Hail to our glorious, smoggy, cancery future!
View from the Street: Government believes that fossil fuels are the future Canberra Times, February 25 2016 Andrew P Street Hail to our glorious, smoggy, cancery future!
It’s a great time to really revel in the endless possibilities of continuing to mine and burn fossil fuels – at least, that’s according to our Industry, Science and Innovation Minister Christopher Pyne and his sidekick Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg, who announced the creation of the Oil, Gas and Energy Resources Growth Centre on Wednesday: a centre to “drive innovation and productivity in the Australian resource sector.”
And what better time could there be to launch such a boondoggl… sorry, completely legitimate and necessary centre of excellence than in 2016? After all, it’s a fossil fuel industry boom time!
Heck, only yesterday the headlines were celebrating the ‘Worst day for BHP since 2008 as market plummets’, thanks to the tumbling price of oil. And then there’s the recent report from Oxford University, which found that Australian coal mines are among the riskiest investments in the world.
In fact, the Senate is currently investigating BP’s plans to drill for oil in the Great Australian Bight, since their last application was knocked back on the grounds that it somehow failed to meet the government’s already-largely-voluntary environmental impact requirements.
So with that sort of universal global enthusiasm for the always-trustworthy fossil fuel biz, you can understand why Pyne’n’Frydy feel that Australia needs to invest $15.4 million taxpayer dollars into it. After all, the industry is clearly on the rise – heck, only yesterday it made a whopping $15.4 million!
And sure, we supposedly made a non-binding deal in Paris to pretend to cut emissions last year – but then again, last month we confirmed that climate change monitoring at the CSIRO is a big ol’ waste of dollars on dumb science stuff.
Unlike, say, centres to drive innovation and productivity in the Australian resource sector, overseen by former energy company executives, which are obviously wise and necessary public investments. http://www.canberratimes.com.au/comment/view-from-the-street/view-from-the-street-government-believes-that-fossil-fuels-are-the-future-20160225-gn3ojs.html
Shock suggestion for locating global nuclear waste dump in South Australia
Royal Commission shock, waste dump mooted for SA Parliament http://www.cpa.org.au/guardian/2016/1720/05-the-common-tern.html
The Royal Commission into the Nuclear Fuel Cycle held a public meeting at the Adelaide Town Hall on Monday February 15 to announce its tentative findings which, not surprisingly, include the creation of at least two dumps.
“We’ve looked very hard at all the options and decided we need both high and low level waste dumps,” said Royal Commissioner Kevin Scarce.
“While there is plenty of public opposition to a waste dump in this state, the evidence clearly shows that a facility is long overdue … and Parliament House would be the most appropriate location,” he said, to the surprise of many.
“For decades Australian politics has been producing incredible waste and it’s just been piling up and up; it’s time some of it was properly stored and with all of the wasted space inside Parliament House, it was the obvious location.”
Scarce admitted the job of the Commission had been made slightly harder because of Australia’s tradition of electing three tiers of government.
“We have to look across the whole spectrum,” he said. “You’ve got low-level waste in many local and state governments, just look at NSW and the number of councils sacked by the ICAC over there. And if you look at some of the ideas coming out of South Australia at the moment, it’s obvious something has to be done here. As for high level waste, the thought of bringing it in from overseas is mind-boggling, I mean just turn on the ABC and watch Question Time in Canberra for a few minutes … you get the drift,” he said.
The meeting attracted its fair share of hecklers, but many in attendance said the best one actually came from Scarce himself who eventually succumbed to frustration after spending an hour trying to convince the angry audience that our politicians are shit: “Stop opposing everything ya tree-hugging numpties, this dump will be good for everyone.”
Adnyamathanha people preparing to fight nuclear waste dumping
Adnyamathanha people preparing to fight bid to store nuclear waste on their land near Flinders Ranges February 24, 2016 ANTHONY TEMPLETON The Advertiser TRADITIONAL land owners have claimed a proposal to build a nuclear dump near the Flinders Ranges would destroy countless sacred sites and culturally important landmarks.
A property near Barndioota, jointly owned by former Liberal Senator Grant Chapman, was one of six sites put forward for the dump, including three in South Australia.
They were to be considered by the Federal Government to store low to intermediate level radioactive waste created within Australia, from industries such as nuclear medicine.
The Federal Government is expected to reduce the shortlist from six sites to between two and three in the coming months. A decision on a preferred site could take up to another year to be made……
the Adnyamathanha people are preparing to fight the proposal and take it to court if site is selected to house a nuclear storage facility.
Adnyamathanha Traditional Owners Regina McKenzie said the land was of great spiritual and cultural significance.“Our storylines are written in this land,” she said.
Adnyakuyani Man Tony Clark said the area was a historical site which needed to be preserved for future generations….. http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/adnyamathanha-people-preparing-to-fight-bid-to-store-nuclear-waste-on-their-land-near-flinders-ranges/news-story/67bb61ae0371958fd2203722dc9e
We need a Royal Commission on exiting nuclear industry – ethical, not just greedy
“We would like to see a royal commission formed to produce a blueprint on how to exit the nuclear industry that also details what the best options are for waste,” Dave Sweeney said.
“This is a major and growing problem and an unresolved environmental issue. There is no question it is unfinished business but we are concerned that it is being perceived as a business opportunity.”
He said reduction of nuclear waste should be the guiding principle, rather than finding a storage solution to enable more waste to be produced.
“We are concerned that the promise of the dollar sign is much shinier than the reality of the danger sign.” news.com.au 21 Feb
A Hawke-Howard team to pacify the anti nuclear natives?
Only Labor can deliver a nuclear waste facility, the Libs would face too much opposition, writes Rex Jory, The Advertiser, February 21, 2016
DEAR Premier,
You have asked for public feedback about the possible establishment of a nuclear waste repository in South Australia, as outlined by the Scarce Royal Commission.
Clearly, your Cabinet must press ahead with this proposal. The potential financial benefit for SA is $445 billion over 70 years. That’s $445,000,000,000. Every year SA would reap an extra $6 billion.
This sort of opportunity presents itself to governments — indeed Premiers — once in a lifetime……You now have the nuclear cat by the tail. It is yowling. Some people — notably a rowdy minority — are incensed at the mere thought that your government might adopt the nuclear repository option………
No potential user of the facility will invest a cent if there is perceived political opposition — aside from the rowdy minority — now or in the future.
A failure to build consensus is a failure of the project. Unfortunately, previous Labor leaders have publicly and vociferously opposed the nuclear waste repository idea. To reverse this thinking within the Labor Party and the community is your first challenge.
Only a Labor Party can deliver a nuclear waste facility. If the Liberals tried there would be too much political and community opposition. In the 1980s the Liberal plan to establish the Olympic Dam uranium, gold and copper mine would not have proceeded without Labor’s reluctant support.
Why not ask former Labor prime minister Bob Hawke, who supports a waste facility, to head a “persuasion committee” to convince at least some of the waverers, if not the outright opponents, about the benefits of the plan?
Perhaps former Liberal prime minister John Howard would agree to join Mr Hawke to emphasise the need for bipartisanship. It would be worth asking……..
Your final task is to pacify the non-government organisations and particularly the indigenous community. Once again, a Hawke-Howard team would have the status to persuade even the most sceptical opponent
Without a well-planned indigenous community strategy, your best efforts will fail……….http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/opinion/only-labor-can-deliver-a-nuclear-waste-facility-the-libs-would-face-too-much-opposition-writes-rex-jory/news-story/50bbf5ce1dd9a33bcc84fec9c0245370
Unethical to move dangerous radioactive trash around the world
Kim Mavromatis mavmedia.com.aux 21 Feb 16 There’s also nothing ethical about moving great amounts of highly radioactive trash around the world – ships and trains do have accidents. It’s all about money and not much thought about safety for humanity. And how smart is it to place all the world’s highly radioactive waste in the one spot?
And once Australia becomes the world’s nuclear waste dumping ground (what a great ad for South Australia and Australia – try selling that to a tourist), we are stuck with it, no one will take it back. The waste stays radioactive for 250,000 years and we have a nuclear waste dump plan for 100 years????
I expect humans won’t be around when it turns into lead. Dumb and Dumber.
Political pressure is the only barrier stopping renewables taking over from fossil fuels and nuclear energy
Energy storage gives renewables a jump-start Independent Australia, David Suzuki 20 February 2016, Given the speed at which technology and inventions are advancing, it’s a no-brainer to see that the barriers to a clean energy shift are more political and psychological than technological, argues Dr David Suzuki.
REMOTE AUSTRALIAN communities often use diesel generators for power. They’re expensive to run and emit pollution and greenhouse gases. Even people who don’t rely entirely on generators use Australia’s power grid, which is mostly fuelled by polluting, climate-altering coal.
Now, one company is showing that supplying Australia’s energy needn’t be expensive or polluting.
AllGrid Energy produces 10 kilowatt-hour solar-power batteries that take advantage of Australia’s abundant sunlight and growing demand for solar panels. Their lead-acid gel battery is less expensive than Tesla’s lithium Powerwall, also available in Australia.
Many AllGrid systems are sold in indigenous communities, providing affordable energy independence.
It’s an example of the rapid pace of renewable energy development — one that clears a hurdle previously confronting many clean-energy technologies: their variable nature. One advantage of fossil fuels is that they’re both source and storage for energy; renewables such as wind and solar are only sources.
Many argue that because solar and wind energy only work when sun shines or winds blow, and output varies according to cloud cover, wind speed and other factors, they can’t replace large “baseload” sources like coal, oil, gas and nuclear.
But batteries and other energy storage methods, along with power-grid improvements, make renewables competitive with fossil fuels and nuclear power — and often better in terms of reliability, efficiency and affordability.
With storage and grid technologies advancing daily, renewable energy could easily and relatively quickly replace most fossil fuel–generated electricity. In Canada, Ontario’s Independent Electricity System Operator contracted five companies to test a number of storage systems, including batteries, hydrogen storage, kinetic flywheels and thermal systems that store heat in special bricks.
Ontario is aiming to get about 50 per cent of its installed generating capacity from renewable sources by 2025……..
Because renewables don’t pollute or create greenhouse gas emissions, they also help lower costs for health care and the ever-increasing impacts of climate change. Although every energy source comes with consequences, the damage and risks from mining, processing, transporting and using coal, oil, bitumen and uranium, and from fracking and other extraction methods, are far greater than for clean energy.
And fossil fuels will eventually run out, becoming increasingly expensive, difficult to obtain, and ridden with conflict as scarcity grows. https://independentaustralia.net/environment/environment-display/energy-storage-gives-renewables-a-jump-start-,8692
Cultural exchange between nuclear victim areas Maralinga and Nagasaki
Maralinga sculpture sent to Nagasaki in symbol of peace and nuclear past February 19, 2016 DOUGLAS SMITH The Advertiser
- Former atomic bomb test site, Maralinga, proposed for nuclear waste dump (subscribers only)
A SCULPTURE representing the Aboriginal people of the Maralinga Lands is being sent from Adelaide to Nagasaki as a symbol of peace, cultural exchange and their nuclear pasts.
The sculpture of a coolamon dish has left for Japan to be placed in the Nagasaki Peace Memorial Park, which commemorates the atomic bombing of the city on August 9, 1945, when about 73,000 people died.
The Aboriginal people of the Maralinga Lands were subjected to radioactive contamination following British nuclear testing at the site between 1956 to 1963.
The art exchange was organised through international group Nuclear Futures, founded by Professor Paul Brown to support indigenous people worldwide by expressing the legacy of the atomic age through creative arts projects.
Prof Brown first got together with a group of creative artists at the 2002 Adelaide Festival, where ideas were generated for cultural exchange projects.
“I was a member of a team of artists who came from all around Australia for the festival to develop some projects, and out of all that came lots of ideas, a program of arts projects that would run over several years, so that’s what we’re doing now,” Prof Brown said.
National nuclear waste dump likely to be in South Australia
SOUTH Australia is highly likely to house a national low-level nuclear waste dump because two sites are expected to be on a final shortlist to be revealed within weeks… (subscribers only)
Canberrans being asked to reign in consumerism in new environmental report
Canberrans are the biggest consumers in the country, but a new environmental report is asking them to live with less, showing the ACT’s higher-than-average wages are causing big problems for the environment.
The latest report card on the state of the environment between 2011–2015 is overwhelmingly positive, showing the ACT is leading the way in conservation management, climate mitigation and caring for the environment…… http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-18/canberras-wealth-causing-problems-for-environment-report-finds/7181776
South Australian Royal Commission a “Trojan Horse” for radioactive waste dump push
The move surprised many at the time both because SA is a national leader in renewable energy production and also because uranium prices and production had plummeted following the Australian uranium-fuelled Fukushima crisis.
But while the commission might have been a surprise, its interim findings – released this week in Adelaide – were not.
The commission, headed by former state governor Kevin Scarce, was tasked with examining development options over four broad areas: uranium mining, expanded uranium processing, domestic nuclear power and the storage and management of high-level radioactive waste.
From the start critics of the commission’s pro-industry terms of reference argued that the process was a Trojan horse for a renewed push for international radioactive waste disposal in Australia. This view has been vindicated this week. Continue reading
ANSTO directs its nuclear propaganda to Hale in Central Australia
Nuclear waste dump: ANSTO testing mood for repository at Hale in Central Australia, ABC News, 16 Feb 16 By Rick Hind Nuclear technicians are holding briefings in and around Alice Springs to gauge the level of public support for a nuclear waste dump at Hale, located 75 kilometres south of the town.
Representatives from the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) and the Federal Department of Industry, Innovation and Science will hold private briefings and public forums over two days in Alice Springs, and at Titjikala, the closest Indigenous community to the 120-hectare Aridgold date farm, which has been nominated to become home to a dump.
Ahead of the sessions Federal Energy and Resources Minister Josh Frydenberg said phone polling was being used in communities near all six shortlisted sites around the country, including three in South Australia and one each in NSW, QLD and the NT.
“In all six sites there will be that sort of phone polling,” he told 783 ABC Alice Springs…….
The largest public meeting will be held in Alice Springs at 6:00pm on Tuesday.
Consultations are expected to wind up on March 11. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-15/ansto-testing-mood-for-nuclear-waste-dump-in-central-australia/7169180
Time Australian governments stopped pretending that Adani and coal are viable
You have to hand it to Adani Australia chief executive Jeyakumar Janakaraj. Despite years-long delays on Adani’s Queensland Carmichael coal mine – a project mired in court challenges and no realistic prospect of obtaining the financing it needs to proceed – Mr Janakaraj retains a cheerful disposition. Last week he said Adani was “absolutely committed” to proceeding with the mine. The show of optimism is designed to obscure the fact that his company’s coal mine project looks increasingly likely to fail.
The Carmichael mine and associated coal port at Abbot Point have been the target of sustained opposition from a wide range of community organisations, both in Australia and overseas, because of the catastrophic impact they would have on the Great Barrier Reef. UNESCO has kept the Reef on its world heritage watch list due to the threat that projects like Adani’s pose to its health. In August 2015, a Federal Court challenge forced Environment Minister Greg Hunt to overturn the approval for the mine. Two more legal challenges against the Carmichael project remain, and the project is yet to obtain mining leases from the government. The project itself is effectively stalled, with the Adani contractors who were sent home in 2015 still not back on the job.
Yet even if all of these obstacles were removed, the mine’s financials simply don’t stack up. Continue reading
Selective publishing – Emily’s (unpublished) letter to The Adelaide Advertiser
The Advertiser 15/02/2016: Nuclear waste dump would tip $445b into South Australian economy, Royal Commission reveals. http://tinyurl.com/zoux3gq
Selective publishing – Comment to the Editor:
‘You have not published my three posts Mr Editor. Is challenging the assertions in your article verboten?
“There are valid reasons for concern when the media fails to provide the complete picture and facilitates a war on transparency.
“I understand the media has a duty to report any news that is in the public interest.
“When facts are obscured from the public’s gaze, they tend to pop up elsewhere.”
Dirty business: nuclear Royal Commission dumps on South Australia
The Australian Conservation Foundation has described plans to store high level international nuclear waste in South Australia as desperate, dangerous and in direct conflict with Australia’s national interest.
The plan was outlined in Adelaide today by former South Australian Governor Kevin Scarce as part of the interim findings of the South Australian Royal Commission into the Nuclear Fuel Cycle established by Premier Weatherill in March 2015.
National and South Australian environment and civil society groups have criticised the Royal Commission’s terms of reference and advisory panel as being pro-nuclear industry, and raised sustained concerns over the unnecessarily complex and confusing Commission process.
“The global trend away from the nuclear sector is reflected in the Commission’s tepid response to uranium mining and processing and nuclear power,” said ACF campaigner Dave Sweeney.
“Nuclear power is a dying industry but nuclear waste remains forever undead. Sadly the Royal Commission is proving to be a toxic Trojan Horse for a dangerous and divisive plan to turn remote South Australia into a permanent radioactive waste zone.
“The Commissions obsession with the perceived dollars signs seems to have blinded it to the proven danger signs.
“As the Commission notes, any plans to open the door to high level international radioactive waste storage or disposal in SA would require bi-partisan federal political support and broad national community consent. These are both currently lacking and this is unlikely to change.
“This move has profound and permanent implications for all Australians and requires more scrutiny than that of a state based industry promotional platform,” Mr Sweeney said.
“International radioactive waste is a growing long term environmental management challenge, not a short term business opportunity. South Australians deserve better than to be told their best hope is to host the world’s worst waste.”
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 