Nuclear missile submarines in the Indo-Pacific
Increasing Indo-Pacific nuclear boats and the impact on strategic stability Defence Connect, Stephen Kuper, 5 June 20, As the Indo-Pacific continues to evolve economically and strategically, one of the traditional measures of great power status – nuclear attack and missile submarines – will become more prominent. For ASPI academic Stephan Fruehling, this will have a dramatic impact on the strategic stability and calculus Australia depends upon.
Much like the submarine competition between the US and Soviet Union, this new arms race is resulting in fleets of hunter-killers and strategic missile submarines stalking the depths, however the US and China are far from the only emerging and established Indo-Pacific nations seeking to leverage the power of nuclear submarines.
The growing proliferation of advanced nuclear weapons systems, including the relatively crude, yet still capable submarine launch ballistic missiles recently tested by North Korea, and the increasingly capable nuclear-powered submarine fleets introduced by China and Russia, South Korea has moved to address a tactical and strategic shortfall: a lack of nuclear-powered submarines.
While seemingly a shock move, the South Korean strategic policy institute, the Korea Defense Network (KDN), commissioned a research review into the feasibility of developing an indigenous nuclear-powered attack submarine.
It is reported that the results suggested that South Korea consider building a nuclear-powered attack submarine modelled after the French 5,300-tonne Barracuda Class submarine, the design model for Australia’s own fleet of $50 billion Attack Class submarines.
India also fields a growing array of domestic and foreign nuclear submarine designs in both the attack and ballistic missile variants providing an already tense regional balance of power with yet another platform to complicate the tactical and strategic decision making processes for many nations, including Australia……..
For Australia, this raises the question, can the nation depend on the nuclear umbrella provided by the US or, for that matter, the UK at a stretch? If not, what is the solution for Australia? ……..https://www.defenceconnect.com.au/maritime-antisub/6227-increasing-indo-pacific-nuclear-boats-and-the-impact-on-strategic-stability
COVID-19: US Military Pursues War Games Amid Contagion. Australia involved
The U.S. Army is also pursuing a 6,000-person war game in Poland, June 5-19, with a Polish airborne operation and a U.S.-Polish division-size river crossing.
If these weren’t too many military operations during an epidemic in which personnel on 40 U.S. Navy ships have come down with the hyper-contagious virus and during which military personnel and their families have been told not to travel, plans are also underway for a U.S. Army division-sized exercise in the Indo-Pacific region in less than a year. Known as Defender 2021, the U.S. Army has requested $364 million to conduct the war exercises throughout Asian and Pacific countries.
The pivot to the Pacific, begun under the Obama administration, and maintained by the Trump administration, is reflected in a U.S. National Defense Strategy (NDS) that sees the world as “a great power competition rather than counterterrorism and has formulated its strategy to confront China as a long-term, strategic competitor.”
Earlier in May, the U.S. Navy sent at least seven submarines, including all four Guam-based attack submarines, several Hawaii-based ships and the San Diego-based USS Alexandria to the western Pacific in what the Pacific Fleet Submarine Force announced as simultaneous “contingency response operations” for all of its forward-deployed subs. This was all in support of the Pentagon’s “free and open Indo-Pacific ” policy — aimed at countering China’s expansionism in the South China Sea — and as a show of force to counter ideas that the capabilities of U.S. Navy forces have been reduced by Covid-19…….
In May, 2020, the Australian government announced that a delayed six-month rotation of 2,500 U.S. Marines to a military base in Australia’s northern city of Darwin will go ahead based on strict adherence to Covid-19 measures including a 14-day quarantine. The Marines had been scheduled to arrive in April but their arrival was postponed in March because of the pandemic.
The remote Northern Territory, which had recorded just 30 Covid-19 cases, closed its borders to international and interstate visitors in March, and any arrivals must now undergo mandatory quarantine for 14 days. U.S. Marine deployments to Australia began in 2012 with 250 personnel and have grown to 2,500. The Joint U.S. Defense facility Pine Gap— the U.S. Department of Defense, Five Eyes and CIA surveillance facility that pinpoints airstrikes around the world and targets nuclear weapons, among other military and intelligence tasks — was also adapting its policy and procedures to comply with Australian government COVID restrictions.
As the U.S. military expands its presence in Asia and the Pacific, one place it will NOT be returning to is Wuhan, China. In October 2019, the Pentagon sent 17 teams with more than 280 athletes and other staff members to the Military World Games in Wuhan. Over 100 nations sent a total of 10,000 military personnel to the games in Wuhan last October.
The presence of a large U.S. military contingent in Wuhan just months before the outbreak of the Covid-19 in Wuhan in December 2019, fueled a theory by some Chinese officials that the U.S. military was somehow involved in the outbreak, which now has been used by the Trump administration and its allies in Congress and the media that the Chinese deliberately used the virus to infect the world and adding justification for the U.S. military build-up in the Pacific region.
Ann Wright served 29 years in the U.S. Army/Army Reserves and retired as a colonel. She was a U.S. diplomat for 16 years and served in U.S. Embassies in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Micronesia, Afghanistan and Mongolia. She resigned from the U.S. government in March 2003 in opposition to President George W. Bush’s war on Iraq. She is co-author of “Dissent: Voices of Conscience.” https://consortiumnews.com/2020/05/26/covid-19-military-pursues-war-exercises-amid-contagion/
Australia could address another global threat by supporting the UN the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
|
As we wait for a vaccine, there is another global threat we could address today, https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6767846/as-we-wait-for-a-vaccine-there-is-another-global-threat-we-could-address-today/?cs=14246 Sue Wareham, 25 May 20
Calls by scientists and others have been made for climate action to play a key role in the post-COVID-lockdown world that is slowly coming into view. These calls are critically important; no responsible government can ignore them. After warnings in recent years about the risk of a global pandemic, we should have learnt that risks don’t go away simply by being ignored. However, there is another call to action on a profound risk to humanity that has received less attention – the need to get rid of the 14,000 nuclear weapons in existence. This risk has been highlighted again this month by President Trump’s discussions with senior officials of a possible resumption of US nuclear testing, a dangerous move that would break a nuclear test moratorium which has been honoured for over two decades by all nations except North Korea. In addition, an important high-level meeting, the five-yearly Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which was scheduled to take place at the UN in New York from April 27 to May 22, has been postponed for the obvious reason until early 2021.
The NPT entered into force exactly half a century ago, in 1970, and has played a very significant role in preventing the rapid spread of nuclear weapons; currently there are just nine nuclear-armed states. At the quarter-century mark, in 1995, it was extended indefinitely, with member states reaffirming their commitment to the complete elimination of nuclear weapons, a goal that is central to the treaty and yet remains unfulfilled. That failure lies at the heart of growing tensions, between the countries with the weapons and those without, that have marked the five-yearly NPT Review Conferences since 1995. Far from disarming, the nuclear-armed states are updating their arsenals.
The US, followed by Russia, abandoned the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in February last year, with mutual accusations of violations. In 2018 Trump pulled out of the nuclear accord with Iran. The New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty), the last remaining treaty limiting the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals (the US and Russia), is due to expire next February, with no renewal in sight.
The same rules apply to all nations, and the rule is zero tolerance of the world’s worst weapons. Australia boycotted the whole process, arguing that the security needs of the nuclear-armed states need special consideration – a bit like special pleading for those planning genocide. Entry into force of the TPNW was expected this year but, like everything else, is now delayed.
The driver for negotiating the TPNW was the overwhelming scientific evidence of the catastrophic harm that humanity would face with any use of nuclear weapons, and the knowledge that the risk is increasing. In January this year, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists advanced the hands of its Doomsday Clock to 100 seconds to midnight, closer to global catastrophe than at any other time, including during the Cold War.
|
|
A tribute to the Maralinga traditional owners
This is a critical and never-ending land management responsibility which the Maralinga people, who suffered the environmental and health effects of the nuclear tests, have shouldered on behalf of the Australian community.
He was able to relate to Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people, cabinet ministers and homeless people alike. He treated everyone with candour and respect.
By word and deed he refused to accept that Aboriginal people were inferior
Why Archie Barton and the Maralinga traditional owners are the unsung heroes of the British nuclear test program in Australia https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-25/andrew-collett-on-archie-barton-unsung-heroes-of-maralinga-tests/12272284 By Andrew Collett
Politicians, bureaucrats, scientists and advisers come and go. The traditional owners must plug on with the management and rehabilitation of their land — on behalf of us all.
Andrew Collett is an Adelaide barrister and one of the lawyers who has represented the Maralinga traditional owners since 1984. Find out more about the story of the people of Oak Valley and Yalata in a new ABC TV documentary, Maralinga Tjarutja, available to stream now on iview.
The traditional owners of the 100,000 square kilometre Maralinga Lands didn’t only shoulder the harsh legacy of the British nuclear testing while it was happening in the 1950s and 60s.
To this day, they are managing the still contaminated test sites in far-west South Australia on behalf of Australia and Britain.
For this they receive little recognition and inadequate financial assistance — despite having established extremely constructive and enduring relationships with Australian scientists and government representatives.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that the following article contains names and images of people who have died.
The Maralinga people were kept away from their lands and from any knowledge about what happened in the nuclear tests from 1955 until they obtained land rights and finally returned to their lands in 1985 — an isolation of 30 years, or well over a generation in Aboriginal terms.
For that 30 years the Maralinga people were kept at the Lutheran Mission at Yalata, away from their traditional lands, isolated from their Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara communities over 400 kilometres to the north and from much of their vibrant Western Desert tradition and ceremony.
They fell prey to social and cultural isolation and deteriorating health outcomes.
When they returned to their traditional lands in 1985, having been granted land rights to all their lands apart from the test sites, a royal commission was sitting in London examining what had happened during the Maralinga nuclear tests and why.
A constructive partnership with governmen Continue reading
Another revolving door- Air Chief Marshal (ret’d) Mark Binskin AC straight into BAE warships maker
Air Chief Marshal (ret’d) Mark Binskin AC
MILITARY INDUSTRY REVOLVING DOOR. Michael West Media
In June 2018, Mark Binskin was Chief of the Defence Force when BAE Systems Australia was awarded the $35 billion Future Frigate contract, the largest surface warship program in Australia’s history. The following month Binskin retired. He has since been appointed in a non-executive director role with BAE Systems. The contract for the $1.2 billion upgrade of the Jindalee Operational Radar Network was also awarded to BAE in the final months of Binskin’s tenure…… https://www.michaelwest.com.au/air-chief-marshal-mark-binskin-ac-retd/
Australia’s political revolving door between military industry and government – Reynolds and Reith
Senator the Hon Linda Reynolds CSC
MILITARY INDUSTRY REVOLVING DOOR, MichaelWest.com 15 Apr 20
The “spruiker-in-chief” of defence industry has been involved with promoting military industry interests since the late 1980s when she co-founded the WA Defence Industry Council. Reynolds combined a career in the army reserves with political staffing roles for the Liberals, and a stint with industry giant Raytheon, before becoming a senator for WA in 2014. From 2 March 2019, she served as Minister for Defence Industry before being promoted to Defence Minister on 29 May 2019…….. https://www.michaelwest.com.au/linda-reynolds/
The Hon Peter Reith AM
MILITARY INDUSTRY REVOLVING DOOR
Former Howard government defence minister Peter Reith created a storm of protest when he quit politics and started work within a day or two for Tenix Defence (now BAE Systems Australia) as a consultant on government relations. Tenix Defence was Australia’s largest military industry corporation and a significant contractor to the department over which Reith had just had oversight. ……..more https://www.michaelwest.com.au/peter-reith/ …… https://www.michaelwest.com.au/linda-reynolds/
The lingering horror of the nuclear bomb tests at Maralinga
 The lesser known history of the Maralinga nuclear tests — and what it’s like to stand at ground zero https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-24/maralinga-nuclear-tests-ground-zero-lesser-known-history/11882608, ABC Radio National By Mike Ladd for The History Listen I thought I knew all the details about Maralinga, and the nuclear bomb tests that took place there six decades ago.But when I set out to visit ground zero, I realised there were parts of this Cold War history I didn’t know — like Project Sunshine, which involved exhuming the bodies of babies.
Maralinga is 54 kilometres north-west of Ooldea, in South Australia’s remote Great Victoria Desert. Between 1956 and 1963 the British detonated seven atomic bombs at the site; one was twice the size of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. There were also the so-called “minor trials” where officials deliberately set fire to or blew up plutonium with TNT — just to see what would happen. One location called “Kuli” is still off-limits today, because it’s been impossible to clean up. I went out to the old bomb sites with a group of Maralinga Tjarutja people, who refer to the land around ground zero as “Mamu Pulka”, Pitjantjatjara for “Big Evil”. “My dad passed away with leukaemia. We don’t know if it was from here, but a lot of the time he worked around here,” says Jeremy Lebois, chairperson of the Maralinga Tjarutja council. Thirty per cent of the British and Australian servicemen exposed to the blasts also died of cancer — though the McClelland royal commission of 1984 was unable to conclude that each case was specifically caused by the tests. It’s not until you stand at ground zero that you fully realise the hideous power of these bombs. Even after more than 60 years, the vegetation is cleared in a perfect circle with a one kilometre radius. “The ground underneath is still sterile, so when the plants get down a certain distance, they die,” explains Robin Matthews, who guided me around the site. The steel and concrete towers used to explode the bombs were instantly vaporised. The red desert sand was melted into green glass that still litters the site. Years ago it would have been dangerous to visit the area, but now the radiation is only three times normal — no more than what you get flying in a plane. The Line of FireAustralia was not the first choice for the British, but they were knocked back by both the US and Canada. Robert Menzies, Australia’s prime minister at the time, said yes to the tests without even taking the decision to cabinet first. David Lowe, chair of contemporary history at Deakin University, thinks Australia was hoping to become a nuclear power itself by sharing British technology, or at least to station British nuclear weapons on Australian soil. “In that period many leaders in the Western world genuinely thought there was a real risk of a third world war, which would be nuclear,” he says. The bombs were tested on the Montebello Islands, at Emu Field and at Maralinga. At Woomera in the South Australian desert, they tested the missiles that could carry them. The Blue Streak rocket was developed and test-fired right across the middle of Australia, from Woomera all the way to the Indian Ocean, just south of Broome. This is known as “The Line of Fire” The Line of Fire from Woomera to Broome is, funnily enough, the same distance from London to Moscow,” Mr Matthews says. Just as the Maralinga Tjarutja people were pushed off their land for the bomb tests, the Yulparitja people were removed from their country in the landing zone south of Broome. Not all the Blue Streak rockets reached the sea. Some crashed into the West Australian desert. The McClelland royal commission showed that the British were cavalier about the weather conditions during the bomb tests and that fallout was carried much further than the 100-mile radius agreed to, reaching Townsville, Brisbane, Sydney and Adelaide. “The cavalier attitude towards Australia’s Indigenous populations was appalling and you’d have to say to some extent that extended towards both British and Australian service people,” Professor Lowe says. There are also questions over whether people at the test sites were deliberately exposed to radiation. “You can’t help but wonder the extent to which there was a deliberate interest in the medical results of radioactive materials entering the body,” Professor Lowe says. “Some of this stuff is still restricted; you can’t get your hands on all materials concerning the testing and it’s quite likely both [British and Australian] governments will try very hard to ensure that never happens.” Project SunshineWe do know that there was a concerted effort to examine the bones of deceased infants to test for levels of Strontium 90 (Sr-90), an isotope that is one of the by-products of nuclear bombs. These tests were part of Project Sunshine, a series of studies initiated in the US in 1953 by the Atomic Energy Commission. They sought to measure how Sr-90 had dispersed around the world by measuring its concentration in the bones of the dead. Young bones were chosen because they were particularly susceptible to accumulating the Sr-90 isotope. Around 1,500 exhumations took place, in both Britain and Australia — often without the knowledge or permission of the parents of the dead. Again, it was hard to prove conclusively that spikes in the levels of Strontium 90 during the test period caused bone cancers around the world. The Maralinga tests occurred during a period that Professor Lowe describes as “atomic utopian thinking”. “Remember at that time Australians were uncovering pretty significant discoveries of uranium and they hoped that this would unleash a vast new capacity for development through the power of the atom,” he says. Some of the schemes were absurdly optimistic. Project Ploughshare grew out of a US program which proposed using atomic explosions for industrial purposes such as canal-building. In 1969 Australia and the US signed a joint feasibility study to create an instant port at Cape Keraudren in the Kimberley using nuclear explosions. The plan was dropped, but it was for economic not environmental or social reasons. The dream (or was it a nightmare?) of sharing nuclear weapons technology with the British was never realised. All Australia got out of the deal was help building the Lucas Heights reactor. The British did two ineffectual clean-ups of Maralinga in the 1960s. The proper clean-up between 1995 and 2000 cost more than $100 million, of which Australia paid $75 million. It has left an artificial mesa in the desert containing 400,000 cubic metres of plutonium contaminated soil. The Maralinga Tjarutja people received only $13 million in compensation for loss of their land, which was finally returned to them in 1984. As we were leaving the radiation zone, the Maralinga Tjarutja people spotted some kangaroos in the distance. Over the years some of the wildlife has started to return. Mr Lebois takes it as a good sign. “Hopefully, hopefully everything will come back,” he says. |
|
Australian defence officials and politicians, like Christopher Pyne, rotate quickly between government and weapons industry jobs
|
Brothers-in-Arms: the high-rotation revolving door between the Australian government and arms merchants. Michael West Media by Michelle Fahy | Mar 11, 2020 | A disturbing number of Australia’s military personnel, senior defence and intelligence officials and politicians leave their public service jobs and walk through the ‘revolving door’ into roles with weapons-making and security-related corporations. Nowhere is government and industry more fused than in defence. Michelle Fahy reports.
The majority of transitions between politics and the Australian defence sector pass unremarked, with only an occasional high profile name making media headlines. It is a career pathway which has been normalised. This despite the sensitive nature of defence and the astronomical size of the nation’s defence spending. A recent example is the 21 February 2020 appointment to the Thales Australia board of one of the nation’s most senior intelligence chiefs, former ASIO boss Duncan Lewis, which barely rated a mention. Nine newspapers were an exception in noting the appointment, but there were no hard questions asked and no analysis by Nine as to the implications of this swift move into the private sector by such a powerful well-connected person: a move into an industry over which Lewis until recently had had oversight. Upon his appointment to the Thales board, Lewis had only been out of ASIO for five months, having spent five years as its Director-General. ASIO was his final public sector role in a long career that also spanned the military, the departments of the prime minister and cabinet and defence, as well as diplomatic roles. Thales is the world’s 10th largest weapons-making corporation; a French multinational that also encompasses cybersecurity and space projects. It also owns 35 per cent of Naval Group, the lead contractor of the $80 billion Future Submarines project. Thales Australia is a multi-billion-dollar contractor to the Australian government. When respected senior leaders such as Lewis leave public service for the weapons industry, they take with them extensive contacts, deep institutional knowledge, and rare and privileged access to the highest levels of government. Their presence in the private sector serves to affirm and entrench the influence of the weapons industry on government decision-making. The public interest risks becoming conflated with corporate interests. In addition to these issues, the well-trodden path from public service into such industry appointments raises the troubling possibility that some senior decision-makers on defence and national security matters, with an eye on possible future board appointments or consulting roles (whether consciously or not), might favour a certain proposal over another, or become hesitant to make decisions that could displease corporate interests. How would the public they serve ever know?
|
|
Australian govt rejects a report that recommends nuclear submarines
French submarine program ‘dangerously off track’ warns report urging Australia to consider nuclear alternative, ABC News, By defence correspondent Andrew Greene 11 Mar, 20 Australia’s $80 billion Future Submarine Program is “dangerously off track” according to a new report that urges the Government to ditch the controversial project and consider a nuclear option.
Key points:
- The report indicates there are fears the current project is at a high risk of failing
- The Defence Minister denies those fears and maintains the project remains on track
- Under a proposed “Plan B” scenario, the company that designed the Collins class submarines would prepare an updated design
Businessman Gary Johnston, who commissioned and funded the study, fears the current plan to build 12 attack class submarines designed by French company Naval Group is at “high risk” of failing.
His report, prepared by Insight Economics, suggests Australia should instead immediately begin work on a “Plan B” — an evolved version of the current Collins class fleet — before eventually acquiring nuclear-powered boats.
Earlier this year, a report from the auditor-general confirmed the Future Submarine Program was running nine months late and Defence was unable to show whether the $396 million spent so far had been “fully effective”.
“The Government’s own advisory body, including three American admirals, even recommended the Government should consider walking away from the project,” Mr Johnston said.
Under the proposed “Plan B”, Swedish company Saab Kockums, which designed the navy’s Collins class submarines, would be asked to prepare an updated design for the future submarine fleet.
In 2022-23, both Naval Group and Saab will present their competing preliminary design studies for building the first batch of three submarines in Adelaide — based on a fixed price, capability, delivery and local content.
Mr Johnston, along with former naval officers in the Submarines for Australia organisation, argue that over the long term the Government should begin preparing to acquire nuclear submarines……
Government rejects report, issues warning
The Submarines for Australia report will be formally launched by ANU Emeritus Professor Hugh White at the National Press Club today, but it is already drawing fire from the Morrison Government.
“I totally reject the premise that this project is ‘dangerously off track’, as stated in the new Submarines for Australia report”, Defence Minister Linda Reynolds said.
“The delivery of the attack class submarine remains on track, with construction set to commence in 2023.”
Senator Reynolds said the technical feasibility of delivering an evolved Collins class submarine was reviewed in 2013-14, but a review found it would be equivalent to a whole new design, involving similar costs and risks, without a commensurate gain in capability.
“This assessment by Submarines for Australia will only increase cost, delay the delivery, and put at risk our submarine capability.”
The Defence Minister also flatly rejected any suggestion of a nuclear-powered submarine in the future.
“As has been the policy of successive Australian Governments, a nuclear-powered submarine is not being considered as an option for the attack class submarine,” Senator Reynolds said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-11/australia-urged-to-embrace-nuclear-submarines/12043444
Legislation banning nuclear power in Australia should be retained
| Jim Green, Online Opinion, 27 Feb 2020, https://onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=20758&page=0
Nuclear power in Australia is prohibited under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act 1999. A review of the EPBC Act is underway and there is a strong push from the nuclear industry to remove the bans. However, federal and state laws banning nuclear power have served Australia well and should be retained.
There are many other examples of shocking nuclear costs and cost overruns, including: * The cost of the two reactors under construction in the US state of Georgia has doubled and now stands at A$20.4‒22.6 billion per reactor. * The cost of the only reactor under construction in France has nearly quadrupled and now stands at A$20.0 billion. It is 10 years behind schedule. * The cost of the only reactor under construction in Finland has nearly quadrupled and now stands at A$17.7 billion. It is 10 years behind schedule. * The cost of the four reactors under construction in the United Arab Emirates has increased from A$7.5 billion per reactor to A$10‒12 billion per reactor. * In the UK, the estimated cost of the only two reactors under construction is A$25.9 billion per reactor. A decade ago, the estimated cost was almost seven times lower. The UK National Audit Office estimates that taxpayer subsidies for the project will amount to A$58 billion, despite earlier government promises that no taxpayer subsidies would be made available. Nuclear power has clearly priced itself out of the market and will certainly decline over the coming decades. Indeed the nuclear industry is in crisis ‒ as industry insiders and lobbyists freely acknowledge. Westinghouse ‒ the most experienced reactor builder in the world ‒ filed for bankruptcy in 2017 as a result of catastrophic cost overruns on reactor projects. A growing number of countries are phasing out nuclear power, including Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Belgium, Taiwan and South Korea. Rising power bills: Laws banning nuclear power should be retained because nuclear power could not possibly pass any reasonable economic test. Nuclear power clearly fails the two economic tests set by Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Firstly, nuclear power could not possibly be introduced or maintained without huge taxpayer subsidies. Secondly, nuclear power would undoubtedly result in higher electricity prices.
Former US Vice President Al Gore summarised the proliferation problem: “For eight years in Too slow: Expanding nuclear power is impractical as a short-term response to climate change. An analysis by Australian economist Prof. John Quiggin concludes that it would be “virtually impossible” to get a nuclear power reactor operating in Australia before 2040. More time would elapse before nuclear power has generated as much as energy as was expended in the construction of the reactor: a University of Sydney report concluded that the energy payback time for nuclear reactors is 6.5‒7 years. Taking into account planning and approvals, construction, and the energy payback time, it would be a quarter of a century or more before nuclear power could even begin to reduce greenhouse emissions in Australia (and then only assuming that nuclear power displaced fossil fuels).
Water consumption of different energy sources (litres / kWh): * Nuclear 2.5 * Coal 1.9 * Combined Cycle Gas 0.95 * Solar PV 0.11 * Wind 0.004 Climate change and nuclear hazards: Nuclear power plants are vulnerable to threats which are being exacerbated by climate change. These include dwindling and warming water sources, sea-level rise, storm damage, drought, and jelly-fish swarms. Nuclear engineer David Lochbaum states. “I’ve heard many nuclear proponents say that nuclear power is part of the solution to global warming. It needs to be reversed: You need to solve global warming for nuclear plants to survive.”
By contrast, the REN21 Renewables 2015: Global Status Report states that renewable energy systems “have unique qualities that make them suitable both for reinforcing the resilience of the wider energy infrastructure and for ensuring the provision of energy services under changing climatic conditions.”
To give one example (among many), the National Radioactive Waste Management Act dispossesses and disempowers Traditional Owners in many respects: the nomination of a site for a radioactive waste dump is valid even if Aboriginal owners were not consulted and did not give consent; the Act has sections which nullify State or Territory laws that protect archaeological or heritage values, including those which relate to Indigenous traditions; the Act curtails the application of Commonwealth laws including the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984 and the Native Title Act 1993 in the important site-selection stage; and the Native Title Act 1993 is expressly overridden in relation to land acquisition for a radioactive waste dump. No social license: Laws banning nuclear power should be retained because there is no social license to introduce nuclear power to Australia. Opinion polls find that Australians are overwhelmingly opposed to a nuclear power reactor being built in their local vicinity (10‒28% support, 55‒73% opposition); and opinion polls find that support for renewable energy sources far exceeds support for nuclear power (for example a 2015 IPSOS poll found 72‒87% support for solar and wind power but just 26% support for nuclear power). As the Clean Energy Council noted in its submission to the 2019 federal nuclear inquiry, it would require “a minor miracle” to win community support for nuclear power in Australia. The pursuit of nuclear power would also require bipartisan political consensus at state and federal levels for several decades. Good luck with that. Currently, there is a bipartisan consensus at the federal level to retain the legal ban. The noisy, ultra-conservative rump of the Coalition is lobbying for nuclear power but their push has been rejected by, amongst others, the federal Liberal Party leadership, the Queensland Liberal-National Party, the SA Liberal government, the Tasmanian Liberal government, the NSW Liberal Premier and environment minister, and even ultra-conservatives such as Nationals Senator Matt Canavan.
Australia can do better than fuel higher carbon emissions and unnecessary radioactive risk. We need to embrace the fastest growing global energy sector and become a driver of clean energy thinking and technology and a world leader in renewable energy technology. We can grow the jobs of the future here today. This will provide a just transition for energy sector workers, their families and communities and the certainty to ensure vibrant regional economies and secure sustainable and skilled jobs into the future. Renewable energy is affordable, low risk, clean and popular. Nuclear is not. Our shared energy future is renewable, not radioactive. More Information * Don’t Nuke the Climate Australia, www.dont-nuke-the-climate.org.au * Climate Council, 2019, ‘Nuclear Power Stations are Not Appropriate for Australia – and Probably Never Will Be’, https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/nuclear-power-stations-are-not-appropriate-for-australia-and-probably-never-will-be/ * WISE Nuclear Monitor, 25 June 2016, ‘Nuclear power: No solution to climate change’, https://www.wiseinternational.org/nuclear-monitor/806/nuclear-power-no-solution-climate-change Dr. Jim Green is the national nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth Australia. |
What was #ScottyFromMarketing planning, with U.S. military, at PineGap?
PRIME MINISTER’S PINE GAP VISIT RAISES EYEBROWS NT NEWS, 21 Feb 20,
The Prime Minister has made a visit to the secretive Pine Gap military intelligence base raising eyebrows about the potential involvement of the facility in ongoing tensions between the United States and Iran….. (subscribers only)
NukeMap – what if Australian cities were hit by a nuclear bomb
What Happens If Australia Is Hit By A Nuclear Bomb? lifehacker, Jackson Ryan | Feb 16, 2020, “….NUKEMAP provides a few different readouts for each map with colour coded rings :
- The yellow ring is the size of the nuclear fireball
- The red ring denotes the air blast zone where 20 psi of pressure is felt – enough to damage concrete buildings
- The green ring denotes the radiation diameter – within this ring, you would receive a 500 rem radiation dose. That’s enough to kill 65-90% of all exposed within 30 days.
- The grey ring denotes the air blast zone where 5 psi of pressure is felt
- The orange ring is the thermal radiation zone – if you are within this ring you receive third degree burns that extend through the layers of the skin.
The most recent bomb tested by North Korea was reportedly around 50 kilotons. So if we used that as a base, what would the damage from a 50 kiloton nuclear bomb do to:
Sydney
Melbourne
The size of the nuclear fireball would destroy Melbourne’s CBD and the resulting pressure from the explosion would flatten the land around it. Most of the iconic landmarks in Melbourne’s inner city would be gone.
Brisbane
Adelaide
Adelaide’s CBD would be mostly non-existent, with the fireball engulfing a large portion and the overpressure extending from North to South Terrace. Rundle Mall would be hit hard and you wouldn’t expect Adelaide Oval to remain standing, either. The thermal radiation would extend out as far as the parade in Norwood and almost entirely cover North Adelaide.
Perth
Owing to its place right next to the Swan River, Perth City may not see the same level of immediate fatalities but the destruction would be extensive. The thermal radiation ring would extend from the centre of the CBD out to the Perth Zoo and as far as Lake Monger. The famous Perth Mint would sadly be caught in the 5psi overpressure zone, a space where most buildings collapse.
Canberra
Parliament House as a target, would be completely decimated by the fireball and the 20psi overpressure would flatten everything as far as National Circuit. The National Library, the National Museum and the National Gallery would also likely crumble under the pressure of the air blast. The Australian War Memorial and the Royal Australian Mint would fall just outside the thermal radiation zone.
Hobart
A direct hit on Hobart’s CBD would see a lot of the blast rip across the River Derwent. The fireball would circle most of the city, while the overpressure blast would extend up Elizabeth Street and out to the Salamanca Market. The Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens would receive a huge amount of thermal radiation, which would reach across the Tasman Highway bridge and into Rosny.
Darwin
The size of an atomic bomb blast of this size would take out a lot of Darwin’s waterfront, but the thermal radiation wouldn’t extend all the way across Charles Darwin National Park but, provided it hit the CBD, the overpressure air blast would do incredible damage all the way through the city and across to the Gardens…..
Australia’s Mawson research station monitors radionuclides in the atmosphere
|
Nuclear watchdog sniffs wind at Mawson, Mirage News, 14 Feb 20 An ordinary-looking shipping container at Australia’s Mawson research station plays an important role in the global network that polices a ban on nuclear testing.Inside is a high-volume air sampler, one of 80 world-wide, running every day since 2013 to ‘sniff’ the wind for traces of radioactive debris.
The air sampler at Mawson is part of the international monitoring system for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), which aims to ensure that no nuclear explosion goes undetected. The Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) is responsible for a total of 21 monitoring stations within Australia and its territories. Three are in Antarctica – Mawson research station monitors radionuclides in the atmosphere and seismic vibrations in the earth’s crust, and an infrasound facility near Davis research station uses acoustic pressure sensors to detect very low-frequency sound waves in the atmosphere. A radionuclide is an atom with an unstable nucleus that loses its excess energy by emitting radiation in the form of particles or electromagnetic waves. All chemical elements can exist as radionuclides. They occur naturally or can be produced artificially by nuclear reactors, particle accelerators, or nuclear explosions. ……. https://www.miragenews.com/nuclear-watchdog-sniffs-wind-at-mawson/ |
|
225 $billion for Australia’s submarine plan – a fleet of B-21 bombers would be better
|
Scrap submarines project before it’s too late says former public service boss, Michael West media, by Jon Stanford | Feb 3, 2020 Australia’s $225 billion SEA 1000 submarine project is so high risk, it would be better for Department of Defence to scrap it and start again, writes former public service chief, Jon Stanford, in the final instalment of his Second Rate Leadership series. In addition to some very serious problems with progress with the SEA 1000 program, there are some more fundamental questions to be addressed in the longer term. The first of these is whether the Attack class will embody the technologies required to be successful in its operations in the mid-2030s and beyond. In other words, will it be fit for purpose? An associated question is around the submarine’s cost effectiveness. The escalating cost of this acquisition means that the opportunity cost is also going up. With the submarines being designed mainly for joint operations with the US Navy, there are also significant risks in the future around whether a continuing US presence can be assumed.
In regard to the first question, it is very difficult to be able to judge whether the submarines will be fit for purpose if we do not know what that purpose is. Based on comments and submissions to Parliamentary inquiries from former Australian submariners we can be fairly confident that our submarines’ main area of operations (AO) is in the South China Sea, 3,500 nautical miles from base. But once there, we are not told what they do. In Australia at least, the missions the submarines undertake are classified….. ……..In addition, at a whole of life cost of $225 billion, this deterrent, such as it is, has a very high opportunity cost. Two former RAAF Chiefs have recently proposed that the ADF needs to acquire a long-range bomber force. Even if the new American B-21 bomber delivers only half the capability currently being spruiked, the early acquisition of two squadrons – 48 aircraft off the shelf – at a cost of around $50 billion looks an attractive power projection proposition. By comparison, the ability to put one conventional submarine on station “up threat” at any time at an acquisition cost of $80 billion, with associated doubts around its effectiveness and survivability, must be of questionable value………. |
|
Australia’s dangerous subservience to the war-obsessed USA
|
JOHN MENADUE: Tugging our forelock again and again to our dangerous ally. An update, Michael West.com by John Menadue — 30 December 2019 The US has coming calling again. Not an Admiral this time but the Pentecostalist Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo. He is whistling us up as a faithful dog to join with the US in tackling the problems which Donald Trump created with Iran and presumably to soften us up to host missiles to protect the US marines and port facilities in Darwin. And Pine Gap. John Menadue reports.
We are being softened up again step by step to support the US military and industrial complex that promotes perpetual war. The US is the greatest threat to peace in the world. It is an aggressor across the globe. It is the most violent country both at home and abroad. And people know it. The Pew Research Centre found in 2018 that 45% of people surveyed around the world saw “US power and influence as a major threat”. Retired US Defence, Secretary James (Jim) Mattis, complained that President Trump should show more respect for allies. But the US shows most respect for allies that do what they are told or supinely comply, like Australia. Our PM even gets an invitation to dinner with Trump. Scott Morrison could not contain his eagerness. Our media join in the vicarious thrill of it all. Apart from brief isolationist periods, the US has been almost perpetually at war; wars that we have been foolishly drawn into. The US has subverted and overthrown numerous governments over two centuries. It has a military and business complex, a “hidden state”, that depends on war for influence and enrichment. It believes in its “manifest destiny” which brings with it an assumed moral superiority which it denies to others. The problems did not start with Trump. They are long-standing and deep rooted. Unfortunately, many of our political, bureaucratic, business and media “elites” have been so long on an American drip feed that they find it hard to think of a world without an American focus. We had a similar and dependent view of the UK in the past. That ended in tears in Singapore. Conservatives rail about Chinese influence but they and we are immersed and dominated by all things American, including the Murdoch media. Our media do regard Australia as the 51st American state. Just look at the saturation coverage of the Democrat primaries with the presidential election still 10 months away! Easy and lazy news. I’ts harder and nowhere near as interesting to cover much more important news in Indonesia and Malaysia. In an earlier article (Is war in the American DNA?), I drew attention to the risks we run in being “joined at the hip” to a country that is almost always at war. The facts are clear. The US has never had a decade without war. Since its founding in 1776, the US has been at war 93% of the time. These wars have extended from its own hemisphere, to the Pacific, to Europe and most recently to the Middle East. The US has launched 201 out of 248 armed conflicts since the end of WWII. In recent decades most of these wars have been unsuccessful. The US maintains 700 military bases or sites around the world including in Australia. In our own region it has massive deployment of hardware and troops in Japan, the ROK and Guam. …. Despite all the evidence of wars and meddling in other countries’ affairs, the American Imperium continues without serious check or query in America or Australia. …… The second reason why the American Imperium continues largely unchecked is the power of what President Eisenhower once called the “military and industrial complex” in the US. In 2019, I would add the intelligence community and politicians to that complex who depend heavily on funding from powerful arms manufacturers across the country and the military and civilian personnel in over 4,000 military facilities across the US. Democrats and Republicans both court these wealthy arms suppliers and their employees. The intelligence community, universities and think-tanks also have a vested interest in the American Imperium. This complex which co-opts institutions and individuals in Australia, is often called “the hidden state”. It has enormous influence. No US president nor for that matter any Australian prime minister would likely challenge it. Australia has locked itself into this complex. Our military and defence leaders are heavily dependent on the US Departments of Defence and State, the CIA and the FBI for advice. But it goes beyond advice. The “five eyes” led by the CIA applied pressure to us on 5G as part of a broader campaign to attack almost all things Chinese.We willingly respond and join the US in disasters like Iraq and the Middle East. While the UN General Assembly votes with large majorities to curb nuclear proliferation, we remain locked in to the position of the US and other nuclear powers…… The US military and industrial complex and its associates have a vested interest in America being at war and our defence establishment, Department of Defence, ADF, Australian Strategic Policy Institute and the “Intelligence” community are locked-in American loyalists…… Like many democracies, including our own, money and vested interests are corrupting public life. “Democracy” in the US has been replaced by “Donocracy”, with practically no restrictions on funding of elections and political activity for decades. Vested interests are largely unchecked. House of Representatives electorates are gerrymandered and poor and minority group voters are often excluded from the rolls. The powerful Jewish lobby, supported by fundamentalist Christians, has run US policy off the rails on Israel and the Middle East. The US has slipped to number 21 as a “flawed democracy” in the Economist’s Intelligence 2016 Democracy Index. (NZ was ranked 4 and Australia 10). It noted that “public confidence in government has slumped to historic lows in the US.” That was before Trump! Many democracies are in trouble. US democracy is in more trouble than most. There is a pervasive sickness…….
But it is not just the destructive role of News Corp in US, UK and Australia. Our media, including the ABC and even SBS, is so derivative. Our media seems to regard Australia as an island parked off New York. We are saturated with news, views, entertainment and sit-coms from the US. It is so pervasive and extensive, we don’t recognize it for its very nature…… A further reason for the continuing US hegemony in Australian attitudes is the galaxy of Australian opinion leaders who have benefitted from American largesse and support – in the media, politics, bureaucracy, business, trade unions, universities and think-tanks. Thousands of influential Australians have been co-opted by US money and support in “dialogues”, study centres and think tanks. The US has nourished agents of influence in Australia for decades. China is a raw beginner in the use of soft power. How long will Australian denial of US policies continue? When will some of us stand up? When will our humiliation end?……. https://www.michaelwest.com.au/john-menadue-us-alliance-more-likely-to-get-us-into-trouble-than-out/ |
|
|
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/2352741955560
15 April – Zoom –Nuclear Power is Not the Solution
Apr 15, 2026 01:00 AM in Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney
Join the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) on Tuesday, April 14th for a timely webinar exploring the risks associated with nuclear power and challenging the myth that it offers a simple, safe, carbon-free solution to the climate crisis
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 