Yami Lester, from Mintabie in the APY Lands, said the state and federal governments should not mine uranium, let alone store it.
Mr Lester was blinded from a radiation fallout in 1953 when the British and Australian governments conducted uranium testing near his community, west of Coober Pedy.
“It was terrible. Some older people died, I went blind and my cousin went blind, skin rash, diarrhoea and all that sickness,” he said.
“We had no treatment at all, the hospital nearest the clinic was 160 kilometres [away] at Ernabella, and we were sitting here, no doctor nothing.
“That’s why I’m scared of the government mining uranium. Better to leave it under the ground. Don’t touch it.”
Mr Lester urged the communities close to the proposed waste sites to fight against the dumps.
He said the state and federal government should learn from past mistakes.
“I don’t agree with [experts] at all. The Australian Government and the South Australian Government, people haven’t learnt from the mistakes that happened overseas, in Germany, Japan they haven’t learned from that,” he said…..http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-13/sa-govt-consider-nuclear-waste-proposal-royal-commission/6937530
NATIONAL NUCLEAR WASTE DUMP IN SA: TROJAN HORSE FOR AN INTERNATIONAL NUCLEAR WASTE DUMP?
13 Nov 15 The Federal Government has released the shortlist of six sites for the location of a national radioactive waste dump. Three of these sites are in South Australia.
Friends of the Earth Adelaide is cautious about the Federal Governments genuine commitment to a voluntary site nomination and selection process.
“The test will be how the government handles community opposition, how inclusive and transparent the site selection process will be, and how it will handle the issue of existing South Australian legislation banning the establishment of a nuclear waste dump,” said Nectaria Calan of Friends of the Earth Adelaide.
The National Radioactive Waste Management Act 2012, the Act governing the site selection process, over-rides existing state legislation prohibiting the establishment of a nuclear waste dump.
“Will the Federal Government impose a nuclear waste dump on states that have legislated against it, or communities that do not want it?” asked Ms Calan.
“The location of a waste dump cannot simply be decided through individual nominations,” said Ms Calan. “It affects the wider community, particularly those in close proximity to the site. Radioactive contamination knows no property boundaries. The principle of voluntarism extends beyond the individual where an action has wider ramifications,” continued Ms Calan.
“There is yet to be an independent inquiry into all our radioactive waste management options, so the nominations process is premature,” said Ms Calan.
Additionally, here in South Australia the Royal Commission into the Nuclear Fuel Cycle is considering the feasibility of an international nuclear waste dump. “Will a national nuclear waste repository in SA be the trojan horse for an international high level nuclear waste dump down the track?” asked Ms Calan.
“Rather than considering existing nuclear waste in Australia as an intractable problem, the SA government and some proponents of the nuclear industry seem to consider radioactive waste a business opportunity and want to import it, astounding given that so far globally there has been no success in establishing even one facility for the long term storage of high level waste.”
“ The one deep underground repository for intermediate level waste that does exist, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico, saw an incident in February last year where a waste barrel exploded, leading to an aboveground release of airborne radiation, after only 15 years in operation,” said Ms Calan. “According to the US Department of Energy, twenty-two workers tested positive to low-level radiation exposure.”
Friends of the Earth Adelaide has serious concerns regarding the regulatory framework that may be applied to a nuclear waste dump in South Australia, whether national or international.
“BHP Billiton, operator of the Olympic dam mine, is exempt from key regulating legislation in SA, including the Freedom of Information Act, and parts of the Radiation Protection and Control Act and the Environmental Protection Act. With such a precedent here in SA for the regulation of the nuclear industry, where is the guarantee that other nuclear projects such as a nuclear waste dump would not also be exempt from laws regulating radiation, environmental protection, and transparency?” asked Ms. Calan.
UCL Australia – key player/driver in South Australia nuclear push
“University College London’s International Energy Policy Institute (IEPI), based at its Australia campus in Adelaide, undertakes economic, regulatory and policy research on how Australia could develop a nuclear energy industry and manage its externalities, including decommissioning and waste.”
UCL Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UCL_Australia 10 Nov 2015
UCL Australia is an international campus of the University College London, located on Victoria Square in Adelaide, South Australia.
Industry partnerships
UCL Australia has key corporate partnerships with two major resource and energy companies operating in South Australia: Santos and BHP Billiton. Santos’ South Australian interests include onshore and offshore oil and gas developments while BHP Billiton’s interest is concentrated on the expansion of the Olympic Dam mine- the world’s largest known deposit of uranium.
International Energy Policy Institute
The International Energy Policy Institute (IEPI) is housed on the Adelaide campus of University College London, Australia. In 2011, UCL signed a five-year $10 million partnership with BHP Billiton to establish the International Energy Policy Institute in Adelaide and an Institute for Sustainable Resources in London. Continue reading
Nuclear fuel leasing – not economically viable for Australia
When nuclear reactors shut (as they are doing in USA) – where is the income stream to pay Australia for having all that radioactive trash?
Proponents are talking up the billions that might be made by swallowing our pride and making Australia the world’s nuclear waste dump. But they have been silent about the costs.
And the waste would need to be monitored and problems addressed for millenia
Wasting Australia’s Future: Why We Shouldn’t Become The World’s Nuclear Waste Dump, New Matilda, By Dr Jim Green on November 9, 2015 There are many good reasons why Australia should not set its sights on becoming a dumping ground for nuclear waste. Dr Jim Green takes up the case.
While sceptical about the prospects for nuclear power in Australia, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has given cautious support to the idea of a nuclear fuel leasing industry in Australia. Such an industry would involve uranium mining, conversion (to uranium hexafluouride), enrichment (increasing the ratio of uranium-235 to uranium-238), fuel fabrication, and disposal of the high-level nuclear waste produced by the use of nuclear fuel in power reactors overseas.
In the Prime Minister’s words: “We have got the uranium, we mine it, why don’t we process it, turn it into the fuel rods, lease it to people overseas, when they are done, we bring them back and we have got stable, very stable geology in remote locations and a stable political environment.”
Regardless of its merits, a nuclear leasing industry is an economic non-starter. That much is clear from the data provided in the latest edition of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Nuclear Technology Review. Uranium miners could be compelled to participate in an Australian nuclear leasing industry. But try telling that to BHP Billiton. The company bluntly stated in its submission to the 2006 Switkowski Review: “BHP Billiton believes that there is neither a commercial nor a non-proliferation case for it to become involved in front-end processing or for mandating the development of fuel leasing services in Australia.”
And there’s no point appealing to the patriotic fervour of Australia’s uranium miners: they are majority foreign-owned. Continue reading
Costs of new nuclear, high, higher and astronomic
You’ll never guess how much this Australian nuclear power plant will cost, http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/blog/energy/2015/11/youll-never-guess-how-much-this-australian-nuclear.html Matt Stroud, energy reporter for the Pittsburgh Business Times. Nov 6, 2015 A nuclear power plant has never been built in Australia before, but Westinghouse is putting a price tag on a new one they’re hoping to build there.
The price? About $12.3 billion.
Australian state of South Australia should build the nation’s first nuclear power plant — Westinghouse executive Rita Bowser said that price was all inclusive, according to The Advertiser in Adelaide, South Australia. It would include land, environmental safeguards and construction.Australia has zero nuclear power plants — and is known for being extremely averse to nuclear energy; it won’t even allow nuclear ships into its ports.
The historical aversion won’t affect the price much, apparently; the company’s guesstimate is in line with its current Vogtle project in Georgia, which has been plagued by cost overruns. It’s less than a comparable Chinese project, set to cost $24 billion. And it’s cheap in comparison to a project proposed in Johannesburg that could cost $100 billion.
The South Australia project’s future is fluid at the moment: the Nuclear Royal Commission hasn’t even decided whether it wants to recommend a nuclear facility.
That decision is set to come in May 2016. Tokyo-based Toshiba Corp. (TYO: 6502) owns 87 percent of the Cranberry-based Westinghouse Electric Co.
Adelaide’s January heatwave attributed to climate change
The findings are reported in the fourth issue of the American Meteorological Society’s report into extreme weather. The report looked at 33 extreme weather events around the world and analysed which could be attributed to human activity and which were the result of natural variability in weather patterns.
As David Mark reports, detecting the human hand in climate change is a developing area of climate science.
Continue reading
Forget climate change spin: Nuclear lobby’s aim is South Australia as radioactive trash dump
But the main game according to recent statements by Turnbull is to establish South Australia as a permanent waste dump for the world’s 350,000 tonnes of spent fuel containing more than 100 isotopes including plutonium-239 which lasts 250,000 years – one millionth of a gram is carcinogenic, americium, more toxic than plutonium and strontium-90 and caesium-137 lasting 300 years .
Increased uranium mining and more radioactive waste would be bad news for Australia http://www.theage.com.au/comment/increased-uranium-mining-and-more-
radioactive-waste-would-be-bad-news-for-australia-20151103-gkpyp3.html November 4, 2015 Helen Caldicott
The nuclear industry may advocate in Paris that nuclear power is the answer to global warming. When Malcolm Turnbull mooted the question about storing radioactive waste in Australia, I felt that I finally understood the aim of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission being conducted in South Australia. Then I wondered whether the nuclear industry is going to propose in Paris that nuclear power as the answer to global warming.
A curious situation is developing in South Australia that will have serious health ramifications, especially for Aboriginal communities, and will also severely impair the state’s reputation for its superb wine and food. Continue reading
Fact-checking Senator Sean Edwards’s claim on future nuclear bonanza
FREE ENERGY – WITH NUCLEAR? http://www.factsfightback.org.au/free-energy-with-nuclear/ November 4, 2015
The claim
Senator Sean Edwards claimed that an expansion of the nuclear fuel 
cycle in South Australia could provide low or even no cost electricity, create a generation of high-paying jobs and do so without any subsidies from government. His plan is to take spent fuel from older nuclear power plants from around the world, and reprocess them for use in fourth generation reactors here in Australia. We could be paid to take waste which we then turn into fuel, providing free electricity.
The facts
So called fourth generation reactors are not yet commercially available but are predicted to become available sometime in the 2030s. If these reactors become commercially available they will be able to take spent fuel rods(currently treated as nuclear waste) from older nuclear reactors and use them to generate electricity. This effectively turns a waste source into a valuable commodity.
The claim that low or no cost electricity can be produced comes from the idea that other countries would pay South Australia to take their nuclear waste. This would mean that not only will South Australia pay nothing for its fuel costs but it would generate an additional revenue source from taking other countries waste and turning it into a commodity.
We will address his argument as three linked claims:
- Other countries will pay Australia to take nuclear waste for storage.
- Australia can build fourth generation reactors to use this spent fuel to generate electricity.
- This will result in free electricity, and perhaps even earn sufficient profit for the state that it will allow a reduction in taxes.
Claim 1
The expert advice to the South Australian Royal Commission into expanding the nuclear fuel cycle gave a time-frame of 25 years to complete a long term waste storage facility. The Generation IV International Forum expects fourth generation reactors – capable of using existing waste stockpiles as fuel – to be commercially deployed in 2030-2040. This means that any waste storage facility that South Australia develops is likely to be completed at about the same time as fourth generation reactors become commercially available. It is likely that South Australia’s own waste storage business would need to compete with other countries’ fourth generation reactors. Spent fuel will cease to be waste, and will become a commodity. Why would anyone pay South Australia to take a commodity?
Claim 2
The circular reasoning is clear. If fourth generation reactors work as hoped, no-one will pay South Australia to take their spent fuel. Further, if fourth generation technology proves to be expensive and difficult to maintain, South Australia would have locked itself into expensive electricity generation, having set up a waste import industry. In either case, countries with existing stockpiles of spent fuel have a clear competitive advantage over South Australia. It makes more financial sense for them to build fourth generation reactors next to existing stockpiles than it does to transport it half-way around the world. There is no good outcome for South Australia.
Claim 3
According to the US Energy Information Administration, fuel represents less than 15% of the cost of generating electricity with advanced nuclear power plants. Most of the cost is in the initial capital expense and maintenance of the reactor. Even if Australia received “free” fuel – a wildly optimistic hope – the cost of building reactors is still great. Wind and solar have no fuel costs, but no one thinks renewable electricity is free. Furthermore, the cost of setting up an international waste storage component would be extreme large. The Pangea proposal which looked at setting up a nuclear waste disposal facility in the late 1990’s included port facilities and a fleet of specialised ships. It showed that any waste facility would be very expensive.
The first ton of waste that Australia received would require a gamble of many billions of dollars.The findings
Perhaps the cheapest way to take a gamble on nuclear power might be to create temporary storage facilities now, use this brief window before fourth generation reactors are deployed commercially to get paid to take waste, and be among the first in the world to build the reactors which can use our newly acquired waste for fuel.
However, the risks are obvious. If fourth generation reactors turn out to have high costs of operation, we would be locked into expensive electricity. If they can’t be made to work commercially at all, we would have given ourselves a high-level waste problem for tens of thousands of years, a problem that may not have a solution. And if they are cheap and effective, most countries could build their own and bid for the fuel we are so generously taking for a fee. If we can plan ahead for fourth generation technology, so can everyone else.
Even at best, if everything goes just as hoped, the payoff for our gamble is paltry. A 15% reduction in energy costs from nuclear reactors, which already have a higher cost per unit of energy than new wind and solar generators, is far from “free” electricity. A waste industry, costing billions to set up, which will see its revenues killed off – in as little as ten years – by the very technologies we hope to champion, can hardly be said to provide “generations” of high-paying jobs. And we will inherit a nuclear waste storage problem that must be solved for at least hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of years.
The most risk for the least reward is not a smart business plan. Free electricity is no more than a pleasant dream.
#NuclearCommissionSAust THE APPEARANCE OF BIAS – NOT A GOOD LOOK
THE ROYAL COMMISSION INTO THE NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE: Thursday 5th November, 2015
Today the Royal Commission into the Nuclear Fuel Cycle will be hearing oral evidence from London based insurance company Nuclear Risk Insurers, on the subject of insuring against a nuclear accident. On October 2015, Dr Timothy Stone, member of the Royal Commission’s Executive Advisory Committee, was appointed director of this company.
“How critically will evidence given by this company be treated, when a member of the Executive Advisory Committee is also one of its directors?” asked Nectaria Calan of Friends of the Earth Adelaide.
On Friday 30th October GE Hitachi gave oral evidence to the Royal Commission on their new PRISM reactor design. GE Hitachi is a global nuclear alliance between General Electric (US) and Hitachi (Japan). Hitachi is the parent company of Horizon Nuclear Power, a UK energy company developing new nuclear power stations, of which Dr Stone is also a director.
“Dr Stone’s connections with these companies highlights the broader issue here, which is his direct involvement in the nuclear industry, regardless of whether companies he’s employed by are giving evidence. He also owns Alpha-n Infrastructure, an elusive company with a partially built website which promotes nuclear power. This interest has not been disclosed by the Royal Commission on its website,” said Ms Calan.
Dr Stone is not the only Royal Commission member directly involved in the nuclear industry. Julian Kelly, its Technical Research Team Leader, is currently the Chief Technology Officer of Thor Energy, a Norwegian company focusing on the use of Thorium in nuclear reactors.
“If you’re directly involved in the very industry the Royal Commission is considering expanding, you potentially stand to gain something if a recommendation is made that this industry expand. At the very least there is an appearance of bias here that will undermine the credibility of the Royal Commissions findings,” said Ms Calan.
Don’t let strident pro nuclear voices drown out alternative voices
Gone Nuclear Fishing, The Adelaide Review, 2 Nov 15 John Spoehr With the nuclear Royal Commission, the South Australian Government has unexpectedly opened up a debate about our role in the nuclear fuel cycle. ……My own position at the outset is that it is not possible to examine the nuclear fuel cycle, and all that the nuclear industry entails, without detailed comparisons with the range of alternatives that are available to us in tackling climate change and building an energy industry for the future. Fair comparisons need to be commissioned and sought from a wide range of experts and subject to peer assessment. A citizens’ jury could be presented with the evidence to form another step in the advisory chain.
I am willing to listen to all sides of the debate while maintaining the highest levels of scepticism along the way. I need to be convinced, however, that Australia’s deeper participation in the nuclear fuel cycle is a superior journey to the alternatives available to us – particularly advanced solar thermal and energy storage technologies. Safety concerns and proliferation risks need to be honestly addressed. Other parts of the world might require other energy mixes, dictated by local realities and natural advantages but our position need not be dictated by what might be best applied in other nations to bring about sustainable reductions in greenhouse gases……
we need to ensure that the loudest and most well-resourced voices don’t drown out a robust debate about the alternatives available to us. http://adelaidereview.com.au/opinion/gone-nuclear-fishing/
#NuclearCommissionSA chief dismisses ‘overheated’ worries about #nuclear industry
Nuclear inquiry head says objections to uranium ‘overheated’ http://www.afr.com/news/nuclear-inquiry-head-says-objections-to-uranium-overheated-20151030-gkn2mo
by Simon Evans The former admiral overseeing South Australia’s nuclear inquiry says he is trying to be as straight as possible on what can be a divisive issue, but some concerns about the nuclear industry go too far.
Kevin Scarce, who was appointed by South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill this year to investigate if South Australia should go into nuclear enrichment, storage of waste and power generation, says he is on target to deliver preliminary findings by February before a final report by May. He says he is focused on objective evidence and tapping into global expertise, and accepts that many people have passionate views about the nuclear industry.
“Some of those concerns are overheated,” he told AFR Weekend. “I think it’s really important that we investigate all the issues and rely on fact-based evidence.”
Mr Scarce, who was governor of South Australia for seven years until mid-2014, has taken evidence from more than 60 witnesses. The latest on Friday was Eric Loewen, the chief consulting engineer at United States firm GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy.
Dr Loewen is an expert in the development of the company’s new generation of small, modular nuclear reactors designed to recycle spent nuclear fuel.
He was asked about the approximate costs of the new generation PRISM reactor, and said a United States Department of Energy report had estimated it at about $6 billion.
“We would describe that cost as very reasonable,” Dr Loewen said. Continue reading
Senator Sean Edwards wants the whole toxic nuclear chain here, as well as the radioactive trash dump
Edwards pushing forward on nuclear, Sky News, 30 October 2015 A government senator is upping the ante on the nuclear debate, saying a revamp of the industry could help deliver free energy to his fellow South Australians and reduce state taxes.
Unlike Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who is open to a discussion on exporting fuel rods, Sean Edwards wants to see spent ones recycled here and generators installed.
‘We are looking for an energy that week can generate at low cost so we can foster industry and foster jobs and ensure we are not destroying the planet at the same time,’ Edwards told Sky News on Friday, spruiking the economic benefits of having a local industry……. http://www.skynews.com.au/news/politics/national/2015/10/30/edwards-pushing-forward-on-nuclear-3.html#sthash.Okmc5vyv.dpuf– See more at: http://www.skynews.com.au/news/politics/national/2015/10/30/edwards-pushing-forward-on-nuclear-3.html#sthash.Okmc5vyv.dpuf
1 This month
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
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