Business South Australia – still a strident voice for the nuclear lobby
Nuclear fight isn’t over, vows Business SA, Business SA has vowed to continue the nuclear waste dump fight after the next election, with boss Nigel McBride slamming the state’s politicians for killing off the debate because of populist politics,In Daily, Tom Richardson, 19 October 17 .
The recommendation received majority support, with Labor, Liberal and Greens MPs backing it and the Australian Conservatives MLC dissenting.
Greens MLC Mark Parnell went further, pushing to reinstate laws that would prevent any Government consulting publicly on the merits of a nuclear waste storage.
But McBride today hit out at the political consensus, warning it set a dangerous precedent of shutting down mature debate on complex issues…….
He said the state had already spent at least $14 million of taxpayers’ money on the Royal Commission – let alone subsequent community consultations………
he reserved particular scorn for Weatherill’s bid to hasten the decision process through a series of citizens’ juries…….
McBride was among those who spoke at the jury sessions, and described the jurors as “intelligent, thoughtful, questioning, decent members of the public”……..
Despite being a long-time advocate for exploring nuclear waste storage in SA, McBride was among the first proponents to declare the plan “dead” after the state Liberals last year withdrew bipartisan support……..https://indaily.com.au/news/local/2017/10/19/nuclear-fight-isnt-vows-business-sa/
Collusion between politicians and scientists on dangers of nuclear radiation
The 1985 Royal Commission report into British Nuclear Tests in Australia discussed many of these issues, but never in relation to the proximity and timing of the 1956 Olympic Games. Sixty years later, are we seeing the same denial of known hazards six years after the reactor explosion at Fukushima?
Australia’s nuclear testing before the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne should be a red flag for Fukushima in 2020, https://theconversation.com/australias-nuclear-testing-before-the-1956-olympics-in-melbourne-should-be-a-red-flag-for-fukushima-in-2020-85787, The Conversation, Part time tutor in Medical Education, University of Dundee, 20 Oct 17, The scheduling of Tokyo 2020 Olympic events at Fukushima is being seen as a public relations exercise to dampen fears over continuing radioactivity from the reactor explosion that followed the massive earthquake six years ago.
It brings to mind the British atomic bomb tests in Australia that continued until a month before the opening of the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne – despite the known dangers of fallout travelling from the testing site at Maralinga to cities in the east. And it reminds us of the collusion between scientists and politicians – British and Australian – to cover up the flawed decision-making that led to continued testing until the eve of the Games.
Australia’s prime minister Robert Menzies agreed to atomic testing in December 1949. Ten months earlier, Melbourne had secured the 1956 Olympics even though the equestrian events would have to be held in Stockholm because of Australia’s strict horse quarantine regimes.
The equestrians were well out of it. Large areas of grazing land – and therefore the food supplies of major cities such as Melbourne – were covered with a light layer of radiation fallout from the six atomic bombs detonated by Britain during the six months prior to the November 1956 opening of the Games. Four of these were conducted in the eight weeks running up to the big event, 1,000 miles due west of Melbourne at Maralinga.
Bombs and games
In the 25 years I have been researching the British atomic tests in Australia, I have found only two mentions of the proximity of the Games to the atomic tests. Not even the Royal Commission into the tests in 1985 addressed the known hazards of radioactive fallout for the athletes and spectators or those who lived in the wide corridor of the radioactive plumes travelling east. Continue reading
Turnbull lies – calling coal a “dispatchable”power source
The new policy redefines coal as dispatchable, despite it having the opposite technological characteristics.
This is not an entirely new approach. Before the government 
decided to abandon the proposed Clean Energy Target it put a lot of effort into redefining coal as “clean”.
The government’s energy policy hinges on some tricky wordplay about coal’s role https://theconversation.com/the-governments-energy-policy-hinges-on-some-tricky-wordplay-about-coals-role-85843?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=twitterbutton, The Conversation, The most important thing to understand about the federal government’s new National Energy Guarantee is that it is designed not to produce a sustainable and reliable electricity supply system for the future, but to meet purely political objectives for the current term of parliament.
Those political objectives are: to provide a point of policy difference with the Labor Party; to meet the demands of the government’s backbench to provide support for coal-fired electricity; and to be seen to be acting to hold power prices down.
Meeting these objectives solves Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s immediate political problems. But it comes at the cost of producing a policy that can only produce further confusion and delay.
The government’s central problem is that, as well as being polluting, coal-fired power is not well suited to the problem of increasingly high peaks in power demand, combined with slow growth in total demand.
Coal-fired power plants are expensive to start up and shut down, and are therefore best suited to meeting “baseload demand” – that is, the base level of electricity demand that never goes away. Until recently, this characteristic of coal was pushed by the government as the main reason we needed to maintain coal-fired power.
The opposite of baseload power is “dispatchable” power, which can be turned on and off as needed.
Classic sources of dispatchable power include hydroelectricity and gas, while recent technological advances mean that large-scale battery storageis now also a feasible option. Continue reading
Queensland government to take over agricultural land for Adani coal mine rail line
Government resume land for Adani
A FARM group – partly backed by the Tim Flannery-led Climate Council – has hit out over the State Government resumption of agricultural land for the Adani rail line.
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/palaszczuk-government-resume-emerald-farmland-for-adani-rail-link/n
Townsville and Rockhampton councils could pay at least $31 million for Adani coalmine airstrip
Queensland councils to pay at least $31m for Adani coalmine airstrip
Townsville and Rockhampton councils may pay millions more if company’s bid to sew up deal with traditional owners fails, Guardian, Joshua Robertson, 20 Oct 17, Two local councils are paying $31m to build an airstrip for Adani’s Queenslandcoalmine – and could fork out millions more if the energy giant’s bid to sew up a deal with traditional owners hits a stumbling block.
Townsville and Rockhampton councils last week announced they would spend $15.5m each on the airport – hundreds of kilometres away – in a deal to secure Adani’s guarantee of 2,200 construction jobs for their residents.
And Townsville has agreed to pay up to $18.5m if the airport is shifted to a second location outside Wangan and Jagalingou land, where Adani’s right to build Australia’s largest coalmine is tied up in a drawn-out legal battle with a traditional owners group.
Rockhampton, which originally put up $20m for the airport in a bid to gain Adani’s guarantee, may also invest up to $18.5m but this has not been made clear.
Despite the Carmichael mine having broad support in both communities, there is some backlash to ratepayers providing infrastructure for a transnational corporation.
Councillors from both cities voted in favour of paying for the airport for Adani’s workforce in closed discussions of confidential reports, recorded in minutes that did not mention the company……….
Rockhampton councillors met on 26 September for a confidential discussion about “economic development opportunities” and an update from council’s general manager of “regional development and aviation”.
The minutes make no mention of Adani but note a confidential report contained information “for which a public discussion would be likely to prejudice the interests of the local government or someone else, or enable a person to gain a financial advantage”.
Councillors unanimously voted for their chief executive to “execute the terms sheets as discussed at the meeting” but did not put a figure on the cost to ratepayers.
Neither the Townsville mayor, Jenny Hill, nor the Rockhampton mayor, Margaret Strelow, responded to a request for comment. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/oct/20/adani-coalmine-queensland-councils-to-pay-at-least-31m-for-airstrip
Turnbull’s National Energy Guarantee works against battery energy storage
Battery storage proponents despondent about future under National Energy Guarantee, http://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2017-10-19/concern-energy-policy-will-stymie-growth-in-battery-storage/9061948, ABC Rural, By Babs McHugh, Some in the fledgling tech-metals mining and processing industry are dismayed that the Federal Government’s new energy policy does not appear to support renewable energy storage such as batteries.
Australian Vanadium chief executive Vincent Algar said the National Energy Guarantee (NEG) unfairly pitted the batteries and renewable energy storage sector against fossil fuel electricity producers such as oil and gas.
“With coal and gas considered a dispatchable energy source under the NEG, what incentive will there be to source dispatchable energy from a battery?” he said.
Dispatchable power can be turned on and off and used immediately as needed.
The NEG will mandate that energy retailers need to buy a certain amount of energy from dispatchable sources, which include coal, gas, and pumped hydroelectricity storage.
Lower cost makes coal and gas more attractive
Mr Algar, whose company will mine and process vanadium, as well as promote vanadium battery technology, believes pure economics dictates that energy retailers will go to the much cheaper coal and gas producers.
“If a company is building a renewable energy project, what incentive will there be for them to put that dispatchable energy in the form of a battery?” he said.
“On top of that is the removal of subsidies for renewable energy, and no clean energy target, so it further reduces any incentives.
Mr Algar is also concerned the NEG will bring to a halt the research and development of advanced renewable energy and battery technologies.
“Australia has the runs on the board. It has invented things like the flow battery [which uses vanadium], and they’re doing brilliant work in eastern states that will improve the efficiency of solar panels, for example,” he said.
“These are developments that will generate jobs and make us a net exporter of renewable technology, but this policy could really put a dampener on that.”
South Australian Labor commends Weatherill govt on acknowledging Citizens Jury outcome – no nuclear waste importing
In addition to the parliamentary committee report released today …
Motion / resolution passed unanimously by the Australian Labor Party SA Branch, State Convention 2017
13 October 2017
Motion 22. MUA
Federal Nuclear Waste Dump
Andrew Allison, Nuclear Fuel Cycle Watch South Australia-18 Oct 17 -South Australian Labor congratulates the Weatherill government for acknowledging the Citizens Jury outcome to reject the establishment of the nuclear dump, which reflected a majority of the state’s residents, some two thirds of Jury participants. The Weatherill Government is to be commended for acknowledging the community, social and environmental concerns.
Recommendation
SA Labor continues to acknowledge, respects and endorse the ALP National Platform on Nuclear Waste.
Tony Abbott’s successful influence on Coalition energy policy
Abbott 1, Consumer 0. Turnbull’s energy fudge locks in high prices http://reneweconomy.com.au/abbott-1-consumer-0-turnbulls-energy-fudge-locks-in-high-prices-11158/By Giles Parkinson on 17 October 2017 Whatever else you can say about Malcolm Turnbull’s new energy policy one thing is clear: Tony Abbott has won, and consumers have lost. Even in the most optimistic scenario presented by the government, energy consumers will see little reduction in their energy bills over the next decade.
That’s outrageous. Australians are paying absurd prices for their electricity – upwards of 40c/kWh and not just in South Australia – and this new scheme can envisage only a slight reduction over the next 12 years.
In an era where renewable energy costs are plunging, where the costs of rooftop solar are about one-sixth the cost of grid power, that spells an abrogation of the government’s duty, and it spells trouble for the future.
To please Abbott and the vast rump of climate deniers and renewable energy nay-sayers in the Coalition and the conservative commentariat, Turnbull has effectively abandoned the Paris climate target and closed the door on new renewable energy projects.
Renewable energy is abandoned because there is no obvious incentive to develop new generation. And consumers can rest assured they will be screwed because the power, quite literally, is conferred upon the big retailers and generators and their complicated series of price caps and hedges.
The government would like us to believe that this new plan is the work, solely and uniquely, of the newly established Energy Security Board. Given that this board only met for the first time a month ago, that seems unlikely, despite the fact that the directors were co-opted to attend the Turnbull policy launch.
More likely, this is the work of the vested interests who have controlled debate and policy making in Australia for all but the Gillard years of carbon pricing. The fact the current high levels of wholesale prices are, by the government’s own admissions, locked in for another decade at least, is confirmation of this.
Turnbull says it is about reliability, emissions and affordability. But it appears an own goal on all three counts: Australia simply cannot afford to dump climate targets, wind and solar are clearly cheaper than fossil fuels, and relying on ageing coal generators seems a recipe for disaster
The policy unveiled on Tuesday means he is effectively tearing up Australia’s commitment to the Paris treaty, because there is no path to 2°C.
It throws a wall of protection around the fossil fuel industry – as if it hasn’t benefited from enough political favours – and raises the drawbridge on new large-scale renewable energy investments
The details of how this scheme will operate are far from clear. There are reliability and emissions standards to meet, but no decision on what these might be. We only know that they vary from state to state, and will be at the discretion of the AEMO and the AEMC.
Turnbull hailed the initiative as a significant breakthrough and a game-changer for the industry. Minutes later he was back in the parliament sprouting complete nonsense about the cost of the renewable energy target, quoting a discredited series of stories in The Australian that claim the cost is $66 billion.
And that’s the point. Renewable don’t need subsidies, and many new projects aren’t getting them. But they do need a target, and an incentive to encourage utilities to move beyond their current coal and gas interests.
For Turnbull, the politics haven’t changed at all – and that’s why the renewable energy industry and the consumer should remain suspicious. There is no path to the decarbonised electricity grid that the CSIRO, the networks and any number of energy analysts have said is not just doable, but eminently affordable.
There is no path for falling energy costs, because the system will rely on the very institutions that have been gaming the market for the last decade. Reliability may be maintained, but at the cost of gold plating the coal and gas industry in the same way that regulators encourage and allowed the networks to do.
Most of all, it’s killed the chance of a bipartisan agreement. It’s a sorry tale. And unless something mighty surprising emerges in the next few months, when the policy details are finalised, it will have got us nowhere.
Australian govt changing electoral boundaries, in effort to get support for radioactive waste dump in South Australia?
New South Wales Senate debated the idea of a nuclear power station for Jervis Bay
NSW senate debates Jervis Bay nuclear plant, South Coast Register, 
@fistjourno
NSW deputy premier John Barilaro called for a debate in the senate, and the contentious issue was discussed on Thursday.
“The technology they use today is a lot safer than what they used in Chernobyl, but Jervis Bay is not the place,” Christian Democratic Party member Paul Green said. “Not in Jervis Bay’s clean, green, pristine environment.“Over my dead body Jervis Bay will end up with one there.”
Meanwhile, his colleague Fred Nile, was open to the idea….. http://www.southcoastregister.com.au/story/4984329/nsw-senate-debates-jervis-bay-nuclear-plant/
Tony Abbott warns Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull against supporting renewable energy
Tony Abbott launches warning shot on climate policy, SMH, Mark Kenny, 16 Oct 17 Tony Abbott has fired a telling shot across Malcolm Turnbull’s bow, warning that any energy package agreed to in cabinet must also pass a party room wary of anything approaching a clean energy target or other subsidy scheme for renewables.
It came as the Turnbull government received more bad news in the fortnightly Newspoll series, prompting Mr Abbott to declare a future return to the leadership was possible but would occur only if he was drafted by colleagues, which he described as “almost impossible to imagine”.
Signalling that Coalition MPs will be no rubber stamp on energy, the dumped former prime minister said the backbench deserved “plenty of chance to digest” the formula.
Mr Abbott’s blunt message sets the stage for another showdown over a policy area that has divided moderates and conservatives within the Coalition for a decade, and become a constant cipher for simmering leadership rivalries…….http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tony-abbott-launches-warning-shot-on-climate-policy-20171016-gz1m6z.html
Richard Di Natale – Adani’s Carmichael coalmine won’t go ahead
Adani’s Carmichael coalmine won’t go ahead, Greens leader says
Richard Di Natale ‘confident’ if project can’t be stopped in parliament or for financial reasons, Australians will stand in front of bulldozers, Guardian, Amy Remeikis, 15 Oct 17, Adani’s Carmichael coalmine won’t go ahead, the Greens leader Richard Di Natale said, predicting “many, many thousands” of Australians would come together to protest any moves to stop the project.
Di Natale said he believed Australians largely stood against the Carmichael coalmine, choosing the Great Barrier Reef and the environment over the construction of what has been billed as the largest coal project in the southern hemisphere…….
Di Natale said he would “absolutely 100%” join in any on-the-ground protest against the mine, if it went ahead, predicting it would be as big as the protest movement which stopped the Franklin Dam from going ahead in Tasmania three decades ago.
“I’ll be more than happy to join those activists right across the country, many of whom I know are preparing, should we fail in the parliament, to ensure that we win it by standing in front of the bulldozers.”
Di Natale said it was about saving both the environment and jobs of the future, instead of a “short-term hit” he said the Carmichael mine would provide……. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/15/adanis-carmichael-coalmine-wont-go-ahead-greens-leader-says
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop slaps down Abbott’s climate speech
Bishop slaps down Abbott’s climate speech, THE AUSTRALIAN Australian Associated PressDeputy Liberal Leader Julie Bishop has slapped down Tony Abbott’s changing opinions on climate change following his controversial key-note speech to sceptics in London this week.
Ms Bishop, who is in South Korea for security talks, said the former prime minister was entitled to express his views on global warming but pointed out they were vastly different to when he was in power.
Mr Abbott supported the Paris Climate Agreement while he was prime minister, set national emissions targets and established the Renewable Energy Target.
“I think the question that has to be asked of Tony Abbott is why does he have a different view now than when he was prime minister,” Ms Bishop told the ABC on Thursday evening.
“He is entitled to change his mind, but I am sure that is why there is a deal of interest in what he has to say.”
Ms Bishop steered clear of questions about whether Mr Abbott was going to lose the next election for the coalition with his constant undermining of Malcolm Turnbull, or whether he ought be expelled.
The foreign minister’s intervention came after former Liberal leader John Hewson urged Mr Turnbull to stand up to Mr Abbott.
Dr Hewson believes the prime minister should call out his predecessor, especially over energy policy, which Mr Abbott focused on during his London speech.
“How long do you want to sit back and be beaten up, because that’s what (Mr) Abbott’s doing,” he told Fairfax Media on Thursday.
Mr Turnbull should draw a line in the sand in adopting a progressive clean energy target in the full knowledge that Mr Abbott would fight back, he said.
Dr Hewson thinks Mr Abbott would “make a bit of noise” and “a few that would back him”, but ultimately voters would appreciate the prime minister standing up for his beliefs.
“It’s time for Malcolm to just take a stand and I think the electorate is looking for him to show leadership on so many issues,” he said……..http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-news/stand-up-to-abbott-hewson-tells-pm/news-story/8bd574b9e6a0962bbdf0d668a141ed1a
Australia’s first Nobel peace laureate- but no congratulations from Prime Minister who supports nuclear weapons
If only Australia could get a Nobel prize for sport – wouldn’t Turnbull be thrilled with THAT?
Malcolm Turnbull won’t congratulate Australia’s first Nobel peace laureate, because he supports nukes http://www.smh.com.au/comment/malcolm-turnbull-wont-congratulate-australias-first-nobel-peace-laureate-because-he-supports-nukes-20171010-gyxwdg.html, Sue Wareham , 11 Oct 17,
Sometimes, the most obvious words can be the most difficult for leaders to utter when a situation demands they utter something. So it was with former prime minister John Howard and that word “sorry”, which he refused to offer to Aboriginal people who were forcibly and shamefully removed from their families.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is having trouble with the word “congratulations”. On Friday, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced that the 2017 Nobel peace prize will be awarded to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. The campaign originated in Australia as an initiative of the Medical Association for Prevention of War. It was launched in 2007 in Melbourne by, among others, former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Fraser. It grew rapidly to became a strong, international campaign in more than 100 countries.
This is the first Nobel peace prize to have its roots in Australia. A first in other fields, such as sport, would almost certainly elicit at least a “congratulations” from our leader, if not something more effusive, but not on this occasion. It seems peace is something different. Turnbull acknowledged the campaign’s commitment but reiterated his government’s view that the United States’ nuclear weapons help keep us safe. Continue reading
Climate change is a “crap” theory – and climate change is also “doing good” – says Tony Abbott
Tony Abbott says climate change is ‘probably doing good’
Former Australian PM delivers speech in London comparing global warming action to ‘killing goats to appease volcano gods’, Guardian, Karl Mathiesen 10 Oct 17 Former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott has suggested climate change is “probably doing good” in a speech in London in which he likened policies to combat it to “primitive people once killing goats to appease the volcano gods” .
Abbott delivered the annual lecture to the London-based Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), a climate sceptic thinktank on Monday evening. The Guardian and several other media outlets were blocked from attending the event but a copy of the speech was later circulated.
Abbott told the group the ostracisation of those who did not accept climate science was “the spirit of the Inquisition, the thought-police down the ages”. He also reprised his 2009 assertion that the “so-called settled science of climate change” was “absolute crap”.
Measures to deal with climate change, which Abbott said would damage the economy, were likened to “primitive people once killing goats to appease the volcano gods”.
“At least so far,” he said, “it’s climate change policy that’s doing harm. Climate change itself is probably doing good; or at least, more good than harm.”
When he was prime minister, Abbott said he took the issue of climate change “very seriously”. But since he was deposed as prime minister by his Liberal party colleague and bête noire Malcolm Turnbull in 2015, Abbott has returned to many hardline views he had tempered as leader……..
The GWPF is chaired by Nigel Lawson, who served as Margaret Thatcher’s treasurer. Lawson has been an outspoken critic of climate science and recently incorrectly told the BBC the global temperature had slightly declined in the past decade. The BBC was heavily criticised for leaving his assertions unchallenged.
John Hewson, who led the Liberal party from 1990 to 1994, said Abbott’s speech to Lawson’s group “sees him in like-minded, if disturbingly deluded, company”.
“Tony Abbott has had a long history of playing short-term politics, for his own political benefit, with the existential threat posed by a rapidly changing climate,” Hewson said.
“Abbott was effective in opposition – a man of nope rather than hope. His basic thrust is that if you can’t understand it, don’t believe it, or accept it. When it comes to climate, and the magnitude and urgency of the challenge, Abbott is prepared to deny the undeniable, and to ignore the risks and costs if left to future generations. History will undoubtedly judge Abbott and Howard and their small band of deniers harshly. When they could have acted on climate and emissions they failed as leaders, miserably.”Abbott’s speech – titled Daring to Doubt – contained echoes of his mentor and prime ministerial predecessor John Howard, who gave the same annual lecture to the GWPF four years ago. In 2013 Howard said climate “zealots” had turned the issue into a “substitute religion”.
Abbott, who trained to be a Catholic priest, called climate change a “post-Christian theology” and said the decline of religion in society had left a hole in which other forms of “dogma” could take root.
A Lancet study in 2015 supports Abbott’s claim that more people die from cold weather than hot. But the World Health Organisation has found that by 2050, climate change will cause 250,000 extra people to die each year from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat stress.
Abbott went on to deny many of the central findings of the UN’s climate science body and claimed, without providing evidence, that climate records had been “adjusted” and data sets “slanted”…….
The Guardian asked repeatedly for an invitation to attend the event. Abbott’s spokesperson said the speech was “not considered a media event”. The Guardian understands the Times of London was invited to attend and excerpts of the speech were distributed to News Corp newspapers in Australia.
This article was originally published on Climate Home https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/oct/10/tony-abbott-says-climate-change-is-probably-doing-good?CMP=twt_a-environment_b-gdneco
1 This month
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
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