Labor vowed to ban ‘trans-shipping’ in reef waters after UN’s scientific body raised concerns about proposal in 2014, Guardian, Joshua Robertson, 23 Sept 17, The Queensland Labor government has flagged breaking a 2015 election promise by allowing the loading of coal ships at sea in the Great Barrier Reef marine park.
Labor vowed to ban so-called “trans-shipping” in reef waters after the United Nations’ peak scientific body raised concerns about a proposal off Hay Point near Mackay in 2014.
‘A South Australian Wirangu Elder says its a win that the word “massacre” will be included on a memorial plaque recognising the site where a large number of his people were shot and driven over cliffs by colonial settlers in 1849.
‘While the Waterloo Bay massacre remains strong in the memory of the local Wirangu people,
the local Elliston District council has finally acknowledged that the truth must be told after decades of refusing to acknowledge the massacre. … ‘
Mark Bailey is returning to duty as Minister for Main Roads, Road Safety and Ports and Minister for Energy, Biofuels and Water Supply, effective today.
Governments should stick to their job of making policy
Fears of the unstoppable energy transition are reinforced and amplified by vested interests and selfish, small minded losers who try and slow it down. Look at how energy prices jumped since Coalition’s intervention on Liddell.
Six things we learned: Death spirals and Tony Abbott’s sense of timing
It seems there is no climate and clean energy myth conservatives and the Murdoch media won’t repeat. Just as well we have renewable energy and smart businesses.
Australia joins boycott of UN treaty outlawing nuclear weapons
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop joined representatives from the US, Britain, France and others who were absent from the event at the annual United Nations gathering of world leaders overnight.
A total of 51 countries lined up to sign the new treaty.
The treaty was adopted by 122 countries at the United Nations in July following negotiations led by Austria, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa and New Zealand.
None of the nine countries that possess nuclear weapons — the United States, Russia, Britain, China, France, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel — took part in the negotiations.
“There remain some fifteen thousand nuclear weapons in existence. We cannot allow these doomsday weapons to endanger our world and our children’s future,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said as he opened the treaty for signing.
NATO condemned the treaty, saying that it may in fact be counter-productive by creating divisions.
As leaders formally signed on the sidelines of the annual UN General Assembly, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres hailed as historic the first multilateral disarmament treaty in more than two decades.
But Guterres acknowledged that much work was needed to rid the world of its stockpile of 15,000 atomic warheads.
“Today we rightfully celebrate a milestone. Now we must continue along the hard road towards the elimination of nuclear arsenals,” said Guterres.
The treaty will enter into force when 50 countries have signed and ratified it, a process that could take months or years.
“At a time when the world needs to remain united in the face of growing threats, in particular the grave threat posed by North Korea’s nuclear program, the treaty fails to take into account these urgent security challenges,” the 29-nation Western alliance said.
It added: “Seeking to ban nuclear weapons through a treaty that will not engage any state actually possessing nuclear weapons will not be effective, will not reduce nuclear arsenals, and will neither enhance any country’s security, nor international peace and stability.
Rejecting need for nuclear weapons
Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz of Austria, one of the few Western European nations that is not in NATO, rejected the idea that nuclear weapons were indispensable for security.
“If you look at the world’s current challenges, this narrative is not only false, it is dangerous,” he told AFP.
“The new treaty on the prohibition on nuclear weapons provides a real alternative for security: a world without any nuclear weapons, where everyone is safer, where no one needs to possess these weapons,” he said.
Brazilian President Michel Temer was the first to sign the treaty. Others included South African President Jacob Zuma and representatives from Indonesia, Ireland and Malaysia as well as the Palestinian Authority and the Vatican.
The prime minister says with electricity demand flat and even falling in Australia, he doesn’t see there being a commercial demand for expensive nuclear power. Roje Adaimy, 21 Sept 17, Malcolm Turnbull doesn’t see there being the commercial demand for nuclear power in Australia to warrant pushing its development.
The prime minister says that while the country has among the biggest uranium reserves in the world, building nuclear power stations takes a very long time.
China has a number of plants under construction but there is no “cookie cutter” design to help efficiently roll out the technology.
There also needed to be bipartisanship, which right now “is not even remotely there”, he told a ‘politics in the pub’ event on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast.
“The projects take so long to build that they would be very likely to span the lifetime of several governments,” Mr Turnbull said on Thursday night. “They’re all bespoke, so it takes a very long time to construct them and very expensive.”
On top of that, demand for electricity in Australia was flat or declining. “I don’t see there being the commercial demand for nuclear power,” he said. “That’s putting my businessman’s hat on rather than my politicians’ hat on.”
It comes just a few weeks after the Minerals Council released a paper setting out the case for nuclear power.
Nuclear power has relatively strong support among coalition MPs, but it remains a political hot potato and has been repeatedly ruled out by governments because of its cost.
Solar Batteries: Australians see energy storage as the future, poll finds, ABC By consumer affairs reporter Sarah Farnsworth and the National Reporting Team’s Rebecca Armitage, 22 Sept 17, As power prices continue to surge, Australians believe household solar storage batteries are the key to cheaper and more reliable energy, according to a new poll of 2,000 households.
Key points:
A survey found almost three-quarters of people believe solar batteries will become commonplace
68 per cent of households with solar panels are considering purchasing a battery
The price of storage batteries in the first half of 2017 only dropped by 5 per cent
The Climate Council found nearly three-quarters of those surveyed believe batteries, coupled with solar systems, would become commonplace within 10 years.
Of those who already had solar systems, 68 per cent were considering adding a household storage battery.
Most said the primary motivation for buying a solar battery was to reduce power bills.
Only 6 per cent believed consumers were driven by the need to protect their homes from blackouts.
More than half said they expected large-scale batteries like the one being built by Elon Musk in South Australia would also become common in the next 10 years.
“It shows that Australians do understand that renewables — particularly solar and increasingly battery storage — provide a solution to high power prices,” the Climate Council’s Andrew Stock said.
“I think it’s very encouraging that Australians really do get the importance of new technology. There is very little appetite for keeping aging coal fire stations running in the Australian populace, frankly,” he said……..
Energy economist and director of Carbon and Energy Markets, Bruce Mountain, agreed South Australians would benefit from installing batteries sooner rather than later.
“That is simply because battery and solar prices have come down, and in South Australia energy prices have gone up so much,” Mr Mountain said.
Mr Mountain said he wanted the Federal Government to invest more in the local industry to bring down solar battery costs, instead of seeking to subsidise coal fire power generators like Liddell.
“They can accelerate the installation of these batteries, they can grow a local equipment suppliers and often than incentive creates new industry and scale economies,” Mr Mountain said.
Australia’s southern winters are drying out. Here’s why, ABC 20 Sept 17 ,By Ben Deacon and Kate Doyle Winter rains are in decline across southern Australia, and while it is too early to say beyond doubt it is due to climate change, scientists say it is not just about climate variability.
Key points:
This winter was particularly dry given there was no El Nino event
Winters in Australia’s south are drying out, affecting farmers
Scientists say it is not just due to climate variability
“It’s actually quite unusual for us to get such a widespread dry through the winter without having an El Nino,” Bureau of Meteorology senior climatologist Blair Trewin said.
El Nino often brings dry conditions to Australia, but this year it is in neutral.
“It’s almost more about what hasn’t been happening,” Dr Trewin said.
Normally in winter, storms come up from the southern Indian Ocean and clip the bottom of Western Australia, delivering rain to the south of the country.
But until mid-July, the storms largely missed the continent………. Rainfall continues to decline in southern Australia. According to the Bureau of Meteorology, May to July rainfall has reduced by about 19 per cent since 1970 in the south-west of Australia.
There has been a decline of about 11 per cent since the mid-1990s in the April–October growing season rainfall in the continental south-east.
CSIRO Agriculture and Food senior principal research scientist Zvi Hochman said winter rain in Australia’s southern wheatbelt had declined by a whopping 28 per cent since 1990.
“I was surprised as anyone to find the extent to which that trend, across the 50 weather stations, is there,” Dr Hochman said.
Nuclear annihilation was the common childhood nightmare for those growing up in the late 20th century. When the Cold War ended, the issue dropped off the public radar, to be replaced by other existential concerns such as global warning.
In the meantime, states with nuclear weapons got on with modernising their arsenals away from the glare of community awareness, and other states forged ahead with their own nuclear programs because, as noted by Australia’s former UN Ambassador Richard Butler, “as long as any state holds nuclear weapons, others will seek to acquire them”.
Now, two man-children possessed of odd hairdos, nuclear arsenals and twitchy fingers have brought the issue back to where it should have been all along. Uppermost in our minds.
Nuclear weapons are uniquely destructive to human health and the environment, because of the nature and extent of the devastation they cause and the ongoing radioactive fallout. Some nuclear weapons today are more than 3000 times more powerful than the atomic bombs that wiped out Hiroshima and Nagasaki 72 years ago. A single nuclear warhead, if detonated on a large city, could kill millions of people, with the effects lasting for decades.
While other destructive weapons — land mines, cluster munitions, biological and chemical weapons — are already banned, the most powerful of all, nuclear weapons, remain the only weapons of mass destruction not yet explicitly prohibitedunder international law.
This year, more than 135 other countries came together at the United Nations to negotiate a nuclear weapons ban treaty. You’d think Australia’s participation in the negotiations would have been a no-brainer for the federal government, what with the Australian public being overwhelmingly supportive, with Australia’s proud record of advocacy of nuclear disarmament, and with the Labor Opposition expressing its strong support.
This so-called ‘nuclear deterrence’ policy requires rational behaviour by all those who control nuclear weapons. Do we really have confidence that North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un and U.S. President Donald Trump will always behave rationally in not launching an attack on other nuclear states or their allies?
The nuclear deterrence policy also assumes that nuclear weapons make the world safer, not more dangerous. Patently, the reverse is true. The production, testing and possession, let alone the use, of nuclear weapons pose inherent risks.
There have already been a number of close calls (think Cuban Missile Crisis) and accidents, including last June, when a test missile involving the British Trident nuclear deterrence program malfunctioned and veered towards the U.S. coast before self-destructing. Luckily the missile was not armed with a nuclear warhead on that occasion but the British and U.S. governments did not reveal the incident when it happened, which incidentally, was just before the UK Parliament voted on renewing the Trident nuclear program.
Channeling Kath and Kim’s ‘I’ve got one thing to say to you’, the former UN Secretary-General was heard to say: “There are no right hands for wrong weapons.”
John Carlson, former head of Australia’s nuclear safeguards office for more than two decades, has pointed out in articles for the Lowy Institute that, as a party to the non-proliferation treaty, Australia is legally required to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to nuclear disarmament.
It is difficult to see how Australia’s boycott of the nuclear ban treaty negotiations could be compatible with that obligation. Carlson also noted that:
“The world still has 15,000 nuclear weapons and the risk of nuclear war is increasing. A ban treaty is needed to re-energise disarmament efforts. The treaty will help to stigmatise nuclear weapons and change mindsets about retaining them”.
Notwithstanding Australia’s immoral (and likely illegal) boycott of the negotiations, the treaty text was finalised on July 7, and opened yesterday, September 20, for signature.
The treaty prohibits nations from developing, testing, producing, manufacturing, transferring, possessing, stockpiling, using or threatening to use nuclear weapons, or allowing nuclear weapons to be stationed on their territory. It also prohibits them from assisting, encouraging or inducing anyone to engage in any of these activities. Nations are obliged to provide assistance to all victims of the use and testing of nuclear weapons and to take measures for the remediation of contaminated environments. The preamble acknowledges the harm suffered as a result of nuclear weapons, including the disproportionate impact on women and girls, and on indigenous peoples around the world.
Many Australian indigenous and service personnel victims of British colonial nuclear testing at Maralinga, Emu Field and the Montebello islands in the 1950s and ’60s would no doubt attest to the importance of the treaty, which will come into force upon the ratification of 50 nations.
Just as it is time for Australia to have its own head of state, it is time for Australia to finally let go of our long-time strategic dependence on a great power, and to pursue fully independent foreign and defence policies.
Our ties with the U.S. will always be close — as Paul Keating said recently, “we couldn’t shake the Americans, even if we wanted to”. But surely, the time has come, particularly following the election of Donald Trump, to distance ourselves from counter-productive defence policies that are based on false assumptions, and take our place among the majority of nations as a constructive contributor to global peace.
I urge the Turnbull Coalition government to sign and ratify the UN nuclear ban treaty. If the present government fails to act, I urge the great Australian Labor Party of luminaries like Tom Uren, to convert its present support for nuclear ban treaty negotiations in Opposition into future support for the treaty in government, with a firm commitment at next year’s ALP national conference to ratify the nuclear ban treaty early in its first term.
Solar sedan and sports coupe in race across Australia – and to commercial market
A UNSW-built “solar sedan” is taking on a Brisbane-built solar sports coupe in a race across Australia – and to drive as registered vehicles on Australian roads.
Policy uncertainty is blocking investment in low carbon assets
Australian institutional investors have a strong appetite for low carbon assets, but policy uncertainty and a lack of scalable deals are major barriers.
Whyalla’s not a ghost town, it’s the centre of a green industrial revolution
Garnaut says renewables will cut energy costs to Whyalla steelworks by at least a third, and outlines plans for large scale solar, rooftop solar and pumped hydro and battery storage.
Solar boom underpins big surge in renewable energy jobs in August
Large-scale power project construction work has broken through 10,000 jobs and rooftop solar installs almost broke 100MW for the month. Given they’ll deliver something close to $180m in bill savings the large lift in solar shouldn’t come as much surprise to anyone but Tony Abbott.
Commonwealth Bank acknowledges climate risk, shareholders discontinue proceedings
Commonwealth Bank shareholders Guy and Kim Abrahams have discontinued their Federal Court proceedings against the bank for failing to disclose climate change risks in annual reports.
Infigen Energy announces announces who will be appointed to the Boards of Infigen Energy Limited, Infigen Energy (Bermuda) Limited and Infigen Energy RE Limited (the Infigen Boards).
Battery ban off the table after industry roundtable “consensus”
Standards Australia says industry roundtable has broadly agreed to “review” proposed rule banning li-ion batteries from being installed inside homes and garages. But rifts emerge in industry.
Tony Abbott has drawn new battle-lines with interviews and an article that is a horror-show of ignorance, bias, conservative ideology and political dogma. Turnbull’s efforts to appease the right wing has gotten him and the Australian economy nowhere.
BHP under pressure to dump pro-coal lobby groups over climate policy
A shareholder resolution highlighting the chasm between BHP’s stated climate policy and the pro-coal advocacy of its mining industry lobby has pushed the company to commit to reconsidering its membership of the hardline Minerals Council of Australia.
Off-grid solar + battery systems prove 15x more reliable than network
Western Power pilot shows stand-alone solar + battery + diesel systems 15 times more reliable than grid, and could save $300 million in avoided network upgrade costs – but only if rules are change changed to allow the systems to be rolled out.
Battery storage uptake by households surges as grid costs soar
New data shows home battery storage installations set to treble in 2017, even without a price fall. Once the technology gets cheaper, says SunWiz, batteries will be as ‘common as the backyard pool.’
The amazingly positive renewable story the Murdoch media won’t write
The Australian buries its admission that Tuesday’s front page lead was fabricated, and still seeks to portray a cost saving to consumers as an extravagant “payday” for rich Saudi man.
Tomorrow The World Is Going To Try And Ban Nuclear Weapons. Australia Wants To Keep Them. New Matilda, By Rewena Maheshon A global push to save the world from a nuclear armageddon has the backing of more than 120 nations. Australia isn’t one of them. Rewena Mahesh explains.
On July 7, a global treaty was adopted at the UN General Assembly to prohibit nuclear weapons. This treaty now sets precedence for a powerful norm that will change the course of history by helping promote disarmament and preventing further proliferation.
This treaty closes a large international law gap, by prohibiting states from developing, testing, producing, manufacturing, transferring, possessing, stockpiling, using, or threatening to use nuclear weapons once ratified by 50 states.
That will happen tomorrow, on the 20th of September.
Despite an overwhelming 122 countries endorsing the treaty, strongly and actively supported by hundreds of civic society organizations including the World Medical Association, Medical Association for Prevention of War, the World Federation of Public Health Associations, nine member countries that possess nuclear weapons and most NATO allies boycotted the agreement.
Shamefully, one of those countries absent from negotiations and which played a role in boycotting the treaty is Australia. We fall under the nuclear protection of the USA.
While Australia, possesses no nuclear weapons, it is a major producer and supplier of uranium used in the production of nuclear arsenals for the US and British military and most recently Russia, China and India.
Australia has had a long history with nuclear testing, hosting the British in the 1950s and 60s to conduct 12 major nuclear tests which dispersed radiation across much of the continent. In particular site workers and Aboriginal communities nearby have been suffering the consequences of radiation, seen in high rates of cancer with very little compensation, and a lack of capacity to use traditional land due to contamination.
As a result of Australia hosting the US military and intelligence facilities, such as Pine Gap near Alice Springs, we are offered protection in the face of a nuclear threat, under the extended nuclear deterrence, and thus consider nuclear weapons to be legitimate, useful and necessary despite their devastating and catastrophic effects……..
Given the current volatile environment with unpredictable leaders, the only guarantee we have against the spread and use of nuclear weapons is to eliminate them completely.
Indiscriminate weapons such as landmines, biological and chemical weapons, and cluster munitions which have all been permanently banned are increasingly accepted as illegitimate, and are losing their political status.
It is thus difficult to acquire resources for the production and modernisation of a prohibited weapon by companies or governments. It is then hoped that by eliminating nuclear weapons, this forms the new norm globally and they too will lose their legitimacy and political status in due course.
Nuclear weapons are also an ineffective means of combating almost all issues globally and nationally, such as cyber warfare, climate change, poverty, antimicrobial resistance etc.
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) showed that 84 per cent of Australians surveyed wanted the government to support the efforts of a treaty to ban nuclear weapons. Australia still has the opportunity to be on the right side of history by signing the treaty tomorrow.
Australia needs to be at the forefront of global efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons and not be misled by the notion of extended nuclear deterrence under the protection of the US.
Australia needs to look across the Tasman to its neighbour New Zealand, which for decades has remained an ally of the US, but has had an independent foreign policy.
Noel WauchopeMichael Shellenberger is a nuclear salesman posing as a new generation environmentalist with unsubstantiated energy “solutions”, writes Noel Wauchope.
LAST WEEK, The Australianexcelled itself in uncritically regurgitating nuclear lobby propaganda in the article, ‘Nuclear the “only option” to replace coal and gas: Michael Shellenberger’.
To start with, they describe Shellenberger as ‘one of the world’s leading new-generation environmental thinkers‘. Well, that is sort of, a bit, right. Shellenberger is well known as the founder in 2003, with Ted Nordhaus, of The Breakthrough Institute — a nuclear front group dedicated to promoting “new generation” nuclear reactors. He is not a new generation environmentalist, as his focus is solely on the nuclear industry.
In the same opening paragraph, Shellenberger is described as ‘a former renewables advocate to Barack Obama‘. Well, Shellenberger’s advocacy consisted of lobbying Obama to promote not renewables but nuclear power. He is described as ‘now a global champion for nuclear energy’, as if he had only recently become a convert from renewables.
The Australian goes on to quote Shellenberger’s statements against renewable energy, uncritically, despite the fact that he provides no evidence for them:
“[Wind and solar] are doubling the cost of electricity and they have big environmental impacts. All existing renewable technologies do is make the electricity system chaotic and provide greenwash for fossil fuels.”
And:
“[Opposition to nuclear] is like a superstitious religious belief.”
Having thus established Shellenberger’s very shaky credentials as an environmentalist, The Australiangets to the gist of the story:
‘Michael Shellenberger will visit Australia in November to promote a rethink on nuclear at a minerals industry conference.’
We are told that Germany’s renewable energy transition is not successful and that Shellenberger believes better education about nuclear power is needed as well as ‘a leap forward in scientific literacy about radiation’.
“The reality is the death toll from Chernobyl in 1986, after 20 years, is less than 200 people.”
As we have come to expect from The Australian and from Michael Shellenberger, no references are given to back up these statements.
Also unsurprisingly, The Australian quotes Shellenberger’s conclusion without comment:
“Nuclear is the only technology that can lift everyone out of poverty and reverse human impact.”
As often happens, this article is followed by numerous positive comments, often glowing with praise, if somewhat lacking in information or insight. There were no negative comments. But then, only registered readers of The Australian are allowed to make comments. It is tiring but necessary to refute bald claims made by very manipulative nuclear spruikers.
Where to start?
Here are some links to thoughtful articles which address claims made in this article:
“What’s your alternative?” CommonSpace talks to anti-nuclear expert Dr Tilman Ruff Ahead of the UN signing of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, CommonSpace discusses disarmament with Nobel Peace Prize-winning activist Dr Tilman Ruff
THE TREATY ON THE PROHIBITION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS was passed by the United Nations in July after being voted for by 122 countries, making it the first legally-binding international agreement to eliminate nuclear weapons.
This historic development came about amid heavy opposition from the nuclear-armed states and rising tensions between the United States of America and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, who have warned that recent sanctions will only accelerate the North Korean nuclear programme.
On 20 September, the ban treaty will be open for signature at the United Nations headquarters in New York. Once the treaty is ratified by at least 50 countries, it should come into force within 90 days.
One among many of the anti-nuclear activists who brought the treaty to this point was Dr Tilman Ruff, co-president of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, which collectively received a Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts towards disarmament in 1985, and founding member of the International Campaign Against Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).
Following hisspeaking engagement in Edinburgh earlier this month at an event organised by Scrap Trident and the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (SCND), where he discussed the devastating human and ecological cost of even “limited” nuclear war, CommonSpace spoke with Dr Ruff about the treaty, the opposition its proponents have faced, and political strategies towards disarmament.
Despite the success of the treaty, Dr Ruff warns that progress is not being made quickly enough. “In the face of nuclear dangers that are clearly growing, with no real substantial progress for disarmament underway or even talked about at this point, and with flashpoints around the world where the rhetoric is becoming more aggressive and more around explicit threats to use nuclear weapons, certainly the dangers are growing,” said Dr Ruff.
He added: “So the progress we’re making is lagging badly, and really needs to escalate. It’s abundantly clear that if nuclear weapons are maintained, eventually they will be used.
“There’s some real urgency about this, but I think in some ways the hope is born out of the growing danger.”
Discussing how the treaty came about after so many years of stalled progress, Dr Ruff indicated that a change in attitude had taken place on an international scale, he said: “There’s a widespread appreciation by most of the world’s governments that nuclear disarmament is not happening.
“The nuclear armed states are not fulfilling their obligations almost half a century after the NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty) was concluded and formally enshrined in international law.
“There’s enormous frustration about that, and that’s certainly been a drive for the ban treaty, and I think that’s why it could be achieved so quickly and decisively.
As a world-renowned expert in his field who has been campaigning against nuclear weapons for over 30 years, Dr Ruff believes “the treaty really is quite strong. It’s a clear, categorical rejection of nuclear weapons, but it does also anticipate the desire to use this opportunity not just to create a formal legal prohibition, but to encourage and map out the path towards elimination.
‘There’s a way for every state to join this treaty. No state can say “It’s not relevant to us.” Whether you’ve had nuclear weapons, have them now, have them stationed on your soil, or are aligned with a nuclear armed state, there are pathways for you to join.”
The treaty was formulated with historical precedents in mind, Dr Ruff explained. “We’ve seen with the other weapons prohibitions, how significant their impact has been, even for the states that haven’t signed them, and how for every class of inhumane weapon, the pathway has been: prohibit, enshrine that norm in law, and then progress to elimination.
“It is very hopeful that approach is now being applied to nuclear weapons. But the harder work of using that to drive elimination is what we all face………
Describing what he knew of the pressures imposed by the nuclear-armed states, Dr Ruff said: “I’m only aware of the tip of the iceberg. Only South Africa was willing to speak up and say there had been relentless pressure, but we know many countries got very strong pressure – a division of labour amongst the nuclear-armed states, with France taking responsibility for the Francophone West African states, the US doing the same for Latin America, in particular.
“Given that the treaty now exists, the issue isn’t going away, and I hope the strong global majority that supports this – pretty much all of the states apart from the nuclear-armed ones and their allies.
“The numbers are overwhelming. Certainly, for individual governments, there may well be consequences and further pressure, but I think the cat’s out of the bag now. And there’s every indication there will be a large number of states signing on 20 September, and I think the goal of around 100 signatures by the end of this year is pretty realistic. I don’t think this is now stoppable…….
Asked whether political parties’ positions on nuclear weapons should be at the forefront of voters’ minds, Doctor Ruff answered: “I would hope it would again become so, as it was a significant factor in earlier decades.
“It’s obviously only one of the many issues people think about when they vote, but it is crucial. The impact of the treaty we can already see – for example, in the willingness of the leader of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in Germany to come out very strongly in support of the removal of US nuclear weapons in Germany.
“The fact that’s clearly being articulated by the alternative leader in Germany is probably a direct result of the ban treaty.
“This is not just an idea now. This is a treaty. It exists – what are you going to do?
Robyn Wood, Fight To Stop Nuclear Waste Dump In Flinders Ranges SA, 19 Sept 17
Greg of FLAG has a letter to the editor in today’s Advertiser for those who can get around the paywall
On the charge
HEAD of Resources Division, Department of Industry, Innovation and Science (DIIS), Bruce Wilson’s statement that “the federal Government is not pushing for a … National Radioactive Waste Management Facility to be hosted in SA” is not supported by the facts (“Nuke healing”, The Advertiser, 6/9/17).
Since the call for potential sites across Australia in March 2015, the process narrowed to focus on three, all in SA, two near Kimba and one near Hawker.
For over a year, DIIS staff have visited Hawker and Quorn almost weekly promoting the facility and answering questions.
A consultative committee meets monthly, a community liaison officer has been appointed and an economic working group has been formed. Newsletters appear regularly.
A delegation from Champagne in France, where there is a similar facility, has been presented praising the benefits of the facility to their region. Individuals and groups, including school students, have been funded to tour Lucas Heights.
In 2016, the federal Government allocated a $2 million community benefit package to Hawker. Another $2 million is promised this financial year with a similar allocation for Kimba, which will also have its own consultative committee and community liaison officer.
Mr Wilson’s letter emphasises the disposal of waste from the production and use of radioactive medical isotopes. He does not mention that the problematic intermediate level component of this waste can only be stored there on a temporary basis with no plan for its disposal.
Current state legislation, the Nuclear Waste Storage Facility (Prohibition) Act 2000, prohibits the storage in SA of the type of material proposed for this site.
Noel Wauchope, 20 Sept 17, Now, many weeks after Australia signing up to the Framework Agreement For Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems, the public is informed of this. I found it at the bottom of page 23 of the print version of The Age today. Why haven’t we heard about this before?
How is it that Dr Adi Paterson of ANSTO signed up to this, in advance of Parliamentary approval, and that the whole thing can be done without any proper public consultation? Australian tax-payers are now to be supporting the development of these new dreams of nuclear power – advanced nuclear reactors that exist now only as blueprints, and will be expensive, require government funding, and will not be commercially operational for many decades, if ever.
Surely it is time for a thorough inquiry into ANSTO’s funding and finances. The New Generation nuclear reactors are controversial, to say the least. They are in fact, part of the global nuclear lobby’s push to save itself – its future being threatened by its dire economics, and by its connection to the nuclear weapons industry.
The Australian media is regularly used to promote ANSTO’s nuclear reactor as having as its purpose “medical research” and “medical isotopes saving lives” – despite the fact that non nuclear production of these isotopes can be, and is, being done. The reality is that ANSTO is part of the global nuclear industry lobby, and its reactor produces long-lasting radioactive wastes and it should be shut down.
I couldn’t find it on The Age online. The print version, 19 Sept 17 – small article at the bottom of page 23:
Australia joins nuclear research club,by Cole Latimer
Australia has officially joined an international group focused on developing future nuclear energy systems, The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation has been welcomed into the Generation IV International Forum Framework, which aims to develop next generation nuclear power systems, and which ANSTO calls “a potential game-changer in global energy creation”.
Although Australia joined the GIF charter last year, the event marked the country’s official accession to the nuclear framework agreement, which is focused on six different nuclear reactor designs that provide poeer and “stringent standards in relation to safety and non proliferation”.
However, ANSTO stated that this was not about advancing the cause of nuclear energy in Australia’s current energy mix: instead it was about utilisingAustralian skills in research and development.
“Australia has no nuclear power program, but we do have significant local expertise in next generation research, which is what this partnership is about” ANSTO chief executive officer Adi Paterson said.
ANSTO will leverage our world class capabilities, particularly in relation to the development of advanced materials and with applications in extreme industrial environments, and of nuclear safety cases.
“This agreement will enable Australia to contribute to an international group focused on peaceful use of nuclear technology, and the international energy systems of the future”
An ANSTO spokesman said Australia was a world leader in terms of nculear safety, “due to the high levels of oversight and paperwork required” to operate.
GIF is a co-operative of 14 nations led by France, a country where nuclear power accounts for nearly 75% of energy generation. This reliance on nuclear energy has helped the nation slash its carbon emissions.
REneweconomy
Antinuclear 