South Australia to be radioactive industries hub?
Christina Macpherson, 3 May 11 Today’s glowing uranium industry news for South Australia carries the promise of future developments. South Australia has long
been suggested as the location for a radioactive nuclear waste import industry. Could this be a logical extension of its nuclear bomb testing past, and its uranium mining future?
Today, Mineweb tells us: South Australia seen as China’s next mining investment frontier. A mining conference in Adelaide today was told that Chinese mining and metal companies view South Australia as the world’s next mining frontier.
While Sydney Morning Herald enthuses about opening up of Woomera to uranium mining
the area was estimated to contain..about 78 per cent of the nation’s uranium… “jolt to drive further development in the future.”[ says Premier Rann]
SA hopeful of mining in Woomera zone, Sydney Morning Herald, Tim Dornin, May 2, 2011 , South Australian Premier Mike Rann says he’s hopeful of a decision soon from the federal government to unlock the mineral wealth in the Woomera Prohibited Area (WPA).
Western Australia’s gas project – a precedent for nuclear waste importing?
Australians seem to be preoccupied with their domestic lives, looking outwards now and then for football, rugby league, royal weddings, blessed popes..
It is a worry that in the bigger picture for this country, hugely important decisions are just not on our radar. An example is the Liquified Natural Gas industry. The maneuverings and manipulations in this might well be the precursor to maneuverings to bring about a nuclear waste import industry.
The background of the LNG development is one of a rushed process, lacking rigourous scientific and environmental study.
The main political players – W.A. Premier and Federal Resource Minister Martin Ferguson both show that their political ambitions and subservience to big corporations are their main consideration. Martin Ferguson’s conflict of interest is apparent.
The LNG project threatens the environment, and the substantial tourism and fishing industries, including existing Aboriginal enterprises.
The deliberate tying of of the location of the gas hub to the proposed ‘Indigenous benefits package’ for Kimberley Indigenous communities makes a mockery of the principle of “informed consent” for Aboriginal people – Christina Macpherson
Australia’s nuclear industries are getting rattled
The polluting industries might not have quite caught up with the Internet age, as information spreads about their unethical practices in “developing” countries.
Suddenly information is now coming out that shows that “Third World” countries are waking up to the way in which they have been exploited by Western corporations, Australian ones included.
Today – we learn that Malaysia now has the nerve to question an Australian company, Lynas, using Malaysia as a dumping ground for 300 year-lasting radioactive thorium wastes.
And Namibia is one of those African countries that no longer feel like being impoverished while Australian uranium mining companies like Paladin, and Extract Resources rip them off.
All this on top of uranium’s gloomy prospects, anyway !- Christina Macpherson
Australian government obliging BHP Billiton on environment
Now and then we get an insight on who really runs Australia. Chiefs of BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto accompany Prime Minsiter Julia Gillard on official visit to China.
BHP Billiton’s Don Argus heads the government’s mining tax task force.
And now – the recommended revamp of Australia’s environmental laws is strangely delayed – for 2 years!
That will give BHP Billiton time to get its Olympic Dam Uranium Mine through environmental laws, while the rules remain weaker.
Pro nuclear spin now wearing thin
No surprise that Australia’s nuclear establishment is revving up propaganda at present – with falling uranium prices, and Fukushima, and even Chernobyl won’t go away.
Australia could just be waking up at last. Today, Helen Caldicott reminds us of the World Health Organisation’s subservient position to the International Atomic Energy Agency. A reminder of the current nuclear mafia’s “spin” about nuclear radiation being sort of OK, after all.
Australia can’t continue to get away with:
(a) selling uranium to Fukushima reactors, to Russia, China, – pretending the industry is safe, and not connected with weapons.
(b) Australian companies setting up uranium and rare earths industries in countries with poor environmental regulation – e.g Paladin in Africa, and now Lynas, in Malaysia
Ziggy Switkowski, Barry Brook, Michael Angwin, and a swag of Liberal and Labor heavies can try to put it over the Australian public, on the nuclear industry – but they just might not be succeeding any longer.– Christina Macpherson
Urgent need for Australians to wake up to nuclear “spin”
You must hand it to the Australian nuclear lobby. Frontmen Ziggy Switkowski, Barry Brook, Michael Angwin are crisscrossing the continent – bolstering the nuclear industry to selected forums of stuffed shirts.
Uranium companies – Paladin, Cameco, Toro – touting their wares, even as uranium shares plummet.
Feverish negotiating is going on to bribe Aboriginals to lease their land for uranium mining.
But to me – the big danger at the moment is the way in which the media allows the subtle downplay of the Japanese nuclear crisis. And more – this focus on Fukushima not being so bad -( indeed a stimulus for the nuclear industry?) – this focus is obscuring an important current trend:
As you will see, from items below – as nuclear stagnates, renewable energy is forging ahead.
Alexander Downer joins the push for an Australian nuclear waste import industry
There’s a determined little group that continues to push for Australia to import nuclear wastes.- John White (Australia Nuclear Fuel Leasing) Ron Walker and Robert Champion de Crespigny, (Australian Nuclear Energy) .
Now that ever smiling, former Liberal politician Alexander Downer joins them, as reported in today’s THE AUSTRALIAN
I mean – let’s face it – their plan would make an awful lot of money for a very small number of people. And the costs? – no problem – taxpayers from here to eternity will pay that! – Christina Macpherson
About Australia’s water, and about those naughty radioactive fish
Australia is a water scarce continent. Nowdays the technocrats are bleating about how we need Desalination Plants.
But let’s get it straight about who really needs desalination plants. Why it’s that rapacious old multinational corporation, BHP Billiton. BHP B has open slather, at no cost whatever, to its daily guzzle of 35 million litres, and BHPB plans to extract an additional 120 million litres of publicly-owned artesian water per day, every day, for the next 70 years.
Then the desal plant in South Australia. (Never mind that this will mean 
extinction for the unique and beautiful giant cuttlefish. Just another victim to corporate profit.)
Now to those naughty radioactive fish, with Cesium that lasts for 30 years. Well, 1. they don’t stay in one place – they swim elsewhere.
And 2. they get eaten by bigger fish, and so on, in each case concentrating radioactivity further, as predators take the radioactivity up the food chain. -it’s very concentrated by the time it gets to top predators. And shock horror – who are these top predators. Why – it’s US! – Christina Macpherson
The global radioactive toilet – a plague species fouls its home
Time was when Europeans emptied their toilet pans out of windows, into the street.
Now we think that’s disgusting. But – now no problem with the oceans. We’ve been dumping sewage, plastics and all sorts of rubbish into the seas for decades.
Now – the ultimate insult to the oceans – it’s OK to dump radioactive water. This could be a precedent for future nuclear waste problems. I’m sure that the nuclear establishment will be happy with that – if we are.
Don’t let the nuclear industry make an April fool of you
AS the Fukushima tragedy unfolds, the uranium/nuclear lobby redoubles its unethical pr0paganda.
Not only are they telling us that uranium will be a boom industry – in the face of all the economic indications to the contrary, but they now proclaim that ionising radiation is not so bad, even good for you in low doses!
They point to Chernobyl – and proclaim taht the health/death toll from that is small.
Yet reputable health experts tell us that 2011 – 25 years after the accident, wis the key year for fatal cancers to emerge, from the population’s wide exposure to low level ionising radiation. – Christina Macpherson
‘Regulatory Capture’ and ‘Objectivity’ – important words
First – a new term –‘ Regulatory Capture‘ – came up this week, in the documentary “Inside Job”. Here, it was used to show how Wall Street executives got their agenda into financial regulations, and into University courses on Economics.
Well, the same must be said about the nuclear industry. Nuclear physicists and nuclear company men manage the rules, and pronounce on matters nuclear.This is Regulatory Capture. (It’s about as impartial as expecting the Pope and Cardinals to decide whether or not God and the saints exist.)
Second – ‘Objectivity‘. This is a very worthy word, used by a top BBC executive recently to explain the BBC’s approach to current issues. It means that they weigh up opinions, and decide to focus on the ones with credible evidence.
If only Australia’s ABC and media had that focus. Instead, we get ‘Balance” – meaning that however crackpot and minority a view may be, it must get equal coverage with the opposing scientifically credible view.
Perhaps this is one cause of Australians’ lamentable lack of understanding on the issue of climate change – as our media makes sure to give plenty of coverage to the likes of Lord Monckton and Ian Plimer – Christina Macpherson
Earth Hour’s message towards a Conserver Society
Some environmentalists dismiss Earth Hour as pretty much irrelevant to the global
warming crisis, and to the issue of nuclear energy.
But I think that they are wrong. Earth Hour in itself might mean just a temporary drop in energy use, worldwide. But during Earth Hour, people realise how they can manage quite well, using less energy.
This is a subversive message – for it contradicts the whole “philosophy” behind society’s present rampant consumerism,
and ever-growing need to use more energy.
If the Consumer Society were to change to a Conserver Society, then the planet and its atmosphere would be treated with respect. Greenhouse gas emissions would diminish, and it would be obvious that nuclear energy is not needed. The nuclear lobby thrives on ever-growing consumption of energy and material “goods” – Christina Macpherson
Nuclear Marketing: theme for March: ‘spinning’ Japan’s emergency
Above all – it will be argued that this incident shows the stability of new nuclear power plants. Despite a record earthquake, they are said to be not seriously damaged – no threat to the public. Somehow the incident shows the success of new designs. Any small flaw that let this happen will now be rectified in all future models, and we can all sleep peacefully, near a nuclear reactor
The nuclear marketeers have started the spin already– Christina Macpherson. You will hear Barry Brook, Ziggy Spinowski and many others, crapping on about how wonderfully safe are “3rd Generation nuclear reactors”. They will pay a little lip service to renewable energy, while subtly rubbishing it.
1. We are already being told that “background” radiation is minimal – so that 8 times that much is unimportant. Continue reading
Lies and blind greed about Australia’s carbon price, and uranium sales
Oh dear, oh dear -Have you noticed what is going on in Australian politics, and in the marketing of uranium?
First there are the blatant lies against carbon pricing. We have the Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott all out to stop Australia “leading the world” on a carbon price. Yet a carbon price has been operating very well in 30 countries, creating jobs and saving $millions of Euros,
Then there’s the amazing disregard for the danger of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. We have the Australian government touting for uranium sales to United Arab Emirates, and an Australian company helping Egypt to get a nuclear reactor. Yet the Middle East is in uproar, and there’s no knowing what kinds of regimes are going to result there. –
There’s also Rio Rinto’s ERA uranium mine at Ranger – desperately being kept going despite climate threats of flooding, in the hopes of expanding and of booming sales to the Middle East. Christina Macpherson
Political paralysis over Climate Change and Nuclear
Australia, this forlorn outpost of Western culture, is now experiencing a burst of American Tea Party -style incitement to stupidity, and perhaps even, to violence -against the government’s carbon tax plan.
Democracy surely is in danger, when loutish radio “shock jocks” like Glenn Beck, in USA, and Alan Jones in Australia, can front for powerful polluting industry lobbies. Australia’s mainstream media in general, is also now once again used to conduct a barrage of attacks against any action to address Climate Change.
We saw it in 2010, where somehow or other, billionaires were portrayed as poor grassroots activists, against the Resources Super Profits Tax- and where our elected Prime Minister was vilified and removed from office.
The goal of the small number of billionaire individuals, polluters of the environment, is to stop any environmental action. Obama’s administration is practically paralysed. Australia’s government is now likely to become paralysed, at best. At worst, it could be removed, removed, in favour of an Abbott-led administration, absolute lackey of the polluters.
1 This month.
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