Tony Abbott now attacking rooftop solar power industry
“By knocking off wind and solar, the only thing that you leave there is the high-risk stuff,” he said. “They’re trying to make it as difficult as possible for the CEFC.”
Abbott government extends renewable energy investment ban to solar power, Guardian, Shalailah Medhora 12 July 15 Clean Energy Finance Corporation banned from investing in small-scale solar projects in move industry claims is ‘revenge politics’ that will strangle the sector A directive banning the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) from investing in existing wind technology will also apply to small-scale solar projects, a move that will effectively throttle the industry, the Australian Solar Council said.
The federal government on Sunday confirmed that the $10bn CEFC will no longer invest in wind power, instead focussing on “emerging technologies”.
“It is our policy to abolish the Clean Energy Finance Corporation because we think that if the projects stack up economically, there’s no reason why they can’t be supported in the usual way,” Abbott told reporters in Darwin. “But while the CEFC exists, what we believe it should be doing is investing in new and emerging technologies – certainly not existing windfarms…..
it has emerged the government’s investment directive also applies to small-scale solar technology like rooftop panels that generate up to 100 kilowatts of power. Continue reading
Australia’s Prime Minister revs up his attack on the wind farm industry
Abbott escalates war on wind, The Age, 11 July 115 Adam Gartrell EXCLUSIVE: Tony Abbott has been warned he is putting international investment at risk after ordering the $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation not to finance new wind power projects. Tony Abbott has dramatically escalated his war on wind power, creating a new cabinet split and provoking a warning he is putting international investment at risk.
Fairfax Media can reveal the government has ordered the $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation not to make any new investments in wind power projects. Treasurer Joe Hockey and Finance Minister Mathias Cormann have issued the so-called green bank with a directive to change its investment mandate, prohibiting new wind funding. It’s understood the directive was issued without the approval or knowledge of Environment Minister Greg Hunt, angering the minister. The decision is another blow for the multibillion-dollar wind industry, which has just started to recover from the uncertainty created by the government’s Renewable Energy Target review. Analysts say $8.7 billion is expected to be invested in wind power in the next five years, while the corporation has invested about $300 million in wind projects to date.
And international investors are warning the government’s move sends a bad message about how safe it is to do business in Australia.
The directive is just the latest salvo in the government’s attacks on the wind industry.
Brotherhood of St Laurence exposes Victoria’s unfair electricity charges
A critique of the Victorian retail electricity market http://apo.org.au/research/critique-victorian-retail-electricity-market Brotherhood of St Laurence 7 July 2015
The Brotherhood of St Laurence commissioned Bruce Mountain from Carbon and Energy Markets (CME) to investigate the Victorian retail electricity market.
Electricity costs have been rising across Australia’s National Electricity Market since 2007. In most Australian states rising network costs – the poles and wires – have been the primary cause of these price increases.
However, the Victorian case is different. Network costs are lower than in other states, and haven’t risen as much. High retail charges appear to be the cause.
The report and accompanying summary, released 7 July 2015, investigate the dynamics of the retail energy market and how that impacts on householders bills……..
Australian uranium miners’ toxic track record in Africa
[Paladin’s] Langer Heinrich Uranium mine[Namibia] …
Craton Mining and Exploration [copper] is a subsidiary of Australian-based International Base Metals…..
Rio Tinto owns Rössing Uranium Mine…
[Australian] Deep Yellow Limited (DYL) the Aussinanis uranium project.
Aussies in toxic trail By Shinovene Immanuel, Ndanki Kahiurika 10 July 15 http://www.namibian.com.na/indexx.php?id=28936&page_type=story_detail&category_id=1#sthash.TJSxEgQV.P3bN2nwk.uxfs&st_refDomain=blogs.icerocket.com&st_refQuery=/search?tab=buzz&fr=h&q=uranium+Australia NAMIBIA, a mining frontier for decades, continues to struggle with mining companies which subject workers to dangerous working conditions.
That mining in Africa provokes controversy, even violence, is not new. Chinese companies receive regular criticism. Canada, too, has been forced to confront allegations of violence and even slavery linked to its mining companies.
The ICIJ investigation looked at Australia’s increasing role in exploring and developing mining projects on the African continent because it has been less examined.
TROUBLING
What ICIJ uncovered and pieced together suggests a troubling track record on the part of Australian companies in the rush for Africa’s minerals, including practices that would be impermissible, even unthinkable, in Australia and other parts of the developed world. Continue reading
World’s poorest country, Malawi, ripped off by Paladin in tax avoidance?
Australian miner accused of dodging tax in world’s poorest country, The Age, July 11, 2015 –Heath Aston Political reporter
Tax avoidance tactics of multinational companies have angered Australians, but an Australian mining firm used such methods in Malawi. Tax avoidance tactics of multinational companies have angered the public and placed pressure on the Abbott government to prevent profits being exported offshore.
But an Australian uranium miner is defending the use of identical methods to reduce its tax bill in the world’s poorest country, Malawi.
Between 2009 and 2014, Paladin Energy moved $US183 million out of Malawi to a holding company in the Netherlands and then on to Australia.
A 15-page report by London-based ActionAid has found the Dutch transfers and a special royalties deal – in which Malawi’s mining minister agreed to drop the initial tax rate applied to the uranium mine from 5 per cent to 1.5 per cent – have cost the Malawi public $US43 million.
In Africa’s poorest nation, where per capita GDP is just $US226 a year and life expectancy 55, that money could provide the equivalent of 39,000 new teachers or 17,000 nurses, according to the aid group……..
Paladin’s tax-free transfers to the Netherlands were a combination of management fees and interest payments on loans initiated in Australia. The company loaded its African subsidiary up with huge debts, leaving the Kayelekera uranium mine in northern Malawi with an 80:20 debt to equity ratio – a financing structure known as “thin capitalisation”.
The Dutch structure allowed Paladin to avoid paying a 15 per cent withholding tax to the Malawi government due to a tax treaty between Malawi and the Netherlands which expired in 2014, saving the company $US7.3 million. Paladin closed the mine in February 2014, citing a “sustained low uranium price”.
ActionAid has accused the company of “treaty shopping” and shortchanging the Malawi people. The country’s nursing ranks have the equivalent of four nurses to every 100 in Australia, despite 10 per cent of Malawi’s population being infected with HIV/AIDS……..http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/australian-miner-accused-of-dodging-tax-in-worlds-poorest-country-20150710-gi6uzv.html
Litigation in Malawi against Australian uranium miner Paladin
“There is a very strong perception that when Australian mining companies come here they take every advantage of regulatory and compliance monitoring weaknesses, and of the huge disparity in power between themselves and affected communities, and aim to get away with things they wouldn’t even think of trying in Australia,”
Australian miners linked to hundreds of deaths, injuries in Africa, SMH, July 11, 2015 -Will Fitzgibbon Australian mining companies are linked to hundreds of deaths and injuries in Africa, which can go unreported at home. Some of the Australian Securities Exchange-listed companies include state governments as shareholders. One company recorded 38 worker deaths over an eleven-year period.
In Malawi, litigation continues against Paladin Africa Limited, a subsidiary of Perth-based Paladin Energy, and its subcontractor after an explosion disfigured one worker with such heat that his skin shattered when touched by rescuers. Two others died in the same incident.
Other allegations include employees in South Africa hacking a woman with a machete and Malian police killing two protesters after a mine worker reportedly asked authorities to dislodge a barricade on the road to the mine.
An investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, in collaboration with 13 African reporters, uncovered locally-filed lawsuits, violent protests and community petitions criticising some Australian companies. Continue reading
Victoria’s new wind farms going ahead
New wind farms for Victoria by Mark Eggleton, AFR, Jul 8 2015 This content is produced by The Australian Financial Review in commercial partnership with GE With the first new wind farm development beginning construction in Victoria since the election of the Coalition government recently, Australia could be on the brink of a new burst of activity in the renewable energy sector.
It follows the recent announcement of the $450 million Ararat project to build Australia’s third-largest wind farm in south-western Victoria with financing provided by developer Renewable Energy Systems (RES), turbine-maker General Electric and two other backers.
Yet while the new facility at Coonooer Bridge owes nothing to the recent agreement on the renewable energy target, the Ararat announcement came within days of the RET deal being passed in Parliament. Both projects come at a time when Australian business is starting to feel mildly confident about Australia’s energy future with the RET deal delivering much-needed certainty to the sector. Moreover, both wind developments play to the country’s natural resource strengths.
WIND SPEEDS
GE’s sales and finance managing director for Australia and New Zealand, Jason Willoughby, says Australia is blessed with great renewable energy resources – both from a wind perspective and from a solar perspective.
“I speak to colleagues in the US and in Europe and we compare what the wind speeds in Australia are, and they’re amazed that they’re so good and well located to where the load is.”
Importantly for Australia, Willoughby said the renewable energy target will unlock upwards of $10 billion of investment. http://www.afr.com/news/special-reports/australia-energy-future/new-wind-farms-for-victoria-20150708-gi6ulf
North Queensland’s Collinsville solar energy project going ahead
Collinsville solar power plant to go ahead thanks to Renewable Energy Target decision says Ratch http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-06/collinsville-solar-power-plant-a-goer/6597400 By Jonathan Hair
The company behind a proposed solar power project in north Queensland says it hopes to start construction next year. Ratch Australia is planning to build a $100 million solar plant in Collinsville. It will create up to 80 jobs in the construction phase and two to three once operational.
Ratch general manager of business management, Anil Nangia, said the recent Federal Government deadlock on the Renewable Energy Target put the project on hold. However, he said the recent agreement on a new target meant the project would go ahead.
“The other good thing about renewable energy is it produces jobs and investment in regional Australia,” he said.”The key aspect of this resolution is it was bipartisan support, with no additional reviews until 2020. “We believe there’s real certainty in this target and it will stay in place and we think it will be there for the long run, if not increased.”
He said it was disheartening when politicians expressed a lack of faith in renewables. It’s terrible when they talk like that, renewables are the way of the future,” he said. “They basically are going to produce the low cost power in the long-term and they produce power with no emissions, no side effects, it’s really sad when they talk … down the potential of renewable energy in Australia.”
GDF SUEZ Australian Energy, coal mine owner, investing big into solar energy
“Solar is becoming totally competitive,” “Solar is an energy of the future. It is the energy with the biggest potential for development. It’s no longer a subsidized niche.”
the shift by Engie from centralised fossil fuel and nuclear capacity to one based around decentralised renewable energy generation is typical of the transformation going on around the world – with Europe’s E.ON, RWE and Vattenfall, and in the US, with generators such as NRG, and network operators in California, New York and elsewhere.
Hazelwood owner makes big push into solar energy, REneweconomy, By Giles Parkinson on 10 July 2015 The owner of the Hazelwood coal-fired power station, the dirtiest generator in Australia, has announced a major push into renewable energy, snapping up the international solar farm developer SolaireDirect for about $A300 million.
GDF Suez, now known as Engie under a massive re-branding campaign that signals its shift from fossil 
fuels and nuclear to renewable energy, will become the largest solar and wind developer in France after the purchase.
But its big focus is on the international scene. Gerard Mestrallet, the CEO of Engie, one of the biggest operators of nuclear plants in Europe, says new solar now beats new nuclear on price, with new solar parks costing between $US60 and $US90/MWh. Continue reading
Radio shock jock Alan Jones caught out in climate falsehood
Alan Jones gets slapped down for climate lies MYRIAM ROBIN | JUL 10, 2015 The Daily Mail got its maths wrong in a climate story, and even The Australian admitted it. But undeterred, Alan Jones repeated the falsehood after the Oz apologised. The fallout from an erroneous Daily Mail story that mucked up its maths on global warming continues, with shock jock Alan Jones the latest to be slapped down by the appropriate watchdog for relying on the dodgy figures.
On September 16, 2013, The Australian published a story based on reporting in the British tabloid, which claimed a leaked… [subscription only] http://www.crikey.com.au/2015/07/10/alan-jones-gets-slapped-down-for-climate-lies/
Community renewable energy will get a boost from Frontier Energy’s financing toolkit
Financing toolkit in works for community renewables project http://www.businessspectator.com.au/news/2015/7/10/renewable-energy/financing-toolkit-works-community-renewables-project JOHN CONROY 10 JUL 15 Frontier Energy is creating a toolkit that is set to make community energy projects easier to develop, supported by $296,000 funding from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA).
The $493,000 project aims to break down some of the barriers facing new community energy projects by increasing project developers’ understanding of how to secure finance.
“While the community renewable energy sector in Australia is growing, there remains a large gap in information on financing,” ARENA CEO Ivor Frischknecht said.
“The new financial toolkit will provide easily accessible information on financier requirements, financial models, checklists and case studies through a central website, along with a list of key contacts.
“Spending less money on external advice, particularly in the early stages of development, will make projects cheaper overall. Continue reading
Aboriginal elder Kevin Buzzacott speaks at strong anti nuclear protest in Adelaide
Nuclear dump would destroy our land: elder http://www.9news.com.au/national/2015/07/09/15/23/elders-students-protest-sa-nuclear-dump Aboriginal elders from across the country have joined scores of university students camping out in a stand against the storing of nuclear waste in Australia.
Protesters from far and wide have set up a tent community at Flinders University in Adelaide in protest against plans for a nuclear waste dump, in South Australia or anywhere else.
“To the South Australian government, to the federal government, to the mining giants – don’t worry about trying to put the waste dump here,” Arabunna elder Kevin Buzzacott said on Thursday.
It also coincides with South Australia’s royal commission into nuclear power, which is looking at whether the state should expand its involvement in the nuclear industry.
At least one SA Liberal senator says it should, with Sean Edwards recently urging the state to cash in by becoming a global player in the spent nuclear fuel recycling industry.
But Mr Buzzacott said a storage facility would destroy the sacred land of the country’s traditional owners. “We’ve lost a lot of sacred sites as it is,” he said. “We don’t want to lose any more. “We’ve been here 40,000 years. We’ve never touched the land – we love the land.”
BHP’s hypocrisy about climate change.
As a proud non-subscriber to THE AUSTRALIAN, I haven’t been able to read this article. But on past performance of BHP, I reckon that I can have a pretty good guess on what BHP’s enthusiasm for climate action really means.
Last month, all the nuclear big-wigs met somewhere in Europe to plan a campaign about the Paris Climate Summit in December . The idea is to have nuclear power established as a solution to climate change.
BHP would love that – otherwise they couldn’t give a damn about climate change.
BHP embraces climate debate, THE AUSTRALIAN, ? 8 July 15
The private sector needs to play a part in this year’s Paris climate talks, says BHP Billiton’s Dean Dalla Valle…. (subscribers only)
We need to change the Native Title Act and get Real Land Rights for Aboriginal poeple
“we have no rights to say no to mining under native title.”
The court has never once found in favour of holders of native title.
the constitution is not silent. It is actively discriminatory, explicitly enabling authorities to enact race-specific laws. This must end.
Native title yes, but still no land rights, The Age July 8, 2015 Elizabeth Farrelly Sydney Morning Herald columnist, author, architecture critic and essayist
Sacred land must not be dug up and our constitution and laws should assure that. So it’s NAIDOC Week. “We all stand on sacred ground,” protests the starry-eyed tagline. “Learn, respect, celebrate.”
Going by the flood of earnest Indigenous heritage displays, trucked-in smoking ceremonies and family-friendly clips of smiling Koori kids you’d think we meant it. Eighty-five per cent of us, apparently, support removing anti-Aboriginal racism from the constitution. God knows it’s little enough, late enough – but is it also hypocritical?
The most memorable part of that June 22 Q&A program wasn’t Zaky Mallah. It was the nine-minute segment on native title and mining rights. Yet the Mallah story was beaten up nationwide like a thousand-egg free-range souffle, while the land-rights conversation once again sank without trace. Continue reading
The nuclear-lobby-stacked Royal Commission faces stiff opposition in South Australia
Renewables now! Nuclear not an option, Green Left, July 4, 2015 What about the new South Australian royal commission into the nuclear industry?
“……..South Australia has a nuclear industry the government wants to expand. There is uranium enrichment, but that is an economic non-starter, and then there is nuclear power, which is theoretically possible but very expensive and controversial.
The nuclear lobby is driving the idea that if you import other countries’ high-level waste, those countries would pay billions of dollars to get it off their hands. So there is all sorts of nonsense flying around South Australia, especially in the Murdoch press, that these billions of dollars would cover the entire cost of building nuclear reactors and would also allow the abolition of all state taxes.
But even with that sort of propaganda being circulated in the Adelaide Advertiser — a Murdoch tabloid — they found that fewer than one in six South Australians want a high-level nuclear waste dump.
It is a massive challenge, as the royal commission is stacked by pro-nuclear lobbyists. So it will issue a pro-nuclear report and we are doing the best we can to dull their enthusiasm.
We are building a separate campaign against the expansion. Traditional owners held a meeting in Port Augusta in April and this is the starting point to building an ongoing campaign.
A lot of these traditional owners have already experienced a track record of the industries of pollution and lies and they don’t want to be a part of it. They have seen the outrageous divide and rule tactics used by Heathgate against Adnyamathanha traditional owners. Then there is the long history of Olympic Dam uranium mine, and attempts to dump nuclear waste on Aboriginal land despite their ferocious opposition. Or go back to the Maralinga bomb tests in South Australia — there is a lot of history with people still suffering the varied impacts of that.
There is a lot of campaign strength in South Australia. Certainly we are putting in submissions to the royal commission but we don’t want to get sucked into their campaign too much because it is a fraud and the more important thing for us is to build campaigns and support Aboriginal people who want to build campaigns…..” https: //www.greenleft.org.au/node/59400
1 This month
Help Aunty Sue Protect Her Land and Sacred Sites From Destructive Rocket Testing.
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AUKUS – https://aukuspublicinquiry.com/
PETITION – To: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Australian Labor Government
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
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