The right’s nuclear stupidity is enough to make us cough up Phlegm Orville
From National Times Facebook page 2 Sept
The right’s nuclear stupidity is enough to make us cough up Phlegm Orville ( Bernard Keane and Crikey )
President Macron has reversed France’s original plan to reduce its nuclear energy from 70% to 50%, indeed as part of a nuclear renaissance, France will build six new large reactors and shortly commence testing on a nuclear power plant in Phlegm Orville, which is set to open early next year.
Er, what? Phlegm Orville in France? Sounds like a haute cuisine serving of mucus. Presumably the IPA scribe misheard when Dutton referred to Flamanville Nuclear Power Plant (thank God he didn’t refer to Finland’s Olkiluoto). Or perhaps they couldn’t believe Dutton was seriously invoking Flamanville as an advertisement for the wisdom of nuclear power.
Crikey first mentioned the new reactor being built at Flamanville in 2009, when it was due to open in 2013 and was already one-third over budget. By 2016 it was 200% over budget and scheduled to start in 2018. By 2018, the builder EDF discovered serious construction problems that delayed the start until 2020, and blew the budget out again. In 2020, the French government labelled Flamanville a “mess”. Early in 2022, when it was going to open at the end of the year, there was another delay and the budget rose to €12.7 billion (A$21.3 billion). At the end of last year, there was another delay into 2024 and the budget went over €13 billion.
So, all up, a decade overdue, and a final cost triple the initial estimate — if it starts next year. And it’s what Dutton thinks is an advertisement for nuclear power. Perhaps he should have mentioned Olkiluoto instead. It finally commenced in April this year… 14 years overdue.
Such criticisms, however, are now airily dismissed by nuclear power advocates. The future is small modular reactors (SMRs), which take much less time to build and are far cheaper — even if there are none actually operating outside Russia or China yet. “A single SMR can power some 300,000 homes. A microreactor could power a regional hospital, a factory, a mining site or a military base,” Dutton told the IPA.
At the same time as Dutton is spruiking SMRs, the Financial Review is as well. It’s run a three-part series on plans in Canada, Japan and the United Kingdom for SMRs (as one AFR reader acerbically noted, the keyword is “plans”).
The AFR also editorialised about the glories of SMRs. Conveniently absent, however, was the fact that even the new wonder technology needs massive taxpayer subsidies. The SMR that gets advocates most excited is the small prototype that US firm NuScale received regulatory approval to build in Idaho earlier this year — celebrated as a major milestone for the technology. Except it won’t commence operation until 2030 at the earliest and has already received US$1.4 billion in subsidies. That hasn’t stopped the proposed facility’s cost per MW-hour already increasing by more than 50% — three times the current cost of large-scale nuclear power in the US.
Why has the cost gone up for this SMR? Because, erm… cough cough… there’s been a massive blowout in the construction cost: 75%, to more than US$9 billion. Sure, it’s not a Phlegm Orville 300% blowout, but it is only a small reactor. And who will insure SMRs? In the United States, the government provides that insurance, with nuclear power plant owners paying hundreds of millions of dollars a year in premiums, further adding to the cost.
Another issue not mentioned by either the AFR or Dutton — both of whom like to whine about too much government spending — is what to do with the waste produced by SMRs. See, while they may be small, SMRs produce much more waste per unit of energy produced — and waste with higher radioactivity levels — than normal reactors. Good luck finding somewhere to store that for 10,000 years. You can bet no company will be doing that — it will fall to taxpayers, yet again.
So, apart from taking a long time to build, blowing out costs, requiring a massive infrastructure solution in terms of waste disposal and requiring colossal taxpayer support, the SMRs championed by Dutton and the AFR are completely different to traditional nuclear power.
What’s driving all this? Why does the right think SMRs are the solution? The delays that are typical of nuclear power, and which would be typical of SMRs as well, aren’t the problem — they’re the point. Switching focus to nuclear power and away from renewables and storage would delay decarbonisation and give fossil fuel industries extra years — indeed, extra decades — to keep operating while a nuclear “solution” was prepared. Like carbon capture, like gas, it’s another scam used by fossil fuel interests to try to delay meaningful climate action.
It’s enough to make you cough your lungs out.
If Albanese’s such a buddy of Biden’s, why is Assange still in jail?
An initial refusal from Biden is only an invitation to ask a second time, in a firmer voice
Bob Carr Bob Carr was NSW’s longest-serving premier and is a former Australian foreign affairs minister. 27 jul 23, https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/if-albanese-s-such-a-buddy-of-biden-s-why-is-assange-still-in-jail-20230721-p5dqci.html
Julian Assange is in his fourth year in Britain’s Belmarsh prison. If the current appeal fails, he will be shackled and driven off in a prison van and flown across the Atlantic on a CIA aircraft for a long trial. He faces likely life imprisonment in a federal jail, perhaps in Oklahoma.
In 2021, then opposition leader Anthony Albanese said, “Enough is enough. I don’t have sympathy for many of his actions, but essentially, I can’t see what is served by keeping him incarcerated.”
As prime minister, Albanese said he had already made his position clear to the Biden administration. “We are working through diplomatic channels,” he said, “but we’re making very clear what our position is on Mr Assange’s case.”
So we can assume that at one of his seven meetings with US President Joe Biden he has raised Assange, even on the fringes of the Quad or at one of two NATO summits. Or perhaps in San Diego when they launched AUKUS, under which Australia will make the largest transfer of wealth ever made outside this country. This $368 billion is a whopping subsidy to American naval shipyards and to the troubled, chronically tardy British naval builder BAE Systems.
But it clinches Australia’s reputation as a deliriously loyal, entirely gullible US ally. It gives President Biden the justification for telling Republicans or Clinton loyalists in his own party that he had no alternative but to end the pursuit of Assange. “Those Aussies insisted on it. They’re doing us all these favours … we can’t say no.”
In addition to the grandiose AUKUS deal, Biden could list other decisions by the Albanese government that render Australia a military stronghold to help US regional dominance while materially weakening our own security.
Candid words, but they aren’t mine. They belong to Sam Roggeveen of the Lowy Institute in this month’s edition of Australian Foreign Affairs. In a seminally important piece of analysis, Roggeveen nominated Australia’s decision to fully service six American B52 bombers at RAAF Tindal, in the Northern Territory, as belonging on that list. It is assumed these are aimed at China’s nuclear infrastructure such as missile silos. “It is hard to overstate the sensitivity involved in threatening another nation’s nuclear forces,” Roggeveen writes.
In his article, he reminds us we’ve also agreed to host four US nuclear subs on our west coast at something to be called “Submarine Rotational Force-West”. Their mission would be destroying Chinese warships or enforcing a blockade of Chinese ports.
The east coast submarine base, planned most likely for Port Kembla, will also directly support US military operations. It’s another nuclear target. As Roggeveen says, all these locations raise Australia’s profile in the eyes of the Chinese military planners designing their response in the event of war with the US.
In this context, I can’t believe the US president is not on the point of agreeing to the prime minister’s request to drop charges against Assange.
Apart from the titanic strategic favours, two killer facts help our case. One, former US president Barack Obama commuted the sentence of Chelsea Manning, who had supplied Assange with the information he published. The Yank is free, the Aussie still pursued.
Two, the crimes Manning and Assange exposed involved US troops on a helicopter gunning down unarmed civilians in Baghdad. They are directly comparable to the alleged Australian battlefield murders in Afghanistan we are currently prosecuting.
An initial refusal from Biden is only an invitation to ask a second time, in a firmer voice.
It’s possible to imagine an Australian PM – Fraser, Hawke, Keating, Howard or Rudd – being appropriately forceful with a US president. There would be an inflection point in their exchange – prime minister to president – when the glint-eyed Australian says, “Mr President, it’s gone on too long. Both sides of our politics are united. Your old boss commuted Chelsea Manning, an American, in the same case.”
A pause. A beat. Then the killer summation. “Mr President, I speak for Australia.”
Surely this counts.
I don’t believe the president can shake his head and say, “nope”, given all we have gifted – the potent symbolism of B52s, nuclear subs and bases on the east and west coast. It would look like we have sunk into the role of US territory, as much a dependency as Guam or Puerto Rico.
US counter-intelligence conceded during court proceedings there is no evidence of a life being lost because of Assange’s revelations. Our Defence Department reached the same view.
If Assange walks out the gates of Belmarsh into the arms of his wife and children it will show we are worth a crumb or two off the table of the imperium. If it’s a van to the airport, then making ourselves a more likely target has conferred no standing at all. We are a client state, almost officially.
AUKUS nuclear dump deal decades in the making by nuclear evangelists with prescience.
David Hardaker 26 July 23 https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/aukus-nuclear-dump-deal-decades-in-the-making-by-players-with-prescience/ar-AA1elV6p
he story of the long, slow journey to a nuclear waste dump being built in Australia as required by the AUKUS agreement is probably best told through one Jim Voss, a nuclear evangelist from America who has been part of the Australian scene for at least a quarter of a century.
Part of a push which began in 1997, he’s one of a handful of international figures who’ve never gone away. Now, arguably, that push has won the day courtesy of a secret deal struck by the Australian government.
Voss’ most recent appearance was at a parliamentary committee hearing into nuclear legislation on May 15. Courtesy of the government’s AUKUS agreement he was now, finally, able to make a link between the benefits of small modular nuclear reactors — the sort sold by his company — and the nuclear-powered submarines Australia has committed to.
It all went to show, as Voss put it, that “a nuclear culture will be essential for this nation in the future”.
Voss could afford to be just a little triumphant that Canberra day. The inspirational words “If at first you don’t succeed then try, try and try again” could well have been written just for him.
Apart from sheer doggedness, the Voss story tells us much about the close connections between the military and commercial worlds when it comes to nuclear energy, as well as the powerful roles played by the UK and the US governments in seeking a solution for a terrible problem they share: how to permanently store nuclear waste. Australia, it emerges, has been a long-term target.
It was only when Scott Morrison came along — later backed by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese — that all that work paid off, with the bonus that it was all done in secret.
Pangea 1997
Voss first came to public attention in Australia courtesy of a Four Corners investigation in the late 1990s. Voss was then general manager of a company called Pangea which was attempting to realise the idea of building a nuclear waste dump in Australia, catering to an international need for a permanent solution for disposing of radioactive waste. The company considered that outback parts of Western Australia met the checklist for safety, remoteness and geological stability.
Voss was joined by a Pangea scientist, Charles McCombie, who would also go on to become a mainstay of international efforts to have a nuclear waste dump built in Australia.
Other now-familiar connections emerged at this time. Pangea, backed by a multimillion-dollar marketing and lobbying budget, brought on board then-rising star of conservative political polling, Mark Textor. Textor was soon to establish the powerful Crosby-Textor (ClT) group with then Liberal Party director, Lynton Crosby. Textor was reportedly paid some $250,000 for his work. (As we revealed in May, ClT’s American arm acts as a lobbyist for the giant US defence company General Dynamic, which builds the US Navy’s nuclear-powered submarines and is set to play a key role in the AUKUS program. It already hosts a growing Australian workforce at its Connecticut shipyards.)
In America, Pangea had signed up a former US nuclear submarine commander, Ralph Stoll, who helped lobby members of the US Congress to back Pangea’s plans for an Australian dump. Not that the US needed much persuading. Back in 1999, Four Corners reported that Pangea’s case found favour with US security and defence officials when it shifted its focus from a commercial venture to play to America’s strategic preoccupation with growing stockpiles of nuclear warheads.
Former US defence official Jan Lodal who had been responsible for running nuclear policy for the Pentagon put it this way:
There are thousands and thousands of tonnes of [nuclear waste] and thousands of tonnes more coming online each year, so to speak, as well as many thousands of tonnes that are derivative from former nuclear weapons programs. And these have to be stored safely and securely for thousands of years, and the world simply doesn’t have a solution to this. And as long as this waste is stored in an imperfect fashion, in which it is now — virtually everywhere — it represents something of a threat.
The Pangea company drew on American expertise but it was essentially a front for the UK government. It was 80% owned by British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL), which in turn was wholly owned by the British government. BNFL and the UK had the same problem as the US: it held the largest stockpile of high-level radioactive waste in the world (after America) kept in canisters cooling beneath the water at its Sellafield facility in the north of England.
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AUKUS nuclear dump deal decades in the making by players with prescience
Story by David Hardaker • Yesterday 8:01 pm
(IMAGE: GETTY IMAGES)© Provided by Crikey
The story of the long, slow journey to a nuclear waste dump being built in Australia as required by the AUKUS agreement is probably best told through one Jim Voss, a nuclear evangelist from America who has been part of the Australian scene for at least a quarter of a century.
Part of a push which began in 1997, he’s one of a handful of international figures who’ve never gone away. Now, arguably, that push has won the day courtesy of a secret deal struck by the Australian government.
Why Seniors with private health cover are losing money
Voss’ most recent appearance was at a parliamentary committee hearing into nuclear legislation on May 15. Courtesy of the government’s AUKUS agreement he was now, finally, able to make a link between the benefits of small modular nuclear reactors — the sort sold by his company — and the nuclear-powered submarines Australia has committed to.
It all went to show, as Voss put it, that “a nuclear culture will be essential for this nation in the future”.
Voss could afford to be just a little triumphant that Canberra day. The inspirational words “If at first you don’t succeed then try, try and try again” could well have been written just for him.
Apart from sheer doggedness, the Voss story tells us much about the close connections between the military and commercial worlds when it comes to nuclear energy, as well as the powerful roles played by the UK and the US governments in seeking a solution for a terrible problem they share: how to permanently store nuclear waste. Australia, it emerges, has been a long-term target.
It was only when Scott Morrison came along — later backed by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese — that all that work paid off, with the bonus that it was all done in secret.
Pangea 1997
Voss first came to public attention in Australia courtesy of a Four Corners investigation in the late 1990s. Voss was then general manager of a company called Pangea which was attempting to realise the idea of building a nuclear waste dump in Australia, catering to an international need for a permanent solution for disposing of radioactive waste. The company considered that outback parts of Western Australia met the checklist for safety, remoteness and geological stability.
Voss was joined by a Pangea scientist, Charles McCombie, who would also go on to become a mainstay of international efforts to have a nuclear waste dump built in Australia.
Other now-familiar connections emerged at this time. Pangea, backed by a multimillion-dollar marketing and lobbying budget, brought on board then-rising star of conservative political polling, Mark Textor. Textor was soon to establish the powerful Crosby-Textor (ClT) group with then Liberal Party director, Lynton Crosby. Textor was reportedly paid some $250,000 for his work. (As we revealed in May, ClT’s American arm acts as a lobbyist for the giant US defence company General Dynamic, which builds the US Navy’s nuclear-powered submarines and is set to play a key role in the AUKUS program. It already hosts a growing Australian workforce at its Connecticut shipyards.)
In America, Pangea had signed up a former US nuclear submarine commander, Ralph Stoll, who helped lobby members of the US Congress to back Pangea’s plans for an Australian dump. Not that the US needed much persuading. Back in 1999, Four Corners reported that Pangea’s case found favour with US security and defence officials when it shifted its focus from a commercial venture to play to America’s strategic preoccupation with growing stockpiles of nuclear warheads.
Former US defence official Jan Lodal who had been responsible for running nuclear policy for the Pentagon put it this way:
There are thousands and thousands of tonnes of [nuclear waste] and thousands of tonnes more coming online each year, so to speak, as well as many thousands of tonnes that are derivative from former nuclear weapons programs. And these have to be stored safely and securely for thousands of years, and the world simply doesn’t have a solution to this. And as long as this waste is stored in an imperfect fashion, in which it is now — virtually everywhere — it represents something of a threat.
The Pangea company drew on American expertise but it was essentially a front for the UK government. It was 80% owned by British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL), which in turn was wholly owned by the British government. BNFL and the UK had the same problem as the US: it held the largest stockpile of high-level radioactive waste in the world (after America) kept in canisters cooling beneath the water at its Sellafield facility in the north of England.
Pangea collapses but the dream lives on
Pangea’s best laid, secret plans came unstuck when the British arm of Friends of the Earth came into possession of a corporate Pangea video which the company had produced for the launch of its Australian venture.
The leaking of the video triggered a federal parliamentary backlash, including from the Howard government’s resources minister Senator Nick Minchin, who denounced the idea of Australia being an international waste dump.
Yet Pangea left a legacy to be reckoned with. It had hit on messaging designed to allay community concerns about safety. One line distilled its argument to house the world’s nuclear waste in remote Australia: “There’s no safer place in the world to make the world a safer place.”
Some influential political voices warned this would not be the end of the matter. Australian Democrats senator Meg Lees told Parliament: “Let us look a couple of years down the track. Knowing the pressure that is coming from Britain, combined with pressure from state governments such as Western Australia, I think we may then have a whole different ball game.”
Then federal MP and former WA Labor premier Dr Carmen Lawrence said: “[Pangea] are serious; they are well-funded. They’re people who’ve worked around the mining industry for a very long time. And I think it would be foolish of anybody — government or people such as me opposed to what they’re proposing — to underestimate their long-term commitment to this proposal.”
Speaking to Four Corners from his office in Seattle, Pangea’s chairman (the late) David Pentz had the most prophetic of words:
The idea of an international repository and the benefits it will bring the world is real. We think we have begun to see how we could put the genie back into the bottle, and you know ideas of this size don’t go away.
Never say never
The big idea never went away. Nor did Jim Voss. Among his voluminous collection of writings and presentations, he has covered some eye-catching topics.
He was joint author of the tantalisingly titled “From subs to mines: what would it take for Australia to develop a nuclear-powered submarine capability?” Written in 2013 — a full decade ago — the paper uncannily anticipated the future.
It canvassed issues relating to “procuring, leasing or assembling a complete military off-the-shelf (MOTS) nuclear-powered submarine in Australia”. This happens to be exactly the AUKUS approach which would see the US provide three of its used nuclear submarines to the Australian Navy to bridge Australia’s capability gap.
The paper continued: “This scenario would likely require Australia to develop a nuclear-powered submarine operations, maintenance, refuelling, waste management and possibly decommissioning capability, without presenting Australia with the considerable upfront challenges of developing a nuclear reactor and fuel enrichment supply chain.”
It also raised the possibility that “procurement, leasing or development of nuclear-powered submarine capabilities in Australia” would potentially open the way to “expansion into other aspects of the high-value nuclear energy supply chain, and provide opportunities for increased nuclear power plant deployment capabilities in the future, for instance, with small modular reactors (SMRs)”.
Voss’s Pangea colleague McCombie also stayed close to the action. As Pangea dissolved, McCombie became part of another international not-for-profit organisation called Arius (Association for Regional and International Underground Storage).
2015, and South Australia calls
The big idea of Australia as the site of an international radioactive waste dump came roaring back into contention in 2015. The South Australian government established the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission, chaired not by a judicial figure, as custom has it, but by a retired rear admiral of the Australian Navy, Kevin Scarce, the former governor of South Australia.
A wait worth the while
More than 20 years on and with Australia part of the nuclear submarine club with the US and the UK, Voss is back in town, having taken on the reins of the Melbourne office of the exquisitely named and American-headquartered Ultra Safe Nuclear corporation.
Ultra Safe Nuclear is in the business of selling small modular nuclear reactors. Voss shifted into the managing director’s role in late 2020, about nine months before Morrison announced the AUKUS deal. Given his writings of 2013 which explored the business consequences of Australia acquiring nuclear subs, it appears to be a case of a destiny fulfilled. So how does he feel now about Australia’s nuclear embrace and its pledge to — finally — build a nuclear waste facility?
As a seasoned pro, Voss knows better than to be triumphant. This is not a win for him. It is more an opportunity for Australia:
Australia crossed the Rubicon of needing long-term deep disposal in 1958 [when the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor was established]. Starting at that point, Australia is generating long-lived alpha-bearing waste, in other words, waste with plutonium contaminant in it.”
The waste from Lucas Heights is generally regarded as much lower level than the high-grade waste from nuclear submarines, though Voss says it will also require “a deep disposal solution”. He maintains both can be dealt with by a technique called “very deep borehole disposal”. This is three- to five-kilometres deep at a location where the geography and the physics allowed it to be “absolutely secure for the aeons”.
But what about the 100-tonne spent nuclear reactor of a nuclear sub?
“You’re not putting the entire reactor down,” he says. “You’re putting the most highly radioactive alpha-bearing parts of the reactor down such a hole. So the deep borehole solution is quite amenable to the most highly active waste from a fleet of submarines.”
Australia’s eight submarines would need around six boreholes, he suggests, each costing around $200 million to construct. A snip at $1.2 billion.
But what if the deal to bury Australia’s AUKUS waste is just the start? After all, the cost of a nuclear dump is directly related to the amount of material to be buried. He says:
I would say that I do not personally believe that any part of AUKUS is the thin end of the wedge to an international repository. Two reasons. One is I’ve never heard anybody in any corner suggest that linkage. The second is there is a tried and true premise that a country that generates highly active waste is responsible for its management.
But with the UK and the US still seeking a permanent solution for highly active waste, does he agree it’s not a big step to take the waste of the AUKUS allies? “It would not be a huge leap,” he says. “But again, I cannot see the tea leaves politically lining up to support that path.”
Asked to reflect now on warnings from politicians and others 25 years ago that ultimately Australia may host international nuclear waste, Voss agrees that in some respects those words were prophetic: “Yes, I completely agree. With the problems we face today we are always searching for solutions. And sometimes older solutions have a place where they didn’t 25 years ago.
“But I want to emphasise that nobody that I am aware of in Australia, or frankly in the world, is working on an international disposal solution for all parties for highly active waste.”
Voss says Pangea’s failure was due not to government but to the fact that the social licence or community acceptance to operate a nuclear waste facility was lacking. For the record, he has not seen Textor since Pangea days.
The post AUKUS nuclear dump deal decades in the making by players with prescience appeared first on Crikey.
Dutton’s Nuclear Folly: Small Modular Reactors a political mirage
by Rex Patrick | Jul 23, 2023 https://michaelwest.com.au/duttons-nuclear-folly-small-modular-reactors-a-political-mirage/
As Peter Dutton talks up nuclear power, it is not surprising to see Andrew Liveris shifting his pitch from a ‘gas led recovery’ to a call for Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) to be considered for the 2032 Brisbane Olympics. Dutton is engaged in politics, Liveris in fantasy. Rex Patrick reports on the nuclear distraction.
What’s a Small Modular Reactor?
Small modular reactors (SMRs) are nuclear powered reactors with an electrical power output of less than 300 megawatts (MW).
There’s potential for these reactors to be mass produced and deployed at significantly lower costs to traditional nuclear reactors to replace coal and gas fired power plants with low carbon, base-load, synchronous power generation.
But for a sunburnt country with an abundance of space, they will never compete with solar and wind, supplemented by base-load technologies such as batteries, hydro, pumped-hydro and molten salt.
A Liveris’ Fantasy
Liveris’s 2032 suggestion was beyond belief.
Russia has packaged two low powered nuclear ice breaker reactors in a floating barge to claim a first SMR. China has a demonstration SMR in Shidaowan. Apart from that, they don’t exist.
The US is aiming to have its first SMR generating power in 2029. Its proponent, NuScale Power, has assigned a memorandum of understanding with Polish mining firm, KGHM, to deploy a plant to support its copper and silver production in Poland.
While there are over 70 SMR designs being developed across 18 countries, few are even close to being commercially mass produced.
Australia has had some involvement in SMRs through ANSTO, the operator of the Australia’s only 20 MW nuclear reactor used for nuclear medicine, research, scientific and industrial purposes.
Since late 2020 ANSTO has been participating in a three year International Atomic Energy Agency’s co-ordinated research project on the economic appraisal of SMRs. It has assembled a team of its own and other Australian experts to analyse the economics of the technology.
They have also supported a University of Queensland PhD candidate to model the deployment of SMRs across the Australian National Energy Market. The student is due to conclude his PhD work in a few month’s time.
Eight days after Minister Chris Bowen was sworn in he sought an ANSTO briefing on SMRs.
The Politics of Dutton
While ANSTO has been at work, CSIRO has also been working with the Australian Energy Market Operator to work out the Levelised Cost Of Electricity (LCOE) for each technology.
For 2030, wind and solar are sitting on or around $50/MWh while SMRs are somewhere between $150 and $300/MWh
For 2050, wind and solar are sitting on or below $50/MWh while SMRs are somewhere between $125 and $150/MWh.
Peter Dutton is not one to let facts get in the way of a political position.
Turnbull foiled, Teals fuelled
Across 2017 and 2018 Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was working up a National Energy Guarantee (NEG) policy to deliver energy to Australia which balanced out cost, reliability and emissions cleanliness. It was policy designed by engineers and economists.
Dutton moved to exploit deep seated division in the Liberal National Party (LNP).
He wasn’t interested in climate change. He wasn’t interested in good policy. He was interested in himself. He used NEG to challenge Turnbull’s leadership and, while he failed, he managed to kill off the policy. A second challenge saw Scott Morrison sworn is as Prime Minister and the NEG abandoned.
Dutton was the person responsible for a moment in time that created opportunity for the Teals, who went on to displace a number of LNP members in the 2022 election.
A lack of vision
Dutton promoting nuclear will appeal to the LNP base. To the informed, he won’t appeal to those concerned about cost of living and, yet again, he’s certainly not offering leadership and vision.
Yes, there is a case for a mix of wind, solar and nuclear (in place of gas and coal), but it is not a case that’s filled with vision. A better future for Australia is one that seeks to capitalise on abundant space and renewables; a mix of wind, solar, batteries, hydro, pumped-hydro, batteries, molten-salt and other technologies.
That’s what Malcolm Turnbull was trying to do with NEG and Snowy Hydro 2.0. Sadly, Snowy Hydro 2.0 is a project that’s turning out to be a good idea poorly executed.
Originally envisaged to cost $2b, new estimates have its final costs sitting at $10b. A value for money re-assessment must occur, with one alternate pumped-hydro solution being Tasmanian with a second cable being funded to clean electrons across the Bass Strait?
Fusion power
Solutions are available as we wait for fusion energy to arrive.
Fusion received international attention in late 2022 when a US based group made more energy that was put into a fusion reaction, showing proof of concept.
It’ a long way off, a source that won’t be fielded until beyond 2050, but something we should be aiming for.
Wasted opportunity
We don’t pass our planet on to our children and grandchildren; it’s actually on loan from them. It should be treated accordingly.
We should cast our mind forward to 2070, when the world has fully embraced base-load renewables and fusion.
A young man named Dutton will be asking himself ‘what exactly was my great-grandfather thinking”, as he grapples with the still controversial and unsolved problem of dealing with high level nuclear waste from AUKUS submarines and a foray into SMRs.
The answer to the young man’s question will be, “folly”.
Prime Minister Albanese must abandon South Australian nuclear waste dump
Friends of the Earth Australia ‒ 18 July 2023
The Federal Court has today quashed the declaration of a proposed nuclear waste dump site near Kimba in SA, citing ‘pre-judgement’ and ‘apprehended bias’. The court case was initiated by Barngarla Traditional Owners, who are unanimous in their opposition to the proposed nuclear dump.
Dr. Jim Green, national nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth Australia, said:
“Today’s decision is an incredible victory for Barngarla Traditional Owners. Now Prime Minister Albanese must kill the nuclear dump plan stone dead.
“It is an outrage that the Albanese government has been attempting to impose a national nuclear waste dump on Barngarla country despite the unanimous opposition of the Traditional Owners.
“It is deeply hypocritical that the Albanese government has been championing a Voice to Parliament at the same time as it ignores and overrides the unanimous voice of the Barngarla Traditional Owners.”
Jane Stinson, Chair of the SA Parliament’s Environment, Resources and Development Committee, said last year: “In this day and age, when we’re talking about Voice, Treaty and Truth, we can’t just turn around and say, ‘Oh, well, those are our values but in this particular instance, we’re going to ignore the voice of Aboriginal people’. I think that’s just preposterous and it’s inconsistent with what most South Australians would think.”
Susan Close, now Deputy Premier of South Australia, said in 2019 that it was a “dreadful process from start to finish” that led to the nomination of the proposed Kimba dump site and that SA Labor is “utterly opposed” to the “appalling” process which led to Kimba being targeted.
Susan Close noted in 2020 statement, titled ‘Kimba site selection process flawed, waste dump plans must be scrapped’, that SA Labor “has committed to traditional owners having a right of veto over any nuclear waste sites, yet the federal government has shown no respect to the local Aboriginal people.”
Dr. Green continued:
“It is appalling that the Albanese government has been willing to violate the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples while at the same time professing to support the Declaration.”
The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples states that: “States shall take effective measures to ensure that no storage or disposal of hazardous materials shall take place in the lands or territories of indigenous peoples without their free, prior and informed consent.”
Dr. Green concluded:
“To date, the issue has been managed by federal resources minister Madeleine King. There appears to have been little or no input from caucus, Cabinet or the Prime Minister’s Office.
“Prime Minister Anthony Albanese needs to take control and declare that the rights of Barngarla Traditional Owners will be respected, today’s Federal Court decision will not be challenged, and the government will now abandon the plan to impose a nuclear waste dump on Barngarla country.
“Federal Labor should adopt SA Labor’s policy giving traditional owners a right of veto over proposed nuclear waste dump sites. That would give traditional owners across the country some confidence that their voices will be heard as the government progresses plans to store and dispose of waste arising from nuclear-powered submarines in the coming decades.”
Contact: Jim Green 0417 318 368
Background: ‘Labor must hear Indigenous voice against Kimba nuclear site’, inDaily, July 17.
South Australian Greens Welcome Court Decision to Stop Nuclear Waste Facility in Kimba
The Greens have welcomed the decision of the Federal Court to overturn the federal Ministerial declaration to select Napandee near Kimba as the proposed site for a national nuclear waste facility.
The decision comes after the Barngarla people, the traditional owners of Kimba, challenged the proposed facility, arguing that they had failed to be properly consulted and the facility would impact sacred sites.
Quotes attributable to Tammy Franks MLC:
“It was a major concern that the Barngarla people as traditional owners had not consented to this proposed facility, contradicting longstanding SA legislation. The Greens are proud to have stood in solidarity with the Barngarla people in their pursuit of justice.
“It has been a longstanding view of SA Labor that for a nuclear radioactive dump or storage facility the traditional owners should have a right of veto. The Greens look forward to the Malinauskas Government working with traditional owners to ensure their sites and stories are protected.
Dutton wants Australia to join the “nuclear renaissance” – but this dream has failed before.
What stopped the nuclear noughties was a bigger problem: economics. Governments looking at nuclear saw the cost and time over-runs and decided it wasn’t worth it.
in Australia, promises to create a nuclear power industry from scratch based on as yet unproven technologies and in competition with cheap renewables is simply delusional.
The Conversation John Quiggin 11 July 23
Last week, opposition leader Peter Dutton called for Australia to join what he dubbed the “international nuclear energy renaissance”.
The same phrase was used 20 years ago to describe plans for a massive expansion of nuclear. New Generation III plants would be safer and more efficient than the Generation II plants built in the 1970s and 1980s. But the supposed renaissance delivered only a trickle of new reactors – barely enough to replace retiring plants.
If there was ever going to be a nuclear renaissance, it was then. Back then, solar and wind were still expensive and batteries able to power cars or store power for the grid were in their infancy.
Even if these new smaller, modular reactors can overcome the massive cost blowouts which inevitably dog large plants, it’s too late for nuclear in Australia. As a new report points out, nuclear would be wildly uncompetitive, costing far more per megawatt hour (MWh) than it does to take energy from sun or wind.
The nuclear renaissance that wasn’t
Early in the 21st century, the outlook for nuclear energy seemed more promising than it had in years. ……………………………………….
The time seemed right for a nuclear renaissance – especially in the United States. Between 2007 and 2009, 13 companies applied for construction and operating licenses to build 31 new nuclear power reactors. But all but two of these proposals stayed on paper.
The first, in Georgia, is expected to be completed this year after running way behind schedule and way over budget. The other project in South Carolina was abandoned in 2017 after billions of dollars had already been poured into it. The same disastrous cost and time blowouts have hit new reactors in France (Flamanville, 10 years behind schedule), Finland (Olkiluoto, which opened this year after a 14 year delay) and the UK (Hinkley Point C, still under construction with cost and time blowouts).
China has built a trickle of new nuclear plants, commissioning three or four a year over the last decade. China currently has about 50 gigawatts (GW) of nuclear power capacity. This pales into insignificance compared to the nation’s extraordinary expansion of solar, with 95-120 gigawatts of additional capacity expected this year alone.
Nuclear falls short on cost, not politics
What went wrong for nuclear? Despite the claims of some nuclear advocates, the renaissance in the 2000s did not fall short because of political resistance. Far from it – the renaissance had broad political support in key markets.
And, unlike in the 1970s where intense anti-nuclear sentiment was tied to fears of nuclear war, environmentalists in the 2000s had refocused on the need to stop burning carbon-based fuels. Anti-nuclear campaigns and protest marches were almost non-existent.
What stopped the nuclear noughties was a bigger problem: economics. Governments looking at nuclear saw the cost and time over-runs and decided it wasn’t worth it.
As megaproject expert Bent Flyvbjerg has shown, cost overruns like these are typical. First of a kind nuclear plants offer an extreme example of the problem. To date, no Generation III or III+ design has been produced at scales large enough to iron out the inevitable early problems.
At the same time, other energy sources were growing in importance.
In Australia, the writing was on the wall by 2007, when an inquiry found new nuclear power would struggle to compete with either coal or renewables. A string of subsequent inquiries have come to precisely the same conclusion.
Could it be different this time?
To make nuclear viable these days, advocates believe, means making it safe, cheap and easy to build. No more megaprojects. Instead, build small reactors en masse on factory production lines, ship them to where they are needed and install them in numbers matching the needs of the area.
Advocates hope the efficiency of factory production will offset the lower efficiency associated with smaller capacity. Ironically, off-site mass production and modular installation is the basis of the success of solar and wind.
To date, the most promising reactor design is NuScale’s VOYGR. It has yet to be produced and the US company has no firm orders. It does have preliminary agreements to build six reactors in Utah by 2030 and another four in Romania.
If all are built, that’s still less than the capacity of a single large Gen III plant. More strikingly, it’s about the same as the new solar capacity installed every single day (~710 MW) this year around the world.
Even with US government subsidies, NuScale estimates its power would cost A$132 per MWh. In Australia, average wholesale prices in the first quarter of 2023 ranged from $64 per MWh in Victoria to 114 per MWh in Queensland.
So why, then, is Australia’s opposition still talking about new nuclear? Dutton claims Australia’s future nuclear submarines to be built under the AUKUS deal are “essentially floating SMRs”. This is a red herring – while submarine reactors are small, they are not modular.
The simplest answer is political gain. Announcements like this yield political benefits at low cost.
The US, UK and France have decades of experience in nuclear power, even if failures outnumber successes. So yes, there is a slim chance the latest “nuclear renaissance” will succeed in these countries.
But in Australia, promises to create a nuclear power industry from scratch based on as yet unproven technologies and in competition with cheap renewables is simply delusional. https://theconversation.com/dutton-wants-australia-to-join-the-nuclear-renaissance-but-this-dream-has-failed-before-209584?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Bowen: “Australia will be renewable energy superpower, not a nuclear backwater”
ReNewEconomy, Giles Parkinson 7 July 2023
Federal energy minister Chris Bowen has slammed Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s call for nuclear power in Australia, saying they are slow to build, impossible expensive and not needed in Australia.
“Here we go again,” Bowen told reporters after a meeting of state and federal climate and energy ministers in Tasmania on Friday, where the main topics of discussion were the new capacity investment scheme to help storage and a fast connections process for wind and solar.
“Mr. Dutton shows he does not understand renewable energy,” Bowen said.
“He did not get the memo from the Australian people last year, when they threw out his climate denying government.
“He has not changed and I say this. Peter Dutton as prime minister would be worse for the climate than Scott Morrison. And that takes him doing. The man who carried a lump of coal into the House of Representatives was better on climate than Peter Dutton. That’s the low bar that Peter Dutton has managed to get below.”
Bowen mocked Dutton’s reference of both “small” nuclear reactors and “micro” nuclear reactors, neither of which exist in commercial form anywhere in the world.
“The nuclear for Australia committee called for 80 of these things … where will they go? What will the cost be?
“Some of his own party have acknowledged they cost $10 billion each. The only thing small about a small modular reactor is its output. nothing small about its cost.
“:His deputy Mr. Littleproud, the leader of the National Party, said it wouldn’t cost a cent which will come as a considerable surprise surprise to the nuclear industry that they’re going to build them for free.
“We’ve had 10 years of denial and delay. And now we have an attempt at a distraction. I’ll tell you what the future of Australia is, a renewable energy superpower, not a nuclear backwater. https://reneweconomy.com.au/bowen-australia-will-be-renewable-energy-superpower-not-a-nuclear-backwater/
Queensland’s Liberal National Party leader Crisafulli rejects Dutton’s push for nuclear power
No nukes in Qld: Crisafulli rejects Dutton’s plan Financial Review, Mark Ludlow, Queensland bureau chief, 10 July 23
Queensland Liberal National Party leader David Crisafulli has rebuffed federal leader Peter Dutton’s push to repurpose the state’s retiring coal-fired power stations for nuclear power, saying it will never get off the ground without bipartisan support.
As Mr Dutton attempts to put nuclear power back on the agenda as a way to help Australia to reach net zero by 2050, Labor has ridiculed the idea as too expensive, despite the price of small modular reactors coming down in recent years.
Mr Crisafulli, who could become premier at Queensland’s state election next year, according to the latest opinion polls, said there was no point discussing nuclear power until it was endorsed by both major parties.
“Until both sides of federal parliament agree that is the course of action, it is not going to happen,” Mr Crisafulli told The Australian Financial Review.
“I’m not spending any energy on it – pardon the pun – because no one will invest in it unless both sides agree to it. It’s a reality.”
When asked what he would do if he and Mr Dutton won their respective elections and it became federal government policy, Mr Crisafulli said investors would still steer clear of nuclear power until Labor was behind it.
Federal Labor is vehemently opposed to nuclear power, …………………………………………….
Nuclear: Coalition remains trapped by climate and technology denial
RenewEconomy, Giles Parkinson 7 July 2023 ………………… make no mistake, in Australia, it is a war – a political one raging between science, engineering and economics on one hand, and single minded ideology on the other.
The nuclear push by the federal Coalition and its industry backers has been brewing for some time, and has now reached a crescendo with Opposition leader Peter Dutton calling for nuclear to be included in Australia’s mix, and accusing Labor of being “mesmerised” by renewables and storage.
Dutton’s position is sadly inevitable, and entirely predictable.
Having been the author of the Aukus deal which has committed Australia to spending up to $360 billion on half a dozen nuclear submarines – none of which would be delivered within 20 years – it follows that the Coalition should be signing up to another technology that could cost just as much and be just as delayed.
Dutton’s comments on Friday – in a speech to the rabid anti-renewables and climate “think tank”, the IPA – is yet more confirmation that the Coalition has no interest in doing anything about climate change.
This week the planet experienced its two hottest days on record, likely its hottest week, and is facing its hottest year in 2023 or 2024 as the El Nino strengthens its influence.
The need to accelerate emissions cuts, and finally deliver policies consistent with a 1.5°C scenario, has never been clearer. But the Coalition – after 10 years in power doing absolutely nothing – is still running in the opposite direction.
The Coalition denies the science. “Climate change has always been a scam,” LNP Senator Gerard Rennick tweeted last month, not for the first time echoing the thoughts of a majority of his Coalition colleagues.
The Coalition hates renewables: “It’s a trifecta of idiocy,” said former and still aspiring Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce on Labor’s 82 per cent renewable target, before putting a call out to groups to join a mass protest against wind and solar on the steps of Parliament House.
Nuclear: Coalition remains trapped by climate and technology denial
Giles Parkinson 7 July 2023 29
The nuclear war drums are beating again: Not just in the Ukraine, which now has to fact up to the threats from Vladimir Putin and the chest-beating of his Belorussian puppet Alexander Lukashenko, but also in Australia’s energy debate.
And make no mistake, in Australia, it is a war – a political one raging between science, engineering and economics on one hand, and single minded ideology on the other.
The nuclear push by the federal Coalition and its industry backers has been brewing for some time, and has now reached a crescendo with Opposition leader Peter Dutton calling for nuclear to be included in Australia’s mix, and accusing Labor of being “mesmerised” by renewables and storage.
Dutton’s position is sadly inevitable, and entirely predictable.
Having been the author of the Aukus deal which has committed Australia to spending up to $360 billion on half a dozen nuclear submarines – none of which would be delivered within 20 years – it follows that the Coalition should be signing up to another technology that could cost just as much and be just as delayed.
Dutton’s comments on Friday – in a speech to the rabid anti-renewables and climate “think tank”, the IPA – is yet more confirmation that the Coalition has no interest in doing anything about climate change.
This week the planet experienced its two hottest days on record, likely its hottest week, and is facing its hottest year in 2023 or 2024 as the El Nino strengthens its influence.
The need to accelerate emissions cuts, and finally deliver policies consistent with a 1.5°C scenario, has never been clearer. But the Coalition – after 10 years in power doing absolutely nothing – is still running in the opposite direction.
The Coalition denies the science. “Climate change has always been a scam,” LNP Senator Gerard Rennick tweeted last month, not for the first time echoing the thoughts of a majority of his Coalition colleagues.
The Coalition hates renewables: “It’s a trifecta of idiocy,” said former and still aspiring Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce on Labor’s 82 per cent renewable target, before putting a call out to groups to join a mass protest against wind and solar on the steps of Parliament House.
Now the Coalition is is hoisting its petard to a plan to fritter away tens of billions, if not hundreds of billions, on a technology that – as former chief scientist Alan Finkel pointed out in a recent episode of the Energy Insiders podcast – would be impossible to deploy in Australia within 20 years………………..
“There’s a big one under construction at the moment, a 3.2 gigawatt gigawatt system under construction in England called Hinkley, C, and the price per gigawatt is north of $15 billion,” Finkel said. “It’s just the most expensive capital expenditure that you could imagine.” (Apart, maybe, from Australia’s submarine order).
Nuclear: Coalition remains trapped by climate and technology denial
Giles Parkinson 7 July 2023 29
The nuclear war drums are beating again: Not just in the Ukraine, which now has to fact up to the threats from Vladimir Putin and the chest-beating of his Belorussian puppet Alexander Lukashenko, but also in Australia’s energy debate.
And make no mistake, in Australia, it is a war – a political one raging between science, engineering and economics on one hand, and single minded ideology on the other.
The nuclear push by the federal Coalition and its industry backers has been brewing for some time, and has now reached a crescendo with Opposition leader Peter Dutton calling for nuclear to be included in Australia’s mix, and accusing Labor of being “mesmerised” by renewables and storage.
Dutton’s position is sadly inevitable, and entirely predictable.
Having been the author of the Aukus deal which has committed Australia to spending up to $360 billion on half a dozen nuclear submarines – none of which would be delivered within 20 years – it follows that the Coalition should be signing up to another technology that could cost just as much and be just as delayed.
Dutton’s comments on Friday – in a speech to the rabid anti-renewables and climate “think tank”, the IPA – is yet more confirmation that the Coalition has no interest in doing anything about climate change.
This week the planet experienced its two hottest days on record, likely its hottest week, and is facing its hottest year in 2023 or 2024 as the El Nino strengthens its influence.
The need to accelerate emissions cuts, and finally deliver policies consistent with a 1.5°C scenario, has never been clearer. But the Coalition – after 10 years in power doing absolutely nothing – is still running in the opposite direction.
The Coalition denies the science. “Climate change has always been a scam,” LNP Senator Gerard Rennick tweeted last month, not for the first time echoing the thoughts of a majority of his Coalition colleagues.
The Coalition hates renewables: “It’s a trifecta of idiocy,” said former and still aspiring Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce on Labor’s 82 per cent renewable target, before putting a call out to groups to join a mass protest against wind and solar on the steps of Parliament House.
Now the Coalition is is hoisting its petard to a plan to fritter away tens of billions, if not hundreds of billions, on a technology that – as former chief scientist Alan Finkel pointed out in a recent episode of the Energy Insiders podcast – would be impossible to deploy in Australia within 20 years.
Make no mistake, Finkel is a fan of the technology. “From a purely engineering point of view, nuclear is fantastic,” he told the podcast.
But he says while the technology works, and he believes the safety issues can be managed, building big nuclear is “insanely slow to do”, and “very, very expensive.”
“There’s a big one under construction at the moment, a 3.2 gigawatt gigawatt system under construction in England called Hinkley, C, and the price per gigawatt is north of $15 billion,” Finkel said. “It’s just the most expensive capital expenditure that you could imagine.” (Apart, maybe, from Australia’s submarine order).
As for SMRs, or small modular reactosr, Finkel notes that the most advanced company is called NuScale in the US. Approvals for its technology are being fast-tracked by nuclear regulators, but it’s already taken seven years.
At best, its first pilot plant will be operating by the end of the decade. And Australia will have to wait and see how that plant operates, and hope for cost reductions and production to be achieved, before it could commit to going down the same path.
“I cannot see any possibility of Australia, even if we went at full speed ahead, having small modular reactors before 2040,” Finkel said.
And by then, Finkel says, Australia will have a zero emissions or a near zero emissions and reliable, affordable electricity system based around wind, solar and storage. And expensive nuclear would then have to compete with cheaper, reliable renewables power.
Just to reinforce that assessment, IEEFA reported earlier this year the eyewatering cost blowouts of NuScale’s proposed SMRs, now more than doubled the estimated price flagged in 2021.
“No one should fool themselves into believing this will be the last cost increase for the NuScale/UAMPS SMR,” IEEFA wrote.……………………………
It would be insanity to do what the Coalition wants Australia to do – keep coal burning, and slow down the rollout of renewables and other technologies such as EVs, and wait for nuclear, just to keep the mining lobby and other powerful interests onside.
But of course that’s exactly what the Coalition intends to do. It is keenly aware of one important part of the path to net zero: it can be done, and it can be done at low cost, but it’s biggest hurdle is the lack of political will. And the LNP intends to make that hurdle as big as they can.
Labor has, of course, rejected the nuclear push. Jason Clare said the government does not support nuclear power.
“They cost about $400 billion bucks and take years and years to build,” Clare told Nine’s Today Show, which the Coalition might argue didn’t seem to be a problem when it came to nuclear submarines……………………………. https://reneweconomy.com.au/nuclear-coalition-remains-trapped-by-climate-and-technology-denial/
Peter Dutton ramps up nuclear power push and claims Labor down ‘renewable rabbit hole’
Opposition leader to tell Institute of Public Affairs that domestic reactors are natural next step from Aukus pact
Daniel Hurst, 8 July 23
The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, has ramped up calls for nuclear power in Australia, casting the move as a way to avoid dependence on wind and solar technology from China and a natural next step from the Aukus pact.
Dutton will make the comments on Friday at an event organised by the Institute of Public Affairs, a Liberal-aligned thinktank that has publicly opposed curbs on coal-fired power and has lobbied against the net zero by 2050 policy.
He will use the speech in Sydney to call for a debate about removing the legislative ban on nuclear power in Australia, a step that was not taken during the nine years of Coalition government, in which he was a senior member.
Dutton’s pitch comes just days before the Liberal National party in Queensland holds its state conference, where delegates are expected to propose several pro-nuclear resolutions.
He is likely to find a receptive audience for the message at the IPA, given that the thinktank’s executive director, Scott Hargreaves, has publicly called for the scrapping of all subsidies for renewable energy and also urged political leaders to “hit the pause button on our headlong rush towards reliance on greater renewable energy”.
In the speech, Dutton will argue that most of the leading solar panel manufacturers and wind turbine companies are based in China………………………
By contrast, Dutton will say that Australia could source Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) or Micro Modular Reactors (MMRs) from the US, UK, France “and other trusted partners”.
Dutton will point to the bipartisan commitment to building nuclear-powered submarines in Australia under the Aukus deal.
“The submarines are essentially floating SMRs,” he will say.
The sheer amount of money being invested in research and development in the next generation nuclear-powered submarines will surely see military advancements complement the development of civil nuclear power industries around the world.”………………………………..
A report by the Australian Conservation Foundation in October said the next generation of nuclear reactors being advocated by the Coalition would raise electricity prices, slow the uptake of renewables and introduce new risks from nuclear waste.
Last year Bowen ruled out consideration of nuclear power because he said “it is by far the most expensive form of energy”.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has also mocked the push, saying that after “22 failed plans” the Coalition now wants “to go towards nuclear energy”. He has said in question time that Liberals must nominate “where the plants are going to be”.
But the idea appears popular within parts of the Coalition’s base. Three pro-nuclear resolutions are set to be debated at the Queensland LNP conference this weekend, including one urging a Dutton-led government to provide “baseload energy, such as nuclear as an adjunct to coal”.
Another proposed resolution wants the next LNP state government to “review the education curriculum to ensure that energy supply, including nuclear energy, and impacts of renewable energy are taught factually https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jul/07/peter-dutton-ramps-up-nuclear-power-push-and-claims-labor-down-renewable-rabbit-hole
Vice Admiral Jonathon Mead to be Director-General of New Australian Submarine Agency.
New Australian Submarine Agency to manage nuclear subs, by Brian Hartigan 2 July 23
The Australian Submarine Agency (ASA) – which will be responsible and accountable for the management and oversight of the nuclear-powered submarine program – has been officially established.
Vice Admiral Jonathan Mead is the new agency’s inaugural Director-General.
Minister for Defence Richard Marles said that as chief of the Nuclear-Powered Submarine Taskforce, Vice Admiral Mead demonstrated his leadership and judgement in supporting the establishment of the pathway to acquire this critical capability through the AUKUS partnership.
“This is a significant day, marking our next step towards the acquisition of conventionally-armed, nuclear-powered submarines, which is the single biggest investment in our defence capability in our history,” Mr Marles said……………………..
ASA currently has more than 350 staff from the Australian Defence Force and Australian Public Service, including many who have transitioned from the Nuclear-Powered Submarine Taskforce and others who have joined recently.
It is expected to almost double to more than 680 staff over the next year, drawing on a diverse skillset required to deliver this significant endeavour.
ASA will be headquartered in Canberra, with personnel located across the country and overseas, in the United States and United Kingdom, working with communities, unions, industry and governments to deliver the nuclear-powered submarine program.
ASA is a statutory agency within the Defence portfolio and will report to the Minister for Defence………………………. https://www.contactairlandandsea.com/2023/07/02/new-australian-submarine-agency-to-manage-nuclear-subs/
Former Labor cabinet minister condemns $368b AUKUS deal
By Mibenge Nsenduluka June 23 2023 https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8245773/former-labor-cabinet-minister-condemns-368b-aukus-deal/
Midnight Oil frontman and former Labor cabinet minister Peter Garrett has again condemned Australia’s security deal with the United States and United Kingdom, calling the $368 billion agreement costly and risky.
Mr Garrett said the decision to purchase a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines was a huge gamble and should not be allowed to proceed, while speaking at a public forum in Melbourne.
“It’s the biggest, it’s the most costly and it’s the riskiest decision ever taken by any Australian government short of governments committing us to war and should not be allowed,” he said on Friday.
He applauded recent backlash from some Labor party members and unions, saying a slew of academic and foreign policy experts also backed the push against AUKUS.
“So we are not alone, a basic and a major objection to AUKUS lies in the aspects of the arrangement which see us reversing our foreign policy and defence posture that’s been generally in place since World War II,” Mr Garrett said.
“We’re going from a focus of direct defence as it is currently constituted to a concentration on forward defence.”
Mr Garrett in March said AUKUS would produce increasing volumes of high-level radioactive waste that would be stored for “tens of thousands of years” in the Australian environment.
It follows stinging remarks by former Labor prime minister Paul Keating earlier this year.
Mr Keating said the new security deal was the worst international decision since conscription during WWI.
Under the deal, which is part of the AUKUS security arrangement, Australia will command a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines within the next three decades.
A number of Labor branches have been agitating for the government to dump its support for nuclear-powered submarines and AUKUS.
But Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said his government remains committed.
“The view of my government is very, very clear and is unwavering in its support for AUKUS, in its support for issues about our national security and about our interests in the defence of this nation,” he told reporters on Thursday.
The Labor Party Victorian state conference and AUKUS
By Greg Bailey, Jun 21, 2023, https://johnmenadue.com/the-alp-victorian-state-conference-and-aukus/
An attempt by certain Labor affiliated left-wing unions to put a motion critical of AUKUS at the recent ALP Victorian State Conference was deferred by factional bosses even before it was put. That it was deferred tells us as much about the hierarchy ignoring the rank and file of the party as it does about the massive folly that is AUKUS.
On the weekend of 17-18 of June the Victorian branch of the ALP held its state conference attended by over six hundred delegates, the first one since 2019. Previous conferences had been postponed because of COVID, but also because of federal intervention as a response to branch stacking. Tension had already been built up because some left-wing unions had announced they would ask for a vote against AUKUS, being just the latest of other prominent ALP members and past ministers who have come out strongly against it.
The Age, the AFR and the Guardian began reporting on this four days before the conference began, speculating on who would control the factions and what would happen to the AUKUS motion which had the potential to embarrass the Prime Minister. Even before the conference began Mr Albanese had declared that AUKUS would go ahead, rendering any debate pointless given that there is much support for AUKUS in the federal parliamentary ALP. And rank and file members can be ignored–at least in the short term.
Phillip Coorey had already reported on June 14 that two weeks earlier the Queensland branch of the ALP, at its state conference, had “refused to support a motion congratulating the Albanese government “for investing in the AUKUS agreement”.”
Given that there has been considerable disquiet expressed about the AUKUS decision as a threat to Australian sovereignty and a departure from traditional Labor policy to seek rapprochement as opposed to aggression, it is hardly surprising that some elements of the rank and file expressed their anger about the decision to go with AUKUS. And this especially when it had been essentially imposed upon the party from above, and when prominent former ALP luminaries led by Paul Keating and Bob Carr had decisively spoken out against it.
As Phillip Coorey wrote in the AFR on 18/6, “The motion expressed disappointment with, or criticised, all aspects of the AUKUS deal between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, including its quick embrace by Labor in opposition when Scott Morrison announced it. The motion demanded “federal Labor caucus to be more politically diverse and avoid being swept along by the interests and priorities of America’s corporate, political, and military elites”.
Indeed, as Royce Millar and Broede Carmody reported in the Age three days (15/6) before the conference, “AMWU Victorian secretary Tony Mavromatis said he expected his motion would win strong support from the conference floor.” “We will push ahead with our motion, no matter who is at the conference, including prime ministers,” he said. “The AUKUS deal is a terrible arrangement for Australia. It lets down Australian workers, apprentices and trainees and Australian manufacturing. We should not be getting into nuclear.”
In other words, he was expressing the criticisms that have already been made in so many other forums, yet only mutely in most of the main stream media.
Yet in Melbourne the factional leaders got together and voted to defer this motion until the forthcoming Labor National Conference in Brisbane. No doubt there will be sufficient support for the Prime Minister to defeat any such motion going forth, and even if it did go forth would this be enough for the government to withdraw from AUKUS?
If the internal pressure continues building against what is such an obvious foreign affairs folly, one which has so much negative impact on internal spending by the government on social housing, climate change mitigation, education and so forth, will the decision to go with it be reversed? I fear this is unlikely as Mr. Albanese seems to be adopting the practice of his LNP predecessors, never to back down because it will make him look weak in the eyes of the public. Implicitly, this will also be justified by the party hierarchy’s belief that this is what the Australian population wants, irrespective of how little the opposite arguments have been advanced to them.
Member of Parliament Ted O’Brien gets it so wrong about nuclear power.
Nuclear not an option, Llew. 19/06/2023, Chris B, https://gympietoday.com.au/opinion/2023/06/19/nuclear-not-an-option-llew/
On the 29th of May 2023, our local member demonstrated yet again that he fails to understand the importance and the reasoning behind the Borumba pumped hydro scheme.
Mr O’Brien noted his opposition to the project based on the impact of transmission lines on the environment and members of the local community.
Failing to understand environmental impacts, Mr O’Brien utilised his platform to recommend nuclear power instead!
On cost alone, nuclear power represents over five times the lifetime costs of pumped hydro and solar, as costed by the CSIRO in 2022.
Not to mention the exorbitant costs associated with nuclear waste handling, decommissioning the sites, or that nuclear plants are required to shut down for maintenance periodically.
He also failed to mention that transmission lines would still need to be established at the new site of the reactors.
His increasingly unconstructive and arrogant behaviour during the renewable energy transition boils down to a bad case of ‘not in my backyard’ and political grandstanding.
Mr O’Brien stands yet again in the way of progress for our nation, future jobs and skills for the people of Wide Bay.
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
21 April Webinar: No Nuclear Weapons in Australia
Start: 2026-04-21 18:00:00 UTC Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney (GMT+10:00)
End: 2026-04-21 19:30:00 UTC Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney (GMT+10:00)
Event Type: Virtual
A virtual link will be communicated before the event.
Host Contact Info: australia@icanw.org
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
Antinuclear 