Antinuclear

Australian news, and some related international items

Australia’s repression of democratic discussion on nuclear waste dump is worse than UK’s

 


Cumbria Trust 11th Aug 2019 The Guardian has reported that residents in Southern Australia, who face having a nuclear waste storage facility imposed on them, are being forced
to sign an excessively restrictive code of conduct if they wish to attend
community meetings. This prevents them from taking notes, repeating certain
views expressed in the meeting, or trying to take part in the committee
discussions.

This appears to go well beyond the steps required to maintain
an orderly meeting, and serves to suppress democratic accountability. While
the last search process in Cumbria, MRWS, didn’t go to such extreme
lengths, there were some unnecessary restrictions which obstructed local
democracy. Specifically, executive members of the borough councils, and
cabinet members of Cumbria County Council, were told that they could not
give any public indication of whether they were minded to vote for the
process to proceed to the next stage. This ‘predetermination’ rule
allowed senior councillors to completely avoid public scrutiny on the
matter.

https://cumbriatrust.wordpress.com/2019/08/11/australian-troubles-with-community-engagement/

August 12, 2019 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, Federal nuclear waste dump | Leave a comment

Nuclear tourism- a pretty sick idea, really

Nuclear tourism is so hot right now,  https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/opinion/opinion-nuclear-tourism-is-so-hot-right-now/news-story/0042cca4743450faafd5c694a11f8e2b

Matthew Abraham, Sunday Mail (SA), August 10, 2019   It was 3.40am precisely on March 1, 1954, when the great Adelaide earthquake rumbled into town, looking for a fight.

Rattled awake, Mum and Dad leapt out of bed, grabbed my older brother from his bedroom, and raced outside. They forgot something.

Me.

I was three weeks old at the time, bouncing around but still sound asleep at the foot of their double bed.

While the Home Alone moment is part of our family folklore, a far more sinister threat to babies in our sleeping city came just over two years later.
It was silent, invisible and a dirty little secret.

The UK Government began merrily blowing up South Australia’s backyard, detonating atomic “devices” on the Maralinga lands in a series of trials stretching from 1956 to 1963.

In radiation lingo, some of these trials were particularly “dirty”.

On October 11, 1956, an unexpected southerly wind shift carried a radioactive cloud from one such blast right across Adelaide. Almost a year to the day later, on October 9, 1957, radioactive rain from an even dirtier nuclear blast – a 25-kilotonne bomb detonated at Maralinga’s Taranki test site – fell on Adelaide.

We were all blissfully ignorant, and that’s how the UK and Australian Governments liked it. The full extent of these trials was covered up for more than 30 years. The denials and callous disregard for the lives of the indigenous people of the Maralinga lands remains an unmitigated disgrace.

You’d think that soaking up a little Strontium-90 with the Farex as a two-year-old might have been more than enough nuclear joy for anyone.

Strange then, that in 1984 I became a nuclear tourist, strolling across the ground zero sites of three of the Maralinga atomic blasts – Taranki, TM100 and TM101.

This is how it happened.

The then Labor premier, the late John Bannon, was pushing hard for the UK to pay for cleaning up the radioactive mess it’d left blowing around our desert.

Much of the credit for what proved to be a successful campaign should really go to his then press secretary, later premier, Mike Rann.

In May 1984, Rann invited journalists to fly to Maralinga to cover an inspection tour by Bannon and Labor’s resources minister, Peter Walsh.

As then political reporter for The Advertiser, I was on the jaunt.

Despite evidence of uncovered plutonium particles, nobody wore masks, protective clothing or special footwear. I wore my trusty, lightweight Dunlop KT-47s.

Before heading back to the airstrip, I pocketed a small piece of aluminium that had been melted out of shape, almost certainly from one of the towers erected to hold the bombs.

Of all the dumb things I’ve done in my life, this was by far the dumbest.

We were issued with monitoring badges but discovered these only measured background radiation, not airborne plutonium particles.

On arriving home I binned the Dunlops and all my clothes from the trip – including the nuked souvenir.

Later we were flown to the Australian Radiation Laboratories in Melbourne for a four-hour scan of our lungs and livers for any evidence of ingested plutonium particles.

They were negative, which is terrific, because plutonium has a half-life of 24,000 years and the tiniest particle lodged in a lung will give you cancer.

Last Tuesday marked 74 years since the dropping of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. We’re all so much wiser now. Aren’t we? Nah.

In Ukraine, tourists are reportedly flocking to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the focus of a recent TV drama dealing with the 1986 explosion that turned the nearby city into a ghost town.

The Ukrainian Government has announced it’s transforming the 30km exclusion zone around the still-melting reactor No.4 into a “tourist magnet”, improving mobile phone reception, lifting video bans, and creating walking trails and waterways.

The disaster quickly claimed the lives of 31 workers from direct radiation, while an estimated 5000 people developed thyroid cancer.

Now tourists are posting Chernobyl selfies on Instagram, including a young lady semi-naked in a white contamination suit. It’s all good clean atomic cataclysmic fun.

Nuke tourism? Been there, done that. Give me a small earthquake any day.

August 12, 2019 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, personal stories | Leave a comment

Bangarla people call on Minister for Indigenous Australians Ken Wyatt to intervene in support of their vote on nuclear waste dump

On the anniversary of recognition Aboriginal Australians, the Barngarla people have written to Minister for Indigenous Australians Ken Wyatt to ask him to personally intervene and allow them to have a vote on the radioactive waste facility proposed for their land. Read their letter here:
https://www.nodumpalliance.org.au/barngarla_wyatt_letter
10 August 2019 The Honourable Ken Wyatt AM, MP Minister for Indigenous Australians House of Representatives Parliament House Canberra ACT 2600
Dear Minister Wyatt
On 10 August 1967, some fifty-two years ago today, the Australian Constitution was amended to give effect to the outcome of the 1967 Referendum, allowing Aboriginal People to finally be counted as part of the Australian population.
Prior to this, Aboriginal Australians had no proper legal status in Australia, no stable say in Government, and limited political rights. This was a landmark event in our fight for acknowledgement, equality and reconciliation.
It goes without saying that in the twenty-first century all Australians, no matter their colour, race, gender, or creed, should have the right to vote. However, notwithstanding the heroic struggles of our elders past and present, we now find ourselves again denied the right to vote. In particular, our People, the Barngarla People, have been excluded from the vote on whether there should be a nuclear waste facility on our traditional lands near Kimba, South Australia.
Residents and property owners are allowed to vote—as they should be. The decision will affect all of their rights over their land whether they are for or against the nuclear facility. Similarly, the decision will also affect all of the Barngarla People’s rights over our native title land. The right to live on and care for Country, our ability to use the land, its sense of “home”, and its value to third parties will all be affected for us, like everybody else. We have requested the right to vote—by writing both to the local council and the Commonwealth Government—but we have still been excluded from the ballot.
We write to you on the anniversary of our recognition as Australians to ask you personally to intervene and allow us to have a vote on this issue which will affect us, and all of the generations to come. We ask you to ensure that we do not again live in a country where Aboriginal People are denied the basic human right to vote.
On the anniversary of the 1967 Constitutional amendments, in the spirit of our elders and our ancestors, we ask your Government to ensure that we are included in the Kimba ballot.
Sincerely,
The Barngarla People Barngarla Determination Aboriginal Corporation RNTBC ICN 8603

August 11, 2019 Posted by | aboriginal issues, AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, Federal nuclear waste dump | Leave a comment

Submissions due by 16 September to the parliamentary Inquiry on Nuclear Power for Australia

One month for nuclear inquiry submissions, Daily Telegraph, Rebecca Gredley, Australian Associated Press, August 8, 2019 

Australians have until next month to make a submission to the federal government’s inquiry into the feasibility of using nuclear energy as a local power source.

Submissions are open until September 16, with the hope of finalising the report by the end of the year…….

The committee will consider waste management, health and safety, environmental impacts, affordability and reliability, economic feasibility and workforce capability.

Security implications, community engagement and national consensus will also be reviewed.

Despite calling for the inquiry, Energy Minister Angus Taylor has continued sending mixed messages over his intentions with nuclear power……

The new probe will have regard to two previous inquiries, a 2016 look at the nuclear fuel cycle by the South Australian government and a 2006 review by the Howard government.

The SA inquiry recommended pursuing a dump for overseas nuclear waste in the state, which hit a wall ahead of the last state election.

However, a federal government proposal to store low-level and intermediate-level waste generated in Australia is subject to ongoing debate on a suitable location.

The Howard government review found Australia would need about 25 reactors to supply one-third of the nation’s electricity supply by 2050. https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/breaking-news/one-month-for-nuclear-inquiry-submissions/news-story/50cdda8762cd616650dde4f662c065da

 

August 10, 2019 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, politics | Leave a comment

Energy Minister Angus Taylor orders inquiry into nuclear energy – a distraction from Australia’s climate policy failure?

We’re wasting too much energy on nuclear talk  https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6320212/were-wasting-too-much-energy-on-nuclear-talk/?cs=14246, Richie Merzian, 10 Aug 19   Late last Friday – a timeslot where ministers are known to announce policies they are most proud of – the Minister for Energy, Angus Taylor, ordered a parliamentary inquiry into nuclear energy.
In a country currently engulfed in a gas price crisis, caused by the voracious appetite of the gas industry to export cheap gas and sell Australians expensive gas, are we really willing to believe that the solution to expensive gas is even more expensive energy from nuclear reactors? While renewables keep coming down in price, nuclear is only the energy source that keeps getting more, and more, expensive over time.
And if policymakers are trying to solve an energy crisis in 2019, why would they select a form of power generation that has a legacy of expensive delays and failures and, optimistically, takes a decade to build? It just doesn’t add up. Globally, reactors have taken decades. Of all nuclear reactors currently under construction, two-thirds are behind schedule and nearly half of those were delayed again in the last year.
In developed countries, even ones with existing nuclear industries, nuclear is a far more expensive form of electricity than any other alternative, according to numerous organisations (Lazard, the International Energy Agency, and Bloomberg – just to name a few). The independent World Nuclear Industry Status Report puts it even more bluntly and states that new nuclear energy ‘is simply not competitive under ordinary market economy rules anywhere’. Yes – anywhere. What makes nuclear a particularly poor choice for Australia is that we would be building nuclear where there isn’t any nuclear to begin with.
To ‘go nuclear’, Australia would have to start from scratch. Moratoriums would need to be lifted, and legislation would need to be drafted (and passed) to regulate the mining, enrichment, energy, transportation and storage phases of nuclear energy. Taxpayers will pay to set up the industry and end up subsidising reactors. In contrast, wind and solar generation keep getting cheaper. The CSIRO and Australian Energy Market Operator crunched the numbers last year and found nuclear energy would be far more expensive than current renewables with storage, which will only keep getting cheaper.
Even the Australian Nuclear Association admitted nuclear needs a carbon price to be competitive in Australia. Let that sink in. The Coalition boosters of nuclear energy are the same party which removed the one mechanism that could have made it anywhere near price competitive – talk about shooting yourself in the foot. But while you’re soaking in that irony, also realise that any carbon price which benefited nuclear power in Australia would provide just as much, if not more, benefit to renewable energy.
The cost of renewable energy is falling as fast today as the cost of computers fell a decade ago. As demand for renewables increases so too does the rate of innovation. Meanwhile, the exact opposite has happened with nuclear. In the US and France, where nearly half of nuclear power stations are located, the cost of building nuclear power stations has steadily increased. Major companies like Westinghouse Electric Company, who pinned their hopes to nuclear, have gone bankrupt and projects have been scrapped at enormous expense. France, and a range of other nuclear countries, are reducing their nuclear fleet.
And while nuclear boosters will be pointing to the growth in nuclear in China, it’s funny that these same people are far less likely to point out that renewable energy in China has increased twice as fast, and now produces double the energy nuclear generates. It is no coincidence that global demand for nuclear energy has slowed and nuclear energy has dropped from 17 per cent to 10 per cent as a proportion of the global energy mix in the last 20 years. Those who argue on the side of nuclear generally point to “small modular reactors” as the economical solution. Taylor specifically listed these mini-reactors as a new technology worth exploration.
On the surface, the economics of these mini-reactors sound plausible – they’d be smaller and mass produced in factory, and mass production leads to lower prices. But even the most cursory interrogation shows just how ridiculous these claims are. These mini-reactors would be made in new mega-factories that don’t exist – so you still have to build something large, expensive and complicated to have mini-reactors. The small number of mini-reactors that are under construction have seen delays and cost blowouts. 
Secondly, for mass production to work you need customers. How many mini-reactors would Australia be willing to buy and where would we put them? If you think there’s not enough controversy over where one large nuclear reactor could be located, just wait until the government tries to dot mini nuclear reactors around the country. On top of all of that, each mini-reactor requires much of the same control technology as the large reactors, and are generally less efficient.
The costs of nuclear reactors are so high due to the safety requirements needed to avoid catastrophic situations like those in Chernobyl and Fukushima, and because meeting these requirements lead to multi-year construction blow outs. Even so the risks associated to nuclear power stations mean they are essentially uninsurable. If the operators did have to insure against the full risk of nuclear accidents, the premiums would make the cost of nuclear power prohibitively uncompetitive.
So, the government makes up the gap – with taxpayer dollars – as the insurer of last resort. So why is Taylor, whose primary mandate is to bring energy prices down, requesting an inquiry into literally one of the most expensive energy generation technologies? Could this be a distraction from the government’s complete and utter lack of energy and climate policy?

As the Prime Minister flies to the Pacific Island Forum on Tuesday, he will now be armed with another sorry excuse as to why Australia is not expediting the transition to renewables and storage: ‘Sorry, we are still looking into nuclear’. But in the end, whatever is sparking this debate is less important than the economic and safety risks of nuclear. You don’t need to be an economist to see that nuclear power is an expensive and dated solution.

Richie Merzian is climate and energy program director at the Australia Institute.

August 10, 2019 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, politics | Leave a comment

Australia’s Liberal Coalition government still dreaming about nuclear power

August 10, 2019 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, politics | Leave a comment

Australia’s strategy for ‘new nuclear’ – based on non-existent plant!

Are SMRs vaporware?  https://johnquiggin.com/2019/08/08/are-smrs-vaporware/  AUGUST 8, 2019 JOHN QUIGGIN  It seems as if nuclear fans in Australia have given up on conventional Generation III/III+ reactors such as the Westinghouse AP1000 and Areva EPR: unsurprising in view of the massive cost overruns and delays experienced in attempts to construct them.

They’ve also gone quiet on the prospect of more advanced “Generation IV” reactors. Again that’s unsurprising. Most of the leading research projects in this field have been abandoned or deferred past 2030, even for prototypes.
The great hope now is for Small Modular Reactors, which will, it is hoped, be assembled on site from parts built in factories. The idea is that the savings in construction will offset the loss of the scale economies inherent in having a larger reactor (arising ultimately from the fact that the volume of a sphere grows faster than its surface area).
Lots of SMR ideas have been proposed, but the only one with any serious prospect of entering commercial use is that proposed by NuScale, with funding from the US Department of Energy. NuScale has recently claimed that it should have its first reactor (consisting of 12 modules) in operation by 2027.
A couple of observations on this. First, when the project was funded back in 2014 the proposed start date was 2023. So, in the course of five years, the target time to completion has been reduced from nine years to eight. That suggests the 2027 target is pretty optimistic.
Second, NuScale isn’t actually going to build the factory that is the key selling point of the SMR idea. The press release says that the parts will be made by BWX, formerly Babcock and Wilcox (who abandoned their own SMR proposal around the time NuScale got funded).

So, is BWX going to build a factory, or is this going to be a bespoke job using existing plants (presumably much more expensive). I went to their website to find out. But far from getting a clear answer, I could find no mention at all of a deal with NuScale, or of any recent activity around SMRs.

So, there you have it. Australia’s proposed nuclear strategy rests on a non-existent plant to be manufactured by a company that apparently knows nothing about it.

August 10, 2019 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, spinbuster, technology | Leave a comment

Federal nuclear waste management “consultative committees” – secretive – a farce?

Ruth Tulloch Fight To Stop Nuclear Waste In The Flinders Ranges, 10 Aug 19 These committees were originally set up as a way of “consulting with the community”. They haven’t been allowed to discuss much (if any thing) with the community and any one who wants to go and sit in on a meeting has to ‘ask’ (beg, be vetted) for an invite. These are supposed to be public meetings and as such should be run like a public meeting ie. local council….where any one is entitled to go and sit in at any time.  https://www.facebook.com/groups/941313402573199/

August 10, 2019 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, Federal nuclear waste dump | Leave a comment

Australia’s Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor makes light of UN’s urgent climate warning

Australian government brushes off UN’s urgent climate warning, SBS News 9 Aug 19  Humanity faces increasingly painful trade-offs between food security and rising temperatures within decades unless emissions are curbed and unsustainable farming and deforestation halted, according to a landmark climate assessment.

The federal emissions reduction minister has defended Australia’s land management practices after a new United Nations climate change report called for changes in the way the world produces and consumes food.

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned efforts to limit global warming while feeding a booming population could be wrecked without swift and sweeping changes to how we use the land we live off.

The report on land use and climate change highlighted the need to protect remaining tropical forests as a bulkhead against future warming.  It offered a sobering take on the hope that reforestation and bio-fuel schemes alone can offset mankind’s environmental damage, underlining that reducing emissions will be central to averting disaster.

“Land is a source of emissions as well as a sink,” IPCC chair Hoesung Lee told AFP.

“Obviously you want to reduce emissions from land as much as possible. But that has a lot to do with what’s happening to the other side of the equation: greenhouse gas emissions, mainly from the energy sector.”

But Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor said Australia is already absorbing emissions from land management. “This is a very, very important success story in Australia. Farmers, in particular, haven’t been given the credit they deserve for the role, the enormous role, they’ve played on this front,” he told ABC News on Friday.

But the minister brushed off concerns about the role meat-heavy diets play in climate change, suggesting the report was “forcing” people to become vegan……..

Land is intimately linked to climate. With its forests, plants, and soil it sucks up and stores around one-third of all man-made emissions.  Intensive exploitation of these resources also produces huge amounts of planet-warming CO2, methane and nitrous oxide, while agriculture guzzles up 70 percent of Earth’s freshwater supply.

National Farmers Federation president Fiona Simson said the food warning should send “a shiver down your spine”…….

As the global population balloons towards 10 billion by mid-century, how land is managed by governments, industry and farmers will play a key role in limiting or accelerating the worst excesses of climate change.

Farmers for Climate Action want the federal government to implement a national strategy on climate change and agriculture, and to speed up the transition to clean energy.

“With NSW marking one year since it was 100 per cent drought-declared … and farmers across the country hurting from droughts, heatwaves and other extreme weather events, it is clear that climate change is already hurting Australian agriculture,” the group said in a statement……https://www.sbs.com.au/news/australian-government-brushes-off-un-s-urgent-climate-warning

August 10, 2019 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, climate change - global warming, politics | Leave a comment

Nuclear waste: residents near proposed dump told to sign draconian code of conduct,

Nuclear waste: residents near proposed dump told to sign draconian code of conduct, https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/aug/08/nuclear-waste-residents-near-proposed-dump-told-to-sign-draconian-code-of-conduct?CMP=soc_567&fbclid=IwAR3a-X8NHLloKNUaCpkAblZb7yhKDmDkiIkFgP9cVGiv232hfZec0-w_Xfk  

Code bans residents from taking notes or recording any part of meetings without prior agreement, Calla Wahlquist  @callapilla 8 Aug 2019 Residents in small South Australian communities shortlisted for a proposed nuclear waste storage facility have been told if they want to attend community consultation meetings they have to sign a code of conduct that bans them from taking notes.

The shortlist for the proposed dump has been narrowed down to Lyndhurst or Napandee, in the Kimba shire area on the Eyre Peninsula, and Wallerberdina Station, which is near Barndioota in the southern Flinders Ranges.

If approved, it would be a permanent storage facility for low-level nuclear waste and provide temporary storage for intermediate level waste, including waste temporarily stored near the research reactor at Lucas Heights in Sydney.

The process has been stalled for more than 12 months because of a federal court challenge by Barngarla traditional owners, who hold native title over land adjacent to the two proposed Eyre Peninsula sites.

Barngarla Determination Aboriginal Corporation last month lost a federal court case arguing that a decision not to include native title holders in a local government poll gauging community support for the dump was in breach of the Racial Discrimination Act, but have appealed that decision to the full court.

A majority of Adnyamathanha traditional owners have also said they’re “totally opposed” to the facility being built at Barndioota.

Meetings of two local consultative committees, appointed by the federal industry department’s National Radioactive Waste Management Facility Taskforce (NRWMFT) as its main platform for ongoing community consultation, were put on hold while the court case was underway but have been scheduled to resume next week.

But locals have complained that a new code of conduct for people wishing to observe the Barndioota and Kimba consultative committee meetings is unnecessarily restrictive and makes it harder for the community to obtain up-to-date information and voice their concerns.

The code, seen by Guardian Australia, states that “observers” must be approved and cannot “take any notes, or record any part of the meeting … except with the prior agreement of the department, the independent convenor and all representative members of the committee”.

It also says they cannot “repeat or share the individual ideas or views of [committee] members,” and can’t repeat confidential information or try to interject in committee discussions.

“This agreement does not prevent you from discussing information shared during a BCC meeting unless it has been identified as confidential or sensitive,” it says. “The [convenor] may ask you to leave the meeting if you do not comply with this Code of Conduct.”

Farmer Dean Hooper, who has applied to attend the Barndioota meeting, said that restrictions on repeating confidential information and behaving respectfully were reasonable but other conditions placed on attending were “bullshit”.

“They are trying to keep it low and quiet and get this dump to happen as easily and quickly and quietly as possible,” he said.

Hooper opposes the dump and is a member of the Flinders local action group.

The NRWMFT said that the code of conduct concerned behavioural standards and that information in the meeting was not confidential, unless stated otherwise, and that the minutes of all meetings had been published online.

Committee members have also been restricted from discussing meetings with the media. Susan Andersson, a GP from Hawker who sits on the Bandioota committee, said the contract extension that committee members signed in March was “more restrictive” than the original contract and represented an apparent desire by the department to control public information.

NRWMFT general manager Sam Chard said the facility “will only proceed near a community that broadly supports it and which could provide an ongoing workforce”.

In a statement on Wednesday, she said that ballots of residents and ratepayers, like that attempted by Kimba before the federal court challenge, “remain one method that we intend to use to help inform if that necessary broad community support exists”.

People living outside the local government areas can make a submission.

August 8, 2019 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, civil liberties, Federal nuclear waste dump | Leave a comment

Submissions called for – to federal government’s inquiry about nuclear power for Australia

One month for nuclear inquiry submissions, 9 News, Aug 7, 2019  Australians have until next month to make a submission to the federal government’s inquiry into the feasibility of using nuclear energy as a local power source.

Submissions are open until September 16, with the hope of finalising the report by the end of the year……
“This inquiry will provide the opportunity to establish whether nuclear energy would be feasible and suitable for Australia in the future, taking into account both expert opinions and community views.”
The committee will consider waste management, health and safety, environmental impacts, affordability and reliability, economic feasibility and workforce capability.
Security implications, community engagement and national consensus will also be reviewed.  https://www.9news.com.au/national/one-month-for-nuclear-inquiry-submissions/095246bd-31b7-408d-ad68-1a96b38065ca

August 8, 2019 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, politics | Leave a comment

Australia needs intelligent long-term energy policy – nuclear does not ‘stack up’

we’ve been able to show (many published studies now) that 100 per cent renewable systems are technically achievable, cost-effective (possibly cheaper than maintaining a fossil fuel system, depending on cost assumptions) and reliable, without having to resort to nuclear power.
Strategic placement of wind and solar plants to take advantage of synoptic weather patterns, combined with pumped hydro energy storage, will require significant investment, and more importantly, intelligent long-term energy and climate policy. 
Should Australia be investing in nuclear energy?  https://lens.monash.edu/@technology/2019/08/07/1376072/should-australia-be-investing-in-nuclear-energy  The Australian government is launching an inquiry into the possibility of building a nuclear power industry in Australia. Some will see this as a good thing – another low-carbon tool in the toolbox that we need to combat climate change; others will see it as a dangerous path to go down with the (difficult to quantify) risks of a nuclear accident and issues around dealing with radioactive waste.

There are questions about how long it might take to get a nuclear power station planned, built and operational (maybe as long as 20 years), not to mention that a change of legislation is required before a nuclear plant can even begin to be built. And then there’s the question of cost. Continue reading →

August 8, 2019 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, energy | Leave a comment

Small Modular Nuclear Reactors don’t operate anywhere yet – but USA companies are keen to sell them to Australia

Nuclear reactors called SMRs are being touted as possible energy source for Australia, ABC News By political reporter Jackson Gothe-Snape 7 Aug 19, Energy Minister Angus Taylor has ordered a parliamentary inquiry into nuclear energy.

Key points:

  • Small modular reactors (SMRs) will be investigated in a parliamentary inquiry
  • These are designed to be built in factories then shipped to a location for operation
  • Some expect SMRs will become popular in coming decades, but none are currently operational

“This will be the first inquiry into the use of nuclear power in Australia in more than a decade and is designed to consider the economic, environmental and safety implications of nuclear power,” he wrote this week.

The inquiry follows campaigns from Coalition senators James McGrath and Keith Pitt, New South Wales Nationals leader John Barilaro, and the Minerals Council to re-examine the nuclear option.

The Government continues to grapple with the pressures of energy prices, reducing carbon emissions and ensuring reliability.

Investigating nuclear is controversial however, given both major parties agree to a ban on nuclear energy in Australia and the Fukushima nuclear disaster occurred in Japan less than a decade ago.

The biggest change in the nuclear sector since the last federal government review is the emergence of “small modular reactors” (SMRs). This technology was specifically referenced in Mr Taylor’s request for an inquiry.

Benefits of SMRs…..

South Australia’s 2016 royal commission into the nuclear fuel cycle sets out their key benefit: cost.

Developers of SMRs “are aiming to lower the typical construction costs associated with nuclear plants through serial fabrication at an off-site facility, with components brought together at the operational site for final assembly”.

Much like Ikea’s economies of scale, the more reactors are built, the cheaper each new one becomes. And multiple reactors can be deployed together on the same site if more energy is needed.

Mobility, safety and … uncertainty

There are other theoretical benefits too.

Because they are built at a factory and then shipped to a location, SMRs could be appropriate for a remote, energy-intensive factory or off-grid settlement needing power.

A similar idea is currently being pursued by Russia, which will soon tow a new floating nuclear power station to its remote far east.

But SMRs won’t look like a Soviet cruise ship. If they ever get built, they will be transportable on road by trucks.

Traditional nuclear power stations are located near rivers, lakes or the coast because they need large volumes of water.

SMRs promise to use less water, which would open up more remote sites.

And they are also designed to be “passively” safe — that is, they promise not to require an operator or backup water or energy to avoid meltdown.

The mooted benefits of SMRs sound promising, but none have been deployed so far.

In fact, they have been discussed for years with only slow progress. NuScale, a prominent SMR company owned by global engineering giant Fluor, is more than a decade old.

Construction on an SMR in China is reportedly set to commence in 2019, while approvals for the first test SMR are currently being worked through in the US and Canada. These may take several more years.

Cost criticism

South Australia’s royal commission found small modular reactors could be an option in future, but flagged there was a risk of cost blowouts associated with unproven technologies.

Despite the theoretical benefits of SMRs, Malcolm Turnbull — a proponent of pumped hydro project Snowy Hydro 2.0 when he was prime minister — argued this week that nuclear options were more expensive than what else is available right now.

“The cheapest form of new generation is renewables plus storage,” he posted on Twitter. …..

Individuals associated with the push for small modular reactors in Australia are closely associated with coal generation.

The NSW Nationals leader John Barilaro attended a 2018 SMR conference in the US with Tony Irwin, a director of SMR Nuclear Technology.

The company’s website states it was “established to advise on and facilitate the siting, development and operation of safe nuclear power generation technologies”.

Another director of that company is Trevor St Baker from Delta Electricity, the company that operates Vales Point on the NSW Central Coast.

A submission from SMR Nuclear Technology to a current uranium inquiry in New South Wales sets out how nuclear may replace coal.

“It should be acknowledged at the outset that there may be an important continuing role for gas-fired and coal-fired power generation,” it states……..

‘Untapped potential’ of uranium

Kevin Scarce, the man who led South Australia’s royal commission, said there was an opportunity to mine more uranium and convert it into a fuel source, “but at the moment that part of global supply is oversupplied”.

“Realistically, in the next 10 to 15 years there doesn’t appear to be much of a market unless nuclear starts to become more seen in the rest of the world.”…

The Minerals Council has long argued for Australia’s ban on nuclear energy to end.

It also wants uranium mining removed from the definition of a “nuclear action” in the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.

“These activities are not nuclear actions. They are mining activities,” a Minerals Council policy document states.

“Uranium projects should not automatically trigger a duplicative federal environmental approval process, and the costs and delays that come with that, for no environmental benefit.”

A joint media release this week from Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister Ben Morton announced a Productivity Commission review into resources sector regulation.

It also flagged that “improving the efficiency of environmental approvals would reduce the regulatory burden on business”.https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-07/small-modular-reactors-nuclear-explained/11386856

August 8, 2019 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, spinbuster | Leave a comment

Pro nuclear promoter Warren Mundine back on the propaganda trail

August 8, 2019 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, politics | Leave a comment

Nuclear advocate Switkowski admits that Small Modular Reactors have big problems

August 8, 2019 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, technology | Leave a comment

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