Derek Abbott: thought on the connection between nuclear waste dump and nuclear submarines
Derek Abbott no high level international nuclear waste dump in south australia , 6 Oct 16 Thought for the day: Australia has clear ambitions for nuclear submarines, but doesn’t have the infrastructure or means of waste disposal to support them.
SA’s nuclear dump as a stand-alone commercial venture doesn’t financially add up. Therefore it seems to me the Royal Commission is a poor attempt to hoodwink the public in accepting infrastructure, which will open the door for nuke submarines that will then “justify” the dump’s poor financial position.
Once we are hoodwinked into it making a loss, the justification will be that we need it for national security anyway so the money is “well” invested.
Interesting coincidence that Kevin Scarce was in the Navy. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1314655315214929/
Tasmania’s wind to aid nation’s energy
Tasmania will back a national energy plan and argue it can provide energy security via its wind and hydro potential.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/tasmania-to-back-national-energy-plan-with-wind-farms/news-story/c0416848459202c7028748d3d6b1ba87
Australian government’s energy policy now driven by One Nation
How One Nation has hijacked the government’s energy policy https://www.crikey.com.au/2016/10/04/one-nation-and-renewables/ Malcolm Roberts has congratulated the Prime Minister on coming around to his (wacky) way of thinking about renewable energy. We are all in deep trouble, writes economist John Quiggin. I’ve found the reaction of Malcolm Turnbull to the South Australia blackout too depressing to discuss, but I suppose it’s time to talk about it. Turnbull was depressing for three reasons.
First, there was the absurdity of failing to distinguish between transmission failures (pylons destroyed by storms) and intermittency. Reading the comments of Turnbull and others, it seemed as if the reasoning process was something like “wind bad for electricity system, so must cut back on wind power”. I gave up on expecting any substantive difference between Turnbull and Tony Abbott quite a while ago, but this silliness coming from the alleged “smartest guy in the room” was depressing.
Then there’s the substantive political content. Turnbull and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg have already any ruled out kind of carbon price, even the emissions intensity mechanism proposed by the Climate Change Authority (of which I’m a member) as an evolution of Direct Action. When doing this, Frydenberg justified his position by saying that an energy transition, presumably to renewables, meant that the government’s targets were achievable. Now even this fig leaf has been stripped away.
Finally, and worst of all, it’s one more step in the capitulation of right-wing neoliberalism to the rising tide of tribalism. In the Liberal-National-One Nation coalition I described a month or so ago, it’s now clear that One Nation with its associated faction within the government (Cory Bernardi, George Christensen, Abbott and others) has the upper hand. ONP Senator Malcolm Roberts tweeted to Turnbull that it was “Good to see you coming around to One Nation’s position“, and he was spot on. Doubtless he’ll have many more occasions for similar tweets in the future.
The polls suggest that the public reaction to all this is unfavorable, but unfortunately it’s a few months too late. We’re stuck with this for another three years. *This article was originally published at John Quiggin’s blog
Vic doubles down on batteries in renewables push
Victoria will prioritise batteries and other grid stabilising technologies in its ambitious renewable energy rollout….. (subscribers only)
http://www.afr.com/news/batteries-first-in-victoria-renewable-rollout-20161004-grukbn
ACT tells Coalition: get your story straight on renewable energy
Corbell will attend Friday’s meeting even though the ACT is in caretaker mode in preparation for an election on 15 October. He sought and was given an agreement by the Canberra Liberals to attend the discussion because in the ACT, the target of 100% renewables by 2020, is bipartisan policy.
Corbell said Liberals in the ACT had overcome their initial resistance to the scheme, and had now come to the view that renewable energy was “very popular, and it works” – creating jobs in the region.
Josh Frydenberg, who got the environment portfolio from Hunt in the post-election reshuffle, and has also assumed responsibility for energy policy, has signalled there will be no consideration of a change to the Coalition’s Direct Action scheme until a review scheduled for 2017.
Renewable energy: get your story straight, ACT tells Coalition https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/oct/04/renewable-energy-get-your-story-straight-act-tells-coalition, Katharine Murphy
ACT’s deputy chief minister, Simon Corbell, says there is ‘inconsistency’ in federal government’s linking of South Australia blackout to renewables,
Hunt said in Paris the federal government was not proposing a change to the national renewable energy target, “but I have encouraged the states that if they want to do something extra, [they should] apply reverse auctions to the renewable energy target in the way the Australian Capital Territory has done”.
Now, Corbell said, the government had abruptly switched course, raising concerns about state-based renewable energy schemes following the South Australian blackouts. Continue reading
The Oz attacks SA’s renewable energy targets, gets it wrong, retreats
Nuclear industry privatises any profit, socialises the risks
Derek Abbott, Nuclear Fuel Cycle Watch 1 Oct 16 Here’s a very simple reason why a nuclear power plant is economically risky: (i) takes 10-20 years to build, (ii) runs for 40 years, (iii) takes 50 yrs to decommission, (iv) you can easily be still managing some spent fuel from that reactor, above ground, for another 20-30 years after that.
So consider this: the full end-to-end management of the project spans about three human generations and about 15-20 changes of government. No private investors are going to want that kind of time period for their investment, unless they can socialise the risk and get governments to pick up the tab on taxpayer’s money.
Also given now that nuclear is politically a hot potato, no investor is going to want to survive through 15-20 government changes….way too much uncertainty. And if they do go for it, it is at our expense.https://www.facebook.com/groups/1021186047913052/
South Australian power blackout – great opportunity for Australia’s anti renewable energy government
the federal government was taking the opportunity even before the state had begun mopping up to drive home its message that renewables are not yet reliable enough to become a primary energy source.
research fellow Dylan McConnell, of Melbourne University’s Energy Institute, writing on The Conversation website, says the level of renewables played no role…..This could have happened in any state or with any generation technology.”
Political power struggle after SA’s statewide blackout, The Saturday Paper, KAREN MIDDLETON, 1 Oct 16
As clean-up began after South Australia’s freak storms, the federal energy minister seized the opportunity for a debate on renewables. “…….As the massive storm battered South Australia, 23 transmission towers were knocked over, bringing down crucial power lines. A power station was also struck by lightning.
According to Frydenberg, those two weather-driven events “plus others” led to electricity surging through the two interconnectors that supply electricity from Victoria into South Australia.
To protect consumers and their homes and businesses from what would have been a massive jolt, the system shut down.
…… The Australian Energy Market Operator has begun an investigation and will prepare a report for government.
Frydenberg has called an emergency meeting of federal, state and territory energy ministers to discuss the implications for the rest of the country. Continue reading
Is Western Australia’s current electricity blackout caused by coal and gas?
WA weather: Thousands still without power after ‘incredible’ winds sweep the state WA Today Emma Young, 2 Oct 16
Western Power crews worked through Sunday to restore power to about 3500 homes in Perth and the South West after Saturday’s wind winds persisted into the night.
Most affected were in the South West, though on Sunday afternoon the metropolitan outages included more than 1000 homes in Carine, 80 in North Beach, 120 in Forrestfield and 76 in Mahogany Creek, though Western Power was hoping to have these areas restored by 5.30pm.
Gusts of up to 119km/h were recorded in the South West on Saturday, uprooting trees and taking down powerlines, with more than 24,000 without power at some point during the day. Some took to social media to report hail in areas including Kwinana, Jandakot and Balcatta………….http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/wa-weather-thousands-still-without-power-after-incredible-winds-sweep-the-state-20161002-grt575.html
Malcolm Turnbull jumps on the anti renewable energy bandwagon
The lights go out in SA and Turnbull flicks the switch to peak stupid, Guardian 1 Oct 16 Lenore Taylor One big storm and our climate and energy debate is surging back to peak stupid.
Now Malcolm Turnbull has encouraged the campaign to use the South Australian blackout to slow the shift to clean energy, saying state renewable energy targets are “extremely unrealistic”.
Except all the evidence says the state targets are exactly what Australia needs to meet the promises the prime minister made in Paris last year about reducing greenhouse gases.
Of course it would be preferable to have a consistent national policy to reach those goals, but it’s not exactly the states’ fault that we haven’t got one. That vacuum was Tony Abbott’s proud achievement, with the abolition of the carbon price and the winding back of the federal renewable energy target, after a lengthy debate about whether it should be abolished altogether, which of course dried up almost all investment in renewable energy.
And consistent, credible national policy hasn’t been any more evident in the year since Turnbull took over either.
His own officials admitted in a Senate inquiry this week they had undertaken no modelling at all about how to meet the target Turnbull pledged in Paris for reducing Australia’s emissions out to 2030. That’s the target he is about to ratify, the target that will be Australia’s legal obligation.
But plenty of others have done modelling and analysis for him, and they all conclude that he won’t meet it, not with the Coalition’s current policies……..
Turnbull and his energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, absolutely should urgently consider how to make sure the electricity grid is better able to cope with increasingly frequent bouts of extreme weather.
But whatever Turnbull does has to involve convincing the climate sceptics in his own party that change – and some impact on power prices – is inevitable.
Backing in their belief that renewable energy can’t keep the lights on is a bad way to start. When Malcolm Roberts, the One Nation senator and former project leader of the climate-sceptic Galileo movement, tweets how great it is that Turnbull is “coming around to One Nation’s position” that’s not a good thing, not if the prime minister meant anything he said on this subject in the past or has any intention of keeping the promises he made in Paris.
And whichever way he does it, he will still have to shift electricity generation to renewables, at least as quickly as the state targets are suggesting…….https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/oct/01/the-lights-go-out-in-sa-and-turnbull-flicks-the-switch-to-peak-stupid
PM Turnbull’s attack on renewables – part of political campaign for ACT election?
It is against this backdrop that the ACT government goes to an election in less than three weeks with a policy of 100 per cent reliance for the territory on renewable energy by 2020.
With its funding for three solar farms, two wind farms potentially in the works and contracts to buy wind-generated energy from South Australia, Victoria and NSW the ACT looks to be one of the jurisdictions in the sights of the Prime Minister.
ACT’s renewables push faces climate of fear http://www.canberratimes.com.au/comment/ct-editorial/acts-renewables-push-faces-climate-of-fear-20160930-grs5zd.html 1 Oct 16
It was perhaps inevitable that enemies of renewable energy would seek to capitalise on the unfortunate mass-blackout that hit South Australia this week as the state was buffeted by a once-in-50-year storm.
Critics of renewables and boosters of fossil fuel electricity generation, all the way up to the Prime Minister, were quick to seize on the power failure as evidence of SA’s “over-reliance” on renewable energy. But as the pieces were picked up, it became clear that it was storm damage to the state’s electricity infrastructure, and not its 40 per cent renewable energy mix, that knocked South Australia’s lights out.
But by the time the misinformation had been unpicked, it was too late.
Much of the media, having given considerable coverage to the initial “blame renewables” claims had moved on, leaving the casual observer with the unfortunate impression that clean generation technology cannot provide a reliable electricity supply.
But despite the damage done in the court of public opinion, the week’s events raise hopes for a facts-led debate about Australia’s energy future. Continue reading
South Australia electricity blackout proves need to speed up transition to renewables
We need to speed up the switch to renewables SOUTH AUSTRALIA, The Age, Oliver Clifton OCTOBER 1 2016
The blackout was not a failure of wind or solar. It was proof that we need to speed up the switch to renewables. It shows the vulnerability of a grid system in transition and a failure to think beyond a mandated renewable energy target. The old power network is a “one to many” design, with large-scale, point source generation and energy flowing in one direction. The future grid will be “many to many” – when one path is under stress, the current finds an alternative route. This also balances supply and demand for when the wind is not blowing in a particular area, as well as battery storage, consumer-side load switching, etc. However, building renewable capacity alone will not give us a reliable, low-carbon energy system. We need rapid transition of the grid, as well as everything that plugs into it. Urgent priority should be given to a national carbon tax. We should open up the economy to the innovation of the market. This is the fastest, cheapest and most effective solution.
The demonisation of the clean energy sector, Andrew Laird
Voters were promised leadership and innovation if they re-elected the Turnbull government. Sadly, the naked opportunism that it displayed this week suggests that neither will be forthcoming. It is deeply troubling that a government which is the beneficiary of large “donations” from the structurally declining fossil fuel sector never misses an opportunity to demonise the job and investment-creating clean energy sector. http://www.theage.com.au/comment/the-age-letters/we-need-to-speed-up-the-switch-to-renewables-20160930-grsbfb.html
What is the role of top secret facility Pine Gap?
Pine Gap ‘Spy base’ Alice Springs: What you never knew about top-secret facility, NT News ,Debra Killalea, news.com.au, September 25, 2016 “………According to Richard Tanter, a professor in the School of Political and Social Studies at the University of Melbourne, most Australians really don’t know all that much about it.
Prof Tanter, who has conducted years of research into the facility with ANU colleague and leading authority on Pine Gap, Desmond Ball, said it remains one of the most important intelligence facilities outside of the United States today…….
OUR GOVERNMENT LOVES IT
While groups such as the Independent and Peaceful Australia Network argue Pine Gap and its value to the US makes us a target, the Australian Government maintains its presence here is crucial……..
KILLER DRONES AND SPY CLAIMS
Groups such as IPAN, which is holding its annual conference next weekend, claim the facility has a darker side.
The group said not only does Pine Gap allow access to satellites to spy on every continent except Antarctica and the Americas, but also question the role it plays in the use of drone technology.
Pine Gap contributes to and collects data used for US drones in the Middle East and Pakistan……
University of Melbourne drone researcher Alex Edney-Browne said Australians had no idea about the alarming rates of civilian casualties from drone strikes or the psychological effects caused by living under drone surveillance.
“Government and military spokespeople in the US and allied countries tell the public that drones are an ethical weapon — that drones stop civilians from being killed and limit the destructive effects of war,” she said.
“This is simply not the case.”
Ms Edney-Brown said laser guided drone weapons only hit their target radius half the time while the kill radius of drone strikes can be up to 90 metres. http://www.ntnews.com.au/news/northern-territory/pine-gap-spy-base-alice-springs-what-you-never-knew-about-topsecret-facility/news-story/b684b7e9ea355860379e50498f236486
Coalition government funded climate change sceptic Bjorn Lomborg’s programme
The Liberals must explain their actions. Carr accused the Abbott and Turnbull governments of “using taxpayers’ money in an attempt to promote an anti-science conservative agenda”.
Bjørn Lomborg centre got $640,000 for report saying limiting warming rise to 2C not 
worth it Revealed under freedom of information, cost came before Copenhagen Consensus Centre’s controversial $4m Australian program dropped, Guardian, Paul Karp, 24 Sept 16 Australia’s education department paid Bjørn Lomborg’s Copenhagen Consensus Centre $640,000 to help produce a report that claimed limiting world temperature increases to 2C was a “poor” use of money.
The $640,000 cost, incurred before the CCC’s controversial $4m Australian program was junked, is revealed in the 2016 incoming ministerial brief published under freedom of information laws.
An education department spokeswoman told Guardian Australia the $640,000 represented the Australian government contribution to the CCC for the SmarterUN Post-2015 Development Goals project.
The project concluded that for every dollar spent on keeping global temperatures to the 2C target, less than $1 of social, economic or environmental benefit resulted, which it described as a “poor” result.
Other spending with “poor” returns included cutting outdoor air pollution, increasing protected biodiversity areas, better disaster resilience for the poor and reducing child marriages……….
The project explained its conclusions were “based on peer-reviewed analyses from 82 of the world’s top economists and 44 sector experts”.
Its brochure notes financial support was provided by the Australian government. Continue reading
Art exhibition about The human fallout from Maralinga
The human fallout from Maralinga http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/awaye/the-human-fallout-from-maralinga/7872354
- Saturday 24 September 2016 6:45PM (view full episode)
Imagine a cemetery lined with the uniform graves of stillborn children in the loneliest place in the world.
We may never know the human fallout from the British nuclear tests conducted in the desert in the far west of South Australia in the 1950s and 60s.
Almost exactly 60 years ago, on the 27th of September 1956, the British began testing nuclear weapons at Maralinga, inside a vast area that became known as the prohibited zone.
The nuclear tests at Maralinga – and what she describes as a contempt for human life – echo in the work of the glass artist Yhonnie Scarce.
She’s created a radioactive cloud shaped from molten glass into bush foods once harvested in the country around Maralinga.
Her latest series of works is called Strontium 90 – a by-product of nuclear fission which is metabolised by the body, literally in the bones, of those affected by radioactive fallout.
- As well as glass forms arranged on surgical steel cribs, Yhonnie has printed photographs of the cemetery at Woomera where the bodies of stillborn infants lie in uniform rows, in a defence industry town in the middle of nowhere.
1 This month
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
15 April – Zoom –Nuclear Power is Not the Solution
Apr 15, 2026 01:00 AM in Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney
Join the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) on Tuesday, April 14th for a timely webinar exploring the risks associated with nuclear power and challenging the myth that it offers a simple, safe, carbon-free solution to the climate crisis
21 April Webinar: No Nuclear Weapons in Australia
Start: 2026-04-21 18:00:00 UTC Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney (GMT+10:00)
End: 2026-04-21 19:30:00 UTC Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney (GMT+10:00)
Event Type: Virtual
A virtual link will be communicated before the event.
Host Contact Info: australia@icanw.org
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
Antinuclear 