They still don’t know how to clean up Rum Jungle’s uranium wastes
A RUM MATTER, Brisbane Times, Damien Murphy and Aaron Cook June 1, 2011 Still glowing in the dark after all these years, the Rum Jungle uranium mine, 100 kilometres south of Darwin, needs another $7 million report to find out how to clean it up 40 years after it closed. The Greens’ Scott Ludlam told the Senate the money would be spent over four years just to determine how to deal with the defunct uranium mine’s toxic legacy. “The government can’t tell us yet what the final cost will be. The multi-million-dollar, publicly funded assessment is just the beginning.
Forty years after this mine closed, it continues to be an environmental graveyard for the Northern Territory. How many decades and how many millions of dollars will it take to clean up Ranger mine, or Olympic Dam?” The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trailer finds its way out
The enormity of Olympic Dam’s planned nuclear waste mountain, and its cost
“………Mineweb has been detailing the enormity of this project of transforming a large underground mine into a massive open cut – particularly with there being a sterile cover of between 300-400 metres. However, the price for the development has escalated in the past eight years from original projections of about US$S3 billion, in itself a daunting figure for many mining companies….It has been long known that removal of the overburden and rock will create “mountains” in a landscape that is virtually a pancake. Now, Gottliebsen said the rock storage facility covers 6,720 hectares and eventually will be 150 metres high. “By 2050, when the mine has not even completed half its life, the pit will be 4.1 kilometres long, 3.5 km wide and 1 km deep,” …”. Mineweb, 18 May 11
John Howard and John White’s plan for Australia to import nuclear waste
Australian Strategic Partnership With The US | Independent Australia, 19 April 11,”.…….Howard and his chief nuclear adviser at the time, Dr. John White, were ready to come to the USA’s rescue back in 2006. Both were involved in the developmentof the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, especially White who developed the Business Plan for GNEP.Julie Macken’s articles in the Australian Financial Review detailed the plan: Nuclear waste, including plutonium from the weapons industry would be transported to Darwin by submarine. From there, it would be transferred to Serco Asia Pacific’s Great Southern Railway and transported by train to a supposedly geologically secure destination. Maralinga or Savoury Basin was the bet. Continue reading
Plan for Australia as international radioactive waste dump
The head of the World Nuclear Association, John Ritch, is one of the many foreign corporate voices calling for Australia to accept the world’s nuclear
garbage.
Foreign nuclear waste, by Dr Jim Green, 19 April 11, Federal resources minister Martin Ferguson says that high-level nuclear waste from other countries will not be dumped at the proposed Muckaty site in the Territory Continue reading
Malaysian call for Australia to take back radioactive thorium wastes
Protesters said the plant would produce high amounts of the radioactive waste thorium that will endanger them and future generations…….”Malaysia should not be the dumping ground for radioactive waste. We reject the waste and we want Australia to take back
MALAYSIA Radiation Fears Fuel Protest, IPS ipsnews.net, By Baradan Kuppusamy KUANTAN, Apr 18, 2011 (IPS) – Fears of radioactive poisoning have fuelled a protest against an Australian mining company building the world’s largest rare earth processing plant outside China. The protest is directed at Lynas Corp., which will ship rare earth ore from its mine in Port Weld, Western Australia, for processing in the plant in Gebeng outside this city, a fishing port some 250 kilometres north of capital Kuala Lumpur. Continue reading
Northern Territory Government and protestors united against Federal nuke waste dump Bill
the Bill showed no respect for NT legislation designed to ban nuclear waste dumps in the Territory…..”The Muckaty site didn’t even make the short-list when environmental and scientific criteria were used to inform a preliminary site assessment study in the 1990s, now they want to build a dump there.”
Protesters ramp up campaign against nuke dump | News | NT News | Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia, 24 Feb 2011, TERRITORY anti-nuclear waste dump protesters have started a small but concerted campaign against new legislation expected to be presented to the Federal Senate next week.The House of Representatives passed the Bill on Tuesday with Muckaty Station about 120km north of Tennant Creek the site most likely to be used for the dump. Continue reading
Australian government rush to legalise nuclear dump on Aboriginal land
He accused the government of attempting to ram legislation through parliament before traditional owners, who are opposed to the dump at Muckaty, launch legal action in the federal court on Friday.
Nuclear dump report a whitewash – Bandt Herald Sun: AAP * February 21, 2011 AUSTRALIA’S first radioactive waste dump has been subject to less oversight than would be deemed appropriate for construction of a car park, parliament has been told. Continue reading
Federal Country Liberal MP stands up for Northern Territory against nuclear waste dump
“The whole point is that I represent the Territory in Canberra, not Canberra in the Territory.”..…….The NT Environment Centre yesterday said the new law would undermine the Territory environment and the democratic rights of Territorians.
Griggs fights nuclear dump, NT News, NIGEL ADLAM | February 22nd, 2011 A TERRITORY federal MP is to vote against forcing the NT to house a nuclear waste dump. Member for Solomon Natasha Griggs has said she will vote against a nuclear waste dump in the Northern Territory Continue reading
What’s wrong with Australian government’s plan for Muckaty nuclear waste dump?
PROPOSED RADIOACTIVE WASTE DUMP AT MUCKATY, NT, by Jim Green, Feb 2011, “…..The Labor Government plans to establish a national radioactive waste dump at Muckaty, 120 kms north of Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory. There are many concerns with the proposal, including:
* The opposition of many Traditional Owners to the proposal, and the unwillingness of the Government to listen to their concerns and to include them in decision-making processes.
* Draconian legislation which overrides Aboriginal heritage and environmental protection laws and overrides all state/territory laws.
* The failure of the Government to establish the need for a national repository.
* The failure of the Government to carry out a site-selection process based on scientific and environmental criteria.
* Multiple breaches of binding ALP platform policy commitments….
DUMPING ON DEMOCRACY – THE NATIONAL RADIOACTIVE WASTE MANAGEMENT BILL,
The Government plans to ignore and override legislation passed in the NT Parliament which seeks to ban the imposition of nuclear dumps – the Northern Territory Nuclear Waste Transport, Storage and Disposal (Prohibition) Act 2004. The NT Government remains steadfastly opposed to the dump plan…..The Bill also provides wide-ranging powers to override Commonwealth legislation.
PROPOSED RADIOACTIVE WASTE DUMP AT MUCKATY, NT by Jim Green, February 2011, “……….Federal Resources Minister Martin Ferguson is driving the plan for a radioactive waste dump at Muckaty. The legislation he has put forward – the National Radioactive Waste Management Bill – is heavy-handed and undemocratic. Continue reading
Australian govt sneaks in controversial radioactive waste report right on Christmas time
The laws would allow a site to be established anywhere in Australia rather than just the Northern Territory, overriding state and territory laws…the report was tabled while parliament was not sitting and just three days before Christmas…..
Greens cynical about radioactive report, Sydney Morning Herald, Andrea Hayward, December 22, 2010 – Conservationists and the Australian Greens are cynical about the timing of a report giving the thumbs up for draft laws to establish a radioactive waste dump. Continue reading
Scotland’s plans on exporting nuclear wastes
The countries were to take back the waste generated but some are not geared up to do so…….. BBC News – Plans published on returning foreign nuclear waste
Australia’s Martin Ferguson – no concern for nuclear radioactive waste impact
The Olympic Dam expansion Environmental Impact Statement estimates 68 million tonnes of tailings waste from production of 19,000 tonnes of uranium.
The [proposed for Australia 50 nuclear] reactors would directly produce 75,000 tonnes of high level nuclear waste and 750,000 cubic metres of low level and intermediate level waste.
There’s No Nuclear Power Without Waste, newmatilda.com,By Jim Green and Natalie Wasley, 3 Dec 10, As Martin Ferguson backs reopening the debate on nuclear power in the ALP, Natalie Wasley and Jim Green look at how resources minister deals with the radioactive waste we’ve already got. Continue reading
John Durie of THE AUSTRALIAN recommends nuclear waste storage industry for South Australia
South Australia’s Rann could do everyone a favour by realising the best way to maximise growth in the state is to look at some sort of environmentally friendly nuclear waste storage in the state. – John Durie writes in THE AUSTRALIAN 5 Nov
“This could be a new industry for the country, and as much as the environmental benefits of nuclear power are questionable, it is another source of power which should go into the mix.
It just so happens BHP is sitting on tonnes of uranium, and it just so happens its boss Marius Kloppers is a big advocate of a carbon tax to get Australia on to the greenhouse combat zone efficiently.
Next stop is to start pushing for nuclear power in Australia, powered by the Big Australian, which it seems has got too big to buy anything of any size offshore…..”
Western Sydney suburb firmly resisting radioactive waste dumping
Uranium dump plan in doubt at Kemps Creek, Penrith Star, BY GEMMA SEYMOUR20 Oct, 2010 A RESOUNDING message is being sent to the state government: we’ve had our fill of the state’s rubbish. There has been opposition from both sides of politics to a plan to truck 5000 tonnes of toxic soil from a Hunters Hill site that used to process uranium ore to a landfill site in Kemps Creek, Continue reading
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