Antinuclear

Nuclear lobby plans to further override South Australia’s Aboriginal Heritage Act

IN the mire of technical jargon at the hearings of the Nuclear Fuel Chain Royal Commission South Australia, sometimes a little gem emerges on what they really want to happen.

Ploughing through the pitch of James Voss  for importing radioactive trash, at the 15th October hearing,  Philip White alerted me to this little gem, from Voss:

“There clearly has to be a siting undertaking – siting of facility for storage. Within that, there has to be a broad set of agreements with the host – with South Australia…. This might be an equivalency to the indenture agreement between Olympic Dam and the state.”

Sounds inoccuous, doesn’t it?  But as Philip White says: “The indenture agreement precedent might sound great for them, but we need to expose the racism of that approach.”

Nectaria Calan comments – “That’s really interesting and corroborates our suspicions that the indenture is indeed a dangerous precedent for the nuclear industry in SA.  Imagine a waste dump exempt from parts of the Radiation Protection Act.” Calan has previously written on this Act:

 “exemptions from the Environmental Protection Act (1993) are of particular concern. The exclusion of this Act means that the Olympic Dam mine is not subject to the same environmental regulatory framework as other industrial projects in South Australia, and the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA), which administers the Act, is excluded from its monitoring role. BHP’s environmental performance is instead the responsibility of the Minister for Mineral Resources Development, who, based on BHP’s own reports, has full discretion to approve or reject programmes for the management and rehabilitation of the environment, without any obligation to consult with other agencies.”

The Josephite SA Reconciliation Circle are well aware of the real effect of  Roxby Downs (Indenture Ratification) Act , amended 2011. In their submission to the Royal Commission they state:

“Aboriginal Heritage Act
Our Members are particularly concerned that the Royal Commission is actually circulating
information that claims that the mining of uranium in SA is controlled by various legislative
safeguards including any protection afforded to Aboriginal Traditional Owners by the SA
Aboriginal Heritage Act.
Our members’ collective memory is very clear that the reverse is the actual truth. The 1982 SA
Roxby Downs Indenture Act initially for the original joint venturers, BP and Western Mining,
and later Western Mining and then BHP Billiton, EXEMPTED each operator from the
Aboriginal Heritage Act.
The Aboriginal Heritage Act needs to be
• reinstated as a genuine safeguard containing rules to be followed, and
• restored to its original strength
If this is not sufficient then Traditional Owners in our democracy need to be given the power
to refuse to have facilities on their lands – whether under native title or land rights legislation- that will imperil the health of their country, groundwater and the health of the
community members now and for future generations.”

October 23, 2015 Posted by Christina Macpherson | NUCLEAR ROYAL COMMISSION 2016 | Leave a comment

#NuclearCommissionSAust’s plan to bring radioactive trash to Australia – by Leasing

Next Thursday’s (Oct 15)  Adelaide public hearing at  the Nuclear Fuel Chain  Royal Commission  (NFCRC) could be an interesting one.

It will be about the concept of leasing uranium –   the idea that Australia continues to “own” uranium , so contracts to take back all radioactive trash.

It’s not a new idea – pushed for decades by  Dr John White

and by the former Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP)  and the current  International Framework for Nuclear Energy Cooperation (IFNEC)

Topics to be addressed at this public session:  Concept of nuclear fuel leasing and potential demand for those services. The international and commercial arrangements necessary to establish a fuel leasing operation

October 12, 2015 Posted by Christina Macpherson | NUCLEAR ROYAL COMMISSION 2016 | Leave a comment

#NuclearCommissionSAust hearing – is the Small Modular Reactor (SMR) a lemon?

Plough your way through the transcript of the October 7th hearing of the South Australia Nuclear Fuel Chain Royal Commission, and amidst all the technical hype, you will find some sobering points.

The speaker was  Mr Thomas Marcille, of Holtec International, developer of the SMR-160, who enthused about that SMRs future, and explained its safety features etc.

Yet there were bits that would make even a greedy Australian nuke enthusiast pause: 

“COMMISSIONER: Would it be fair to say that you’re expecting SMR or the 30 application of them outside the US more than inside?

MR MARCILLE: No question ……As a data point, I think that would suggest that the vast market is outside of the United States………, it’s possible for a national regulator outside the United States to first licence the SMR-160.”

He goes on to explain that the USA’s now more rigourous licensing process “part 52 or design certificate” is “far too arduous in terms of time and cost and risk.”

[translation – nobody in USA wants to buy the SMR, and it can’t get licensing there] 

“our concept is to develop a preliminary design specification and a preliminary safety analysis report and to then achieve an opportunity with a commercial client to submit that preliminary safety analysis report under the  review of a competent regulator for consideration of granting a construction permit. At such time the design will matriculate through the engineering specifications, the procurement specifications and the construction drawings. It’s unlikely that Holtec will continue to develop towards final safety analysis and final design unless a client steps forth.” 

[translation – we’re not going ahead with licensing until after we’ve signed up an overseas buyer, such as Australia]  [Holtec will]   “continue the investment in the business and the technology if and as the marketplace develops”

The Commissioner asked Mr Marcille about “ comparison to larger plants the cost economies and the advantages of small modular reactors.” and about “the extent to which companies expect to have an order book of plants to manufacture and the extent to which they can enjoy economies of scale 25 because they’re manufacturing multiple versions of the same item “. 

MR MARCILLE: Let me help by saying that – let me liken a large light-water reactor to a large apple and suggest that a lot of people think of small modular reactors as little apples. I would ask you to think of a small modular reactor like the SMR160 not as a little apple but a little orange. So now I’m comparing a big apple to a little orange and they’re entirely different. The apple is sweet, 40 the orange is sour. You get the picture…….

Mr Marcille continued with a lengthy and complex answer to this question, which included stressing the large costs of large reactors. I did not find it convincing .

October 10, 2015 Posted by Christina Macpherson | NUCLEAR ROYAL COMMISSION 2016 | Leave a comment

Today’s Royal Commission Hearings – on financial viability of nuclear operations

Today’s royal commission hearings are about the financial viability of enrichment, electricity and a waste dump.

October 5, 2015 Posted by Christina Macpherson | NUCLEAR ROYAL COMMISSION 2016 | Leave a comment

South Australia as radioactive trash dump our best nuclear bet – Kevin Scarce

Nuclear power option years away: royal commissioner Kevin Scarce http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/state-politics/nuclear-power-option-years-away-royal-commissioner-kevin-scarce/story-e6frgczx-1227556819827?sv=631d9f761d476c7a142e1be7add844b1
OCTOBER 5, 2015 Michael Owen SA Bureau Chief Adelaide There is a decade of regulatory and legislative change required before any real work can begin on establishing a nuclear energy ­industry in Australia, royal commissioner Kevin Scarce says.

Those changes would ­require federal and state bipartisanship, meaning tangible economic benefits of expanding nuclear activity would not be ­apparent until at least 2030. We need to be realistic about what the opportunities will be,” Mr Scarce, a former South Australia governor, told The Australian. “If we do decide to participate (in the nuclear cycle), you’d want to grow some jobs, some ­expertise, and grow the technical know-how to go into other elements of ­nuclear — it has to have some economic benefits, and part of this royal commission is to look 10-15 years into the future and see what else is being developed to see if there is a need for nuclear in our power-generation mix.”

The Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission was established by Labor Premier Jay Weatherill to look at South Australia’s ­involve­ment in the mining, enrichment, energy and storage ­phases in the life cycle of nuclear fuel, given the state has one of the world’s biggest uranium deposits and has been involved in uranium production for more than 25 years.

Mr Weatherill’s government is grappling with the worst unemployment rate of any state amid the decline of manufacturing. The Premier is keen to explore the economic benefits of a deeper ­involvement in the nuclear ­sector.

Mr Scarce said it might be that, given Australia’s energy ­demand was decreasing, coupled with an abundance of renewables, ­nuclear generators were not necessary. This would leave a ­nuclear waste dump as the most likely source of economic benefit.

Mr Scarce said it was “absolutely” the case that there was a decade of bipartisan legislative and regulatory change that had to occur before any nuclear industry could be up and running. “One should not think that if we turn the switch on at the end of this royal commission after the government has had a look at it that benefits will be delivered within the decade — they won’t be,” he said.

“In order to provide the investment certainty that would be ­required, because of the length and cost of this industry, if you don’t have bipartisan support at both the state and federal level, an industry will not go anywhere.”

Mr Scarce said the state opposition had been very supportive, as had the government, which ­established the inquiry. However, there could be major hurdles under any future federal Labor government. A ­decision to change the ALP national platform opposing a ­nuclear industry has been delayed until after the release of the commission’s report, due on May 6.

Former prime minister Tony Abbott has said there was no need for Australia to pursue nuclear energy because of the nation’s large coal and gas ­reserves, ­although he said nuclear energy would help cut carbon pollution.

Mr Scarce, who has visited several countries on fact-finding missions this year, will begin 30 days of public hearings until December.

October 4, 2015 Posted by Christina Macpherson | NUCLEAR ROYAL COMMISSION 2016 | 1 Comment

Dr Arjun Makhijani explains why Small Modular Nuclear Reactors (SMRs) are doomed to fail

PUBLIC HEARING, SA NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE ROYAL COMMISSION DR ARJUN MAKHIJANI, Institute for Energy and Environmental Research ADELAIDE , THURSDAY, 1 OCTOBER 2015

Excerpt “…….the core idea of an SMR is that you have smaller reactors. Of course you lose the economies of scale, reactors are big because cost of  materials goes according to surface area, and power production goes according to volume, and the larger the reactor the smaller the material needed per kilowatt.

That is the theory and that is why there were small reactors in the fifties, they were proposed and we went to bigger reactors because they were cheaper, all other things being equal. So you go back to smaller reactors, the underlying technology will tell you that the costs per kilowatt, in terms of materials and labour, the number of wells you need per kilowatt, the amount of steel you need per kilowatt will all go up.

The proposal is that all of these costs would be offset by assembly line manufacturing. So you won’t have to set it up on site. And in theory it is a fair idea to evaluate and you ask what is the size of the assembly line you need? And who is going to create this assembly line and the required supply chain, the vessels and the pumps and valves and all of it? So if you look at what the Department of Energy has said, what the industry itself has said is that you can’t – so you are really displacing the heavy capital cost upstream from the reactor sites……

so now instead of having a 10 billion dollar problem, you have got a 50 or a 100 million dollar problem because to .SA Nuclear 01.10.15 P-431 Spark and Cannon set up a supply chain for say 100 or 150 reactors a year, you need that scale of investment……

you need a supply chain investment that is about the same order of kind of an assembly line for airbuses or (indistinct) So it’s very, very huge. So who is 5 going to make all of these orders that will cause some private party to make that investment in the assembly line? With airbuses we know they get advance orders of hundreds of aircraft and they set up their assembly lines. The answer to that question is, no one other than governments…….

How you would handle such a system from a regulatory point of view is 15 mysterious to me because when you have assembly lines, as I note in my paper, you have recalls. Today we have got an 11 million car recall, one of the most reputable companies from perhaps the most technologically reputable country in the world, Germany. What are we going to do if we have 2,000 assembly line reactors that are found to have a fault through design? By design I mean 20 as not properly conceived, or through some cover up, like what happened with Volkswagen. How are we going to deal with it? Are we going to shut them down? Are we going to send them to the manufacturer? Are we going to – it’s unclear…..

the fine 25 print of small module reactors is much, much more complicated economically and in terms of the risks and investments, than their performance have led you to believe. That’s why they’re not – I mean I think – at least two of the four companies that are embarked on it, are already not pursuing it in the United States. Fallen apart before anything was built…. ” http://nuclearrc.sa.gov.au/app/uploads/mp/files/videos/files/151001-topic-4-day-2-transcript-full.v2.pdf

October 2, 2015 Posted by Christina Macpherson | NUCLEAR ROYAL COMMISSION 2016 | 1 Comment

The pro nuclear front group Breakthrough Institute joins push for nuclear power in South Australia

The Breakthrough Institute (BI) was notorious for its attacks on Al Gore and climate scientists.It has a long history of trying to   discredit renewable energy, in particular, attacking Germany’s Energiewende. More recently, BI has discovered climate change, as that is a useful tactic in their long-running promotion of new nuclear technology

the promoters of new nuclear reactors for South Australia certainly include idealistic and altruistic people, some of whom have bought the BI’s message. 

Who wants to be a nuclear billionaire? Independent Australia, 1 Oct 15  Noel Wauchope navigates the complex web of ambiguity behind submissions to South Australia’s Nuclear Fuel Chain Royal Commission.. Some promoters of nuclear industry expansion have very altruistic motivations.

Just who are the people who want South Australia to be a nuclear industry hub?  The submissions to the Royal Commission give some indications, though it is not easy to work this out……

The pro nuclear submissions on the whole, come from interested parties, where a commercial or career motive can be discerned: that is often clearly shown, but sometimes is not apparent. There are also some pro nuclear submissions that are quite cautious about promoting development, and a few who are inclined towards sitting on the fence.

Of the 94 pro nuclear submissions published, 46 come from companies or organisations connected with the nuclear industry. But who knows how many nuclear companies really did send in submissions, as theirs were allowed to not be published, due to ‘commercial in confidence’?

….most favoured topic, as with the organisations, was Issues Paper 3, “ELECTRICITY GENERATION”…

Their  backgrounds?  20 of the [pro nuclear] 48 individuals are now, or were formerly, employed in a nuclear or nuclear-related company, government or university department.(1)  In some cases they state this clearly, in other cases it is not apparent…..

Then there are the 2 career politicians, Sen Sean Edwards and MP Tom Kenyon, who have hitched their political future to the nuclear star.

Then there are nuclear publicists, who are not necessarily engineers or involved in the nuclear industry, but who have become well known for their pro nuclear articles or lobbying.  There are only 4 listed names that could be described as pro nuclear publicists (2)

….the majority of the pro nuclear  submissions enthuse about new nuclear reactors – “Generation IV” Small Modular Reactors” “Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors”.

When you add those individual submissions to the 46 from nuclear-related organisations, it looks as if the overwhelming support for new nuclear reactors comes from interested parties –  nuclear related companies, or individuals connected to the industry, who seek  profit or career advancement. Continue reading →

October 2, 2015 Posted by Christina Macpherson | NUCLEAR ROYAL COMMISSION 2016 | 2 Comments

#NuclearCommissionSAust paying lip service only to renewable energy as “low carbon’ option

South Australia’s Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission seems to be focused on electricity generation from low carbon sources, but is paying lip service only to renewable energy, Noel Wauchope 30 Sept 15 

1.  Climate Change and Energy Policy
2. National Electricity Market
3. Geology and Hydrogeology of South Australia,
4. Low Carbon Energy Generation Options,
5. Estimating Costs and benefits of Nuclear Activities
6. Environmental Impact: Lessons Learnt from Past SA Practices

At the same time, the Commission is going through the submissions that it received from the public, and publishing these on its website, http://nuclearrc.sa.gov.au/submissions/?search=Submissions  under 4 topic headings:

1. EXPLORATION EXTRACTION AND MILLING
2. FURTHER PROCESSING AND MANUFACTURE
3. ELECTRICITY GENERATION
4. MANAGEMENT STORAGE AND DISPOSAL OF WASTES.

I have been laboriously reading through these submissions. The Commission’s numbering method is haphazard, as they will sometimes count one person’s numerous submission. Also they don’t publish all the submissions.  The Commission’s present total of submissions published is 454.

I counted the submissions differently, instead, just counting how many individuals and organisations put in submissions. My total is only 173, as many individuals put in several submissions.

However, there is one point on which both the Commission and I agree. The topic of greatest interest is No. 3 ELECTRICITY GENERATION. http://nuclearrc.sa.gov.au/submissions/?search=Submissions&query=&cat=Issues+Paper+3 Especially in the case of submissions in favour of nuclear electricity generation, that is the most popular  topic. Many of the 94 pro nuclear submitters included that topic, while  29 of them were concerned solely with that topic. When we consider that nuclear companies did not have to have their submissions published (commercial in-confidence), we can assume that there were quite a few more of these.

At the same time, the Commission’s favourite topic for the public hearings seems to be LOW CARBON ENERGY GENERATION OPTIONS.  http://nuclearrc.sa.gov.au/public-sessions/

So I conclude that electricity generation from low carbon sources is the major theme in this Royal Commission.

I’ve also studies the speeches given by Royal Commissioner Kevin Scarce, both in regional meetings, and in reporting back from overseas trips. When it comes to “low carbon’ energy options, he always addresses the question of renewable energy in the same way. His stock phrase seems to be “The Commission will be looking at renewable energy”, and then returns to the nuclear subject.

 

But where do they look?

On their overseas trips the Commission spent much time at nuclear electricity generation locations – notably in France, at AREVA, Le Hague, and in Canada. I have yet to hear of any visit to a solar or wind generating plant.

When it comes to the public hearings, the Commission is devoting 3 days to LOW CARBON ENERGY GENERATION OPTIONS, but generally only 1 or 2 to the other topics.  These LOW CARBON hearings will be held in Adelaide on 29th September and 1st and 2nd October. The speakers will be: http://nuclearrc.sa.gov.au/app/uploads/2015/09/150929-Topic-4-Day-1-Flyer-v2.pdf

• Mr Donald Hoffman,  President and CEO of EXCEL Services Corporation, which provides specialist advice and support services to nuclear facilities in the US and internationally. Mr Hoffman served as President of the American Nuclear Society from 2013-2014. He currently provides presentations on the benefits of nuclear science and technology to the US Congress and is chairing a committee to support all the US Governors on implementing the US Clean Energy Act and addressing the Climate Control Acts.
• Mr Andrew Stock,  director of energy companies Horizon Oil Limited and Alinta Holdings, and past director of Silex Systems, Geodynamics, Transform Solar and Australia Pacific LNG
• Mr Arjun Makhijani, Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, President of the IEER and holds a Ph.D. in Engineering, specialising in nuclear fusion
• Dr Keung Koo Kim and Dr Kyun S. Zee, Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute . The Institute (KAERI) has a history of over 50 years of research and development in nuclear energy. . Dr Kim is the Director of   Advanced Reactor Development.
• Mr Thomas Marcille, of Holtec (US)  Holtec International is an energy technology company with a focus on carbon-free power generation, specifically commercial nuclear and solar energy. Mr Marcille is Vice President and Chief Nuclear Officer at Holtec International and is involved in the development of Holtec’s small modular reactor, the SMR-160. He has provided nearly three decades of service in senior engineering positions in the nuclear industry in the US.

Four of these speakers are nuclear experts. The fifth,  Andrew Stock has experience in large oil and gas projects, and renewables. He and  Arjun Makhijani should provide some balance. Still, it seems to me to be well weighted in favour of new nuclear projects, and the low carbon option of renewable energy barely gets a look-in.

A while back, nuclear power was being touted as “renewable”. That was patently untrue, and the phrase went out of fashion as far as nuclear power was concerned. It seems that it has been replaced now by “low carbon”. The nuclear lobby still quite often condemns renewable energy as inadequate, as “not a base load source”, as too expensive, etc. However, nuclear promotion today is more sophisticated, and will include renewable energy, along with nuclear, as “part of the energy mix”. So “low carbon” is the preferred term for nuclear promotion, and it looks to me as if this is the way in which the Royal Commission is using that term, and paying only lip service to renewable energy. .

September 30, 2015 Posted by Christina Macpherson | NUCLEAR ROYAL COMMISSION 2016 | Leave a comment