Water Wars: Cooling the Data Centres
August 6, 2023, Dr Binoy Kampmar, https://theaimn.com/water-wars-cooling-the-data-centres/
Water. Data centres. The continuous, pressing need to cool the latter, which houses servers to store and process data, with the former, which is becoming ever more precious in the climate crisis. Hardly a good comingling of factors.
Like planting cotton in drought-stricken areas, decisions to place data hubs in various locations across the globe are becoming increasingly contentious from an environmental perspective, and not merely because of their carbon emitting propensities. In the United States, which houses 33% of the globe’s data centres, the problem of water usage is becoming acute.
As the Washington Post reported in April this year, residents in Mesa, Arizona were concerned that Meta’s decision to build another data centre was bound to cause more trouble than it was worth. “My first reaction was concern for our water,” claimed city council member Jenn Duff. (The state already has approximately 49 data centres.)
The move to liquid cooling from air cooling for increasingly complex IT processes has been relentless. As the authors of a piece in the ASHRAE Journal from July 2019 explain, “Air cooling has worked well for systems that deploy processors up to 150 W, but IT equipment is now being manufactured with processors well above 150 W where air cooling is no longer practical.” The use of liquid cooling was not only more efficient than air cooling regarding heat transfer, but “more energy efficient, reducing electrical energy costs significantly.” The authors, however, show little concern about the water supplies needed in such ventures.
The same cannot be said about a co-authored study on the environmental footprint of US-located data centres published two years later. During their investigations, the authors identified a telling tendency: “Our bottom-up approach reveals one-fifth of data center servers’ direct water footprint comes from moderately to highly stressed watersheds, while nearly half of servers are fully or partially powered by power plants located within water stressed reasons.” And to make things just that bit less appealing, it was also found that roughly 0.5% of total US greenhouse gas emissions could also be attributed to such centres.
Google has proven to be particularly thirsty in this regard, not to mention secretive in the amount of water it uses at its data hubs. In 2022, The Oregonian/Oregon Live reported that the company’s water use in The Dalles had almost tripled over five years. The increased usage was enabled, in no small part, because of increased access to the municipal water supply in return for an upgrade to the water supply and a transfer of certain water rights. Since establishing the first data centre in The Dalles in 2005, Google has also received tax breaks worth $260 million.
The city officials responsible for the arrangement were in no mood to answer questions posed by the inquisitive paper on Google’s water consumption. A prolonged 13-month legal battle ensued, with the city arguing that the company’s water use constituted a “trade secret”, thereby exempting them from Oregon’s disclosure rules. To have disclosed such details would have, argued Google, revealed information on how the company cooled their servers to eager competitors.
In the eventual settlement, The Dalles agreed to provide public access to 10 years of historical data on Google’s water consumption. The city also agreed to pay $53,000 to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, which had agreed to represent The Oregonian/Oregon Live. The city’s own costs had run into $106,000. But most troubling in the affair, leaving aside the lamentable conduct of public officials, was the willingness of a private company to bankroll a state entity in preventing access to public records. Tim Gleason, former dean of the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism and Communication, saw this distortion as more than just a touch troubling. “To allow a private entity to essentially fund public advocacy of keeping something out of the public domain is just contrary to the basic intent of the law.”
Instead of conceding that the whole enterprise had been a shabby affront to local residents concerned about the use of a precious communal resource, compromising both the public utility and Google, the company’s global head of infrastructure and water strategy, Ben Townsend, proved benevolent. “What we thought was really important was that we partner with the local utility and actually transfer those water rights over to the utility in a way that benefits the entire community.” That’s right, dear public, they’re doing it for you.
John Devoe, executive director of the WaterWatch advocacy group, also issued a grim warning in the face of Google’s ever increasing water use, which will burgeon further with two more data centres promised along the Columbia River. “If the data center water use doubles or triples over the next decade, it’s going to have serious effects on fish and wildlife on source water streams, and it’s potentially going to have serious effects for other water users in the area of The Dalles.”
Much of the policy making in this area is proving to be increasingly shoddy. With a global demand for ever more complex information systems, including AI, the Earth’s environment promises to be stripped further. Information hunger risks becoming a form of ecological license.
Minister off-target with claim Labor cut billions from defence
AAP.com, William Summers March 14, 2022,
WHAT WAS CLAIMED Labor cut billions of dollars from the defence budget when it was last in government.
OUR VERDICT Misleading. Labor cut defence spending in two years while in office, but overall real-term spending went up while in government.
Defence Minister Peter Dutton has questioned the opposition’s commitment to national security by claiming Labor cut “literally billions” from the Defence budget when the party was last in office.
The claim is misleading. Labor increased overall spending on Defence when in government between 2007 and 2013, both in nominal terms and real terms. However, Labor did cut $1.9 billion from the portfolio in 2012/13, its last full year in office.
Mr Dutton made the claim during an appearance on ABC’s Radio National on March 8 in response to comments made by Labor’s shadow defence minister Brendan O’Connor about the need to consider the future role of Australia’s military during natural disasters.
Mr Dutton said: “Defence has record funding. A bit ironic to hear that from Brendan (O’Connor) when (Labor) pulled literally billions out of defence when they were last in government.” (audio mark 6 min 45sec)
When contacted by AAP FactCheck about the basis of the claim, Mr Dutton’s office pointed to budget papers from Labor’s time in office without providing further information. By that measure, Mr Dutton’s claim does not stack up.
Historical Defence portfolio budget papers provide detailed figures on projected spending as well as actual spending that took place in the previous budget year.
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) – a think tank majority-funded by the Department of Defence and other federal government agencies – has collated these figures going back to 1997/98 (see here). Its figures include spending on the Australian Signals Directorate, which provides cyber intelligence and other capabilities and falls under the Defence portfolio.
The previous Labor government was elected on November 24, 2007, and lost office on September 7, 2013. Therefore, to judge Labor’s spending record, AAP FactCheck looked at spending from 2007/08 – the fiscal year Labor first came into office – to 2012/13, Labor’s final full year in office.
……………………… Misleading – The claim is accurate in parts but information has also been presented incorrectly, out of context or omitted. https://www.aap.com.au/factcheck/minister-off-target-with-claim-labor-cut-billions-from-defence/
Uranium miner BHP under criticism for guzzling precious artesian water, and for not keeping its word to Aboriginal native title holders
Environment campaigner and consultant David Noonan, who provided submissions to the Juukan Inquiry, is sceptical of the desalination plant announcement.
Mr Noonan says even if it was built, BHP could be taking GAB water until the end of the decade. He wants to hear a formal commitment about alternative water sources.
Why BHP is facing a minefield, CHRIS MITCHELL, Adelaide Now, 4 Mar 22,
AUSTRALIA’S biggest company and the world’s secondbiggest miner, BHP, may disappoint conservationists and Aboriginal native title holders who had hoped for commitments to reform of heritage issues and underground water use at its Olympic Dam mine before the March 19 state election BHP, the Big Australian, with market capitalisation of $230bn, paid the state government royalties of $136m last year. Its Olympic Dam project 560km north of Adelaide is South Australia’s largest mining venture and the world’s biggest uranium mine, a global top-four copper mine and producer of gold and lead. BHP is powerful in SA.
Premier Steven Marshall is Aboriginal Affairs Minister but it would be fair to say native title holders do not wield the sort of power in Adelaide that big miners do.
Yet BHP has flagged some changes to the way it operates that could reduce its own power over its own asset.
Under the 1982 Roxby Downs (Indenture Ratification) Act signed with former mine owner Western Mining, BHP, which bought the mine in 2005, has almost unprecedented powers over resources and water within its 12,000sq km Stuart Shelf exploration lease.
BHP has been criticised by conservation groups and Aboriginal interests in last year’s report into rival Rio Tinto’s destruction of Juukan Gorge in Western Australia. The report includes criticism from the Arabana tribe of the mine’s heavy reliance on water from the Great Artesian Basin (GAB), and particularly from the so-called “Mound Springs” Aboriginal heritage sites north of the mine.
On February 15, The Advertiser revealed BHP would back a new $15m study, partly funded by state and federal governments, into a Spencer Gulf desalination plant to pump water to SA’s northern mines. But BHP is still far short of publicly committing to end its use of GAB water.
Conservationists say BHP is trying to control the water agenda, to maintain its privileges under the Indenture Act. But some hope it will be pragmatic enough to cut water demand from the GAB if it eventually decides to proceed with its Oak Dam copper-gold-uranium mine 65km southeast of Olympic.
Asked last week if BHP was formally committed to ending GAB water use, a spokesman said: “We continuously monitor and publicly report our water draw under a program approved by the SA government.”
BHP is not just under pressure for environmental reasons.
It is in discussion with three native title groups about the Olympic Dam Agreement it settled in 2008 with the Kokatha, Barngarla and Kuyani.
Of these, only the Kokatha have been granted formal native title over parts of BHP’s Stuart Shelf.
BHP’s problem now is how to balance the very valuable 40-year-old legal rights it has under the indenture with rights found in a native title determination in favour of the Kokatha in 2014……….
The Kokatha fought a long, 18-year battle to win their native title in 2014. Kokatha directors say dealing with BHP on the ODA before and after their native title court win has been challenging.
At this point, they are not receiving mining royalties and are unhappy with employment opportunities for Kokatha people.
Michael Turner, a former Kokatha director and current adviser on the Kokatha Native Title Compensation Settlement and Kokatha Charitable trusts, says he has been dealing with BHP for much of his adult life.
At this point, they are not receiving mining royalties and are unhappy with employment opportunities for Kokatha people………
negotiations on BHP’s Olympic Dam Agreement had been disappointing.
“We have been calling for a review of the ODA for many years and it has constantly been deferred,” he said.
“They’re refusing to move forward. It would be great if BHP could keep to its word and respect the wishes of the Kokatha people and review the ODA for the benefit of generations to come.”…………….
The final report into the May 24, 2020 destruction by Australia’s second-biggest miner, Rio Tinto, of the Juukan Caves in Western Australia’s Pilbara was released in October. In it, Arabana chair Brenda Underwood says: “Unfortunately, our springs are disappearing. The cause … is water taken from the GAB by BHP’s mine at Roxby Downs.”
BHP and the state government believe the springs remain healthy but environmentalists fear a possible expansion to the Oak Dam could take daily GAB water use well beyond 50 million litres a day. BHP says it is averaging 34 million litres a day.
Environment campaigner and consultant David Noonan, who provided submissions to the Juukan Inquiry, is sceptical of the desalination plant announcement.
Mr Noonan says even if it was built, BHP could be taking GAB water until the end of the decade. He wants to hear a formal commitment about alternative water sources.
BHP’s Aboriginal engagement team is mindful expectations have changed across the industry since Juukan and BHP will need to be seen to be engaging seriously with traditional owners. Some believe an ODA negotiated before the Kokatha achieved native title should be written off and a new agreement established………………………………………
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Amid climate change threat to the Murray Darling river system, the States haggle
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No water, no leadership: new Murray Darling Basin report reveals states’ climate gamble, The Conversation
April 17, 2020 Daniel Connell, Research Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University A report released today investigating how states share water in the Murray Darling Basin describes a fascinating contrast between state cultures – in particular, risk-averse South Australia and buccaneering New South Wales. Perhaps surprising is the report’s sparse discussion of the Murray Darling Basin Plan, which has been the focus of irrigators’ anger and denunciation by National Party leaders: Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack and NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro. In general terms, the Murray Darling Basin Plan was originally intended to make water management in the Murray Darling Basin more environmentally sustainable. Its critics see it as a restraint on development, and complain it has taken water away from irrigators during a time of extreme drought. In response to McCormack and Barliaro’s criticisms of the plan in late 2019, federal water minister (and senior National Party figure) David Littleproud commissioned Mick Keelty as Interim Inspector General of MDB Water Resources. For the new report, Keelty investigated the changing distribution of “inflows” – water flowing into the River Murray in the southern states. Climate change has brought the inflow to just a trickle. This dramatic reduction over the past 20 years is what Keelty has described as “the most telling finding”. He also investigated the reserve policies under which the three states choose – or don’t choose – to hold back water in Hume and Dartmouth Dams to manage future droughts. Keelty says there’s little transparency or clarity about how much water states are allocated under the Murray Darling Basin Agreement (the arrangement for sharing water between the states which underpins the Basin Plan). This failure in communication and leadership across such a vital system must change. Sharing water across three statesOne major finding of Keelty’s inquiry is that the federal government has little power to change the MDB Agreement between the three states, which was first approved in 1914-15. Any amendment requires the approval of all three governments. To increase the volume of water provided to NSW irrigators, South Australia and Victoria would need to agree to reduce the volumes supplied to their own entitlement holders. That will not happen. Why has the agreement lasted so long? Over the past century it has proved robust under a wide range of conditions. Its central principle is to share water with a proportion-of-available-flow formula, giving each state a percentage of whatever is available, no matter whether it’s a lot, or not much. After receiving its share of the River Murray flows, each state is then free to manage its allocation as it wishes. …… Reliability of water supply What’s more, each state makes its own decision about how its state allocation is shared between its entitlement holders (95% of water goes to irrigators the rest supplies towns and industry). South Australia chooses to distribute a much smaller proportion to its entitlement holders than New South Wales. It also restricted the number of licences in the 1970s. That combination ensures a very high level of reliability in supply. Victoria took a similar approach…….. When climate change is taken into account these differences between the three states result in their irrigators having significantly different risk profiles. The climate change threat to the basin is very realDespite climate denial in the National Party, the threat is very real in the MDB. The report describes a massive reduction in inflows over the past 20 years, approximately half compared with the previous century. One drought could be an aberration, but two begins to look like a pattern. The report also suggests that in many cases irrigator expectations of what should be normal were formed during the wet period Australia experienced between the second world war and the 1990s. Added to this have been business decisions by many irrigators to sell their entitlements and rely on the water market, a business model based on what now seems like unrealistic inflow expectations. In effect, successive New South Wales governments – a significant part of the state’s irrigation sector in the southern part of the state and the National Party – gambled against the climate and are now paying a high price. In desperation, they’re focusing on alternative sources. This includes the water in Hume and Dartmouth held under the reserves policy of the two other states; environmental entitlements managed by the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder; the very large volume of water lost to evaporation in the lower lakes in South Australia; and the possibility of savings resulting from changes to management of the system by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority. Failure in leadership and communicationFor reasons already outlined, the state reserves policy is not likely to change and use of the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder environmental water entitlements would not be permitted under current legislation. Management of the lower lakes is being reviewed through another investigation so is not discussed in the report. The report also states that management of the MDB Authority is subject to regular detailed assessment by state governments, and they have assessed its performance as satisfactory. However the report was critical of the performance of all MDB governments with regard to leadership and communications suggesting that failures in those areas were largely responsible for the public concern which triggered its investigation. https://theconversation.com/no-water-no-leadership-new-murray-darling-basin-report-reveals-states-climate-gamble-136514 |
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Drinking water threatened by forest fires
As forests burn around the world, drinking water is 
at risk https://www.westhawaiitoday.com/2020/01/31/features/as-forests-burn-around-the-world-drinking-water-is-at-risk/
In Australia’s national capital of Canberra, where a state of emergency was declared on Friday because of an out-of-control forest fire to its south, authorities are hoping a new water treatment plant and other measures will prevent a repeat of water quality problems and disruption that followed deadly wildfires 17 years ago.
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“The forest area burned in Australia within a single fire season is just staggering,” said Stefan Doerr, a professor at Swansea University in England who studies the effects of forest fires on sediment and ash runoff. “We haven’t seen anything like it in recorded history.” The situation in Australia illustrates a growing global concern: Forests, grasslands and other areas that supply drinking water to hundreds of millions of people are increasingly vulnerable to fire due in large part to hotter, drier weather that has extended fire seasons, and more people moving into those areas, where they can accidentally set fires. More than 60% of the water supply for the world’s 100 largest cities originates in fire-prone watersheds — and countless smaller communities also rely on surface water in vulnerable areas, researchers say. Continue reading |
A foreign corporation gets 89 BILLION litres of Australia’s water, as drought worsens
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Water restrictions for you, an endless supply for them: How a foreign corporate giant is snapping up 89 BILLION litres of Australia’s H20 as the country suffers its worst drought ever
By ALISHA ROUSE FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA DAILY MAIL UK 12 December 2019 |A multi-billion dollar Singaporean food company is selling 89,000 megalitres of Australian water to a Canadian pension fund. The mega sale of Australian permanent water rights comes as the country is crippled by one of the worst droughts in its history. On Tuesday, NSW brought in a complete ban on hoses as part of the toughest water restrictions implemented for more than a decade. But no such problem existed for food and agriculture giant Olam International, which sold the 89billion litres of permanent water rights for an astonishing $490 million. The company sold it to an entity associated with the Public Sector Pension Investment Board, one of Canada’s largest pension investment managers, according to Straits Times. It will use the water to irrigate almond trees, in a business venture likely to draw criticism over foreign ownership of farms and water. The water rights are in the lower Murray-Darling Basin. The chairman of the Victorian Farmers Federation’s water council, Richard Anderson, told the Sydney Morning Herald: ‘Really, all you’ve got is a change of ownership, it (the water) has gone from a Singapore-owned company to a Canadian pension fund……. Water restrictions in Sydney, the Blue Mountains and Illawarra were upgraded to level two as dam levels in the region sank to just 45 per cent capacity, the lowest levels since the Millennium Drought took hold in 2003….. The Bureau of Meteorology has predicted a hot-than-usual summer, with no forecast for significant rain. The sale is understood to be giving Olam a ‘one-time pre-tax capital gain of about $311 million’, the paper reported. The agreement is for 25 years, with the option to renew for another 25. In March, the government released its foreign ownership of water entitlement register, showing that investors from China and the US had the largest stake in Australia’s foreign-owned water entitlements. It showed that one in 10 water entitlements is foreign owned. A water entitlement is the right to an ongoing share of water, which can be sold by irrigators, companies or investors. Acting as a property right, it gives access to an exclusive share of water from a water resource. This is different to a water allocation, which is the right to access a volume of water for use or trade. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7780983/Foreign-company-sells-89-billion-litres-Australian-water-rights-490m-drought.html?fbclid=IwAR3wKbYP6OnXTEPhNoZiDeQ2Oj1o6uMzWUmkQSOgMxYjkZn6i0cJFj60Zo4&fbclid=IwAR3oHKAi9vQG4MctY4LMYNppX-pbY88hw0Zj4ACzypNTB_WI9nTtkc710bc |
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Unacceptable levels of uranium in drinking water for several remote communities
‘Our kids need proper water’: Families plead for action over uranium in drinking water, ABC, 7.30 by Indigenous affairs reporters Isabella Higgins, Bridget Brennan and Emily Napangarti Butcher, 19 June 18,
Uranium mine- Australia’s largest water guzzler – it’s criminal in a dry climate
Olympic Dam Mine: Largest User of Energy in S. Australia; Largest User of Australia’s Precious Water Resource – The Great Artesian Basin 31 Friday Jul 2015 by miningawareness The largest single user of electricity in South Australia is the Olympic Dam uranium, copper, gold, silver mine. Almost 60% of the energy in South Australia comes from renewables! Why would they need nuclear? Why a “Royal Commission”? They clearly want nuclear power so that they can sell their uranium to make energy to mine more uranium. Furthermore, the wise shun uranium, so to keep mining it in Australia, they need to dump it on Australia in the form of depleted uranium from enrichment, nuclear power, and the too often forgotten nuclear waste, to go with the radioactive tailings which they already have.
Nuclear anything is even more dangerous in a dry climate, so prone to bushfires, and even fire tornados! Using up the precious water resource of the Great Artesian Basin by uranium, or any other mining, is criminal….https://miningawareness.wordpress.com/2015/07/31/olympic-dam-mine-largest-user-of-energy-in-s-australia-largest-user-of-australias-precious-water-resource-the-great-artesian-basin/
South Australia’s contaminated groundwater – thousands of sites
Toxic sites in Adelaide’s suburbs number in their thousands BRAD CROUCH THE ADVERTISER JULY 22, 2014 THE Opposition has demanded a statewide audit of contaminated sites, as it emerges the dangers of trichloroethene entering groundwater was suspected as far back as the 1940s.
The call for an audit comes after Environmental Protection Authority chief executive Tony Circelli confirmed that “thousands” of sites were contaminated with various chemicals and the EPA received about 100 new notifications each year.
The State Government and Environment Minister Ian Hunter are under increasing pressure over the contamination scandal in Clovelly Park , where dozens of people have been forced to leave their homes because of health risks from the vapours of trichloroethene (TCE) rising up through the soil from industrially poisoned groundwater.
Mr Circelli, was responding to a claim by UniSA Professor Ravi Naidu, the managing director of the Cooperative Research Centre for Contamination Assessment and Remediation, that there are about 4000 contaminated sites in SA.
Mr Circelli said that claim was incorrect, but conceded the number “is in the thousands”.
Opposition Leader Steven Marshall said an audit was needed to clarify the exact number of contaminated sites and their locations. “The purpose of conducting a statewide audit would be to establish a hierarchy of sites based on potential public health risks,” he said.
“As well as playing an important community awareness role, the audit could also provide a benchmark for ongoing monitoring and evaluation of contaminated sites for the EPA and assist with any future contamination investigations………http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/toxic-sites-in-adelaides-suburbs-number-in-their-thousands/story-fni6uo1m-1226998071395?nk=38b4e03626cff750bb726e65c1a3e9f4
Water shortage problem for Australia’s uranium miners in Africa
Rio Tinto, Paladin Uranium Mines in Namibia Face Water Shortage, Bloomberg News By Felix Njini November 18, 2013 Uranium mines operated by companies including Rio Tinto Plc (RIO) and Paladin Energy Ltd. in Namibia face a water shortage as a drought in the southwest African nation curbs supply to the operations and three coastal towns. Continue reading
Queensland government guts laws protecting water from coal seam gas operations
Australia: Wide-ranging changes to Queensland’s land and water legislation passed, Clayton UTZ 11 May 2013 A petroleum tenure holder in Queensland will now be able to use associated water “for any purpose”.
The Land, Water and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2013 (Qld) was passed by Parliament on 2 May 2013 and introduces a large number of legislative amendments across a wide range of Acts impacting, primarily, the land and water regulatory portfolios, but also making important amendments that impact upon the petroleum industry, particularly in relation to water bores and the use and transportation of CSG water.
Some of the key amendments in this Act for petroleum industry proponents are outlined below.
Removal of restriction on use of CSG water Continue reading
Resources scientist questions management of tailings and water for Wiluna uranium project
Dr Mudd also highlighted the use and contamination of ground water
sources in the area as a key issue, saying there have been issues at
other uranium mines across Australia and it remains unclear where
water for this site will come from or what techniques will be used to
source it
Monash mining expert examines Wiluna uranium proposal
Science Network, 23 December 2012 AN AUSTRALIAN expert on mining
sustainability has highlighted some of the key environmental aspects
for West Australia, as the state moves closer to its first uranium
mine.
Resources company Toro Energy recently received state government
environmental approval to develop WA’s first uranium mine near Wiluna,
with the company now seeking federal environmental approval.
Monash University mining expert Gavin Mudd says the primary issues
concern the management of tailings and waste rock, as well as water
use, contamination and other aspects local to the mine site. Continue reading
Protesting BHP’s Olympic Dam – its special privileges, water guzzling, uranium to Fukushima
Mythical lizard haunts Australian uranium extractors Infoshop News, July 22 2012 Anti-nuclear protesters camping at what they describe as “the gates of hell” — that is, on the edge of BHP Billiton’s Olympic Dam uranium mine in the desert of South Australia — decided to play a game of cricket on Tuesday, July 17, in order to publicize their message: Uranium isn’t Australian.
“It’s just not cricket,” they chanted, “and that’s why we picket.”
by Peter Rugh Waging Nonviolence “…….There’s no room for nature’s business in the uranium business. That’s why BHP is digging into the belly of Kalta, the sleeping lizard who, according to aboriginal legend, lives under the rocks at Olympic Dam. BHP is sucking yellow uranium poison out of Kalta’s belly and feeding it to nuclear reactors around the world.
It already takes about 9 million gallons of water a day to wash all that poison down the throats of global markets — water sucked out at no cost to BHP from the region’s only reliable freshwater source, the Great Artesian Basin. But the Melbourne-based multinational plans to expand its mining operations at Olympic from an area of about 1,700 square miles to a terrain roughly eight times that size. The $30 billion expansion would make Olympic Dam at Roxby Downs the world’s largest open-pit mine.
An additional 53 gallons of water a day will be used up should mining at Olympic expand. The amount of diesel required to extract and transport BHP’s uranium would cause South Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions to skyrocket by 12 percent.
Olympic currently operates under the Roxby Downs Indenture Act of 1982, which granted BHP exemptions from laws covering native sovereignty, public disclosure, environmental impact and water preservation. The Indenture Act was amended in 2011 , when BHP began scouting out more land. Critics say the law is essentially a contract between BHP and the South Australian government for the corporation to do what it likes.
Meanwhile, the effects of BHP’s mining are felt far beyond the Outback. Approximately 4,400 tons of Australian uranium per year are used to feed aging reactors in the United States, which jeopardize the civilian population centers that they surround . A major portion of the stuff comes from BHP. The company is to Australia’s uranium industry what Nirvana was to grunge; they’ve cornered the market…..
Prior to the Fukushima disaster , Japan — after the United States and the European Union — was Australia’s third best uranium customer, importing nearly 2,700 tons a year. The uranium fuel pellets that melted down three reactor cores at Fukushima on March 11 of last year were from Olympic Dam.
Dr. Jim Green, an anti-nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth Australia, accuses BHP of turning a blind eye to fraud and safety problems in Japan’s nuclear industry in the run-up to the meltdowns. Despite widespread documentation of data falsification and safety breaches, he says BHP continued to peddle its toxic product to the quake-prone nation in the run up to the Fukushima meltdowns…. http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=20120722092133582
It looks as if the Northern Territory govt will allow uranium mining in water catchment area!
Exploration in dam catchment http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2012/04/18/299461_ntnews.html NIGEL ADLAM | April 18th, 2012 TEN mining exploration licences have been granted in the water catchment for a possible new dam. Resources Minister Kon Vatskalis denied any of the licences had been issued specifically for uranium. “Rather the authorisation allows the holder to undertake exploration within a specific area,” he said.
The licences are in the catchment for Warrai Dam, 8km upstream from Adelaide River township, 100km south of Darwin.
Power and Water Corporation boss Andrew Macrides said the $500 million dam may not have to be built for at least 20 years – and possibly not at all.
Australia’s Northern Territory allows free groundwater to mining companies, not to any other users!
Mataranka residents surprised by mining’s right to ground water, ABC Rural News, By Steven Schubert, 02/12/2011 Members of a committee formed to develop a water plan for the Northern Territory town of Mataranka say they were never told mining operations could gain unrestricted access to ground water.
Mining operations don’t require a licence from the water controller under the NT Water Act, while other users have to apply for an allocation of ground water. Committee member Hamish McFarlane says if a mining project is formed near the town, there could be less water for irrigators and other users.
“Keeping in mind that you said before that the Water Act gives priority to mining, if a mining company came in here at this point in time and took the consumptive pool there would be no growth in Mataranka outside the mining industry.”… http://www.abc.net.au/rural/news/content/201112/s3382086.htm
1.This month.
14 May Industrial Decarbonisation Summit
Sydney Get involved at eec.org.au/summit-registration
15- 16 May Sydney – EEC National Conference Efficiency Electrification Decarbonisation more https://eec.my.canva.site/eecnc24
The video on Palestine that got Yanis Varoufakis BANNED from Germany
Keep U.S. military expansion out of Australia
Petition EN5543 – Call for termination of the US-Australia Force Posture Agreement
Antinuclear 