Ocean temperatures on Tasmania’s East Coast are among the fastest-rising in the world
OCEAN temperatures on Tasmania’s East Coast are now among the most rapidly warming in the world, with oyster, salmon, rock lobster and abalone industries feeling the impact.
http://www.themercury.com.au/news/tasmania/ocean-temperatures-on-tasmanias-east-coast-are-among-the-fastestrising-in-the-world/news-story/70e83dcbe51376aa439a53cd2d8d32f7
‘Perilous’: Bureau of Meteorology boss Rob Vertessy exits with climate warning
Australia faces a “perilous” water security future from climate change even as the Turnbull government eyes budget cuts to water programs and CSIRO halves climate investment, Rob Vertessy, the outgoing head of the Bureau of Meteorology, says.
Reservoirs in the Murray-Darling basin are now close to their lowest levels since the Millennium Drought and Tasmania is also facing “serious” issues”, Dr Vertessy told Fairfax Media on Friday, his final day as the bureau’s chief.
Were those French submarines chosen so that t they could later be NUCLEAR submarines?
Why did we agree to pay too much for French submarines? THE AUSTRALIAN
APRIL 29, 2016 Robert Gottliebsen,Business Spectator columnist Melbourne The evidence now mounting shows that the submarine tender is one of the most irregular ever conducted in Australia. Defence officials in the US, Japan and Germany are shocked at what is now being revealed.
Within 24 hours of the tender being announced, both sides are saying different thingsso, as anyone experienced with tenders knows, that means the deal has every prospect of becoming a disaster. (The good, the bad and the ugly of the submarine tender process, Apr 29)
There is mounting evidence that the French do not want to build the first two submarines in Australia. They need to make the first two submarines back home.
In Paris, they were shocked that Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was so definitivein his statement that all 12 submarines would be built in Australia.
To understand how this bizarre situation developed and the implications that stem from it, we need to go back to the defence white paper which estimated the cost of the 12 submarines at $50bn (we learned later that this is an inflation-adjusted figure).
At the time, the Japanese were mystified because they knew their tender was less than half that and the German “all local” tender was even lower — probably under $20bn…….
Why would you need 4,000 French workers — three times the number of Australian workers required for the German bid — when 12 submarines are to be built in Australia?
The other strange aspect of the submarine tender is that the submarines are not going to be delivered until 2033 or 2034. The Germans were offering to have submarines available around 2028.
But maybe there was something about doing the deal with the French that has not been disclosed. Perhaps a group of defence officials believe longer term that Australia needs nuclear submarines because of their greater range. Given its 15 years before the first submarine arrives, everyone would have forgotten what Malcolm Turnbull said this week. Indeed, he will have retired.
To build a nuclear submarine in Australia requires a change in the legislation, and a nuclear industry, which we don’t have, although the climate is changing and South Australia looks set to become a nuclear hub.
When the tender was first announced, I noted that there might be a nuclear agenda but at that stage I had no idea of the tendering mess (Australia’s defence options open up, April 27).
If it’s a nuclear submarine that Australia wanted, then it would have only been fair the other tenderers know about it and be given an opportunity to include a nuclear option. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/opinion/robert-gottliebsen/why-did-we-agree-to-pay-too-much-for-french-submarines/news-story/9ed179b276d13922c15d767873c6dea2
Adnyamathanha Traditional Owners will fight nuclear waste dump plan
29 Apr 16, The federal government has announced that the Flinders Ranges has been selected as the preferred site for a national nuclear waste dump. The land was nominated by former Liberal Party Senator Grant Chapman and his nomination has been endorsed by the Liberal government in Canberra.
Adnyamathanha Traditional Owner Regina McKenzie, who lives at Yappala Station near the proposed dump site and is a member of Viliwarinha Yura Aboriginal Corporation, said:
“Adnyamathanha Traditional Owners weren’t consulted about the nomination. Even Traditional Owners who live next to the proposed dump site at Yappala Station weren’t consulted. The proposed dump site is adjacent to the Yappala Indigenous Protected Area. On the land with the proposed dump site, we have been working for many years to register heritage sites with the SA government. The area is Adnyamathanha land. It is Arngurla Yarta (spiritual land). The proposed dump site has countless thousands of Aboriginal artifacts. Our ancestors are buried there. The nominated site is a significant women’s site. Throughout the area are registered cultural heritage sites and places of huge importance to our people.
“There are frequent yarta ngurra-ngurrandha (earthquakes and tremors). At least half a dozen times each year, we see and feel the ground move. It is flood land. The water comes from the hills and floods the plains, including the proposed dump site. Sometimes there are massive floods, the last one in 2006.
“We don’t want a nuclear waste dump here on our country and worry that if the waste comes here it will harm our environment and muda (our lore, our creation). We call on the federal government to withdraw the nomination of the site and to show more respect in future. We call on all South Australians − all Australians − to support us in our struggle. Adnyamathanha Traditional Owners and Viliwarinha Yura Aboriginal Corporation will fight the proposal for a nuclear waste dump on our land for as long as it takes to stop it.
“Last year I was awarded the SA Premier’s Natural Resource Management Award in the category of ‘Aboriginal Leadership − Female’ for working to protect land that is now being threatened with a nuclear waste dump. But Premier Jay Weatherill has been silent since the announcement of six short-listed dump sites last year. Now the Flinders Ranges has been chosen as the preferred site and Mr Weatherill must speak up. The Premier can either support us or he can support the federal government’s attack on us by maintaining his silence. He can’t sit on the fence.”
Adnyamathanha Traditional Owner Enice Marsh said:
“Vulnerable communities are suffering from lack of vision from our government and industry ‘leaders’ and should not be the government’s target for toxic waste dumps. This predatory behaviour is unethical and is an abuse of human rights. An Indigenous Protected Area is a Federal Government initiative, but it seems that in the case of Yappala this means nothing to the government. We ask you to honour this commitment to protect, not pollute and damage our land. This facility will cause immeasurable damage to the whole area which is covered with thousands of artefacts, home to people, animals, birds and reptiles. The building of this facility will cause widespread damage. It will scar the area and break the spiritual song-lines like never before in the 60000+ years of human occupation. We don’t want this waste in our country, it’s too toxic and long lived.”
Adnyamathanha Traditional Owner Jillian Marsh said:
“The First Nations people of Australia have been bullied and pushed around, forcibly removed from their families and their country, denied access and the right to care for their own land for over 200 years. Our health and wellbeing compares with third world countries, our people crowd the jails. Nobody wants toxic waste in their back yard, this is true the world over. We stand in solidarity with people across this country and across the globe who want sustainable futures for communities, we will not be moved. We challenge Minister Josh Frydenberg on his claim that this waste is just “gloves, goggles and test tubes” – the intermediate-level waste is much more toxic so why not talk about it? What about the damage to the area that construction of this site will cause? You can’t compensate the loss of people’s ancient culture with a few dollars.”
Scrapped radioactive waste sites supporting Flinders community campaign
29 Apr 16 Since November 13, six communities across Australia have been waking with a nuclear cloud overhead, after individual landholders in their region nominated sites to host the national radioactive waste facility.
This morning Minister Josh Frydenberg announced that only one area would be further pursued: Barndioota, in the iconic Flinders Ranges in South Australia.
Though relieved their regions have now been scrapped from the list, representatives from each of the other five sites have all reiterated support to their counterparts in the Flinders.
Statements from each of the communities are below.
BARNDIOOTA, Flinders Ranges, SA Jillian Marsh- Adnyamathanha Traditional Owner This morning we awoke to a sickening announcement from the Federal government of its intention to continue burdening our lands and our peoples with this toxic nuclear industry. Our lives are as caretakers of the land, as neighbours to other leaseholders, as friends and family to the people who love this region. Once more our communities are split, and our well-being is jeopardised by relentless money makers who can’t think past their own personal or business gains.
Successive Australian governments continue to operate under world’s worst practice in managing toxic nuclear waste, and sadly the Australian public is tested once more for its resilience. Regrets from past Ministers and swapping sides on environmental issues haunt all sides of government, but Traditional Owners remain vigilant.
The onslaught from industry and government is blatant in its colonialism, but the Traditional Owners, the Adnyamathanha men women and children of this region who love their country will not be silent or be silenced.
We thank those who have and continue to support us. Together we are strong.
OMAN AMA, Qld Susan Campbell and Mark Russell- Friends of Oman Ama.The Friends of Omanama stand shoulder to shoulder with our friends and colleagues in the community of Barndioota. This has been an appalling process and we are saddened that they will continue to suffer from its shortcomings.
We will be meeting next week to discuss how we can best provide moral and practical support to them in the next phase of this campaign.
HILL END, NSW The radioactive waste management process has been flawed from the start. From day one ordinary people have had their lives turned upside down. It’s hard to be excited to have been removed from off the list because we know our fellow proposed site of ‘Barndioota Station’ in Flinders Ranges and friends we have made there through this process have woken to the most devastating news this morning. Their site to them is as precious as Hill End is to us. We will continue to support them as best we can. It’s important to note that all sites have supported each other through this process.
What we have learnt? That the Government doesn’t care about ordinary Australians who elect them and vote for them.
It’s not appropriate to hear about being a proposed site on the radio on the morning of 13 Nov 2015 and it’s not appropriate again to hear about our removal from off the list again via media this morning. It shows our fellow elected constituent John Cobb lacks the fortitude to treat his electorate with the respect we deserve.
I’d like to thank our community for giving us their support, especially all the councils within the Central West. The Government has made it difficult to define what is a community but to know that your community is with you in good times and bad is what has made this achievable.
When we have had no alternative to fight as hard as we have, our friends have been what has gotten us through this. Community means everything they couldn’t break us and it goes to show that people power is all we have when our backs are to the wall.
KIMBA (Pinkawillinie and Cortlinye) , SA, Peter Woolford, Toni Scott and Kellie Hunt- No Radioactive Waste on Agricultural Land in Kimba or SA committee.
The No Radioactive Waste on Agricultural Land in Kimba or SA committee together with our members are extremely happy with today’s announcement removing Kimba from the final shortlist to host the nations radioactive waste.
We are pleased the government has acknowledged that there is not broad community support in our district. Eyre Peninsula is an export reliant region, and the decision this government has made to remove Kimba through from the next stage of this process ensures we will maintain our clean green reputation.
However we are disappointed and concerned that the nominated site at Barndioota has been selected for the final shortlist and we will continue to support their opposition wherever we can. This process has been flawed from the beginning and all sites were hopeful that Minister Frydenberg would acknowledge this and seek an alternative solution. Our hearts go out to our friends at the shortlisted site- we understand the uncertainty they are now facing.
HALE, NT Loyola Jones and family- Oak Valley The LeRossignol and Kenny families would like to thank the wonderful people who helped us find our voice and supported us through this process and the Traditional Owners (our family) from Santa Teresa and Tjitjikala for the strong and united stand against this proposal.
We are thankful that all our collective hard work paid off and the Hale site is off the list. But we can’t forget that there is still one of the six sites under threat. My family acknowledge our connection and relationship with Regina McKenzie and the Adnyamathanha mob. They don’t stand alone.
Our hearts ache that they still have to fight this. We stand with them and will offer whatever support we can. We stand in solidarity.
Nice little bonanza for former SA Liberal Senator Grant Chapman in choice of nuclear waste dump site
Mr Frydenberg said Barndioota, owned by former SA Liberal Senator Grant Chapman, had been chosen ahead of others because of broad community support
If Barndioota is chosen, Mr Chapman and his business partner would get four times the land value for the 100ha excised for the repository from the 6357ha section of their station which has been nominated.
National low-level nuclear waste dump earmarked for Barndioota, near Wilpena Pound April 29, 2016 The Advertiser
A CATTLE station west of Wilpena Pound has been earmarked as the site for a national radioactive dump for medical and laboratory waste. In a surprise pre-election move, federal Resources Minister Josh Frydenberg will on Friday reveal that South Australia’s Barndioota has been pinpointed for the dump ahead of five other voluntarily nominated sites.
Mr Frydenberg emphasised that the short-listing was not a final decision to put the national facility at Barndioota, 35km northwest of Hawker, but it now represents the only option.
In a significant development, Treasurer Tom Koutsantonis said the State Government was supportive of the site’s short-listing and he called the process rigorous.
Overwhelming state and community opposition in 2004 forced the-then prime minister John Howard to abandon plans for a similar national radioactive waste dump near Woomera.
Mr Frydenberg, who will face voters at a July 2 double dissolution election, said he would make a final decision on the site within a year — after design, safety, technical, environmental and indigenous heritage assessment at Barndioota. He had previously been expected to nominate two SA sites — one near Kimba and Barndioota — on a shortlist of two or three ahead of a final decision later this year.
Traditional land owners say the site, near the Flinders Ranges and the famed Wilpena Pound, is home to countless sacred sites and culturally important landmarks that would be destroyed by a radioactive waste dump……. Continue reading
First site chosen for nuclear waste dump – a former Liberal Senator’s property
Former Lib senator’s property first pick for nuclear dump, Fin Rev, by Fleur Anderson Simon Evans 29 Apr 16 A remote South Australian outpost on a cattle station part-owned by former Liberal senator Grant Chapman has been short-listed as the possible site for Australia’s first nuclear waste dump.
Barndioota station, one of six short-listed properties for the dump which would store nuclear waste from hospitals, universities and other locations, will be announced on Friday as the leading contender and there will now be further consultation for the site’s technical suitability and Indigenous heritage.
The Barndioota community, listed as having a population of three people, will receive up to $2 million for local projects that create lasting economic or social benefits and “in recognition of any short-term disruption that this detailed assessment may involve”, Resources and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg said.
Mr Chapman is one of the owners of the long-term lease over a large 25,000 hectare outback pastoral property near Barndioota, which is about 45km north-west of the town of Hawker in the lower Flinders Ranges.
He chaired a Senate-select committee studying radioactive waste dangers and in 1996 proposed a national repository.
The site which Mr Chapman put forward is understood to only be about 100ha of the pastoral property at the northern end. The site is on dry, arid land where only saltbush grows and is about 440km north of Adelaide, and close to a railway line…….
The nuclear dump process is separate to the Nuclear Royal Commission headed by Royal Commissioner Kevin Scarce who is due to hand down his final report on May 6, but in preliminary findings in February outlined the economic benefits of SA becoming involved in nuclear storage.
The current federal Liberal Member for Grey, Rowan Ramsey, whose electorate covers a vast area on the Eyre Peninsula, in the initial stages of the process had nominated his own property as a potential site but later withdrew from the process because of perceptions of a conflict of interest……http://www.afr.com/news/politics/former-lib-senators-property-first-pick-for-nuclear-dump-20160428-gohggc
First-ever council solar farm for Queensland – on the Sunshine Coast
Sunshine Coast builds Queensland’s first-ever council solar farm Brisbane Times, Tony Moore, 28 Apr 16, Queensland’s first large-scale solar farm run by a local government – saving that council $22 million in electricity costs over 30 years – is now being built on the Sunshine Coast. It will provide green power on the Sunshine Coast by mid-2017 and will slash the council’s costs of buying electricity for everything including streets lights, sports facilities, buildings, galleries, parks and libraries.
The council expects to be able to sell excess electricity from the solar farm, with documentation showing the farm will generate more electricity than the council needs.
Queensland’s Local Government Association says nine local governments are also investigating geothermal energy plans.Redland City Council is also exploring a solar farm.
The Sunshine Coast will build the 15-megawatt solar farm on 50 hectares behind Coolum, making it the first local government in Australia to finance a solar plant itself……. More than 57,800 solar panels will be built on stands three to four metres high above an abandoned canefield owned by the council.
They will generate power by early 2017. The Sunshine Coast Council will fund the $48.5 million to build the solar power plant and awarded the contract to construction firm Downer Utilities.
About 60 jobs will be created during construction and a 10-metre buffer will be planted around the solar farm, which will include a solar research centre…….
“Where we originally planned to save our ratepayers $9 million over the 30-year life of the project, we are now forecasting we will save $22 million,” Cr Jamieson said. Solar energy is popular on the Sunshine Coast, with 30,000 homes installing solar system in the past five years……http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/sunshine-coast-builds-queenslands-firstever-council-solar-farm-20160427-gogbw5.html
Approval of Adani’s Queensland coalmine faces another legal challenge
‘Conservationists claim the state government failed to ensure the planned Carmichael mine was ecologically sustainable’
Joshua Robertson | The Guardian Australia
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/apr/27/approval-of-adanis-queensland-coalmine-faces-another-legal-challenge
“Adani’s plan for Australia’s largest coalmine faces yet another snag, with a conservation group mounting what is now the eighth legal challenge to the contentious project. …
The Coast and Country spokesman, Derec Davies, said the decision to grant environmental authority to the Galilee basin mine “ignored climate change totally and failed to properly take account of the true jobs figures – 1,464 net jobs not the 10,000 advocated”. …
The federal court is yet to rule on an Australian Conservation Foundation appeal against federal
environmental approval of the mine. … representatives of the mine site’s traditional owners, the Wangan and Jagalingou people, have several legal actions under way to challenge a land use deal with Adani … “
6 reasons why Australia’s Liberal Coalition government’s climate scare campaign is wrong
Labor, and those in the Coalition who understand that climate change is a thing, are actually converging in their ideas about what policies Australia should adopt. They are moving towards sectoral, and maybe intensity-based, trading schemes and towards using a suite of policies (energy efficiency, vehicle standards, regulations) to get to our targets. And every interest group with a stake in this argument – business, environment groups, investors – are desperately willing the major parties to find some kind of consensus. The Business Council of Australia said Labor’s policy could be a “platform for bipartisanship”. They are right.
And the barren, stupid climate wars and dumb fact-free scare campaigns are a guaranteed recipe for a terrible economic and environmental failure.
Why Coalition climate scare campaign is not credible and makes no sense, http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/apr/27/why-coalition-climate-scare-campaign-is-not-credible-and-makes-no-sense Guardian, Lenore Taylor
Malcolm Turnbull is attempting to discredit Labor’s new emissions plan. Here are six reasons the government’s campaign is wrong
1. The prime minister says that by promising to cut emissions by 45% by 2030, rather than 26% to 28% (as the government has pledged) Labor is “doubling the burden” on Australians. But modelling commissioned by the Coalition from leading economist and former Reserve Bank board member Warwick McKibbinshowed that a 45% cut would shave between 0.5% and 0.7% from gross domestic product (GDP) by 2030, whereas a 26% cut would shave between 0.2 and 0.3%. In other words the difference in the economic cost of the Coalition’s target and Labor’s target is about 0.3% of GDP in 2030. That’s 0.3% of an estimated GDP of over $3.5 trillion. It’s not hard to work out that is not doubling an economic burden. Continue reading
A likely boost to community-owned renewable energy projects in regional Australia
Community-owned renewable energy projects to receive boost thanks to federal election, advocates say, ABC News, 28 Apr 16, By Bridget Judd An increased political emphasis on climate change will drive more community-owned clean energy projects in Victoria, renewable energy advocates say.
There are more than 70 community groups across Australia currently involved in the development of self-sustaining renewable projects, such as the Hepburn wind farm, west of Melbourne. Hepburn Wind is the owner and operator of Australia’s first community-owned wind farm, providing clean energy for more than 2,000 homes.
The Community Power Network’s Nicky Ison said renewed support for renewable projects ahead of the upcoming federal election would help bolster similar projects across the state. “We have amazing renewable energy sources, and most of those resources are located in regional Australia, particularly in south-west Victoria” she said.
“These projects, they provide greater levels of local employment and greater levels of investment opportunity, which means more money from the renewable energy boom stays circulating in regional economies.”
Ms Ison said a direct investment in Community Power Network’s, as outlined in the federal Opposition’s wider Climate and Energy policy package announcement, could help prospective community-run projects navigate legal and technical challenges.
“It will help them negotiate a good power purchase agreement, and allow them to have some of that upfront funding to get through the riskier stages,” she said………http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-27/community-renewable-energy-to-receive-boost-federal-election/7363126
Submarines to Australia – the Australia-France “contract of the century”
In a possible signs of things to come, France’s ambassador to Australia, Christophe Lecourtier, said future ties would not just be limited to submarines.
Australia-French relations: from nuclear villains to submarine purveyors, AFR, 28 Apr 18, “……France winning, against hefty odds, the $50 billion contract to supply 12 French-designed submarines for the Australian Navy. State-controlled defence contractor DCNS won out over Germany’s ThysennKrupp Marine Systems and Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to build 12 conventional submarines in Australia, a coup hailed by the French media as “the contract of the century”…… Continue reading
Urgent need to end $7.7 Billion Fossil Fuel Subsidies
$7.7 Billion Fossil Fuel Subsidies ‘Like Being In Bed With Big Tobacco’ , New Matilda, By Thom Mitchell on April 26, 2016 Calls for an end to fossil fuel subsidies are growing louder in the lead up to Treasurer Scott Morrison’s May 3 budget, with a diverse coalition of advocates demanding an end to the $7.7 billion free ride they claim the fossil fuel industry gets each year.
At a press conference in Canberra this morning academics, religious leaders, renewable energy interests and unionists said it was illogical and counter-productive for the government to continue to subsidise fossil fuels if it’s serious about transitioning to clean energy.
“Continuing to fund polluters when we know the damage being done to the environment is unforgivable intergenerational theft,” said Luke Stickels, from the Australian Education Union.
“It is grossly foolish and unfair. Developing our nation’s future is foremost in the minds of educators in schools across the country, but that future is not secure when the government continues to defy the urgent public desire for strong action on climate change,” he said.
In a letter sent late March, a group of more than 50 civil society groups spelled out the savings they believe could be made if the government winds back subsidies to the industries which are fuelling climate change. They urged the government to:
● End nonagricultural fuel tax credits, boosting the budget by $5.5 billion in 2016/17
● End exploration and prospecting deductions for the mining industry ($650m)
● End statutory effective life caps for the oil and gas sector ($349m)
● End the concessional rate of excise levied on aviation gasoline and aviation turbine fuel ($1.24b)
● Confirm that the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility will not invest in fossil fuel projects or in infrastructure that primarily assists such projects
This morning, former Anglican Church Bishop George Browning reiterated that the government “must stop handing over billions of our dollars to the fossil fuel industry, whose activities are driving dangerous climate change”.
“Science and Christianity are on the same page in urging human responsibility in the face of escalating climate change,” he said. “The clock is ticking. We cannot sit on our hands any longer.”……..https://newmatilda.com/2016/04/26/govt-urged-to-pull-the-handbreak-on-fossil-fuel-industrys-7-7-billion-free-ride/
#NuclearCommissionSAust sets up a pro nuclear Committee for Adelaide overseas junket
Business SA chief Nigel McBride, who will join the tour, told InDaily the delegation would examine “what most people regard as a state-of-the-art piece of engineering [in terms of a] high-level waste repository”. “We don’t want to see people rely on fear and oozing-green Simpsons-cartoon-like imagery”
SA leaders to tour key nuclear sites, Committee for Adelaide, 25 Apr 15 A high-powered delegation of South Australian business leaders and parliamentarians will jet off to Europe next month to visit key nuclear sites in a bid to facilitate a community debate on the merits of expanding the state’s role in the nuclear fuel cycle.
The trip was organised after consultation with Kevin Scarce’s Royal Commission, which last month handed down tentative findings outlining a multi-billion-dollar economic boon if SA established a high-level nuclear waste dump.
The delegation – to be capped at 10, plus prospective MPs and their staff – was organised by the Committee for Adelaide, an independent think-tank of community leaders, and will likely include representatives from environmental business consultants Golders, property group Knight Frank, engineering consultancy Mott MacDonald and Business SA, among others.
Committee for Adelaide general manager Matt Clemow told InDaily the tour would take in France, Finland, the UK and possibly Sweden, and was designed “to understand the issues and opportunities involved in the nuclear fuel cycle with specific focus on safety, alignment with agriculture and tourism, and associated industry regulations”.
The tour also aims “to create a cohort of SA people who have experienced the operations of the nuclear fuel cycle and will be able to contribute to the public discourse”.
The delegation – whose members will pay their own way – departs in late April, returning the day before Scarce hands down his final recommendations on May 6……
Minerals Council of Australia on the back foot with its pro uranium campaign
Pro-uranium social media campaign’s #epicfail Why are some still championing nuclear power when renewable energy generation has doubled worldwide over the past decade? Jim Green, SBS, 25 Apr 2016 www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2016/04/25/comment-pro-uranium-social-media-campaigns-epicfail
The Minerals Council of Australia launched a pro-uranium social media campaign on Wednesday. By that afternoon the twitter hashtag #untappedpotential was trending but ‒ as an AAP piece picked up by SBS and others noted ‒ contributors were overwhelmingly critical.
Nearly all contributors offered thoughts such as these: “A week away from the #Chernobyl 30-year anniversary and Minerals Council begins propaganda trip on the #untappedpotential of uranium. Huh?!” said Twitter user Jemila Rushton.
“We need to better harness the #untappedpotential of solar power”, tweeted Upulie Divisekera.
“#untappedpotential to put more communities at risk of nuclear waste dumps,” Ace Collective said.
“We concur that uranium has much #untappedpotential … for disaster, cost and time blowouts and proliferation,” Anglesea After Coal said.
No doubt the Minerals Council anticipated the negative publicity and is working on the basis that all publicity is good publicity. But what the MCA didn’t anticipate is that in recent days the uranium price has fallen to an 11-year low. Mining.com noted in an April 20 article that the current low price hasn’t been seen since May 2005. The current price, under US26/lb, is well under half the price just before the 2011 Fukushima disaster, and under one-fifth of the 2007 peak of a bubble.
Mining.com quotes a Haywood Securities research note which points out that the spot uranium price “saw three years of back-to-back double-digit percentage losses from 2011-13, but none worse than what we’ve seen thus far in 2016, and at no point since Fukushima, did the average weekly spot price dip below $28 a pound.”
Mining.com notes that five years after the Fukushima disaster only two of Japan’s 50 nuclear reactors are back on line, and that in other developed markets nuclear power is also in retreat. The last reactor start-up in the U.S. was 20 years ago. The French Parliament legislated last year to reduce the country’s reliance on nuclear power by one-third. Germany is phasing out nuclear power. The European Commission recently released a report predicting that the EU’s nuclear power retreat ‒ down 14% over the past decade ‒ will continue.
China is a growth market but has amassed a “staggering” stockpile of yellowcake according to Macquarie Bank. India’s nuclear power program is in a “deep freeze” according to the Hindustan Times (unfortunately the same cannot be said about its nuclear weapons program), while India’s energy minister Piyush Goyal said on April 20 that India is not in a “tearing hurry” to expand nuclear power since there are unresolved questions about pricing, safety and liability waivers sought by foreign companies.
Even if all of Japan’s 50 reactors are included in the count, the number of power reactors operating worldwide is the same now as it was a decade ago. Zero growth despite the endless rhetoric about a nuclear renaissance.
A decision on two planned reactors in the UK could be announced in the next fortnight and the price-tag for the reactors explains why nuclear power is stagnant worldwide and why the Minerals Council is talking about uranium’s ‘potential’ rather than its current contribution to export revenue and employment. The total price-tag for the two planned reactors is A$45 billion. If the project proceeds, the industry will be hoping it doesn’t go three times over budget, as reactor projects in France and Finland have.
South Australian academic Richard Leaver has neatly summed up the uranium industry’s tiresome rhetoric: “‘Potential’ is one of the most powerful chemicals available to the political alchemist. Any individual, firm or sector deemed to have potential is relieved of a massive and perpetual burden − the need to account for past and present achievements (or, more probably, the lack of them). The history of Australian involvement in the civil uranium industry offers an excellent example of this alchemy at work.”
Whatever the future potential of the uranium industry, it contributes next to nothing to the economy at the moment: <0.2 percent of national export revenue and <0.01 percent of all jobs in Australia. And those figures will fade further into irrelevance with the end of mining and the gradual winding down of processing at the Ranger uranium mine in the NT.
The stagnation and cost escalation of nuclear power contrast sharply with the trajectory of renewables. Driven by sharp cost reductions, renewable energy generation has doubled worldwide over the past decade and renewables now produce more than twice the amount of electricity as nuclear power. The gap is widening every day. Dr Jim Green is the national nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth, Australia.
1 This month.
Australians deserve the truth
about
AUKUS – https://aukuspublicinquiry.com/
PETITION – To: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Australian Labor Government
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
Antinuclear 