Dennis Matthews, 21 Oct 16I have just read the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) Update Report on the state-wide blackout.
The collapse of more than twenty transmission line towers initiated a sequence of domino-like events that ended with the loss of grid-power to the entire state. When I came to the end of the report I was mystified by the lack of attention to the first domino to fall – the transmission-line towers. The final chapter of the report, Next Steps, makes no mention of the towers, including the fact that they have been replaced by temporary structures.
I went back to the beginning of the report and was amazed to find the transmission line faults (caused by the tower collapses) classed as “pre event”.
What on earth is AEMO doing? Do we have to wait six months to find out whether the transmission-line towers are strong enough? Will there be another disruption to the electricity transmission system in the meantime? Your guess is as good as mine.
A second intellectual contortion concerns the cancer risks associated with radiation exposure. Russell’s view is that long-term exposure to low levels of radiation “does sweet fa”. Russell and science are at odds on the question of the cancer risks associated with low-level radiation exposure. For example, the 2006 report of the Committee on the Biological Effects of Ionising Radiation (BEIR) of the US National Academy of Sciences states that “the risk of cancer proceeds in a linear fashion at lower doses without a threshold and … the smallest dose has the potential to cause a small increase in risk to humans.”
A Nuclear Conspiracy: Jim Green Responds To Geoff Russell, New Matilda, By Jim Greenon October 20, 2016
As part of an ongoing debate over the capacity of nuclear energy to tackle climate change, Friends of the Earth’s Jim Green responds to New Matilda’s recent coverage.
New Matilda editor Chris Graham writes in an October 13 editorial that those responding to Geoff Russell’s pro-nuclear articles “never seek to punch holes in a single fact or claim”. In this article I’ll take up the challenge to respond substantively to some of Russell’s pro-nuclear claims.
But first, some passing comments on the other nuclear advocates mentioned in Chris’s editorial. Chrislinks to a video of Dr James Hansen ‒ a response is posted here. Chris links to an open letter to environmentalists from 65 scientists ‒ a response is posted here. Chris links to George Monbiot ‒ a response is posted here. And Chris promotes the Pandora’s Promise film ‒ responses are posted here.
Back to Russell. One of his themes in recent years has been to downplay the Fukushima disaster. And he goes much further, arguing that nuclear critics are responsible for all of the death and suffering resulting from the Fukushima nuclear disaster and much else besides.
How does he arrive at those conclusions? One part of the intellectual contortion concerns the role of environmental groups such as Friends of the Earth. To the limited extent that environment groups influence energy policy around the world, the result is a greater role for renewables, less nuclear power and less fossil fuel usage. But for Russell, being anti-nuclear means an implicit endorsement and acceptance of fossil fuels and responsibility for everything wrong with fossil fuel burning.
That contorted logic will come as a surprise to Friends of the Earth (FoE) campaigners risking life, limb and heavy penalties in their efforts to shut down coal mines and ports; and to everyone else engaged in the fossil fuel and climate problems in many different ways. And it will come as a surprise to FoE campaigners who worked tirelessly and creatively for many years ‒ with literally zero support from nuclear lobbyists including the self-styled pro-nuclear environmentalists ‒ to achieve a recently-announced ban on unconventional gas in Victoria. Continue reading →
Adani coal mine would wipe out Direct Action gains within a year, estimates show, The Age, Peter Hannam, 20 Oct 16,
Carbon cuts made by the federal government’s Direct Action climate change plan by 2020 would be wiped out by pollution from a single coal mine in just over a year, new data revealed at a Senate estimates hearing shows.
Officials from the Clean Energy Regulator said that projects paid for from the first three auctions of the Emissions Reduction Fund – the backbone of Direct Action – would trim pollution by just 42 million tonnes of carbon-dioxide equivalent by 2020.
Even if all the remaining funds were spent – with a fourth auction planned for November 16 – emissions reductions are projected to total only 92 million tonnes by the year 2020, officials told senators.
Tim Bickmore, Nuclear Citizens Jury Watch South Australia, 20 Oct 16
A player in this scene currently flying under the radar is Geordan Graetz, DPC Community Engagement Advisor.
In the past he has published opinions not only about Fukushima, but also regarding indigenous people & uranium mining: “Representatives of the Martu and Adnyamathanha communities in Western Australia and South Australia respectively have expressed confidence in the companies that have approached them with plans to develop deposits on their lands (Graetz and Manning 2011)” p3, IAIA, 2012.
As recently as 2014 he published material orientated toward removing indigenous people as an impediment to the expansion of uranium mining, albeit it thru application of inclusion under the auspices of international human rights conventions. [Journal of Cleaner production xxx 2014 1-9]
He appears to be an advocate of a ‘Nuclear Renaissance’ – or rather identifies indigenous peoples as a potential roadblock for such.
The NFCRC Final Report cites him & co-author Manning Ch6 Land Rights Section p130 notes ref 8 & again ref 11 (3 mentions).
His partner in a number of publications, Haydn Manning, is a well known pro-nuke spruiker.
There is a linkage between Graetz & the farcical Schools Nuclear Lockdown … probably instigated under his &/or Manning’s social engagement strategy…. more to come.
Tim BickmoreNuclear Citizens Jury Watch South Australia, 20 Oct 16 My gut feeling is that whilst there is a high apathy coefficient within the wider community, the Nuclear Citizens’ Jury (CJ) make-up does display the polarity that is also evident in the public sphere & which, at least in general expressions, appears to be mostly against the proposal.
At this stage of proceedings, I find it hard to see a consensus being reached.
I also think that South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill is aware of this: hence whilst previously he would have crowed about a ‘positive’ or even ‘maybe’ outcome, now the game plan diversifies. e.g. last night I had a South Australian Govt sponsored survey cold call regarding the Nuclear Fuel Chain Royal Commission (NFCRC) – but was excluded coz they had already reached my ‘age bracket quota’.
I wondered if that ‘quota’ was valid – are they now targeting younger folk under some misguided notion that this cohort would be more amenable to the idea? – and the quota, did that include the already received on-line & Nuclear Roadshow data? I also did not get to hear the questions – which are usually loaded in these types of things.
Also in the mix is the Senate Parliamentary Joint Committee, & my feeling there is that, too, is not a bed of roses for Jay Weatherill.
I am still crossing my fingers that the CJ will return RED coz AMBER allows Jay a small window to change legislation – tho methinks he would need a lot more oomph other than just a CJ-AMBER outcome to really justify doing that.
Ultimately, this dump is about helping the global nuclear industry. The current build-up of site-by-site waste acts as a brake on investment. They want somewhere to dump it forever so they can go on producing more of it.
South Australia to become global nuclear waste capitalhttps://redflag.org.au/node/5521Sixty years ago, Maralinga went up in a mushroom cloud. The British government had been given permission to test atomic weaponry in South Australia.
That is to say, they had been given permission by the right wing Menzies government. The local Maralinga Tjarutja people had no say in it at all. Many of them were not even forewarned of the first blast. Thunderous black clouds condemned them to radiation exposure, illness and death, the survivors being driven from their homeland during the long years of British testing and fallout.
South Australia has a dark history with the nuclear industry. Maralinga remains contaminated, despite cheap clean-up efforts. Uranium tailings have leaked from BHP’s Olympic Dam mine at Roxby Downs. Fukushima’s reactors held South Australian uranium when catastrophe struck in 2011.
Today, Jay Weatherill’s state Labor government is trying to open a new radioactive chapter. He wants South Australia to construct the world’s first international high-level nuclear waste dump. This would mean no fewer than 138,000 tonnes of waste (one-third of the world’s total) being shipped from the world’s reactors into South Australian ports, to be permanently buried in Aboriginal land.
This would be history’s largest nuclear dumping operation, and make South Australia the hazardous waste capital of the world. Continue reading →
Australian Government must re-build trust of civil society – UN human rights expert, CANBERRA / GENEVA (18 October 2016) – United Nations independent expert Michel Forst today called on the Government of Australia to urgently dispel civil society’s growing concerns about the combined ‘chilling effect’ of its recent laws, policies and actions constraining the rights of human rights defenders.
“I was astonished to observe mounting evidence of a range of cumulative measures that have concurrently levied enormous pressure on Australian civil society,” said the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders at the end of his first fact-finding visit* to the country.
Recognizing Australia’s traditional safeguards of constitutional democracy, rule of law and free media, Mr Forst noted that his initial expectation from his official visit was to “encounter only laudable implementation of the State’s obligations under international human rights laws, aimed at ensuring a safe and enabling environment for human rights defenders.”
Instead, the expert found a number of detrimental measures which include a growing body of statutory laws, both at the federal and state levels, constraining the rights of defenders. “They have ranged from intensifying secrecy laws to proliferating anti-protest laws, from the stifling Border Force Act to the ‘Standing’ bill shrinking environmental access to courts,” Mr. Forst specified.
“Those laws have not only accentuated the disparity between Government’s declared commitments at the international forums and their implementation within the country,” he noted. “They have also aggravated the situation following the drastic defunding of peak bodies by the Government, following their advocacy or litigation on such topical issues as immigration, security, environment and land rights protection.” Continue reading →
Peter Mahoney Your Say 17 Oct 2016It is difficult to believe that a citizens jury will be presented with anything other than a highly controlled version of the arguments for and against these proposals. This is truly a cynically manufactured form of consent of the most Orwellian nature.
Citizens are also more likely to respond favourably to the government’s proposals when they are given special treatment in this way. I doubt that the citizens jury have heard presentations from the Australia Institute, Mark Parnell (Greens MLC) or Ian Lowe, or images and stories of accidents happenning monthly around the world.
The cooperation of the Murdoch press in this one-newspaper town makes it also very difficult for citizens to remain untouched by a sense of momentum and support that doesn’t actually exist. Governments are becoming masters of “consultation”, which are basically exercises to keep the masses busy while they get on with the planning and the deals in the background.
Peter Mahoney, Your Say site 17 Oct 2016 The Royal Commission report appears to be silent on the details of how these radioactive materials would be transported to South Australia, and what sort of defence force support would be required to ensure that they are not the subject of terrorist attack. Who would be responsible for ensuring that they are correctly and securely sealed in their containers in the country of origin, say India or Pakistan? How would an SA facility ensure that proper standards are being followed at every step. The consequences of undetected, small or slow leaks would be enormous if they occur all the way from the country of origin, across the oceans and then across the land to SA.
Malgo Schmidt, from Your Say site 16 Oct 2016 “……..There is no independent Nuclear Regulator in Australia and SA has a conflict of interest
The nuclear dump plan proposes sitting a Nuclear port and an above ground high level nuclear waste storage facility in Project Year 5 – before potential nuclear waste contracts in Year 6′ This depends on assessment and approval by an lndependent Nuclear Regulator- that does not exist in Australia’
The current Federal nuclear regulator would requiré legislative amendments before it could claim to ‘regulate’ lnternational nuclear wastes. SA is disqualified from doing so by clear conflict of interest’
This senate can block any nuclear dump legislation up to the next Federal Election ALP, Greens and the Xenophon team can together block any pro-dump legislation in the senate
Four key themes in community concern over international nuclear waste dumping:
It is quite clear that there are 4 key concerns that have to be dealt with collectively. Failure to pass any of these tests should stop further consideration of a Nuclear Dump. They are:
1. safety of workers and community throughout the nuclear waste supply chain.
2. Flawed Economic assumptions
3. Aboriginal veto
4. Environmental and inter-generational concerns, risks and impacts
Safety is compromised by import of nuclear waste long before any disposal capacity
The Nuclear Commission proposed import of nuclear waste in Project Year 11′ four years ahead of an agreed licensed disposal site and some 16 years ahead of any potential waste disposal capacity
SA faces the threat of a Nuclear port receiving nuclear waste ships every month for decades
Reality check analysis shows there is No Profit in Nuclear waste
South Australians are being misled by inflated revenue claims, untenable assumptions including globally unprecedented scale of dump plans and under reported nuclear waste costs & liabilities’
Nuclear dump plans are prone to fail- like Yucca Mountain in the USA, and end in debt not profit.
Future generations – importing international nuclear waste is an irrevocable decision
The nuclear waste would be here forever and remain dangerous for hundreds of thousands of years’ our children will have no say in this decision hgt be left with this liability into the future ‘
The Campaign needs to mobilise mainstream community to oppose nuclear waste dumps
Countering the Premier’s nuclear waste agenda requires mobilising SA community’ working through the steps in who? when? where? and How? to engage groups across society on these issues’
We can all contribute to protect SA from nuclear dumping and build strength in our community’ For further info see: www.foe.org.au/import-waste & http://www.nodumpalliance.org.au/
Farms that grow food in arid deserts, without groundwater or fossil fuels, could be the future of agriculture. BRYAN NELSON October 10, 2016, No soil, no pesticides, no fossil fuels, and no groundwater. And yet, a thriving farm in the heart of the arid Australian desert. How is this possible?
An international team of scientists has spent the last six years fine-tuning a system that pipes seawater in from the ocean and desalinates it using a state-of-the-art concentrated solar energy plant. The water is then used to irrigate 180,000 tomato plants grown in coconut husks instead of soil, kept in a network of greenhouses.
The result is Sundrop Farms, a commercial-scale facility located just off the Spencer Gulf in South Australia that began construction in 2014. Today it’s producing an estimated 17,000 tons of tomatoes per year to be sold in Australian supermarkets.
Given the increasing demand for fresh water around the world — a problem that’s particularly apparent in the sunburned landscape of South Australia — this might just represent future of large-scale farming, especially in coastal desert regions that have previously been non-arable.
The heart of the farm is the 23,000 mirrors that reflect sunlight towards a 115-meter high receiver tower. All of that concentrated sunlight produces an immense amount of power, up to 39 megawatts. That’s more than enough to cover the desalination needs of the farm and supply all the electricity needs of the greenhouses.
The seawater, too, has other purposes besides just irrigation. During scorching hot summers, seawater-soaked cardboard lines the greenhouses to help keep the plants at optimal temperature. Seawater also has the remarkable effect of sterilizing the air, meaning that chemical pesticides are unnecessary.
All in all, the facility cost around 200 million dollars to get up and running. That might sound excessive, but in the long run the facility should save money compared to the costs of conventional greenhouses that require fossil fuels for power. It’s a self-sustaining, cost-efficient design so long as the initial investment can be provided. Facilities similar to the Australian one are already being planned for Portugal and the U.S., as well as another in Australia. Desert areas like those seen in Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates could be next in line.
“These closed production systems are very clever,” said Robert Park of the University of Sydney, Australia, to New Scientist. “I believe that systems using renewable energy sources will become better and better and increase in the future, contributing even more of some of our foods.”
THE hi-tech home energy storage battery revolution, allowing households to better manage solar rooftop power, has been promised for more than a decade and now it could finally arrive in South Australia.
Battery installers in Australia have reported more than 100,000 customer inquires this year, although sales of the systems – which are adaptable, stylish, and small compared to the ugly lead acid batteries of the past – number less than 5000 units.
World leaders in battery production include Elon Musk’s Tesla company that produces the popular bar fridge sized ‘Powerwall’ unit, and German firms Sonnen and BMZ.
Leading players offering home battery solutions include ZEN Energy, based at Clovelly Park in Adelaide, with Professor Ross Garnaut as chairman, and Redflow, based in Brisbane, led by SA-based innovator Simon Hackett, as chairman, chief executive and majority shareholder.”
But the biggest indicator that this is a growing, competitive and lucrative market is that major energy providers, AGL and Origin, now offer their own storage battery solutions.
ZEN Founder and Director of Innovation, Richard Turner, said while South Australia was plunged into darkness last week, its customers were completely uninterrupted.
“They were using their electric ovens, watching television, and going about their night like nothing had happened,” Mr Turner said.
“These systems are designed to generate and store ample solar energy during the day to meet their home’s power needs at night and provide backup power during blackouts.”
Mr Turner said while luxury homeowners were among the first adopters of solar energy storage, solutions were now affordable and within everyone’s reach. Continue reading →
The Australian Maritime College and Sydney-based developers MAKO have come together to install and monitor a new tidal energy turbine in the Tamar estuary near Launceston. Field experiments at a site near Reid Rock, north of the Batman Bridge, of a 2.4 metre-wide prototype have already started.
The turbine is secured beneath a floating platform and will be connected to a mooring on the east side of the estuary.
AMC project lead Irene Penesis said tidal energy was particularly exciting as it was very predictable compared with solar and wind power because of its consistent and monitorable cycles. “Through the kinetic energy of the tidal flow, we generate mechanical power and we then convert that to electricity,” Associate Professor Penesis said.
“Because tides are extremely predictable and we can predict them two years in advance, we can predict how much power we’re going to get – when you transfer that power back into the grid you know how much you’re transferring back and you can monitor that.
“It’s absolutely essential to have the community behind these types of events because if there’s an opportunity to install tidal turbines in the Tamar River, we would want those community members to have access to that power being generated.”
Owner of the nearby Tamar River Retreat Ian Stewart said after a community meeting was held to discuss the turbines last week, there was positive interest from residents and businesses in the area.
“To use tidal power to generate electricity would be absolutely fantastic,” Mr Stewart said. “I spend about $5000 a year on electricity because of my business, it’s probably my single biggest business expense, and if I can get that down even lower that would be great. “I think that a lot of people in the community want to get behind this idea and want to support it.”
Traditional landowners from South Australia’s outback have brought their fight against proposed nuclear storage facilities to the steps of Parliament House.
About 3,000 people rallied against proposed nuclear waste dumps, with Aboriginal families affected by nuclear testing at Maralinga among the crowd.
Traditional landowner Karina Lester said many people did not want to see either proposal go ahead.
“We are starting to unite and we are starting to really think about how we’re going to fight this, because it concerns us and we have a cultural responsibility,” she said.
“People travelled from the Mid North [and] from Ceduna as well to be part of this event and it was so important that they gathered here today to say ‘enough is enough’.
“Having Yalata crew, having Ceduna crew, the Yappala crew being involved is so strong for us as Aboriginal people.”
The protest was held on the 63rd anniversary of the first bomb going off Maralinga in the Woomera Prohibited Area, as part of a national day of action against nuclear dumps.
Renowned film director Scott Hicks lent his voice to the cause, with particular concern about the high-grade dump.
“To me it’s an idea that doesn’t make sense on any level I can look at it,” he said.
“It doesn’t make economic sense. We can’t even predict the price of coal a month from now. How can we predict the price of nuclear waste 100 years from now?
“Why would we want to leave a legacy for our children’s, children’s children and beyond 100,000 years, that can never be taken away?”
What is being proposed?
Federal
Low-to-intermediate level radioactive waste generated in Australia stored in a purpose-built facility
It would include materials such as nuclear medicine by-products
This waste is currently stored in more than 100 sites across Australia, in metropolitan areas, regional towns and cities
The project promises at least 15 ongoing jobs and $10 million in funding for the host community once the facility is operational
South Australia
The Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission found SA could store the world’s high-grade nuclear waste
Sealed waste would be stored 500 metres underground in a purpose-built facility
The facility could create up to 5,000 jobs during construction and 600 ongoing jobs
It is tipped to generate $5.6 billion of annual revenue for SA once established
Antinuclear 
Citizens are also more likely to respond favourably to the government’s proposals when they are given special treatment in this way. I doubt that the citizens jury have heard presentations from the Australia Institute, Mark Parnell (Greens MLC) or Ian Lowe, or images and stories of accidents happenning monthly around the world.
The cooperation of the Murdoch press in this one-newspaper town makes it also very difficult for citizens to remain untouched by a sense of momentum and support that doesn’t actually exist. Governments are becoming masters of “consultation”, which are basically exercises to keep the masses busy while they get on with the planning and the deals in the background.