Australia’s move on nuclear submarines raises concern
Editor : Li Yan, https://www.ecns.cn/news/military/2024-03-28/detail-ihcyyfhe2567871.shtml
Despite growing concerns over costs, capabilities, and risks to national interests, Australia has committed to collaborating with the United States and the United Kingdom to advance the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines, a move experts predicted would escalate domestic opposition and heighten regional tensions.
Australia has pledged $3 billion to support British industry in constructing nuclear-powered submarines, ensuring the timely delivery of its new fleet, as announced by both countries last Friday.
Grant Shapps, British defense secretary, emphasized the ongoing importance of AUKUS while drawing attention to the so-called “China threat” in his remarks.
However, the trilateral agreement has faced domestic criticism and protests from the outset. On March 18, local unions and environmental groups in Australia urged the government to abandon plans for a base while holding a protest outside the parliament house, the latest demonstration in a series, some of which drew as many as 5,000 protesters.
The establishment of the base is a key component of AUKUS, Australia’s largest defense initiative since World War II. In total, the submarine project could cost up to $240 billion over the next 30 years.
“We don’t want to be part of someone else’s belligerent nuclear plans,” said Arthur Rorris, head of the South Coast Labor Council, comprising unions representing 50,000 workers in the area.
They fear the base could choke an infant clean energy sector by taking up scarce land and ushering in security curbs, as well as the permanent presence of U.S. warships. Faced with strong opposition, the government said it hadn’t decided on Port Kembla, a favorable location for the base, as local media had reported.
Chen Hong, director of the Australian Studies Centre at East China Normal University in Shanghai, said the protests against AUKUS signify a growing awareness among Australians of the detrimental consequences of the military pact on national interests and regional stability.
“By taking part in the U.S.-led trilateral military pact, Australia hopes to get nuclear submarine technologies and more security promises from the United States and the United Kingdom. However, this move will drag the country and its people into a potential war as the Australian government keeps supporting U.S. hegemony and surrenders its land for U.S. warships,” Chen said.
AUKUS, established in 2021, aims to bolster Australia’s military capabilities by providing it with nuclear-powered submarines.
Fueling tensions
“Through AUKUS, the U.S. and its Western allies are trying to weaponize Australia and force the country to join its ‘anti-China’ bloc. Plus, the U.S. has kept pushing forward its ‘Indo-Pacific’ strategy, which also involves Australia, fueling tensions in the whole region,” he said.
Daryl Guppy, an international financial technical analyst and former national board member of the Australia China Business Council in Melbourne, said that some Australian politicians have moved closely with the U.S. on the assumption that U.S. and Australian interests are largely the same, which has undermined Australia’s sovereign independence.
Apart from the political turbulence, Chen also said the nuclear submarine pact will raise concerns over nuclear proliferation and cause environmental influences that will damage the health of local communities.
“Australia has long championed nuclear-weapon-free zones and was a founding member of the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty. However, Australia’s attempt to acquire nuclear submarines will undermine its nuclear-free promise,” Chen said.
As Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited Australia recently, experts are expecting that the two countries can collaborate to improve the bilateral relationship.
“China and Australia can work together to find more common grounds and build a more stable, mature and fruitful comprehensive strategic partnership, which will benefit the peoples of the two countries,” Chen said.
The Empire Slowly Suffocates Assange Like It Slowly Suffocates All Its Enemies
CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, MAR 27, 2024, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/the-empire-slowly-suffocates-assange?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=142993532&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
The British High Court has ruled that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange may potentially get a final appeal against extradition to the United States, but only within a very limited scope and only if specific conditions are met.
The court ruled that Assange may appeal only on the grounds that his freedom of speech might be restricted in the US, and that there is a possibility he could receive the death penalty. If the US provides “assurances” that neither of these things will happen, then the trial moves to another phase where Assange’s legal team may debate the merits of those assurances. If the US does not provide those assurances, then the limited appeal will move forward.
Absurdly, the court determined that Assange’s lawyers may not argue against extradition on matters as self-evidently critical as the fact that the CIA plotted to assassinate him, or on the basis that he is being politically persecuted for the crime of inconvenient journalism.
The mass media are calling this a “reprieve”, even “wonderful news”, but as Jonathan Cook explains in his latest article “Assange’s ‘reprieve’ is another lie, hiding the real goal of keeping him endlessly locked up,” that’s all a bunch of crap.
“The word ‘reprieve’ is there — just as the judges’ headline ruling that some of the grounds of his appeal have been ‘granted’ — to conceal the fact that he is prisoner to an endless legal charade every bit as much as he is a prisoner in a Belmarsh cell,” writes Cook. “In fact, today’s ruling is yet further evidence that Assange is being denied due process and his most basic legal rights — as he has been for a decade or more.”
Cook writes the following:
“The case has always been about buying time. To disappear Assange from public view. To vilify him. To smash the revolutionary publishing platform he founded to help whistleblowers expose state crimes. To send a message to other journalists that the US can reach them wherever they live should they try to hold Washington to account for its criminality.
“And worst of all, to provide a final solution for the nuisance Assange had become for the global superpower by trapping him in an endless process of incarceration and trial that, if it is allowed to drag on long enough, will most likely kill him.”
This kind of slow motion strangulation is how the empire operates all the time these days, across all spheres. Helping Israel starve Gaza while slowly pretending to work toward solutions. Drawing out a proxy war in Ukraine for as long as possible to bleed Russia. Slowly killing Assange in prison without trial under the pretense of judicial proceedings.
The US-centralized empire hunts not like a tiger, killing its prey with one fatal bite to the jugular, but more like a python: slowly suffocating the life out of its prey until it perishes. It favors the long, drawn-out, confusing strangulation of inconvenient populations and individuals, carried out under the cover of bureaucracy and propaganda spin. In today’s world it prefers sanctions, blockades and long proxy conflicts over the big Hulk-smash ground invasions we saw it carry out in places like Iraq and Vietnam.
These slow suffocations can take more time, but what they lack in efficiency they make up for in the quality of perception management. It’s bad PR to just openly invade countries and murder people, which is why the leaders of the western empire have been able to wag their fingers at Putin despite their being quantifiably far more murderous than Russia. People start snapping out of the propaganda matrix you spent so much time building for them and begin organizing against the political status quo your power is premised on.
So they opt for slow strangulation strategies where they can confuse the public about what’s happening and who’s responsible, outsourcing the blame to other parties while posing as the good guy who’s trying to bring peace and stability. It takes time, but the empire has time to burn. That’s what happens when you’re the most powerful empire in the history of civilization; you have the luxury of biding your time while orchestrating large-scale, long-term operations to advance your power agendas.
Meanwhile Gaza starves, Ukraine bleeds, and Assange languishes in prison, each needing this to end with more urgency every day.
WATCH: Nabbed Australian Protestors Stopping Military Shipment to Israel
Video and article by Cathy Vogan, Consortium News https://consortiumnews.com/2024/03/25/watch-nabbed-stopping-military-shipment-to-israel/
Paul Keating, branch secretary of the Australian Maritime Union (AMU) spoke for fellow members in solidarity with the Palestinian community and faced off with police, when he and several hundred protestors blockaded Sydney’s Port Botany on Sunday to protest Australia’s export of military aid to Israel.
The protestors’ target is ZIM Shipping, a well known Israeli company that trade unionist Ian Rintoul says supports and is connected with Israel. “It offered its services to the Israeli state for the conduct of the genocide,” he told Consortium News. “Zim Shipping has actually been a target of protests at ports all around the world in the United States and Italy, Europe [and elsewhere in Australia]”.
Keating, who also spoke to CN, called on all of the other workers’ unions to stand with the AMU and for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to place sanctions on Israel for what the International Court of Justice has called a plausible case of genocide.
He told the police chief at the scene: “This is an international working class issue”, and in his speech reiterated:
“On behalf of the MUA, we stand with our communities and throughout the generations we fought against the establishment who have supported apartheid, like we saw with South Africa, like we’ve seen with the wars that have forced ordinary working class men and women like ourselves and our communities into the most desperate of situations. We oppose war. Peace is union business, and this is our business”.
Deputy Leader of the Greens Mehreen Faruqi also spoke in favour of the blockade and condemned the government’s current policy. She said:
“It’s been 169 days of Israel’s genocide on Gaza. 169 horror-filled days for Palestinians. More than 30,000 Palestinians have been slaughtered by Israel. More than 1 million Palestinians are being starved by Israel. Famine and disease loom large in the ruins of Gaza. That’s the reality on the ground right at this moment. And how bereft, how bereft of humanity, of morality, of head and heart can the Labor government be to not do anything to stop these war crimes, this collective punishment, these atrocities and this genocide? How ruthless and cruel can you be to aid, abet and arm Israel?”
The blockade was short-lived and was broken up by police. Keating and 18 others were arrested and now face fines of up to AUS $22K and two years jail for obstructing traffic in the maritime zone.
Cathy Vogan is the executive producer of CN Live!
Antarctic sea ice ‘behaving strangely’ as Arctic reaches ‘below-average’ winter peak
Carbon Brief, AYESHA TANDON, 26 Mar 24,
Antarctic sea ice is “behaving strangely” and might have entered a “new regime”, the director of the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) tells Carbon Brief.
Following an all-time low maximum in September 2023, Antarctic sea ice has been tracking at near-record-low extent for the past six months. Last month, it hit its 2024 minimum extent, tying with 2022 for the second-lowest Antarctic minimum in the 46-year satellite record.
Dr Mark Serreze, director of the NSIDC tells Carbon Brief that more warm ocean water is reaching the surface to melt ice and keep it from forming. He says that we “must wait and see” whether this is a “temporary effect” or whether the Antarctic has entered a “new regime”.
Meanwhile, Arctic sea ice has reached its maximum extent for the year, peaking at 15.01m square kilometres (km2) on 14 March. The provisional data from the NSIDC shows that this year’s Arctic winter peak, despite favourable winds that encouraged sea ice formation, was 640,000km2 smaller than the 1981-2010 average maximum.
This year’s maximum was the 14th lowest in the satellite record…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Record-breaking Antarctic extent
Antarctic sea ice has been tracking at or near record-low levels for months.
The Antarctic set a record-low maximum on 10 September 2023, with an extent of 16.96m km2. This was “the lowest sea ice maximum in the 1979 to 2023 sea ice record by a wide margin”, and one of the earliest, the NSIDC says.
Antarctic conditions over 2023 were “truly exceptional” and “completely outside the bounds of normality”, one expert told Carbon Brief.
As 2023 progressed, Antarctic sea ice melt was “slower than average”, the NSIDC says. The total decline in Antarctic sea ice extent through October was 903,000km2, while the October average was 985,000km2.
Nevertheless, Antarctic sea ice extent continued to track at a record low. On 31 October 2023, Antarctic sea ice extent was still tracking at a record-low of 15.79m km2. This is 750,000km2 below the previous 31 October record low………….. more https://www.carbonbrief.org/antarctic-sea-ice-behaving-strangely-as-arctic-reaches-below-average-winter-peak/
Nuclear ranks last on list of good investments by big institutions
Marion Rae, Mar 25, 2024, https://reneweconomy.com.au/nuclear-ranks-last-on-list-of-good-investments-by-big-institutions/
Nuclear energy is last on the list of technologies that investors want exposure to, according to a survey of big financial institutions.
The vast majority of investors do not see nuclear power as a good investment, with less than one in 10 exploring this technology, the survey released on Monday found.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is spruiking nuclear reactors as an option for Australia’s future low-carbon economy although the energy source is illegal under existing laws and Labor has ruled it out.
Renewable energy is tipped to deliver the best long-term financial returns, with half the investors surveyed exploring opportunities to invest.
Investors have also become more confident about Australian climate policy under the Albanese government, according to the survey by the Investor Group on Climate Change.
“Investors have given the government a pretty good report card,” the group’s policy chief Erwin Jackson said.
But Australia will need globally competitive, targeted incentives to suit the nation’s economic strengths and values to stop “ongoing capital flight” to the United States and Europe where there are more generous tax breaks.
Clear timelines for the phase-out of fossil fuels by 2050 would also help investors manage transition risks and remain invested in the Australian economy, according to the group.
This year’s data includes 63 superannuation funds as well as other asset owners and managers, with more than $37 trillion in assets under management globally. Their beneficiaries include more than 15 million Australians.
Emerging priorities include clear timelines for phasing out coal, oil and gas and clear policies to build resilience and adapt to physical damage from climate change.
Opinions citing policy and regulatory uncertainty as a barrier to clean economy investment in Australia have changed dramatically, supported by four out of 10 investors compared with 7 out of 10 in 2021.
Renewable energy (47 per cent) was picked as the best option for long-term climate solutions, followed by nature-based schemes including biodiversity projects (34 per cent).
But investors are still in the dark on the federal government’s sector-by-sector decarbonisation plans for heavy polluters such as the energy, transport, agriculture and resources industries – and on the scope of the 2035 emissions reduction target.
“Credible and clear sector by sector decarbonisation plans to achieve a 2035 target with the highest possible level of ambition are critical for investment and it is critical to build on the steps already taken,” Mr Jackson said.
Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen has said the 2035 target will be “ambitious and achievable”, with advice to come from Australia’s recently beefed-up Climate Change Authority.
The sectoral review by the authority has an August 1 deadline, and will be released shortly afterwards.
AAP
The AUKUS Cash Cow: Robbing the Australian Taxpayer
The eye-opener in the AUKMIN chatter is the promise from Canberra to send A$4.6 billion (£2.4 billion) to speed up lethargic construction at the Rolls-Royce nuclear reactor production line. There are already questions that the reactor cores, being built at Derby, will be delayed for the UK’s own Dreadnought nuclear submarine.
The eye-opener in the AUKMIN chatter is the promise from Canberra to send A$4.6 billion (£2.4 billion) to speed up lethargic construction at the Rolls-Royce nuclear reactor production line.
March 26, 2024, by: Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.com/the-aukus-cash-cow-robbing-the-australian-taxpayer/
Two British ministers, the UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron and Defence Secretary Grant Shapps, paid a recent visit to Australia recently as part of the AUKMIN (Australia-United Kingdom Ministerial Consultations) talks. It showed, yet again, that Australia’s government loves being mugged. Stomped on. Mowed over. Beaten.
It was mugged, from the outset, in its unconditional surrender to the US military industrial complex with the AUKUS security agreement. It was mugged in throwing money (that of the Australian taxpayer) at the US submarine industry, which is lagging in its production schedule for both the Virginia-class boats and new designs such as the Columbia class. British shipyards were hardly going to miss out on this generous distribution of Australian money, largesse ill-deserved for a flagging production line.
A joint statement on the March 22 meeting, conducted with Defence Minister Richard Marles and Foreign Minister Penny Wong, was packed with trite observations and lazy reflections about the nature of the “international order”. Ministers “agreed the contemporary [UK-Australian] relationship is responding in an agile and coordinated way to global challenges.” When it comes to matters of submarine finance and construction, agility is that last word that comes to mind.
Boxes were ticked with managerial, inconsequential rigour. Russia, condemned for its “full-scale, illegal and immoral invasion of Ukraine.” Encouragement offered for Australia in training Ukrainian personnel through Operation Kudu and joining the Drone Capability Coalition. Exaggerated “concern at the catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Gaza.” Praise for the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and “respect of navigation.”
The relevant pointers were to be found later in the statement. The UK has been hoping for a greater engagement in the Indo-Pacific (those damn French take all the plaudits from the European power perspective), and the AUKUS bridge has been one excuse for doing so. Accordingly, this signalled a “commitment to a comprehensive and modern defence relationship, underlined by the signing of the updated Agreement between the Government of Australia and the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland for Defence and Security Cooperation.”
When politicians need to justify opening the public wallet, such tired terms as “unprecedented”, “threat” and “changing” are used. These are the words of foreign minister Wong: “Australia and the United Kingdom are building on our longstanding strategic partnership to address our challenging and rapidly changing world.” Marles preferred the words “an increasingly complex strategic environment.” Shapps followed a similar line of thinking. “Nuclear-powered submarines are not cheap, but we live in a much more dangerous world, where we are seeing a much more assertive region [with] China, a much more dangerous world all around with what is happening in the Middle East and Europe.” Hardly a basis for the submarines, but the fetish is strong and gripping.
With dread, critics of AUKUS would have noted yet another round of promised disgorging. Britain’s submarine industry is even more lagging than that of the United States, and bringing Britannia aboard the subsidy truck is yet another signal that the AUKUS submarines, when and if they ever get off the design page and groan off the shipyards, are guaranteed well deserved obsolescence or glorious unworkability.
A separate statement released by all the partners of the AUKUS agreement glories in the SSN-AUKUS submarine, intended as a joint effort between BAE Systems and the Australian Submarine Corporation (ASC). (BAE Systems, it should be remembered, is behind the troubled Hunter-class frigate program, one plagued by difficulties in unproven capabilities.)
An already challenging series of ingredients is further complicated by the US role as well. “SSN-AUKUS is being trilaterally developed, based on the United Kingdom’s next designs and incorporation technology from all three nations, including cutting edge United States submarine technologies.” This fabled fiction “will be equipped for intelligence, surveillance, undersea warfare and strike missions, and will provide maximum interoperability among AUKUS partners.” The ink on this is clear: the Royal Australian Navy will, as with any of the promised second-hand Virginia-class boats, be a subordinate partner.
In this, a false sense of submarine construction is being conveyed through what is termed the “Optimal Pathway”, ostensibly to “create a stronger, more resilient trilateral submarine industrial base, supporting submarine production and maintenance in all three countries.” In actual fact, the Australian leg of this entire effort is considerably greater in supporting the two partners, be it in terms of upgrading HMAS Stirling in Western Australia to permit UK and US SSNs to dock as part of Submarine Rotational Force West from 2027, and infrastructure upgrades in South Australia. It all has the appearance of garrisoning by foreign powers, a reality all the more startling given various upgrades to land and aerial platforms for the United States in the Northern Territory.
The eye-opener in the AUKMIN chatter is the promise from Canberra to send A$4.6 billion (£2.4 billion) to speed up lethargic construction at the Rolls-Royce nuclear reactor production line. There are already questions that the reactor cores, being built at Derby, will be delayed for the UK’s own Dreadnought nuclear submarine. The amount, it was stated by the Australian government, was deemed “an appropriate and proportionate contribution to expand production and accommodate Australia’s requirements.” Hardly.
Ultimately, this absurd spectacle entails a windfall of cash, ill-deserved funding to two powers with little promise of returns and no guarantees of speedier boat construction. The shipyards of both the UK and the United States can take much joy from this, as can those keen to further proliferate nuclear platforms, leaving the Australian voter with that terrible feeling of being, well, mugged.
On nuclear, Coalition prefers the optimism of misleading, decade-old, unverified claims
The Coalition is a fan of quoting the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation’s optimism on nuclear timelines compared to the CSIRO. But do the numbers add up?
JOHN QUIGGIN, MAR 22, 2024, https://johnquigginblog.substack.com/p/on-nuclear-coalition-prefers-the?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=806934&post_id=142847313&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
To the extent that most Australians have heard of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), we know it as a supplier of radio-isotopes for use in medicine and as the operator of a small research reactor at Lucas Heights in the suburbs of Sydney.
So, it may have come as a surprise to hear shadow energy minister Ted O’Brien cite ANSTO as the source for an estimate that a small modular reactor (SMR) could be constructed in three to five years, and a large reactor in eight to 12 years.
Appearing on the ABC’s 7:30 report in mid-March, O’Brien stated “that is the advice from ANSTO. That is the advice of the Albanese government’s nuclear agency”. In view of the fact that widely publicised advice from an extensive study undertaken by CSIRO yields much less optimistic conclusions, that seems like a surprising claim.
But O’Brien is correct. ANSTO is indeed the government agency officially advising on nuclear technology, including nuclear power.
Section 5 of the ANSTO Act mandates the organisation provide advice on aspects of and the application and use of nuclear science and nuclear technology. ANSTO provides such advice to government, parliaments, ministers, departments and agencies, inquiries and investigations, members of the public, and international, multilateral and bilateral partners — in pursuit of the national interest.
In a submission to the Senate standing committee on environment and the communications inquiry into the environment and other legislation amendment (Removing Nuclear Energy Prohibitions) Bill 2022, ANSTO stated that SMRs “have the potential to reduce build costs using a variety of strategies, including reducing plant build times from six to eight years for large reactors to two and a half to four years for SMRs via the use of series-production methods“.
These numbers are even more optimistic than those cited by Ted O’Brien. But terms like “potential” can do a lot of work in claims of this kind. Nuclear fusion, for example, has the potential to meet all the energy needs of the planet, but it won’t do so any time soon.
A natural response from an interested member of the public would be to visit the ANSTO website to get more detailed information on the assessment of nuclear technology. This leads us to a webpage titled “What are small modular reactors and what makes them different?”, which leads with the claim “the USA is expected to have its first SMR operating by 2026” and includes the timeframe of three to five years for construction.
A note hastily added in the last week states: “Please note that this content was current at the time of publishing (July 2020), and the projected construction time of SMRs (three to five years) is referenced from a University of Leeds research paper. In November 2023, NuScale [the subject of the 2026 claim] announced it was discontinuing its SMR project in Idaho.”
Even in 2020, this research was out of date. The NuScale project, originally projected to be delivering power in 2023, had already pushed its target past 2026 by then. But given that the project has been abandoned, there’s no need to look too closely at this.
The University of Leeds paper is more interesting. It turns out to be a literature survey covering the period 2004-19. The three- to five-year estimate for the construction time for SMRs is taken from a non-peer-reviewed 2016 report by consulting firm Ernst and Young (which worked with one of the authors on the University of Leeds study). The information used to compile the report is even older, going back to 2014 or earlier. To put it bluntly, this is worthless.
Rather than complying with its legal obligation to keep abreast of nuclear power technology and inform the public of its findings, ANSTO has relied on decade-old, unverified claims, made by a consulting company. This sloppy treatment of an issue that should be a central focus of ANSTO analysis contrasts sharply with the careful assessment undertaken by CSIRO.
I went to ANSTO for a response but didn’t hear back.
Ted O’Brien can scarcely be blamed for taking ANSTO’s word on these matters, particularly when its claims are so convenient to his case. But ANSTO needs to retract its misleading claims as soon as possible. That would give the LNP an opportunity, if it wants it, to drop its nuclear policy and put the blame on an Albanese government agency for misleading it.
One final irony. The ban on nuclear power, which is now the subject of so much controversy, was introduced by the Howard government to secure the passage of legislation that allowed ANSTO to build a new research reactor at Lucas Heights. In light of this history, maybe ANSTO’s remit should be revised to steer the organisation clear of nuclear power once and for all.
The extraordinary financial costs of ‘small’ nuclear power stations
By Alan Finkel, Cosmos, 21 Mar 24
Partial extract from an article to be posted in 360info.org
They’re being touted as the solution to kickstarting a nuclear power industry in Australia.
According to the Opposition’s Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Ted O’Brien, small modular reactors (SMR) could be built within ten-year period if it wins the next election.
However, it would likely take 20 years to commence commercial operation of any nuclear reactors in Australia from the time in-principle approval was reached. To reach that starting point and enable detailed consideration of the challenges and costs of nuclear power, the existing legislative ban on nuclear power in Australia will need to be removed.
There are other obstacles.
While there’s plenty of excitement about SMRs, the problem is there just isn’t enough data about them, mainly because there are none operating in any OECD country.
And it’s unknown when any might be. As Allison Macfarlane, former chair of the US Nuclear Regulatory commission, argues in her article,The end of Oppenheimer’s energy dream, the proposal for small modular reactors to help us in the clean energy transition is fanciful.
The SMR furthest along the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) approval process, from the US company NuScale, cancelled its first planned installation in Utah last November when the initial cost blew out to USD$9 billion, corresponding to USD$20 billion per GW.
The only countries with working SMRs are China and Russia.
Micro and large reactors
Micro reactors are intended to generate electrical power up to 10 MW per unit. Although companies such as Rolls Royce are developing these, there do not appear to be any commercial micro modular reactors that have completed their design.
That leaves full-scale reactors, which have also been mentioned as part of a possible Australian nuclear power play.
Korean company KEPCO builds most of the nuclear reactors in Korea and has now built one at Barakah in the United Arab Emirates. This 5.6 GW plant, scheduled to open this year, has taken 16 years to complete and cost USD$24 billion (AUD$36 billion). At 5.6 GW, that is AUD$6.4 billion per GW. Given salaries and skills shortages in Australia, inflation, interest rates and our regulatory requirements, it would cost more and take longer in Australia.
The Hinkley C plant in the UK was supposed to be finished in 2017 but has been delayed again until 2031 – 23 years after approval. The estimated construction cost ballooned to AUD$89 billion. At 3.2 GW electrical power, that is AUD$28 billion per GW.
In the US, the most recent nuclear reactors to be built are the Vogtle 3 and 4built at the existing facility that is home to the Vogtle 1 and 2 reactors. Both were anticipated to be in service in 2016. Vogtle 3 began commercial operation in July 2023. Vogtle 4 is projected to commence operation in the second quarter of 2024 – 15 years after the construction contract was awarded.
Construction cost USD$34 billion (AUD$52 billion) for the combined 2.2 GW output of the two reactors, or AUD$24 billion per GW.
Construction of nuclear plants in the United States has declined dramatically over the years. Approximately 130 were built from the mid 1950s to the mid 1990s. Only four commenced operation in the 30 years from the mid 1990s to now, and at the time of writing there are no nuclear reactors under construction in the United States.
In France, only one nuclear power plant is under construction. The 1.65 GW Flamanville EPR reactor is hoped to be completed and begin to supply electricity later this year, 17 years after construction began. The most recent cost estimate was AUD$22 billion or AUD$13 billion per GW. No other nuclear power plants are planned in France.
These high costs and long delivery durations for full-scale reactors are the reasons SMRs are proposed as a way forward in Australia. However, SMRs are a new technology. There are none in operation or construction in any OECD countries, thus it is not possible to estimate the costs or delivery schedules. NuScale’s investment to date suggests that the capital cost for the first units to be delivered will be very high. ………… https://cosmosmagazine.com/technology/energy/the-extraordinary-financial-costs-of-nuclear-power/
Climate-conscious investors put nuclear dead last on list of desirable Australian ventures
Fewer than one in 10 investors exploring new investments in the technology, with most preferring renewables
Guardian, Paul Karp Chief political correspondent, 25 Mar 24
Nuclear energy ranks last on the list of climate technologies that big institutional investors want exposure to, according to a survey of climate conscious investors with $37tn under management.
Fewer than one in 10 investors were exploring new investments in nuclear technology in the survey of the Investor Group on Climate Change, whose 100 members include super funds and asset managers looking after the funds of 15 million Australians.
The survey found a rebound in confidence in Australia’s climate policy but a growing appetite for clear timelines for the phase-out of coal, oil and gas.
The opposition, led by Peter Dutton, plans to propose locating nuclear power plants on the site of retiring coal power plants, claiming that this would save having to build new transmission infrastructure for renewables.
But the plan has been widely panned. The energy department has estimated it would cost $387bn to go nuclear, and Dutton faces opposition from his own state colleagues.
Australia’s big private electricity generators have dismissed nuclear energy as a viable source of power for their customers for at least another decade, and likely more.
In the yearly survey by the Investor Group on Climate Change investors were asked which energy and climate solutions they believed had good long-term returns. Nuclear energy was ranked last of 14 possible responses, along with sustainable oceans.
“This is due to nuclear energy’s very high cost, and the lack of maturity and deployment in next generation technologies,” a policy brief on the survey said, citing the CSIRO’s gencost report.
The five most popular options were: renewable energy (backed by 47% of respondents); nature solutions, including biodiversity or nature capital (34%); energy storage (32%); low carbon transport (32%); and industry/materials, including critical minerals (32%).
In 2021 about 70% of investors cited policy and regulatory uncertainty as a barrier to investing in climate solutions, a figure that dropped to 40% in the 2023 data released on Monday.
Asked to nominate the policies they wanted the government to prioritise, most investors (56%) called for sector-by-sector decarbonisation plans to keep global heating under the 1.5C threshold.
There was also majority support for improved carbon pricing through the safeguard mechanism (54%), funding support for new technology (53%), and phasing out fossil fuel subsidies (51%).
The policy brief said “emerging priorities” included mandatory climate-related disclosures, timelines for the phase-out of coal, oil and gas, and clear policies to build resilience and adapt to the physical damages of climate change.
Erwin Jackson, Investor Group on Climate Change’s managing director of policy, said: “Investors have given the government a pretty good report card………………………………………………….more https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/mar/25/climate-conscious-investors-put-nuclear-dead-last-on-list-of-desirable-australian-ventures
TODAY. UK High Court caving in before USA’s power, leaving decision on Julian Assange’s future up to USA’s “kindness”?
Well, well, what better example of America’s dominance over the anglophone world could you find?
The UK High Court was charged with making a decision on whether or not Julian Assange could appeal against the British government’s decision to extradite him to the USA on charges of ” complicity in illegal acts to obtain or receive voluminous databases of classified information and for agreeing and attempting to obtain classified information through computer hacking”, under the rarely used Espionage Act of 1917
This High Court case is the latest in the series of legal cases around the issue of extradition.
Julian Assange has languished for almost five years, in solitary confinement, in the notorious Belmarsh prison, Britain’s “Guantanamo Bay” for the worst criminals. Now he has to endure this for more weeks. Talk about death by a thousand cuts. ( Perhaps Russia is kinder – they just poison their problem people, or crash them in a plane – it’s quicker)
All this because Assange revealed and published the truth about America’s military atrocities.
So – now we know.
If a journalist anywhere in the world should have the temerity to reveal inconvenient facts about the USA military, then look out!
Not only are the Western political leaders, and especially in the anglophone countries, subservient to their master – the USA, but now we know that even their legal systems are subservient too.
Dame Victoria Sharp, took 66 pages to explain why the High Court couldn’t actually make a decision, without the blessing of the USA government.
So – the High Court will reconvene in three weeks, after receiving “assurances” from the USA government – about no death penalty (on the present charges, they could make new ones?), that he is permitted to rely on the First Amendment, – he is not ‘prejudiced at trial’ .
Of course the USA government will come up with kindly phrases – not worth the paper they are written on.
It’s a sad day for justice.
UK Court to Decide Tuesday If Julian Assange Can Appeal Extradition
The decision will be issued at 10:30 am London time
by Dave DeCamp March 25, 2024, https://news.antiwar.com/2024/03/25/uk-court-to-decide-if-julian-assange-can-appeal-extradition/
London’s High Court will rule on Tuesday whether WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange can appeal his extradition to the United States, where he would face trial for exposing US war crimes.
According to WikiLeaks, the written ruling is due to be delivered by 10:30 am London time.
Last month, Assange’s legal team presented its case for the appeal. His lawyers also introduced new evidence, including a bombshell report from Yahoo News that revealed the CIA in 2017, under Mike Pompeo at the time, considered kidnapping and even discussed assassinating Assange over WikiLeaks publishing detailed the CIA’s hacking tools, known as Vault 7.
Assange did not attend the two-day hearing due to his poor health, and he remains in London’s Belmarsh Prison, where he’s been held since 2019. Assange’s family and legal team believe he will die if extradited to the US.
The news of the High Court’s impending decision comes after The Wall Street Journal reported that the US was considering offering a plea deal to Assange and that Justice Department officials had preliminary talks with his legal team. However, Assange’s lawyer, Barry Pollack, said in response to the report that the US has “given no indication” that the US will take a deal.
Assange faces 17 counts under the Espionage Act and one charge for conspiracy to commit a computer intrusion for obtaining and publishing documents from a source, a standard journalistic practice. If Assange is convicted, it would set a grave precedent for press freedom in the US and around the world. A plea deal that criminalizes the journalist-source relationship could also set a dangerous precedent.
WikiLeaks has been asking Americans to put pressure on the Biden administration to stop its pursuit of Assange by contacting their House representatives and telling them to support H.Res.934, a bill introduced by Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) that calls for the US to drop the charges against Assange.
UN Security Council ceasefire resolution a turning point in Gaza war
March 26, 2024, by: The AIM Network, m https://theaimn.com/un-security-council-ceasefire-resolution-a-turning-point-in-gaza-war/
Australian Council for International Development Media Release
Australia’s peak body for international humanitarian organisations welcomes the United Nations Security Council’s resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and release of all hostages as a crucial turning point in the war.
Australian Council for International Development (ACFID) CEO Marc Purcell said it marked a significant breakthrough despite the United States’ decision to abstain from voting.
“This passage of this binding resolution, following four failed attempts since the start of the war, shows global leaders are no longer willing to accept the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians, many of them children, as collateral,” he said.
“The US’ decision to abstain is disappointing, particularly since it put forward its own failed proposal for a ceasefire just days ago. It is essential the US use its influence and relationship with Israel to obtain a permanent ceasefire.
“We are hopeful the passage of this resolution overnight marks a crucial turning point in the war that has killed nearly 32,000 civilians through bombing, starvation and dehydration.
“It is vital that both the state of Israel and militant groups immediately lay down arms to allow for the passage of humanitarian assistance, which is still being blocked from entry into Gaza, and the release of all hostages.”
ACFID is urging the Australian government to commit additional and ongoing funding for the humanitarian response in Gaza and the West bank, including for Australian non-government organisations providing lifesaving assistance.
AUKUS: Red flag for arms industry corruption
There has been almost no public commentary about the likely influence of the arms industry in the secretive AUKUS deal.
MICHELLE FAHY, MAR 22, 2024, https://undueinfluence.substack.com/p/aukus-red-flag-for-arms-industry?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=297295&post_id=142851171&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
The arms trade is known for being one of the most corrupt of all legal international trades.
UK research shows that this corruption drives and distorts arms procurement decisions. Arms purchases that were not previously being considered can suddenly appear on the agenda.
Before delving into AUKUS, an egregious distortion in Australian defence procurement, I’ll briefly revisit the original French submarine contract.
The research shows that submarines, in particular, are a procurement area where a very high proportion of the small overall number of deals involve major corruption.
French multinational Naval Group had been wrangling with Malcolm Turnbull’s government for almost two years trying to get the formal contract signed.
In August 2018, Scott Morrison became PM.
Soon after, Naval Group hired David Gazard, well-connected lobbyist, former Liberal candidate, and close friend of Scott Morrison, to help them get the deal over the line.
Within months, the Morrison government had signed the contract.
In early 2019, the ABC reported, ‘Naval Group confirmed the arrangement but did not disclose how much Mr Gazard’s company was being paid for its lobbying services’.
Mr Gazard’s company, DPG Advisory Solutions, declined to comment to the ABC about its role. I sent similar questions to Mr Gazard this week and received no response by deadline.
At the time Australia put Naval Group on the shortlist, the company was under investigation for corruption in three other arms deals: two for submarines (Pakistan and Malaysia) and one for frigates (Taiwan). The Abbott government would have known this.
These were not minor corruption cases: all involved murder.
French authorities commenced another corruption investigation into Naval Group (submarines; Brazil) in late 2016, after Australia had awarded Naval Group the deal, but before we signed the contract.
How did the Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments shortlist, select, and then sign a contract with a company being investigated in four separate corruption cases?
Murder, corruption, bombings – the company at centre of Australia’s submarine deal
Naval Group was selected by the Australian government to build its new fleet of submarines while at the centre of a deadly criminal saga and numerous global corruption scandals. How did this happen? MICHELLE FAHY, OCT 24, 2020
AUKUS submarines
BAE Systems Australia is Defence’s largest contractor and has been for six of the past eight years.
BAE Systems is set to be a significant beneficiary of AUKUS.
Six months ago, the UK Government awarded the company a £3.95 billion (A$7.5 billion) contract for the detailed design phase of the AUKUS submarines.
On Friday, Defence Minister Richard Marles announced that Australia will send $4.6 billion (£2.4 billion) to the UK. Australia’s money will contribute to BAE’s detailed design phase of the AUKUS submarines and will also help clear bottlenecks in the Rolls Royce nuclear reactor production line.
This $4.6 billion expenditure is in addition to the $3 billion of Australian money already committed to support US naval shipyards.
The UK’s current submarine programs (managed by BAE) are running well behind schedule raising questions about whether BAE can deliver on the AUKUS agreement.
BAE Systems also provides perhaps the best-known example of systematic high-level arms industry corruption.
Britain’s series of arms deals with Saudi Arabia was, and remains, its biggest ever arms deal. It earned BAE Systems at least £43 billion in revenue between 1985 and 2007, with further deals still ongoing. The deal included £6 billion pounds in ‘commissions’ (bribes), paid to the Saudis.
In addition, during the 1990s and 2000s, in ‘a deliberate choice that came from the top’, BAE Systems maintained a shell company registered in the Cayman Islands called Red Diamond Trading. This vehicle channelled hundreds of millions of pounds of bribes around the globe to key decision makers in a succession of arms deals.
The Guardian’s BAE Files contain 15 years of reporting on this subject.
Sinking billions: Undergunned and overpriced. Missing records, billions in over-runs, conflicts of interest, and flawed ships. How the Defence Department’s new frigates project is a boondoggle for a British weapons-maker. MICHELLE FAHY, JUL 03, 2023
It has also been revealed that BAE Systems was given the Hunter class frigate contract despite ‘long-running concerns’ inside Defence about BAE’s alleged inflation of invoices by tens of millions of dollars on the earlier Adelaide class of frigates.
Detailed allegations of fraud in the Adelaide-class contracts, including by Thales Australia, were published in three separate articles by The Weekend Australian in May 2019.
A Defence internal audit had reportedly found that BAE’s contract was ‘riddled with cost overruns, with the British company consistently invoicing questionable charges’.
Defence launched a second investigation.
18 months later, I asked Defence about the outcome of its second investigation. This was their response:
An independent internal review of this matter found no evidence of inappropriate excess charges by BAE and Thales. The investigation did find some minor administrative issues which have been subsequently addressed through additional training. This training is now part of the normal cycle and is routinely refreshed.
The ‘independent’ review was conducted in secret by an existing defence contractor. His report was not made public.
Defence said ‘no evidence’ was found of inappropriate excess charges. Yet the allegations were apparently so serious they were referred to Defence’s assistant secretary of fraud control who then referred several matters to the Independent Assurance Business Analysis and Reform Branch of Defence.
Recently, I have been collaborating with UK colleagues trying to uncover more about the Adelaide-class contracts. Freedom of Information requests have been lodged. Defence has blocked them, refusing to release a single page.
An appeal was submitted, Defence blocked that too. We have now appealed to the Information Commissioner.
If this was merely ‘a minor administrative issue’ that has been resolved by ‘additional training’, why the aggressive blocking of any release of information through FoI?
Undue influence and the revolving door
I will finish by outlining a mini case study of undue influence and the revolving door – that of former CEO of BAE Systems Australia, Jim McDowell.
I am not implying any illegality on the part of Mr McDowell. I am simply laying out an array of his government appointments – not all of them – to highlight the extensive influence that just one person can have.
Jim McDowell had a 17-year career with BAE Systems including a decade as its chief executive in Australia, then two years running its lucrative Saudi Arabian business. He resigned from BAE in Saudi Arabia in December 2013.
In 2014, McDowell was appointed by the Coalition to a four-person panel undertaking the First Principles Review of Defence. This Review recommended sweeping reforms to the Defence Department, including its procurement processes, which have largely benefited major arms companies.
In 2015, the Coalition appointed McDowell to a 4-person expert advisory panel overseeing the tender process for the original submarine contract. When he announced McDowell as being part of this panel, Defence Minister Kevin Andrews didn’t mention McDowell’s long history with BAE Systems, which had ended only 18 months earlier. It was highly relevant, as BAE designs and manufactures Britain’s submarines.
In late 2016, then-defence industry minister Christopher Pyne hired McDowell as his adviser to develop the Naval Shipbuilding Plan. The appointment was not announced publicly. At that time, McDowell was also on the board of Australian shipbuilder Austal.
Under the shipbuilding plan, Austal subsequently won a contract to build six more Cape-class patrol boats while BAE Systems won the biggest prize, the Hunter-class frigate contract.
After the frigate deal was announced, South Australian premier Steve Marshall hired McDowell to head his Department of Premier and Cabinet. SA was the state that gained most from the shipbuilding plan.
In 2020, McDowell left the South Australian public service to become CEO of Nova Systems, a key defence contractor.
Last year, McDowell moved back through the revolving door into a senior role with the Defence Department. He is now Deputy Secretary for Naval Shipbuilding and Sustainment, reporting directly to defence secretary Greg Moriarty.
When appointed, McDowell said his new role was an opportunity he couldn’t turn down because it ‘provides the ability for me to shape the future of Australia’s shipbuilding and sustainment’.
In my view, McDowell’s long list of sensitive senior appointments should not have been possible. He cannot be the only person in the country qualified to undertake each of these roles.
This was a brief discussion of some aspects of the undue influence of the arms industry in Australia. I raise these issues in this AUKUS context because there has been almost no public commentary about the likely influence of the arms industry in the AUKUS deal.
This is an edited and updated version of a speech given on 12.3.24 at the Independent & Peaceful Australia Network (IPAN) forum, ‘AUKUS and Military Escalation: Who Pays and Who Benefits?’. The other speakers were Allan Behm, Dr Sue Wareham and Professor Hugh White. Speeches can be viewed here.
Murder, corruption, bombings – the company at centre of Australia’s submarine deal
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Murder, corruption, bombings – the company at centre of Australia’s submarine deal Michael West Media by Michelle Fahy | Oct 24, 2020 The arms company at the centre of a deadly criminal saga and numerous global corruption scandals, Naval Group, was selected by the Australian government to build our new fleet of submarines – a deal heralded as ‘one of the world’s most lucrative defence contracts‘. How did this happen? In this special investigation Michelle Fahy discovers significant gaps in anti-bribery and corruption measures on this massive procurement project. The message communicated far and wide is that our standards are lax; grey areas are tolerated; and we’ll bend the rules and look the other way.…………In June this year, 18 years later, a Paris court secured the first convictions in the case. Six men were found guilty of charges involving kickbacks on deals signed in 1994 for the sale of submarines to Pakistan and frigates to Saudi Arabia. They include three former French government officials and the former head of the International Division of Naval Group.
Investigations into arms trade corruption take years, often more than a decade, due to multiple countries being involved, layers of offshore shell companies hiding the money trail, and the senior people implicated. Court cases and convictions are rare. The Karachi Affair resonates in Australia today because despite this high-profile and deadly criminal saga – and two other corruption scandals, in Taiwan and Malaysia, which also involved murder – the company at the centre of all three, Naval Group, was still selected by the Australian government in 2016 to build our new fleet of submarines. A deal heralded as “one of the world’s most lucrative defence contracts”. Naval Group is 62.25% owned by the French government and 35% by French multinational Thales (a global top 10 weapons-maker). The French case continues. In January, the former French prime minister Edouard Balladur and his defence minister will stand trial. It is alleged the kickbacks helped fund the PM’s failed 1995 presidential bid. Both men deny any wrongdoing. Meanwhile, in Australia, the submarine deal continues. In February last year, after two years of negotiations, the government signed a ‘strategic partnership agreement’ with Naval Group. The signing took place despite the emergence of two more investigations into Naval, including alleged corruption on a 2009 submarine deal with Brazil and a significant security breach where complete plans of the new Scorpène submarines Naval had provided to India were apparently leaked from within Naval. ………………….Strong anti-corruption measures essentialVast amounts of Australian taxpayers’ money are being handed to military industrial companies, including Naval Group, in contracts. Yet the perennial lack of transparency in defence procurement, blanket secrecy surrounding Australian weapons exports, and a pervasive “culture of cosiness” between government and industry all continue. “Big money attracts greedy people and firms,” wrote a 31-year veteran of financial crime investigation for the Australian Federal Police, Christopher Douglas, in 2018. “New defence programs… also attract foreign intelligence interest.” This is already occurring in Australia, and Douglas says there will be more than one country spying. He says there is a “symbiotic relationship” between successful intelligence gathering operations and corruption. The corruption risk has only compounded since 2018. In June, the federal government further increased its projected military spend, from $195 billion to $270 billion. Tufts University in America researches arms trade corruption. It says there is an assumption by governments, barely questioned in defence and security circles, “that maintaining an advanced domestic arms industry is an unquestioned good, and essential to national security and influence. In all too many cases, this goal has therefore been placed above anti-corruption objectives.” (Emphasis added.) In Australia, developing a domestic arms industry is being accorded a high priority, but this should be accompanied by an increase in anti-corruption protections. The facts show nothing could be further from the truth. ‘Perfect bribe vehicles’Many of the world’s corrupt arms deals involve submarines. “They are perfect bribe vehicles,” says Tufts University, because “submarines are hugely expensive, and not many countries actually need them.” Australia is in a minority of countries that can argue it needs submarines. But do we need to spend quite so much money? Of the options available, the government selected the most risky one: the largest, most expensive, never-before-built, and thus completely untested, option. Chris Douglas, now director of Malkara Consulting, has written a report questioning Australia’s anti-corruption due diligence on the Future Submarine program. He has since used Freedom of Information requests to try to find out more about Defence’s anti-corruption framework in the program and has uncovered what appear to be significant gaps, discussed below. The international standard for anti-bribery measures is ISO 37001. It was introduced in 2016. Anyone serious about managing bribery and corruption requires a system that meets this international standard. ‘Come-from-behind victory’It was called “a remarkable come-from-behind victory” for DCNS, as Naval Group was then known, as it beat the respected German bid and former prime minister Tony Abbott’s favoured Japanese bid, to win Australia’s huge submarine contract in April 2016. How did DCNS do it? A history of the procurement is here, but we’ll probably never know the telling background details……………
Quite the opposite. Costello told the ABC’s Lateline, “The probity of me working for DCNS was checked and agreed with the government and all stakeholders in the program.” Costello didn’t elaborate on – or the ABC didn’t air – who in “government” signed off on it, nor who “all” the stakeholders were…………… Well-connected intermediaryIt was revealed in February 2019 that Naval Group had “recently” hired David Gazard to help “improve a rocky relationship with the Defence Department and to secure a crucial Strategic Partnering Agreement (SPA)”. A Liberal Party insider, David Gazard is well connected with the highest levels of the party. He was an adviser to John Howard, Peter Costello and Tony Abbott, in the lobbying business with Peter Costello for a time, and is also reportedly a member of prime minister Scott Morrison’s inner circle. In the 2010 federal election, Gazard stood for the Liberals in Eden-Monaro. After two years of negotiations marked by tension and sometimes bad-tempered wrangling, in December 2018 the government announced that negotiations had concluded. In February 2019, the ‘contract of the century’ was signed. Gazard and Naval Group declined to provide details on his role or the amount his lobbying firm, ECG Advisory Solutions, was paid. Sole FoI document suppressedEarly this year, Chris Douglas lodged an FoI request with Defence about anti-corruption measures on the submarine program. He asked for: …….[documents about anti-corruption measures]……. Douglas submitted another more general request to find out what, if any, ABC planning Defence had done. One document was identified, which Defence said was prepared by EY as part of its comprehensive advisory role (discussed above) and which included opinions and recommendations regarding the business affairs of Naval Group. As the document mentioned ‘third parties’, Defence said it needed to consult with them before it could be released. Douglas outlined his concern that entities involved in corruption often hid their activities and identities by claiming information was commercially sensitive. Nevertheless, Defence consulted the third parties. On 8 May, Defence told Douglas it was declining his request to release the document. Among other things, it said it had consulted EY, which had advised that the document was a very specific aspect of its comprehensive advisory role which, if read out of context, would not be in the public interest and could reasonably be expected to harm the professional reputation of EY. Defence also said it was “aware of allegations in connection with then-DCNS. In relation to these allegations, there have been no formal adverse findings against Naval Group.” (Emphasis added.) A month after this correspondence, the Paris court recorded the conviction against a former senior executive of then-DCN, now Naval Group, on charges relating to the kickback scandal. As noted earlier, given the paucity of cases to ever reach court in this industry, it is alarming that the Defence Department seems to require a “formal adverse finding” before it will give weight to corruption concerns. When it comes to managing corruption risk, is the Defence Department saying it is content to set the lowest possible bar for its contractors to clear? Government collusionThere is no better example of the collusion between governments and industry to ensure arms trade corruption cases rarely make it to court than the UK’s protection of BAE Systems, as described by Tufts University:…… If the multinational, majority French-government-owned Naval Group’s business and professional affairs are such that they would or could be adversely affected by the release of a risk assessment document evaluating its suitability to undertake the largest defence procurement program in Australian history, we might wonder, why was it selected? https://www.michaelwest.com.au/murder-corruption-bombings-the-company-at-centre-of-australias-submarine-deal/ |
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ERA applies to extend lease on Jabiluka uranium mine against traditional owners’ wishes
ABC Rural / By Daniel Fitzgerald, Thu 21 Mar 2024
- In short: Mining company ERA has applied to extend its lease on the Jabiluka uranium deposit for another 10 years.
- Mirarr traditional owners are fiercely opposed to the lease extension and any mining at Jabiluka.
- What’s next? ERA’s lease application will be assessed by the NT government and the company needs to spend at least $2.4 billion to rehabilitate the former Ranger uranium mine.
A mining company has lodged an application to renew its lease on a uranium deposit surrounded by Kakadu National Park, against the wishes of Indigenous traditional owners.
Energy Resources Australia (ERA) operated the Ranger uranium mine, 250 kilometres east of Darwin, from 1981 to 2021, and is now rehabilitating the mine, at a cost of over $2.4 billion.
Since 1991, the company has also had a the lease on the nearby Jabiluka site — which is one of the world’s largest and richest uranium deposits.
ERA had approval to mine Jabiluka but faced significant opposition from Mirarr traditional owners, which led to a blockade of the mine site by 5,000 people in 1998 and the company’s eventual decision to stop the mine’s development. …………………………………………….
Traditional owners oppose plans
Mirarr traditional owners rejected ERA’s claims that it was in their best interests for the Jabiluka lease to be extended.
Corben Mudjandi said his people were opposed to ERA renewing its lease and had no confidence in the company.
“ERA has a very big problem at Ranger, and this application isn’t helping with that,” Mr Mudjandi said.
“ERA says it wants to protect our cultural heritage at Jabiluka. The best way of doing that is to include it in the World Heritage listed Kakadu National Park where it belongs.”
In 2022, the Mirarr said they were “appalled” an independent report commissioned by ERA suggested traditional owners might reverse their opposition to mining Jabiluka.
ERA to raise funds for Ranger clean-up
Last week, ERA reported a net loss after tax of $1.38 billion in 2023, which included an increase to its rehabilitation provision for Ranger.
ERA had total cash resources of $726 million at the end of 2023 and flagged an equity raise later this year to fund further rehabilitation at Ranger.
“What guarantee is there that this company will be operating in 12 months’ time?” Mr Mudjandi said.
“[Applying to extend Jabiluka] is big talk from a company that is $2 billion short of rehabilitation at Ranger.”
Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation, which represents the Mirarr, said it would seek formal protection of Jabiluka’s cultural heritage through the NT Sacred Sites Act and the Commonwealth Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act.
“We’ve heard very encouraging words from this company when they assured us Ranger would be cleaned up by January 2026 and look how wrong that turned out to be,” Gundjeihmi chief executive Thalia van den Boogaard said. …………. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-21/era-lodges-application-to-extend-jabiluka-uranium-lease-nt/103613966
1 This month
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/235274195556
20 May – Webinar – The dangerous world of AUKUS, US, military occupation and suppression of dissent
National Webinar, 20th May, 2026, 6.30pm AEST. Confronting laws restricting/suppressing protest speech and action
Speakers: Former Sen. Rex Patrick, Lawyer Nick Hanna ,Arthur Rorris ,Jorgen Doyle, Sen David Shoebbridge,
Facilitator Kelley Tranter.
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
Antinuclear 