Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor delayed releasing data that shows greenhouse gas levels continue to rise
Delayed government data shows greenhouse gas levels continue to rise, Australia’s latest greenhouse gas data shows emissions are continuing to rise, with Labor saying it’s a “fantasy” that the nation will meet reduction targets. SBS, 7 June 19, Labor says it’s a government “fantasy” that Australia is on track to meet its emissions reduction targets, after delayed data showed greenhouse gas levels continue to rise.After missing a parliamentary deadline to report on greenhouse gas levels for the December quarter by last Friday, Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor released the data on Thursday.
The December quarter figures show a 0.8 per cent increase compared to the previous quarter and a 0.7 per cent rise from the same time last year.
Despite the increase, Mr Taylor maintains Australia is on track to meet its Paris Agreement targets to reduce emissions by 26-28 per cent on 2005 levels by 2030.
“Our plan is laid out to the last tonne,” Mr Taylor told ABC radio on Friday. ……..
Mr Taylor took over responsibility for emissions reduction from former environment minister Melissa Price after the election.
He says Australia is now almost 12 per cent below its 2005 levels and emissions have decreased by 9.5 per cent in 30 years. However, government projections show more than half that target can be achieved through carryover credits from achieving goals of the Kyoto protocol.
Although Australia met its target in the first Kyoto agreement, it allowed for an increase of emissions.
Labor’s energy spokesman Mark Butler says it’s a government “fantasy” that Australia is on track to reach the Paris targets.
Mr Taylor’s announcement focused on the data per capita, while talking up the benefits of LNG.
“Today’s release shows once again that the Liberals will try every trick in the book to avoid scrutiny of their record on tackling climate change,” Mr Butler said.
Calls for a rethink on climate policy
Greens MP Adam Bandt has vowed to chase the government and department for answers over why the release of the data was delayed, and why it was given to select media before being made public.
Mr Taylor insists the government’s climate solutions plan will achieve the Paris target, primarily through paying companies and communities for projects to reduce pollution……..
Vivien Thomson from the Australian Firefighters Climate Alliance has warned that rising emissions are exposing communities to higher risks from more intense bushfires and other extreme weather events.
Ms Thomson says the climate-fuelled disasters stretch the mental and physical limits of firefighters, and cost billions in clean up and recovery costs.
The Climate Council says the government needs to rethink its approach to reducing emissions, as levels have increased over the past four years.
“The prime minister and his new cabinet have an opportunity for a fresh start. We cannot waste another three years,” Climate Council CEO Amanda McKenzie said. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/delayed-government-data-shows-greenhouse-gas-levels-continue-to-rise
Al Gore – Australia is at climate crossroads, – could lead on renewable energy
Australia is at a crossroads on climate change, according to Al Gore, SBS, 7 June 19, Former US Vice President turned climate change crusader Al Gore says Australia is at a crossroads on climate, while stopping himself from taking swing at Adani.
Former US Vice President turned climate change crusader Al Gore says Australia is at a crossroads with renewable energy, and risks missing out on the opportunity to capitalise on it by doggedly pursuing fossil fuels.
At a climate conference in Brisbane on Friday, Mr Gore said the country was at the forefront of a renewable energy revolution and well poised to take advantage of it.
“You have the most sun-blessed nation of any other nation in the world,” Mr Gore said in reference to renewable solar energy. “Australia is number one on the list.”
Mr Gore, an outspoken critic of Adani’s proposed mine, said on Wednesday he doubted the proposed Galilee Basin mine was financially viable. ………
He said the country had to make a decision on whether to pursue renewable energy, which he said the Palaszczuk had taken steps toward.
“The history of this period will record that the change (to renewable energy) became unstoppable and that Queensland led the way,” he said.
Ms Palaszczuk vowed to keep investing in renewable energy, insisting it creates jobs while slowing climate change impacts that hammer the state. She reminded regional Queenslanders who voted against Labor in the federal poll that renewable energy had produced 4000 jobs in four years.
She said farmers deal with climate change on a daily basis when they experience floods, droughts and cyclones.
“We understand the need to act on climate change,” Ms Palaszczuk said. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/australia-is-at-a-crossroads-on-climate-change-according-to-al-gore
Liberal National coalition’s “nuclear cowboys”
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‘Crackpot stuff’: Coalition MPs’ call for nuclear power inquiry rejected by Greens, Guardian, Sarah Martin, 5
 June 19, Sarah Hanson-Young says the Nationals who have raised nuclear energy are ‘lunatic cowboys’ The Greens have labelled Coalition MPs pushing for an inquiry into nuclear power as “lunatic cowboys”, pledging to block any move to overturn Australia’s nuclear ban in the Senate.As conservative MPs move to establish a Senate inquiry into nuclear power when parliament returns next month, the Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young has invited the former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce to debate her in the “town he thinks it should be built”. “Talk of overturning the ban on nuclear power in Australia is crackpot stuff,” Hanson-Young, who is the party’s environment spokesperson, said. “Aside from being a dangerous technology, nuclear power is wildly expensive and would take a decade or more to build. “It would be a funny joke if it wasn’t so embarrassing to have the Nationals, who are in government and who sit around the cabinet table, pushing for this. “These people are meant to be in charge, and they’re running around like a bunch of lunatic cowboys.” The comments from the Greens come after Queenslanders Keith Pitt and James McGrath indicated they would push for a select committee into nuclear power in the first week of parliamentary sittings in July, saying technology has changed since the country last reviewed its prospects in 2006……… The New South Wales deputy premier, John Barilaro, has also thrown his support behind the nuclear push, saying despite the debate over emissions reduction the nuclear “solution” was seen as too “politically risky”. “Now is the right time for Australia to begin a mature and fact-filled conversation on the benefits of nuclear energy,” Barilaro said. The Australian Nuclear Association has supported the new inquiry, saying deep cuts to emissions would be best achieved with nuclear power, with thetechnology cost competitive with coal and gas if carbon pollution is priced. The association’s Robert Parker said removing the ban on nuclear power that currently exists in the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act would enable industry to start negotiations with suppliers about building a nuclear power plant at the lowest possible cost. But Hanson-Young said the Greens would be pushing to strengthen the EPBC Act and would fight any moves to water down the ban on nuclear. “We need stronger environment laws that continue the ban on nuclear energy,” Hanson-Young said. “Nuclear energy is an old technology that Australia doesn’t need and has outgrown. We are moving toward a renewable energy future. It’s happening, it’s here and the government should be enabling it, not trying to revisit a dangerous and outdated technology.” https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jun/05/crackpot-stuff-coalition-mps-call-for-nuclear-power-inquiry-rejected-by-greens |
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Australia heads for authoritarian rule, as Federal Police under government control, threatens press freedom
The AFP media raids aim to suppress the truth. Without it we head into the darkness of oppression https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jun/05/the-afp-media-raids-aim-to-suppress-the-truth-without-it-we-head-into-the-darkness-of-oppression
According to the Australian Federal Police Association’s president, Angela Smith, there was a widely shared feeling across the AFP that the body had “lost autonomy”. “It’s an embarrassing situation,” Smith was quoted as saying. “We look the least independent police force in Australia.”
In the wake of the AFP’s raids on a leading News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst on Tuesday and the ABC on Wednesday, the position of the AFP has gone from embarrassing to deeply disturbing.
Even Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, the cheerleaders of the re-election of the Morrison government, seemed in no doubt as to the political purpose of the raid on Smethurst two weeks after a federal election. It was, News Corp said in an official statement, a “dangerous act of intimidation”.
Implicit in News Corp’s statement is that this is not an act of policing, but an act of politics.
What are we to make of two raids in two days as anything other than a symptom of deeply disturbing developments at the heart of our democracy?Smethurst’s story was over a year old. It was about a plan to allow the National Signals Directorate, for the first time, to directly spy on Australians by “hacking into critical infrastructure”.
In a statement the AFP attempted to justify its raid on Smethurst by arguing the disclosure of “these specific documents undermines Australia’s national security”. But how can our knowing about a possible major change to our freedoms as citizens in any way threaten our national security? The AFP doesn’t tell us because there is no argument they can make, only an unfounded assertion that they can repeat, mantra-like.
If mass surveillance is brought in, how will we know about it? Is national security best served by the inevitable abuses of such a scheme about which we are never told and which would go unpunished? Would national security be enhanced or weakened were Mr Dutton to use such powers for political advantage or to enable political persecution without our knowledge?
And if we cannot know the truth of such fundamental matters, what security as a democracy do we have?
If one raid was “a dangerous act of intimidation” what are we to make of two raids in two days – the second of our national broadcaster – as anything other than a symptom of deeply disturbing developments at the heart of our democracy?
The story in this case was not one but two years old, a major exposé of how Australian special forces soldiers had killed unarmed men and children in Afghanistan. On what possible grounds is it a good thing to not know atrocities have been committed by our nation?
How is our national security threatened by revealing crimes done in our name? Surely we are best served as a nation by a military that we can be confident acts within certain boundaries that are deemed acceptable in war and does not go beyond them?
In all this we cannot pretend to be surprised. The repression and culture of lying, deceit and evasion of public accountability that cloaked previous Liberal governments’ refugees policy is now coming home to haunt us all.
It was after all under Scott Morrison’s stewardship of the immigration portfolio that the notorious section 42 of the Border Force Act was enacted, allowing for the jailing for two years of any doctors or social workers who bore public witness to children beaten or sexually abused, to acts of rape or cruelty. The new crime was not crime, but the reporting of state-sanctioned violence on the innocent.
National security was invoked then to justify the enforcement of a national silence over what were no more or less than crimes.
And so it is again.
The consecutive timing of these acts represents not just a moment when a government crackdown on journalism began. The method may be to intimidate any whistleblower or journalist who would wish to reveal crimes committed by our government or in the name of our government.
But the aim is to suppress the truth.
And without the light of truth shining on what happens in public life we head into the darkness of oppression.
The Morrison government will soon seek to assume the high moral ground by diverting public discussion to the need for religious freedoms. But until I see Hillsong being raided by Dutton’s stooges, with the feds occupying their offices, accessing all their phone and computer records, I am not buying any of it.
This is a new government uninhibited, and it would now seem, unhinged. It does seem extraordinary that two cases, each of long standing, would immediately after an election, suddenly be activated to this level of public attention without ministerial knowledge. And yet, we have Dutton’s word it is not so. And were a news organisation subsequently to report, based on government documents, that the truth is otherwise, who knows who might come knocking on their door in the interest of national security?
Under his home affairs super ministry, Peter Dutton has more overt and covert power than any minister in our history. And this week officers of his ministry have been willing to use their powers recklessly against those practices that make us a democracy.
After the raids of the last two days, Australians would be justified in feeling fearful about their future. The politicians who might speak for us have long ceased to do so. And the journalists who still can, now risk everything if they publish political secrets that may be in our interests to know but are in our political masters’ to keep hidden.
The Morrison government could not have signalled its turn to the new authoritarianism that is poisoning so many other democracies with any clearer message. Get ready for the future, because it may already be here.
Extraordinary Federal Police action! Raiding ABC offices and home of a News Corps editor
Mr Dutton’s office yesterday referred all queries to the AFP and did not responded to a list of questions from news.com.au from early this morning.
“Minister Dutton must explain what he knew about these two raids … freedom of the press is an essential component of our democracy.”
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Australian media is bracing for more “heavy-handed” Federal Police raids, after extraordinary searches of the ABC and a News Corp editor’s home. https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/media/federal-police-raid-abc-offices-in-sydney-over-a-2017-story-about-afghanistan/news-story/3bb1fbe51571d757ca05bb8da0b763d1 Shannon Molloy 5 June 19, Australia’s media industry is bracing for more “heavy-handed” raids by the Federal Police, following the extraordinary searches of the ABC today and a journalist’s home yesterday. Several officers remain inside the Sydney headquarters of the public broadcaster, trawling through more than 9200 items in relation to reports published two years ago regarding alleged unlawful killings and misconduct by Special Forces troops in Afghanistan. It comes just a day after the Canberra home of Annika Smethurst, political editor of News Corp Australia’s Sunday newspapers, was stormed by seven AFP officers who spent seven hours poking through her personal items, including her underwear drawer. Claire Harvey, deputy editor of The Sunday Telegraph, said she was concerned more journalists would be targeted in what was clearly an attempt to intimidate. “All media organisations should be concerned about who’s going to be next,” Harvey said on ABC News today. “There will be more raids. That’s inevitable. There are plenty of stories I can think of that the government might be targeting next.” The AFP raids, which News Corp Australia — publisher of news.com.au — has described as “outrageous and heavy-handed”, “aren’t about a genuine search for information”, Harvey said. “Seven Federal Police officers spent several hours going through every drawer in (Smethurst’s) home, the kitchen drawers and underwear drawer. Her cookbooks, they went through every page. “It’s interesting they haven’t searched Annika’s office. “This is a really chilling example of what happens when government thinks they aren’t going to be held to account.” The incredibly broad scope of the search warrant executed at the ABC’s offices today should be a concern for all media organisations, Harvey said. STORIES THAT SPARKED CRACKDOWN Continue reading |
Swedish court rules in favour of Julian Assange: he will not be extradited to Sweden
Sweden’s Uppsala District Court has found in favour of Assange: the court ruled NOT to detain Assange in absentia. The preliminary investigation can proceed without Assange’s extradition to Sweden. This was always the case as Assange has always cooperated with the investigation.
Suzie Dawson on Julian Assange’s mistreatment #FreeAssange
New climate report – prediction of the collapse of civilisation
New Report Suggests ‘High Likelihood of Human Civilization Coming to an End’ in 2050 https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/597kpd/new-report-suggests-high-likelihood-of-human-civilization-coming-to-an-end-in-2050 3 June 19
The climate change analysis was written by a former fossil fuel executive and backed by the former chief of Australia’s military. A harrowing scenario analysis of how human civilization might collapse in coming decades due to climate change has been endorsed by a former Australian defense chief and senior royal navy commander.
The analysis, published by the Breakthrough National Centre for Climate Restoration, a think-tank in Melbourne, Australia, describes climate change as “a near- to mid-term existential threat to human civilization” and sets out a plausible scenario of where business-as-usual could lead over the next 30 years.
On our current trajectory, the report warns, “planetary and human systems [are] reaching a ‘point of no return’ by mid-century, in which the prospect of a largely uninhabitable Earth leads to the breakdown of nations and the international order.”
The only way to avoid the risks of this scenario is what the report describes as “akin in scale to the World War II emergency mobilization”—but this time focused on rapidly building out a zero-emissions industrial system to set in train the restoration of a safe climate.
The scenario warns that our current trajectory will likely lock in at least 3 degrees Celsius (C) of global heating, which in turn could trigger further amplifying feedbacks unleashing further warming. This would drive the accelerating collapse of key ecosystems “including coral reef systems, the Amazon rainforest and in the Arctic.”
The results would be devastating. Some one billion people would be forced to attempt to relocate from unlivable conditions, and two billion would face scarcity of water supplies. Agriculture would collapse in the sub-tropics, and food production would suffer dramatically worldwide. The internal cohesion of nation-states like the US and China would unravel.
Even for 2°C of warming, more than a billion people may need to be relocated and in high-end scenarios, the scale of destruction is beyond our capacity to model with a high likelihood of human civilization coming to an end,” the report notes.
The new policy briefing is written by David Spratt, Breakthrough’s research director and Ian Dunlop, a former senior executive of Royal Dutch Shell who previously chaired the Australian Coal Association.
In the briefing’s foreword, retired Admiral Chris Barrie—Chief of the Australian Defence Force from 1998 to 2002 and former Deputy Chief of the Australian Navy—commends the paper for laying “bare the unvarnished truth about the desperate situation humans, and our planet, are in, painting a disturbing picture of the real possibility that human life on Earth may be on the way to extinction, in the most horrible way.”
Barrie now works for the Climate Change Institute at Australian National University, Canberra.
Spratt told Motherboard that a key reason the risks are not understood is that “much knowledge produced for policymakers is too conservative. Because the risks are now existential, a new approach to climate and security risk assessment is required using scenario analysis.”
Last October, Motherboard reported on scientific evidence that the UN’s summary report for government policymakers on climate change—whose findings were widely recognized as “devastating”—were in fact too optimistic.
While the Breakthrough scenario sets out some of the more ‘high end’ risk possibilities, it is often not possible to meaningfully quantify their probabilities. As a result, the authors emphasize that conventional risk approaches tend to downplay worst-case scenarios despite their plausibility.
Spratt and Dunlop’s 2050 scenario illustrates how easy it could be to end up in an accelerating runaway climate scenario which would lead to a largely uninhabitable planet within just a few decades.
“A high-end 2050 scenario finds a world in social breakdown and outright chaos,” said Spratt. “But a short window of opportunity exists for an emergency, global mobilization of resources, in which the logistical and planning experiences of the national security sector could play a valuable role.”
Queensland National Party MPs keen for nuclear power in Australia
Queensland Coalition MPs push for inquiry to lift Australia’s nuclear power ban, Guardian, 2 June 19,
Keith Pitt and James McGrath behind move, saying ‘we have to be able to investigate all options’ A group of Queensland Liberal National party MPs reportedly want parliament to consider the feasibility of nuclear power in Australia.The energy source is banned as a source of power but several Coalition MPs will put forward a motion in the Senate to create a committee to investigate using nuclear power in the energy mix.
Queensland MP Keith Pitt and his Senate colleague James McGrath are behind the push, the Sunday Telegraph reports.……
The MP says nuclear energy has helped to reduce carbon emissions and power prices in Europe, while also being a reliable source of power. ……
But Labor’s new shadow treasurer, Jim Chalmers, said an inquiry was not a good idea.
“I invite them now to put their hands up for which communities that they would like to see nuclear power stations built in,” he told reporters in Brisbane on Sunday.
“Rather than these just being thought bubbles for the opposition to respond to, the onus is on them to outline their plans for nuclear power stations for our suburbs.”
During the federal election campaign prime minister Scott Morrison said he had no plans to reverse the ban on nuclear energy, after earlier saying he’d be open to it if the sector paid its own way. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jun/02/queensland-nationals-mps-push-for-inquiry-to-lift-australias-nuclear-power-ban
Julian Assange will now not face Espionage Act charges.
Assange won’t face charges over role in devastating CIA leak The decision surprised national security experts and some former officials, given prosecutors’ recent decision to go after the WikiLeaks founder on Espionage Act charges.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will not face charges for publishing Vault 7, a series of documents detailing the CIA’s arsenal of digital code used to hack devices Politico, By 6/2/19
It’s a move that has surprised national security experts and some former officials, given prosecutors’ recent decision to aggressively go after the WikiLeaks founder on more controversial Espionage Act charges that some legal experts said would not hold up in court. ……
Prosecutors were stymied by several factors. First, the government is facing a ticking clock in its efforts to extradite Assange to the United States from the United Kingdom, where he is being held. Extradition laws require the U.S. to bring any additional charges against Assange within 60 days of the first indictment, which prosecutors filed in March, accusing Assange of helping former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning hack into military computers.
The U.S. Justice Department has decided not to charge Julian Assange for his role in exposing some of the CIA’s most secret spying tools, according to a U.S. official and two other people familiar with the case.
It’s a move that has surprised national security experts and some former officials, given prosecutors’ recent decision to aggressively go after the WikiLeaks founder on more controversial Espionage Act charges that some legal experts said would not hold up in court. The decision also means that Assange will not face punishment for publishing one of the CIA’s most potent arsenals of digital code used to hack devices, dubbed Vault 7. The leak — one of the most devastating in CIA history — not only essentially rendered those tools useless for the CIA, it gave foreign spies and rogue hackers access to them.
First, the government is facing a ticking clock in its efforts to extradite Assange to the United States from the United Kingdom, where he is being held. Extradition laws require the U.S. to bring any additional charges against Assange within 60 days of the first indictment, which prosecutors filed in March, accusing Assange of helping former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning hack into military computers.
Second, prosecutors were worried about the sensitivity of the Vault 7 materials, according to an official familiar with the deliberations over whether to charge Assange. Broaching such a classified subject in court risks exposing even more CIA secrets, legal experts said. The CIA has never officially confirmed the authenticity of the leaked documents, even though analysts widely believe them to be authentic……
So instead, the Justice Department will go after Assange on the one count for allegedly assisting Manning and the 17-count Espionage Act indictment. There are no plans to bring any additional indictments prior to his extradition. https://www.politico.eu/article/julian-assange-wont-face-charges-over-cia-leak-whistleblower-spy-tools-national-security/
Australia’s uranium lobby imports a very unreliable “radiation expert” to spruik at Adelaide conference
The Uranium Conference is on in Adelaide on July 4th and 5th. The conference will be addressed by
Hon Dan van Holst Pellekaan MP, South Australian Minister for Energy and Mining. The keynote speaker will be Professor Geraldine Thomas, from Imperial College . She will also speak later on Radiation: Science, Protection and Communication.
Clive Palmer’s plan for new coal-fired power station in Galilee Basin
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Federal election 2019: Clive Palmer unveils new coal-fired power station plan in Qld marginal seat, ABC,
Climate change makes plan dangerous: Australia InstituteWaratah Coal is the largest tenement holder in the Galilee Basin, which sits in the electorate of Capricornia, one of the most marginal seats of the 2019 election. And today’s announcement comes amid Mr Palmer’s federal election campaign….. Climate change is the biggest threat to wellbeing and to industries in this region. “If we build new coal-fired power stations and pump more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere then that’s going to make it worse.” The Australia Institute (AI) predicts that by 2070 there will be 35-day heatwaves and a 50 per cent reduction in rainfall in Capricornia due to climate change. AI spokesman Mark Ogge said in light of the report, Mr Palmer’s announcement was dangerous.
“Climate change is the biggest threat to wellbeing and to industries in this region…… https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-08/clive-palmer-new-coal-mine-plan-waratah-coal-central-queensland/11092102 |
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Adani coal project has a doubtful financial future
the most fundamental problem may lie within the Adani group itself. The A$2 billion required from the project will ultimately come, in large measure, from chairman Gautam Adani’s own pocket.Adani Group founder Gautam Adani. Wikimedia,
With an estimated wealth of A$7 billion, he can certainly afford to pay if he chooses to. But it would represent a huge bet on the long-term future of coal-fired electricity, at very bad odds.
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Explaining Adani: why would a billionaire persist with a mine that will probably lose money? http://theconversation.com/explaining-adani-why-would-a-billionaire-persist-with-a-mine-that-will-probably-lose-money-117682?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20June%203%202019%20-%201325612392&utm_content=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20June%203%202019%20-%201325612392+CID_41d453460eeb0abec7025e8daebe0960&utm_source=campaign_monitor&utm_term=Explaining%20Adani%20why%20would%20a%20billionaire%20persist%20with%20a%20mine%20that%20will%20probably%20lose%20money
June 3, 2019 The road to Adani. There are more hurdles to overcome, and Gautam Adani might have to put up his own money. AAP By mid-June, if everything goes as expected, Adani Australia will receive the final environmental approvals for its proposed Carmichael coal mine and rail line development.Newspaper reports based on briefings from Adani suggest that, once the approvals are in place, the company could begin digging “within days”. On Friday the Queensland government approved Adani’s plan to protect a rare bird, apparently leaving it with just final regulatory hurdle: approval for its plan to manage groundwater. Its billboards in Brisbane read: “We can start tomorrow if we get the nod today”. But several big obstacles remain. Even after governments are out of the way, it will have to deal with markets and companies that aren’t keen on the project. Obstacles aplentyFirst up, there’s the problem of access to Aurizon’s rail line. Adani originally planned to build its own 388km railway from the Galilee Basin to its coal terminal at Abbot Point. However, in the scaled-down version of the project announced last year, Adani plans to build only 200km of track, before connecting to the existing Goonyella line owned by the rail freight company Aurizon. That requires an agreement of access pricing and conditions. Aurizon is legally obliged to negotiate with Adani, but has shown itself to be in no hurry to reach a deal. Then there’s insurance. Faced with rejection by every major bank in the world, Adani announced it would fund the project from its own resources. But now insurers, including nearly all the big European firms and Australia’s own QBE, are saying the same sort of thing as the financiers. Without insurance the project can’t proceed, and the pool of potential insurers is shrinking all the time. Not particularly financialBut the most fundamental problem may lie within the Adani group itself. The A$2 billion required from the project will ultimately come, in large measure, from chairman Gautam Adani’s own pocket.Adani Group founder Gautam Adani. Wikimedia, CC BY
With an estimated wealth of A$7 billion, he can certainly afford to pay if he chooses to. But it would represent a huge bet on the long-term future of coal-fired electricity, at very bad odds. In my analysis of the original Carmichael mine proposal in 2017 I concluded that the profit from operating the coal mine would be around A$15 per tonne. A recent analysis of the revised project by David Fickling for Bloomberg yielded a marginally more favorable estimate of US$16 per tonne, or US$160 million a year for the initial output of 10 million tonnes a year. That’s an 8% rate of return on $US2 billion, before considering overheads and depreciation. It’d need a long life…Such an investment could only be profitable on the basis of a mine with a long life and substantial potential for future expansion. How likely is that? When the start of construction was re-announced last November, it was suggested the coal might be shipped by 2021. With six months’ delay, and the insurance problem noted already, 2022 seems like the earliest possible date. But by that time, the current construction pipeline for coal-fired plants in India will have been worked through, and very few new ones will be being commissioned. A mere 8 gigawatts of new coal-fired power was commissioned in 2017-18, partly offset by 3.6GW of coal-fired power stations that closed down. The Indian government has stated that no new coal plants will be needed after 2022, or 2027 at the latest. …which it might not getIn these circumstances, newly opened coal mines will be able to sell coal only if they can displace existing suppliers. This suggests prices will have to fall to a level sufficient to ensure further closures of existing mines. Such a fall would erode or eliminate Adani’s already thin margins. By 2030, with the project still in its relatively early stages, most developed countries will have stopped using coal-fired power. The others will be moving fast in that direction. So far under President Trump, the United States has closed 50 coal-fired power stations, and will almost certainly never build another. The only glimmer of hope for coal has been in less developed countries in Asia. But over the course of this year, even these hopes have dimmed. Major banks in Japan and Singapore have withdrawn from funding new coal projects, following the lead of the global banks based in Europe and the US. Read more: If the Adani mine gets built, it will be thanks to politicians, on two continents That leaves South Korea and China as potential sources of funding. Korea is already phasing out coal-fired power domestically and its banks are being pressured to divest globally. The option of relying solely on China is problematic to say the least. To sum up, unless current trends change dramatically, the economic life of the Carmichael mine is unlikely to be more than a decade – nowhere near enough to recover a A$2 billion investment. The only glimmer of hope for coal has been in less developed countries in Asia. But over the course of this year, even these hopes have dimmed. Major banks in Japan and Singapore have withdrawn from funding new coal projects, following the lead of the global banks based in Europe and the US. |
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Australia joins with Japan and USA in urging North Korea to return to nuclear talks
Japan, U.S., Australia urge North Korea to return to nuclear talks, Japan Times , 2 June, 19, KYODO SINGAPORE – The Japanese, U.S. and Australian defense chiefs on Saturday agreed to cooperate on denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula and urge North Korea to return to disarmament negotiations that have remained at a standstill since the collapse of a second summit between Washington and Pyongyang in late February.
Acting U.S. Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan reached the agreement with Japanese and Australian defense ministers Takeshi Iwaya and Linda Reynolds at their meeting on the sidelines of the Asia Security Summit, known as the Shangri-La Dialogue, in Singapore…….https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/06/02/national/politics-diplomacy/japan-u-s-australia-urge-north-korea-return-nuclear-talks/#.XPRJ-BYzbGg
Concerns about the safety of 5G mobile network technology
we just don’t know what exactly is going on, and therefore we should be cautious.
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5G is being rolled out in Australia. Is the radiation safe? ABC 23 MAY 2019 By the end of this year, a new super-fast mobile network will be operating in all major capital cities and regional areas in Australia.
5G represents the fifth generation of mobile network technology, and it promises to be as much of a leap forward as 4G mobile broadband was back in 2011. As the rollout proceeds, however, it’s become a focal point for longstanding concerns about the health effects of electromagnetic radiation. “I’m very concerned about 5G. I already get headaches from 4G and wifi,” Oliver in Mackay wrote in to Hack. A Sydney resident told the ABC recently: “We don’t want it here. It causes us great anxiety that this thing is going to be running 24-7.”…… Australian and many other national health regulators say 5G is safe, while some recognised researchers urge caution. What is 5G?As with previous generational upgrades, the new tech is much faster than the existing network: Telstra recently achieved network speeds of around 3Gbps – about 60 times faster than 4G. It’s likely to be used for driverless cars and virtual reality, as it allows much larger amounts of data to be transferred with less time between the signal being sent and received. It achieves this speed and bandwidth partly through using higher frequencies of electromagnetic waves than 4G or any of the previous mobile networks. To understand what this means, let’s go back to high school physics: Mobile phones and mobile towers emit radiation, as do radios, microwaves, X-ray machines, and the sun. Radiation can be broadly divided into ionising and non-ionising types. Ionising radiation is powerful enough to damage DNA, which is why you have to be careful about too much sunlight or too many X-rays. Non-ionising radiation doesn’t have enough energy to break our DNA, and therefore we have traditionally thought it cannot cause cancer. 5G-type electromagnetic waves are a higher frequency than 4G (and therefore further up the spectrum towards X-rays) but still on the non-ionising side. Because they have shorter wavelengths, the waves are less able to penetrate solid objects (e.g. sunlight can’t go through a wall, but radio waves can). For this reason, 5G requires heaps of suitcase-size cell boxes to boost the signal and direct it around corners and other obstacles. These will be a lot more numerous than 4G towers. Leszczynski says these studies are evidence it also has a non-thermal effect. If that’s true, it would overturn the scientific basis of our current limits on mobile phone radiation exposure. However, these studies are limited. As Leszczynski says: “This result is from epidemiological studies that can show only whether there’s an increase or not an increased risk of developing disease. “They cannot demonstrate in particular this radiation has caused this cancer.” His point is that we just don’t know what exactly is going on, and therefore we should be cautious. What effect does it have?One reason we don’t know is because it’s very difficult to study the long-term effect of cellphone radiation on humans. Unlike, say, smoking, we’re unable to expose one group to radio frequencies, and then compare their health with the non-exposed population. Cellphone radiation is already everywhere, plus the frequency of radiation has changed rapidly over a relatively short period of time. The way we use our phones has also changed (for example, now children are more likely to use phones than before). That leaves studies on animals: In 1999, the US FDA asked the National Toxicology Program (NTP) to study the toxicity and cancer-causing capability of cellphone radio-frequency radiation. This was a US$30 million undertaking. The scientists had to have special chambers built in Switzerland so they could control exactly how much radiation the animals were getting. The draft findings came out nearly 20 years later, in 2018. It found that several rats and mice that had been blasted with with large amounts of radiofrequency electromagnetic radiation for two years exhibited tumours. “We believe that the link between radio frequency radiation and tumors in male rats is real, and the external experts agreed,” said NTP’s John Bucher in a statement. But the researchers struggled to form conclusions from the study. The rodents were exposed to much greater levels of radiation than a person would using a mobile phone or another consumer device. There was also no clear linear relationship between higher radiation exposure and more cancer. Also, humans absorb radiation differently to rats and mice. Given this uncertainty, it’s a big leap to pause the technology without any evidence of ill-effects. A huge chunk of the population has been using mobile phones for over two decades, and there hasn’t been an observed increase in cancer rates. Professor Rodney Croft from the Australian Centre for Electromagnetic Bioeffects Research at the University of Wollongong argues we can be confident in the relative safety of non-ionising radiation. “The reality is we know a lot about the mechanisms involved with the interactions with electromagnetics fields and the body,” he told Hack. The only effect we see is a small temperature rise………https://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/what-experts-say-on-the-radiation-safety-of-5g-network/11143020 |
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Vimy Resources managing director Mike Young talks up uranium industry, despite its gloomy market
Vimy Resources eyes US uranium fix, Stuart McKinnon, The West Australian 1 June 2019 Vimy Resources managing director Mike Young refers to himself as a “silver-lining guy” and jokingly admits “you have to be … in uranium”.
The Andrew Forrest-backed Vimy has a completed definitive study for its $493 million Mulga Rock uranium project 200km east of Kalgoorlie, has two granted mining leases and other key approvals in place. It just needs the price of yellowcake to roughly treble so it can push the button.
The spot price of uranium has been in the doldrums since the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, which prompted a phasing out of nuclear power in western countries, particularly in Europe.
Despite several false dawns, sentiment for the commodity has remained stubbornly low for the past eight years.
But the forthright Mr Young and Vimy’s chief nuclear officer Julian Tapp are hopeful the market might be approaching an inflection point.
They see a looming decision of the US Government as a potential catalyst to move uranium prices higher.
President Donald Trump is expected to decide next month whether to introduce trade restrictions to protect US-based uranium producers……..
If a quota is introduced, the company is hopeful Australia’s close relations with the US could win the country key concessions as it has done with aluminium and steel.
But whatever the outcome, Vimy believes a decision will provide clarity to a market starved of certainty for the past 18 months. US utilities, representing nearly a third of the global uranium demand, have effectively been on a buying strike since the start of last year.
…… “Politically, people are now thinking of nuclear as an avenue to emissions-free, dispatchable power 24/7 in all weather conditions,” Young said. “There’s still an anti-nuclear lobby, but by and large mainstream environmental scientists are getting on board nuclear power.” ….. https://thewest.com.au/business/spinifex/vimy-resources-eyes-us-uranium-fix-ng-b881212458z
1 This month
PETITION – To: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Australian Labor Government
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/235274195556
19 May – Webinar- Webinar: No Nuclear Weapons in Australia
Start: 2026-05-19 18:00:00 UTC Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney (GMT+10:00)
End: 2026-05-19 19:30:00 UTC Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney (GMT+10:00)
20 May – Webinar – The dangerous world of AUKUS, US, military occupation and suppression of dissent
National Webinar, 20th May, 2026, 6.30pm AEST. Confronting laws restricting/suppressing protest speech and action
Speakers: Former Sen. Rex Patrick, Lawyer Nick Hanna ,Arthur Rorris ,Jorgen Doyle, Sen David Shoebbridge,
Facilitator Kelley Tranter.
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
Antinuclear 