Nuclear News Australia, at the end of January 16
New South Wales. Hill End community remains resolute against radioactive waste plan.
South Australia. Anti nuclear atomic physicist is South Australia’s Senior Citizen of The Year. South Australian Cabinet nuclear stooge Leesa Vlahos already spruiking for nukes!.
Just a few of the pro nuclear Submissions to South Australia’s Nuclear Fuel Chain Royal Commission :
- Business South Australia wants nuclear waste import, is worried about public opinion.
- Australia should not be guinea pig for new nuclear reactors – Australia’s Chief Scientist.
- ASSOCIATION OF MINING AND EXPLORATION COMPANIES (AMEC) wants Pro Nuclear Public Education.
- George Bereznai‘s Submission to #NuclearCommissionSAust – religious faith in “new nukes”.
- Geoff Russell Submission to #NuclearCommissionSAust: convince public that radiation is OK.
Western Australia KARLALMYI WALK: 5th – 12th June 2016 anti uranium mining .
CLIMATE:RENEWABLE ENERGY Science researcher debunks Tony Abbott’s climate claims. End for mains-only power, with solar energy storage?
Why on earth is the nuclear issue taboo in Australia ?
Why on earth have Australian governments, media, and corporate world been able to put it over the Australian public? I think that the mainstream media are especially to blame? Are they really that stupid? Are their jobs really on the line? So that they can just keep mum about what’s going on in South Australia, because it’s only a South Australian issue?
Only today The Ecologist has discussed the serious terrorism risk in transporting nuclear waste across the world. It is serious concern in UK, USA, in Japan – wherever nuclear waste is piling up.
Only in Australia it doesn’t matter, apparently. Doesn’t get a mention in the articles about what issues Australia faces in 2016. No mention of this very dubious Royal Commission in South Australia. No mention that the ALP will be reviewing its policy on nuclear power.
No other country in the world has considered a nuclear waste importing industry. USA and Japan tried it on Mongolia, receiving a strong and definitive knock-back.
Because of course – it matters only to South Australia?
The Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission will release its Tentative Findings in Adelaide on Monday 15 February 2016.
“The Commission will then undertake a week-long public information program, visiting key regional South Australian cities and towns including Port Pirie, Port Augusta, Whyalla, Port Lincoln, Mt Gambier, Ceduna, Renmark and Aboriginal communities in the Far North and West Coast.
Commissioner Kevin Scarce said the release of the Tentative Findings would provide an opportunity to update progress and highlight how the community might comment on the report during a five week feedback period…..
“The Tentative Findings will be a document that reflects the Commission’s current thinking and the evidence behind it. The community then has five weeks to provide written comments on the findings and the evidence upon which it is based.
The Tentative Findings will be available to download from thewww.nuclearrc.sa.gov.au from 11am, February 15, 2016 or by contacting the office on 08 8207 1480. Feedback on the Tentative Findings can be provided to the Commission via its website, email or through traditional mail delivery. Details on this process will be on the NFCRC website soon.”
Royal Commission Public Meeting details:
* Monday, 15 February – Adelaide Town Hall (6pm)
* Tuesday, 16 February – Port Pirie Yacht Club (1pm), Port Augusta Institute Theatre (6pm), Ceduna Foreshore Hotel (6pm)
* Wednesday, 17 February – Whyalla Mt Laura Homestead (12.00pm), Port Lincoln Hotel (6.30pm), Coober Pedy United Club (6pm)
* Thursday, 18 February – Mt Gambier Main Complex (6.30pm) Renmark Hotel Galaxy Room (6pm)
* APY, Umuwa and Oak Valley community meetings are also being planned for February.
Australia: nuclear news this week
Mercifully short newslist today – I hope. I’ve been preoccupied with reading all the dreary pro nuclear Submissions to the South Australia Nuclear Fuel Chain Royal Commission. (You can read the Submissions here, or my potted versions here. )
Nearly all pro nuclear Submissions come from people with either obvious or vested interests in the nuclear industry, (in contrast to the variety of sources of anti nuclear Submissions)
Anyway, the Commission will announce its tentative findings on 15 February. These are their likely recommendations. The pro nuke lobby is beavering away, lobbying especially lobbying the ALP.
My favourite pro nuke Submissions come from Geoff Russell, who sent in two. I am indebted to the Twitter troll “Thomas Huxley” for recommending these as “essential reading” . Russell devotes his confusing jargon to rubbishing thee media, reputable authors, governments, because he knows, and ?proves it with confusing jargon, that ionising radiation is just nothing to worry about. Falling off a solar roof is the big public heath worry. Another Geoff, Geoff Hudson, wants the Commission to go for floating nuclear reactors at sea.
South Australian Cabinet gets two new pro nuclear enthusiasts.
Australian Nuclear science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) not honest about cyclotrons.
The campaign against Oman Ama nuclear dump site is gaining momentum.
Mongolia secret [but failed] nuclear waste deal – a model for Australia?
Oh my God! Global Warming Is Affecting The TENNIS!
Australia’s Nuclear News at the start of 2016
Well, there isn’t much, it would seem. And yet, and yet. I gaze into my magical witches globe, and what do I see? Why , it is Kevin Scarce, and the entire Australian nuclear lobby, feverishly spinning a web of confusion for the report, (due on 15th February) of the South Australian Nuclear Fuel Chain Royal Commission.
What they want, is want they wanted before the charade even started – Australia to decide to be the first country in the world to announce itself as the world’s nuclear toilet. But, more than that, it’s the underlying imperative to set up the entire nuclear fuel chain in this country. South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill no doubt thinks that this will save his political skin. We await what will be a tome, or should I say tomb? of doublespeak.
On February 15, Dr Helen Caldicott will be speaking in Adelaide on this issue, (prior to setting off for St Louis County, USA, where there continues to be a nuclear waste pollution and fire threat drama)
Also, bubbling along quietly, residents strengthen their opposition to proposal for Lucas Heights nuclear waste dumping in their area. Meanwhile, solar and wind energy initiatives are happening.
I will continue to examine the Submissions to the Nuclear Royal Commission, with extracts on my website https://antinuclear.net/. Particular emphasis on the pro nuclear ones.
2016 Australian Issues For Nuclear News
I plagiarise myself here – Five big nuclear issues for 2016 — and Australia’s role in them. In short the issues are:
- Nuclear Weapons. We can’t go on pretending that Australia is a disarmament hero when we continue to host America’s secret Pine Gap site, rely on the “nuclear umbrella”, and enthusiastically support USA’s every militaristic move – e.g by surveillance flights near China coast.
- Indigenous rights. This is such a big one. When is mainstream Australia going to wake up to the fact that we can’t just leave it to the Aborigines to resist the nuclear empire? Are we going to sit back and let the nuclear/mining industries take over heritage Aboriginal land – as in Western Australia right now.
- Renewable energy. The dinosaur energy industries, and especially nuclear, prevail on the Australian Government to stifle 21st Century renewables – and this, in the country that has the best potential for renewables, and the greatest likelihood of climate disasters. Are we going to stay an international climate pariah? And anyway, despite the government, it’s all happening in solar and wind here.
- Australia as the world’s nuclear waste dump. The shonky South Australian Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission has from the outset, aimed for Australia as the global nuclear toilet. The pretense that this is just a little South Australian State matter cannot go on. It’s a National matter, and our media is a disgrace for not having covered this throughout 2015. It will be an election issue, too, and Labor will be put on the spot.
- The propaganda war. Gotta restrain my rage here, but Australia, like the rest of the world, will be hearing plenty about how “nuclear fixes climate change” and how “radiation is not bad for you, after all”. That’ll be a test of our journalists – will they toe the corporate line? (Well we know that THE AUSTRALIAN will)
Australia 2015 in nuclear news
You wouldn’t think this, from the mainstream media coverage, but 2015 has been a successful year for the Australian nuclear-free movement, with Aboriginal led opposition to nuclear waste dump plans, the end to the Ranger uranium mine, and a lively anti-nuclear movement. In polling, 72% of Australians oppose this nation becoming the world’s radioactive trash dump.
The key nuclear issue for 2015 was radioactive trash. Australia is obligated to take back nuclear trash, reprocessed in France, UK and Argentina, but which originated at the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor in Sydney.
An intelligent visitor from Mars might wonder as to why Australia doesn’t just shut down that reactor, store that small amount of trash at Lucas Heights, and stop producing more, especially as a nuclear reactor is now not necessary for production of medical radioisotopes.
But hey – you’d have to explain to that Martian that Lucas Heights is the nuclear lobby’s foot in the door to Australia, and also that the lobby hopes to confuse Australians into accepting something entirely different – a global nuclear waste import business.
Hence the setting up of South Australia’s Nuclear Fuel Chain Royal Commission, an attempt to establish a waste-dump in South Australia. With breathtaking hypocrisy, this clearly biased Royal Commission pretends that this is just a South Australian matter. Australia’s government and truly pathetic mainstream media go along with this hypocrisy, so the question of Australia becoming the world’s nuclear toilet is just not even discussed across the nation.
The Australian government had already learned, to its cost, that Northern Territory indigenous landowners can defeat their plans for nuclear waste dumping on Aboriginal land. So the government was forced to set up an unwieldy system of inviting volunteers to host the nuclear waste that must be received back from France in 2016. So far,only non indigenous volunteers have been forthcoming, and these met with strong local opposition.
Despite continual funding cutbacks, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency is pushing ahead, and investing in projects which will change the face of Australia’s energy market — if the government allows it for any longer. Australia leads the world in home rooftop solar.
The Nuclear Fuel Chain Royal Commission might have bitten off more than it intended to. There were numerous powerful and well constructed Submissions to this Commission, opposing its nuclear waste dump plan. You can read some of these at the Submissions pages on my Antinuclear website.
Space does not here permit discussion of Australia’s rather embarrassing role at the December Paris climate talks.
19 Dec wrap of Australian nuclear news
Investigative journalism lives! In this media climate of the 24 hr news cycle, and of journalists losing their jobs – it can still happen! This week:
McClatchy News Service’s Washington Bureau’s Rob Hotakainen, Lindsay Wise, Frank Matt and Samantha Ehlinger spent a year, over 100 interviews across USA, and analysing over 70 million records in a federal database obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. for this story: At least 33,480 American nuclear workers dead from radiation-caused illness
The Center For Public Integrity’s India’s nuclear industry pours its wastes into a river of death and disease, and also India’s repression of activists who protest about its poor safety record.
AUSTRALIA
SOUTH AUSTRALIA NUCLEAR FUEL CHAIN ROYAL COMMISSION has gone very quiet, following its low key rural community propaganda meetings earlier this month. It’s getting ready to release findings in February. I note A couple of good Submissions. Aboriginal, environmental, public health groups produced a composite report on assessing the Commission:
The report raises serious concerns about the Royal Commission, from the unrepresentative and unbalanced composition of the Expert Advisory Committee, conflicts of interest, the Royal Commission’s unwillingness to correct factual errors, to a repeated pattern of pro-nuclear claims being uncritically accepted and promoted.
FEDERAL SEARCH FOR WASTE DUMP SITE for Lucas Heights’ returning nuclear wastes. Aboriginals near Alice Springs, and medical experts fight nuclear dump plan, but they’re up against complete stupidity! Even more stupid, the Shire of Leonora, Western Australia is enthusiastic for nuclear waste dump. Hill End community (NSW) not satisfied with MP John Cobb’s attitude to nuclear waste dump proposal. Lithgow, New South Wales, is very concerned about transport of radioactive trash.
WESTERN AUSTRALIA Yeelirrie uranium proposal poses genuine extinction threat.
QUEENSLAND Wangan and Jagalingou traditional owners continue to fight $16.5 billion Carmichael coal mine. Queensland Premier says “focused on solar and wind’ but also ‘committed to coal’
CLIMATE CHANGE. Prime Minister Turnbull returns from Paris Summit with the same old Abbott fossil-fuel pleasing policies, but with an unnerving jollity “great optimism and faith in humanity’s genius”.
RENEWABLE ENERGY new wind farms to go ahead as Turnbull removes barrier to Clean Energy investment. Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) funding new solar technology to reduce solar costs. In Australian Capital Territory panasonic home battery trial launched.
Today’s climate change and nuclear news – Australia
CLIMATE CHANGE. Australia ranked way down the bottom for climate change action. Julie Bishop won ‘fossil of the day’ award for her coal-praising speech at Paris climate talks. Australia is at this stage refusing to join the ‘high ambition coalition’ of 100 nations wanting to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees C, to save our Pacific neighbours. Important contribution of Australia’s indigenous people at Paris Climate Summit.
SOUTH AUSTRALIA NUCLEAR FUEL CHAIN ROYAL COMMISSION quietly pressing on, with public hearings in Adelaide dominated by nuclear proponents. Commission blocks lessons learned from Maralinga.
Royal Commission chief Kevin Scarce has been making ?soothing comments about nuclear industry for Australia being a long term project, and understanding opposition to it “ “I think (the fear) is probably a mixture of seeing the impact of accidents and perhaps not understanding the technology,” (the good old argument – don’t worry – the technical experts know best) . At the same time, Scarce is clearly moving on to the next phase – that of getting Australia’s environmental legislation overturned.
While Scarce clearly has his sights on this National issue, and is discussing this with Australia’s pro nuclear Chief Scientist Alan Finkel, the propaganda spin goes on very quietly at the rural State level only, with “community information” sessions at Port Pirie Yacht club (3/12), at Port Lincoln and Whyalla this week.
The South Australian government has just granted an addition $3 million to the Royal Commission. Additional to how much already, we wonder? A super expensive exercise – submissions, months of hearings, and junkets around S Australia, and to Japan, France, South Korea, Canada etc for the predominantly pro nuclear Commission members.
Meanwhile a poll,finds that 72% of Australians oppose this nation becoming the world’s radioactive trash dump.
NUCLEAR WASTE Even Right wing Senators Madigan and Bill Heffernan angry about unsafety of nuclear waste ship bringing back reprocessed Lucas Heights spent nuclear fuel rods. Elaborate secret operation transports deadly nuclear wastes through Sydney. Search goes for national site for Lucas Heights nuclear reactor wastes though they pretend that it is for “medical” wastes. Local communities are not fooled, for example, as expressed at a meeting at Hill End (NSW).
RENEWABLE ENERGY. Sydney’s Lord Mayor Clover Moore in Paris: upbeat about city’s climate change action. Increasing popularity of community solar energy projects in Australia. Govt talks big on renewables ‘innovation’, but will close Australian Renewable Energy Agency. Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) funds CSIRO’s solar energy initiative.
How much is the #NuclearCommissionSAust farce costing the taxpayer?
How much has the South Australian tax-payer already spent on the Nuclear Fuel Chain Royal Commission? The public should be informed – how much are they paying Kevin Scarce and his overwhelmingly pro nuclear merry men for all their ‘hearings’ and ‘information sessions’ and junkets to rural Australa, and to Japan, France, Canada, South Korea etc?
Blind Freddy could tell that the purpose is now, and always has been , to set up an international nuclear waste importing business – aimed at enriching a very few South Australians – and bugger the costs to the State’s children their children their chilred and beyond.
A whole heap of blah has gone on about nuclear power stations – which, everybody knows, is not an option, due to their astronomic expense. Then Kevin Scarce presumably will look good when he rules that one out, and just goes for the waste dump.
Anyway, it’s about time we all knew how much this whole sorry farce is costing.
ABC News reported thuis week that an extra $3 million will be pumped into the Nuclear Fuel Chain Royal Commission
South Australia Nuclear Fuel Chain Royal Commission quietly spinning to rural SA
It’s hard to keep up with developments in the South Australian Nuclear Fuel Chain Royal Commission.
On the one hand, as Kevin Scarce has recently revealed, the first move for the nuclear lobby is to get rid of Australia’s national legislation against setting up a nuclear waste dump. (There is special legislation allowing only the Lucas Height reprocessed nuclear wastes to be deposited)
On the other hand, the Royal Commission is keeping a very low profile, nationally.
Do they think that rural South Australia is stupid? Quietly quietly, the Royal Commission is doing its propaganda bit in rural centres – at Port Pirie Yacht club (3/12), at Port Lincoln and Whyalla this week.
Nuclear and climate news in Australia this week
The global nuclear lobby is blitzing Paris, and the world, with propaganda, as the nuclear industry makes a concerted effort to hijack the Climate Summit.
As this email flies through cyberspace, some community groups and unions prepare to protest at Port Kembla, NSW, the arrival of radioactive trash on its return trip to Lucas Heights. However, the dock workers union, the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) , will unload the wastes, without incident, as they recognise Australia’s obligation to take back the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor wastes reprocessed in France. The MUA makes it clear that they will not co-operate in the event of other nuclear wastes that might be imported separately as part of an international nuclear waste industry as proposed by the South Australia Nuclear Fuel Chain Royal Commission.
In tandem with the global nuclear PR, one of Australia’s most long term and most hypocritical nuclear pusher delivered a volley of support for importing nuclear wastes, and a volley of attack on anti-nuclear critics. Gareth Evans, enjoying world-wide prestige for his involvement in Nuclear Disarmament, has always promoted “peaceful” nuclear power. At the South Australian Nuclear Fuel Chain Royal Commission he rejoiced at the plan to import nuclear wastes – Australia would “stand very tall in the international community”. He dismissed safety concerns as “emotional” .
Dr Margaret Beavis of Medical Association for Prevention of War explained that a national waste dump is NOT NEEDED for medical nuclear wastes.
Yet another delay in radioactive cleanup of Sydney’s Hunter’s Hill.
Malcolm Turnbull in Paris: the dinosaurs are still in charge of climate policy. Australian govt’s contribution to UN Climate Summit – pro coal video “Coal is Amazing”! United Nations call on Australia to produce a consistent climate policy, not ‘mixed messages’. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vGW49gJE-Q Greens expose the Australian govt’s ‘paltry’ contribution on climate change. Australia refuses to sign Paris communique on phasing out fossil fuel subsidies . No new money for Pacific Islands climate help: Australian govt just taking it from foreign aid.
Australian govt still will axe Australian Renewable Energy Agency despite ARENA’s big new project. City of Melbourne leads new renewable energy project.
Climate special news 28 November
The climate is a common good, belonging to all and meant for all.
What kind of world do we want to leave to those who come after us, to children who are now growing up?
It is time to acknowledge that light- hearted superficiality has done us no good.
We need to be alert to one sad sign of the “globalization of indifference”: the fact that we are gradually growing accustomed to the suffering of others, as if it were something normal
We are confronted with a choice which cannot be ignored: either to improve or to destroy the environment. – Pope Francis
As I write, the Paris Climate Change Summit COP21 gets underway. There is one important message about COP21 – IT’S A START – NOT A CONCLUSION. UNICEF reports that the greatest harm from climate change will be to children. Impetus for action should come from COP21, but corporations are geared up to undermine climate agreements.
I am happy to report that it looks very much as if nuclear power is off the table as an energy source to be chosen at the Paris summit – too dangerous, and more significantly, too expensive.
AUSTRALIA
Melbourne kicked off the global wave of rallies with a huge climate march. Rallies will follow in capital and other cities. Firefighters will march for climate action: global warming increases their dangers. Strong contingent of young Australian activists attending Paris climate summit. Rural Australia will be represented in Paris. The head of the UN climate talks confirmed that videos of our marches will play on a huge screen as Heads of State walk into the Paris climate conference on Monday! Can’t say our political leaders will be much use there. Same pro corporate policies as old PM Abbott, – just said more slimily.
NUCLEAR ISSUES: Lack of space here to detail the numerous protests going on against setting up a national waste dump, supposedly for medical wastes, but really for nuclear reactor wastes, returning from overseas.
New report rules out nuclear power for Australia, on economic grounds.
SOUTH AUSTRALIA:
Deadly bushfires (a dangerous place to locate a nuclear waste dump) . South Australian govt has already ruled out nuclear power. South Australia to aim for zero emissions by 2050.
Nuclear Royal Commission:
- Expert Dr Mark Nutt Nutt on waste storage showed up the reality of untested, in fact non existent solutions for radioactive trash disposal.
- Dr Edwin Lyman said Direct nuclear waste disposal is best: pyroreprocessing has dangers, and discussed the dangers of transporting radioactive wastes.
INTERNATIONAL – more at http://nuclear-news.net/
Pope and Muslim leaders in call for climate action.
Declaration of the World Nuclear Victims Forum in Hiroshima.
The unmentioned apocalyptic ISIS terror – attack on nuclear reactors. Nor do world leaders talk about the terrorism possibility regarding nuclear weapons. Increasing risk of sabotage by extremists working in the nuclear industry.
Government and media are lying about the purpose of the hunt for nuclear waste dump ,site
Australia’s mainstream media keep on repeating the same old lie about the “national 
nuclear waste dump being all about medical wastes.
It’s not. It’s about the highly radioactive wastes now being returned from France to the Lucas Heights nuclear site in Sydney. By contracts made long ago, Australia is obligated to take back spent nuclear spent fuel rods that were sent to France, UK and Argentina for processing. And this will continue to happen, as long as the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor is kept going.
Production of medical radioisotopes is not the major function of the reactor. And these medical isotopes are now being made much more safely in non nuclear cyclotrons – without all those problems of safety, of being a terrorism target, and of radioactive trash, and its dangerous transport.
Hospital medical wastes are overwhelmingly of short-lived radioactivity, and therefore well suited to disposal near the site of use. No need to cart them all the way to South Australia. That’s just an nexcuse fofr the real aim – the storage of lucas heights highly radioactive trash returning from overseas.
Nuclear news as end of November nears
Last week, it was all about the nuclear waste returning from France. This week, a very successful nuclear lobby lie has taken over. All of the mainstream media, even the ABC who should know better, are pitching the search for a dump site as necessary for “medical” wastes – a lie that needs exposing.
Kimba – Wow – do we ever need good old Kimba the White Lion to check out this spin! Officials from Kimba , South Australia, shown around Lucas Heights nuclear reactor, to admire the “solely medical” purposes of the reactor – and presumably therefore to later on welcome in the very toxic radioactive trash returning from France, UK and Argentina. Farmers at Kimba are less enthralled.
It’s a charade really. Blind Freddy could tell that the govt-cum-nuclear-lobby has already earmarked South Australia. The logic runs like this. South Australia’s already polluted: it’s the place to start. But we will start on “whiteys’ land, to avoid Aboriginal fuss. (For THE OTHER, later plan – We’ve already fairly well radioactively stuffed up the Maralinga area. Pity about the Aborigines – but we can bribe them into agreeing to completely radioactively stuff it up.)
Meanwhile a few other sites are pitched – from 28 voluntarily nominated sites around Australia – Sallys Flat in NSW, Hale in the Northern Territory, Cortlinye, Pinkawillinie and Barndioota in South Australia and Oman Ama in Queensland. Australian govt to pay 4 times land value for nuclear dump site, plus #10 million to local community. Communities object – Queensland, including the govt there, New South Wales, Northern Territory.
Indigenous Adnyamathanha Camp Law Mob shocked at selection of South Australian site for radioactive trash dump.
Australian Conservation Foundation wants wide-ranging public review into Australia’s nuclear materials.
SAFETY ISSUES : Indonesia will close their waters to ship carrying radioactive trash to Australia. Danger in transporting radioactive trash.
South Australia bushfires: crazy to suggest nuclear waste dump there!
POLITICS Australia’s Prime Minister Turnbull happy to have this nation be the world’s nuclear waste dump. Turnbull assures India they can now buy uranium from Australia. South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill to Paris climate conference – to preach “nuclear as climate solution”?
Adelaide branch of University College London (UCL) to close, and good riddance to this nuclear industry academic front group!
Why is the media not being clear about this haste to get a nuclear waste site?
It’s NOT about medical wastes.
yes. But not in the long run.1 This month
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
Antinuclear 