Peter Dutton to press ahead with nuclear despite opposition in regional Australia
Locals who live in areas earmarked for nuclear reactors have delivered a blow to Peter Dutton’s energy plan.
James Campbell National political editor, April 7, 2024, The Sunday Telegraph
https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/nsw/peter-dutton-to-press-ahead-with-nuclear-despite-opposition-in-regional-australia/news-story/53a7108e83484542ee99870d5002fba9
Peter Dutton will press on with his plans for nuclear power, despite recent Coalition research finding widespread opposition to the proposals in regional areas earmarked for reactors.
Coalition sources said focus group research carried out in the Hunter Valley in NSW and the Latrobe Valley in Victoria in recent weeks found hostility to the proposed polices.
It found that while voters were aware of the general arguments for nuclear power, they were hostile to plans for reactors in their own areas.
A Coalition source familiar with the research said the findings had come as a shock.
“They had convinced themselves that people would be queuing up for these things,” the source said.
Another said it was clear “more work needs to be done” on winning the argument.
But Mr Dutton is still set to release his plan for net-zero energy before the May budget.
The Weekend Australian reported the Coalition’s plan would offer heavily discounted power bills to communities with nuclear power plants.
It also reported the plan is to install small nuclear reactors at as many as seven sites, which will be operating by the mid-2030s.
“The ability to produce zero-emissions baseload with 24/7 electricity to firm up renewables is within our grasp,” he told the paper.
However a Coalition MP who strongly supports nuclear power said there was increasing concern in both the Liberal and National Party rooms that it was already too late to win the public argument about nuclear power in the time left before the next election.
“We haven’t even seen the policy yet,” the MP said. “My read is they’re in panic about it. They don’t know what to do.”
The Sunday Telegraph spoke to a number of Coalition MPs, including frontbenchers, who expressed concerns about the saleability of nuclear power from opposition.
But they all agreed Mr Dutton is not for turning on ¬nuclear power.
According to one frontbencher who supports the plan “the best case scenario” from pushing nuclear power would be a “nil-all draw” with the Government.
“Let’s not kid ourselves that this is some kind of vote-catching policy,” the frontbencher said.
But he said there was no chance Mr Dutton would walk away from it.
“He’s obsessed with this nuclear thing – obsessed with it,” the frontbencher said.
“Peter is very determined to go down this path,” another said.
On Wednesday, Mr Dutton told reporters: “I think we need to have a proper, mature discussion about how we migrate to a new energy system where we can have renewables that are firmed up by zero emissions, latest generation nuclear technology”.
He added: “In terms of regions, we’ve been very definite in our advice that we’re looking at about half a dozen sites, on brownfield sites, those where you’ve got a coal-fired generator coming to an end of life”.
U.S. Nuclear regulator delinquent on climate
Fort Calhoun nuclear station – flooded 2019
“New reactors remain a mirage. But if they ever become operational, the climate extremes we are already seeing will be far worse. It is irresponsible for the NRC to claim that this is not a relevant safety concern for the agency.”
US government agency reprimands NRC for ignoring climate crisis impacts on reactor safety
https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2024/04/07/nuclear-regulator-delinquent-on-climate/
The findings and recommendations of a new U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report confirm what Beyond Nuclear has been litigating with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC): the agency cannot continue to ignore the safety impacts on nuclear power plants from the worsening climate crisis.
The GAO report is entitled NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS: NRC Should Take Actions to Fully Consider the Potential Effects of Climate Change. It criticizes the NRC for failing to conduct assessments for commercial U.S. nuclear power plants by projecting climate risks and incorporating adequate safety margins into both old and new designs.
These risks include a worsening of natural hazards and encompass heat and cold, drought, wildfires, flooding, hurricanes, and sea-level rise, according to the GAO, all of which could seriously jeopardize the safe operation of the nation’s current fleet that is going through extreme license renewals — and any future new — nuclear reactors if not properly safeguarded.
“The NRC is proceeding with the extension of operating licenses for several vulnerable nuclear power plants without any climate change risk analysis,” said Paul Gunter, a policy analyst and spokesperson for Beyond Nuclear. “Worse, the NRC staff claim that preparing for the effects of the climate crisis is outside its scope.”
And yet, as Gunter points out, one of the candidates for license extension out to 2053 and 2054 is the two-unit Turkey Point nuclear power plant on the south Florida coast where sea-level rise is projected. Another is the three-unit Oconee nuclear power plant in South Carolina, also seeking a second 20-year extension that could see it operating for another 30 years.
“Oconee sits precariously downstream and 300 feet below the top of the water level in Lake Jocassee behind a rock-filled earthen dam that holds back more than one million acre-feet of water,” Gunter said. “We are already witnessing recurring extreme precipitation, including prolonged atmospheric rivers attributed to climate change. And yet, the NRC staff have argued that ‘The effects of climate change on Oconee Station SSCs [systems, structures and components] are outside the scope of the NRC staff’s license renewal environmental review’. This is not only disingenuous, but dangerous,” Gunter added.
Beyond Nuclear is preparing to file another legal intervention in the NRC’s Oconee license renewal proceeding on April 29, 2024.
Jeff Mitman, a retired NRC senior risk analyst and expert witness supporting Beyond Nuclear litigations points to a damning revelation in the GAO report, perhaps an NRC obfuscation to shield a vulnerable industry from costly safety retrofits caused by worsening climate change. GAO interviewed NRC staff who acknowledge that the agency is shying away from using site-specific climate change hazards data in its licensing analysis, they claim, because of the challenges presented by uncertainty. To that point, the GAO states:
“However, NRC regulations do not preclude NRC from using climate projections data, and new sources of reliable projected climate data are available to NRC. In 2023, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy issued guidance to federal agencies on selecting and using climate data to assess risks and their potential impacts. This guide provides information on climate models and projections to help federal agencies understand exposure to current and future climate-related hazards and their potential impacts.
“Without incorporating the best available information into its licensing and oversight processes, it is unclear whether the safety margins for nuclear power plants established during the licensing period—in most cases over 40 years ago—are adequate to address the risks that climate change poses to plants.”
The GAO also points out that even closed and decommissioning nuclear power plants are vulnerable due to climate change-induced weather extremes. The report cites the closed Indian Point nuclear power plant in New York, where fire hazards are very high along with flooding risks, and Palisades in Michigan, also at risk of flooding and now looking to reopen. The hazards are represented by the highly radioactive waste inventories still on site.
Any planned new reactors, including the still-on-paper small modular reactor designs that would not materialize for likely another 20 years, must factor projected climate impacts into safety measures and environmental impact statements, Beyond Nuclear urged.
“New reactors remain a mirage,” Gunter said. “But if they ever become operational, the climate extremes we are already seeing will be far worse. It is irresponsible for the NRC to claim that this is not a relevant safety concern for the agency.”
Given the many examples of risk that the GAO uncovered through extensive interviews, the report concludes that the NRC is not doing enough to “fully consider potential climate change effects” projected three decades and farther into the future. As the GAO frames it, “NRC primarily uses historical data in its licensing and oversight processes rather than climate projections data.”
“It’s like the NRC is driving its nuclear power ambitions through the fog of uncertainty with its high beams on, blinded to what’s ahead,” said Gunter. “The GAO is rightly concerned that the NRC cannot serve public safety by viewing climate data only through its rear view mirror. There are simply too many unpredictable hazards now faced by an inherently dangerous industry,” he said.
U.S. Senators Tom Carper (D-Del) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va), both devout supporters of nuclear power expansion, commissioned the GAO to look into the resilience of U.S. nuclear power stations to climate change.
The GAO responded with its expert findings on how climate change is expected to affect nuclear power plant operations and what actions the NRC has taken to address the risks that nuclear power faces from climate change. The GAO report provides three reasonable recommendations regarding what they found to be inadequate or missing in the NRC’s oversight and licensing process:
1) NRC should assess whether its licensing and oversight processes adequately address the potential for increased risks to nuclear power plants from climate change.
2) NRC should direct its staff to develop, finalize, and implement a plan to address any gaps identified in its assessment of existing processes.
3) NRC should direct its staff to develop and finalize guidance on incorporating climate projections data including what sources of climate projections data to use and when and how to use climate projections data.
Paul Gunter is the Director of Reactor Oversight at Beyond Nuclear.
Aukusing for War: The Real Target Is China
Dr Binoy Kampmark, April 7 2024 https://theaimn.com/aukusing-for-war-the-real-target-is-china/
A remarkably perverse reality is in the offing regarding AUKUS. In terms of submarines, it will lag, possibly even sink, leaving the US and, to a lesser extent the UK, operating their fleets as Australians foot the bill and provide the refreshment
Not only is Australia effectively promising to finance and service that particular capacity, it will also do so in the service of a potentially catastrophic conflict which will see its automatic commitment. A truly high price to pay for an abdication of sovereignty for the fiction of regional stability.
The occasional burst of candour from US diplomats provides a striking, air clearing difference to their Australian and British counterparts. Official statements about the AUKUS security pact between Washington, London and Canberra, rarely mention the target in so many words, except on the gossiping fringes. Commentators and think tankers are essentially given free rein to speculate, masticating over such streaky and light terms as “new strategic environment”, “great power competition”, “rules-based order”.
On the occasion of his April 3 visit to Washington’s Center for a New American Security (CNAS), US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell was refreshingly frank. His presence as an emissary of US power in the Pacific has been notable since the AUKUS announcement in September 2021.
In March last year, Campbell, as Deputy Assistant to the US President and Coordinator for the Indo-Pacific National Security Council, was unfurling the US flag before various Pacific states, adamant that US policy was being reoriented from one of neglect to one of greater attentiveness. The Solomon Islands, given its newly minted security pact with Beijing, was of special concern. “We realise that we have to overcome in certain areas some amounts of distrust and uncertainty about follow through,” he explained to reporters in Wellington, New Zealand. “We’re seeking to gain that trust and confidence as we go forward.”
In Honiara, Campbell conceded that the US had not done “enough before” and had to be “big enough to admit that we need to do more, and we need to do better.” This entailed, in no small part, cornering the Solomon Islands Premier Manasseh Sogavare into affirming that Beijing would not be permitted to establish a military facility capable of supporting “power projection capabilities.”
In his discussion with the CNAS Chief Executive Officer, Richard Fontaine, Campbell did the usual runup, doffing the cap to the stock principles. Banal generalities were discussed, for instance, as to whether the US should be the sole show in projecting power or seek support from like-minded sorts. “I would argue that as the United States and other nations confront a challenging security environment, that the best way to maintain peace and security is to work constructively and deeply with allies and partners.” A less than stealthy rebuke was reserved for those who think “that the best that the United States can do is to act alone and to husband its resources and think about unilateral, individual steps it might take.”
The latter view has always been scorned by those calling themselves multilateralists, a cloaking term for waging war arm-in-arm with satellite states and vassals while ascribing to it peace keeping purposes in the name of stability. Campbell is unsurprising in arguing “that working closely with other nations, not just diplomatically, but in defensive avenues [emphasis added], has the consequence of strengthening peace and stability more generally.” The virtue with the unilateralists is the possibility that war should be resorted to sparingly. If one is taking up arms alone, a sense of caution can moderate the bloodlust.
Campbell revealingly envisages “a number of areas of conflict and in a number of scenarios that countries acting together” in the Indo-Pacific, including Japan, Australia, South Korea and India. “I think that balance, the additional capacity will help strengthen deterrence more general [sic].” The candid admission on the role played by the AUKUS submarines follows, with the boats having “the potential to have submarines from a number of countries operating in close coordination that could deliver conventional ordinance from long distances. Those have enormous implications in a variety of scenarios, including in cross-strait circumstances.” And so, we have the prospect of submarines associated with the AUKUS compact being engaged in a potential war with China over Taiwan.
When asked on what to do about the slow production rate of submarines on the part of the US Navy necessary to keep AUKUS afloat, Campbell acknowledged the constraints – the Covid pandemic, supply chain issues, the number of submarines in dry dock requiring or requiring servicing. But like Don Quixote taking the reins of Rosinante to charge the windmills, he is undeterred in his optimism, insisting that “the urgent security demands in Europe and the Indo-Pacific require much more rapid ability to deliver both ordinance and other capabilities.”
To do so, the military industrial complex needs to be broadened (good news for the defence industry, terrible for the peacemakers). “I think probably there is going to be a need over time for a larger number of vendors, both in the United States in Australia and Great Britain, involved in both AUKUS and other endeavours.”
There was also little by way of peace talk in Campbell’s confidence about the April 11 trilateral Washington summit between the US, Japan and the Philippines, following a bilateral summit to be held between President Joe Biden and Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. When terms such as “modernize” and “update” are bandied about in the context of an alliance, notably with an eye towards a rival power’s ambitions, the warring instincts must surely be stirred. In the language of true encirclement, Campbell envisages a cooperative framework that will “help link the Indo-Pacific more effectively to Europe” while underscoring “our commitment to the region as a whole.”
A remarkably perverse reality is in the offing regarding AUKUS. In terms of submarines, it will lag, possibly even sink, leaving the US and, to a lesser extent the UK, operating their fleets as Australians foot the bill and provide the refreshments. Campbell may well mention Australia and the UK in the context of nuclear-powered submarines, but it remains clear where his focus is: the US program “which I would regard as the jewel in the crown of our defense industrial capacity.” Not only is Australia effectively promising to finance and service that particular capacity, it will also do so in the service of a potentially catastrophic conflict which will see its automatic commitment. A truly high price to pay for an abdication of sovereignty for the fiction of regional stability.
The high-stakes power play that will shape our future
April 5, 2024, The Australian, Simon Benson; Political editor
The climate wars may be over but an equally divisive battle is arising out of the nation’s new political consensus. Both sides of politics are locked into a net-zero emissions target by 2050, Labor by choice, the Coalition by the force of political reality. But Peter Dutton’s introduction of the nuclear option creates a stark contest between the main parties on how to get there.
The competing pathways to net zero offer profoundly different outcomes for the nation’s future. They go beyond climate change and raise the fundamental question: what sort of Australia will emerge once a point of no return in the rollout is reached?
…………………………………. a new ideological contest into the debate, reigniting a clash of ideas not only over the future of energy but for the communities that have generational ties to its production.
There are two essential issues at stake.
While the question of energy security has become the axis around which Albanese’s radical transformation of the economy pivots, the economic future of the nation’s coal communities has become the new political frontline between Labor and the Coalition.
In this sense, Australia is not unique. The US is grappling with its own socio-economic dilemma……….
Last week, as the Prime Minister was preparing to fly to the Hunter Valley coalfields to announce a $1bn solar panel scheme to generate jobs as coal exits the community, Dutton was meeting privately with executives from Rolls-Royce for a deep dive into the feasibility of small modular reactors in an Australian context.
This juxtaposition symbolises the chasm of policy approaches to the challenge of decarbonising the economy. Both sides are embarking on equally ambitious road maps. While Albanese has rubbished the idea of an Australian civil nuclear energy program, Dutton is convinced it can work.
In an interview with Inquirer on Wednesday, he pledged that if the Coalition were returned to government at the next election, the first nuclear reactors would be up and running by the mid-2030s.
It is understood Rolls-Royce is confident its small modular reactor technology could be ready for an Australian market in this time-frame with a price tag of $5bn for a 470-megawatt plant. Each plant would take four years to build and have a life-span of 60 years.
Rolls-Royce signed a contract with the Albanese government in February to build the nuclear reactors for the second tranche of AUKUS submarines.
According to this timeline, nuclear power generation could begin being rolled out at about the same time as the first nuclear-powered submarines are delivered. The feasibility of this timeline will be strongly contested.
Social licence is essential to the Coalition’s ambitions…………………..
Under a plan taken to Dutton’s shadow cabinet two weeks ago, seven coal communities were identified as potential locations for coal-to-nuclear transition on or near the sites of exiting coal-fired power stations, with the promise of cheaper electricity for those communities, higher paying jobs and upgraded infrastructure……………………………………
Not all of Dutton’s colleagues are convinced there is enough time in the political cycle to start building the political case for nuclear power……………………..
Both sides are highly alert to the acute political consequences of an ill-managed transition.
What looms is an election battle over energy security set against vastly contrasting ideologies…………………………………………………
The Albanese government’s Net Zero Economy Authority bill passed by the parliament before Easter set out the agency’s purpose as one clearly designed around the transition to renewables. It was unambiguous in its assessment of the cost and scope of Labor’s plan. The bill was equally clear about what is at stake with the exiting of coal-fired power stations across the country and the consequences if steps aren’t taken to protect these communities.
It defines coal-fired power stations and associated thermal coalmines as being located in six regions around Australia: Collie in Western Australia, the Latrobe Valley in Victoria, the Hunter Valley and Lithgow in NSW and three regions in Queensland – the Darling Downs, Gladstone and Central Queensland.
The political expression of this reality is the number of regional seats that will be affected. Some sooner than others. Neither side can claim a monopoly on ownership of these constituencies.
In NSW, Labor is at risk in the Hunter Valley in the seats of Hunter, Shortland and Paterson, while Calare west of Sydney, held by the Nationals until Andrew Gee resigned to sit on the crossbench, covers the coal community of Lithgow.
In Queensland, the LNP has Flynn stretching west from Gladstone to consider with legacy coal community economics also stretching into Capricornia, which takes in Rockhampton up to southern Mackay. Both seats have been in Labor hands before. Nationals leader David Littleproud’s massive Queensland seat of Maranoa is another that takes in coal communities through Queensland’s southern and central west.
In Victoria, coal communities stretch across the Nationals’ seat of Gippsland, which now takes in the industrial region of the Latrobe Valley………………………………………………………………………………..
The day of nuclear Armageddon: Newly declassified documents reveal in macabre minute-by-minute detail what the end of the world would like. And why those vaporised instantly by an atomic bomb will be the lucky ones…
Eventually it reaches the troposphere, higher than commercial flights. Radioactive particles then spew across everything below as fallout, raining back down on the Earth.
A nuclear bomb produces ‘a witch’s brew of radioactive products, which are also entrained in the cloud’, the astrophysicist Carl Sagan warned decades ago.
More than a million people are dead or dying and fewer than two minutes have passed since detonation. Now the inferno begins.
ANNIE JACOBSEN, 7 April 2024, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13279197/The-day-nuclear-Armageddon-Newly-declassified-documents-reveal-macabre-minute-minute-end-world-like-vaporised-instantly-atomic-bomb-lucky-ones.html
This story, of what the moments after a nuclear missile launch could look like, is based on facts sourced from exclusive interviews with presidential advisers, cabinet members, nuclear weapons engineers, scientists, soldiers, airmen, special operators, Secret Service, emergency management experts, intelligence analysts, civil servants and others who have worked on these macabre scenarios over decades.
As the plans for General Nuclear War are among the most classified secrets held by the US government, the scenario postulated here takes the reader up to the razor’s edge of what can legally be known. Declassified documents, obfuscated for decades, fill in the details with terrifying clarity.
Because the Pentagon is a top target for a strike by America’s nuclear-armed enemies, in the scenario that follows, Washington DC gets hit first with a one megaton thermo-nuclear bomb. ‘A “Bolt out of the Blue” attack against DC is what everyone in DC fears most,’ says Andrew Weber, former assistant secretary of defence for nuclear, chemical and biological defence programmes. ‘Bolt out of the Blue’ is how US Nuclear Command and Control refers to an ‘unwarned large [nuclear] attack’.
This strike on DC initiates the beginning of an Armageddon-like nuclear war that will almost certainly follow. ‘There is no such thing as a small nuclear war,’ is an oft repeated phrase in Washington.
A nuclear strike on the Pentagon is just the beginning of a scenario the finality of which will be the end of civilisation as we know it.
This is the reality of the world in which we live. The nuclear war scenario proposed in this book could happen tomorrow. Or later today. ‘The world could end in the next couple of hours,’ warns General Robert Kehler, the former commander of the United States Strategic Command.
A one megaton thermonuclear weapon detonation begins with a flash of light and heat so tremendous it is impossible for the human mind to comprehend.
One hundred and eighty million degrees Fahrenheit is four or five times hotter than the temperature at the centre the Sun.
In the first fraction of a milli-second after the bomb strikes the Pentagon outside Washington DC, there is light. Soft X-ray light with a very short wavelength. The light superheats the surrounding air to millions of degrees, creating a massive fireball that expands at millions of miles per hour.
Within a few seconds the fireball has increased to a diameter of a little more than a mile, its heat so intense that concrete explodes, metal melts or evaporates, stone shatters and people instantaneously convert into combusting carbon.
The five-storey, five-sided structure of the Pentagon, and everything inside its 6.5 million sq ft of office space, explodes into superheated dust, all the walls shattering with the near-simultaneous arrival of a shockwave. All 27,000 employees perish instantly.
Not a single thing in the fireball remains. Nothing. Ground zero is zeroed.
Travelling at the speed of light, the radiating heat from the fireball ignites everything flammable several miles in every direction.
Curtains, paper, books, wood fences, clothing and dry leaves explode into flames and become kindling for a great firestorm that begins to consume a 100 or more square mile area that, prior to this flash of light, was the beating heart of American governance and home to six million people.
Several hundred feet north-west of the Pentagon, all 639 acres of Arlington national cemetery –including the 400,000 sets of bones and gravestones honouring the war dead, the 3,800 buried African-American freed people, the visitors paying respects on this late winter afternoon, the groundskeepers mowing lawns, the arborists tending trees, the tour guides touring, the white-gloved members of the Old Guard keeping watch over the Tomb of the Unknowns – they are all instantly transformed into charred human figurines. Into soot.
Those incinerated are spared the horror that begins to be inflicted on the one to two million people gravely injured but not yet dead.
Continue readingUkrainian artillery cuts last backup power line to Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant
Steven Starr, April 6, 2024
The fuel rods within the reactor core and in the spent fuel pools will continue to emit a large amount of heat (from the continuous decay of fission products within the fuel) even after the reactors are in a “cold shutdown”. Thus, electric power is required to run the cooling systems in the spent fuel ponds and the pumps that push cooling water through the reactors. If no offsite electricity is available, diesel generators are required to generate electricity to operate the pumps to cool the reactor and the cooling systems that cool the spent fuel pools.
A prolonged failure of the cooling systems (from loss of electric power) to continuously remove heat from the spent fuels will eventually cause the water in the pools to boil off and expose the spent fuel rods to steam and/or air. Exposure of the fuel rods to steam and/or air will cause them to overheat to the point of rupture or ignition, leading to the massive release of radioactivity. (The Soviet-designed reactors have their spent fuel pools inside the primary containment, unlike US reactors that locate spent fuel pools outside primary containment).
The fuel inside the steel reactor containment vessels must also be cooled (by pumping cooling water through the containment vessel). Failure of the cooling pumps to circulate water through the core will lead to the water in the containment vessel to superheat and eventually lead to the damage of the fuel rods, which would release large amounts of highly radioactive fission products.
Offsite power to the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) has historically been provided by the Zaporozhye Thermal Power Station, which is located several kilometers away from the ZNPP. I think the damage to backup power line from Ukrainian artillery fire refers to the destruction of the power lines and power transformers that connect the Thermal Power Station to ZNPP.
This week – the less positive news about nuclear.
Some bits of good news.
Global Life Expectancy Rises by 6.2 Years After Drop in Deaths from Stroke, Diarrhea, and Respiratory Infections Saving Migratory Fish, One Culvert at a Time.
TOP STORIES. Aukusing for War: The Real Target Is China .
The $97 billion mess – spent nuclear fuel reprocessing in Japan.
Xi Jinping’s Thoughts on China’s Nuclear Weapons.
America’s Nuclear War Plan in the 1960s Was Utter Madness. It Still Is.
Inside Sellafield behind the razor wire gun- toting guards and blast barriers at the toxic nuclear site – also at
Nuclear regulators should weigh climate change risk to power plants, report says.
Spent nuclear fuel mismanagement poses a major threat to the United States. Here’s how..
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AUSTRALIA.
- Nuclear energy is an ugly duckling in every possible respect: Too late, too costly, too toxic.
- Peter Dutton to press ahead with nuclear despite opposition in regional Australia. Australia’s Liberal National Coalition “in a panic” about response to confused and unpopular nuclear power plan. Peter Dutton vows to bring small nuclear reactors online in Australia by mid 2030 if elected. Dutton’s perks for nuclear plan. Coalition to release nuclear incentive package. “No feasible pathway:” Liberal MP Matt Kean quits Coalition-based charity because of its obsession with nuclear. Matt Kean admonished by federal Opposition for criticising nuclear direction. States reject Dutton’s push for nuclear power.
- A hard job for the Australian government to find credible spruikers for a nuclear waste dump.
- ‘Poison portal’: US and UK could send nuclear waste to Australia under Aukus, inquiry told. AUKUS: Perth councils demand public alert of any safety incidents related to nuclear subs at HMAS Stirling.
- Killing Aid Workers: Australia’s Muddled Policy on Israel. Updated Climate Council statement re nuclear power.
Climate. Climate change requires kind of collective effort that British people made during Second World War . ‘Simply mind-boggling’: world record temperature jump in Antarctic raises fears of catastrophe. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXwmCLqQESQ
Nuclear. I find it overwhelming – the enthusiasm of the world’s leaders for ever more deadly nuclear weaponry – in view of The day of nuclear Armageddon.
Noel’s notes. NATO – dancing macabrely to World War 3? Why I am really a CONSERVATIVE, and you should be, too. Ethics, intelligence, literature, and nuclear reprocessing.
NUCLEAR ISSUES.
| CLIMATE. Nuclear energy cannot lead the global energy transition. Portents of a nuclear war on a burning planet. Climate change and nuclear waste are a toxic stew. Nuclear Power Plants: NRC Should Take Actions to Fully Consider the Potential Effects of Climate Change. Nuclear regulator delinquent on climate. | ECONOMICS. Russia’s state-owned energy company Rosatom is drumming up new nuclear business in Africa. United Arab Emirates in talks to invest in European nuclear power infrastructure. The cost of Europe’s new nuclear power plants. |
ENERGY Fukushima City: 100 MW solar farm. China’s quiet energy revolution: the switch from nuclear to renewable energy.
ENVIRONMENT. Ecocide a ‘Critical Dimension of Israel’s Genocidal Campaign’ in Gaza: Probe. 3 B 1 Say no to small modular reactors: Stop normalizing the exploitation of nature. Radiation. Russia declares ‘state of emergency’ after radiation detected in eastern city of Khabarovsk
ETHICS and RELIGION. Holy See: ‘Nuclear deterrence is an illusion’.
EVENTS. 11 April WEBINAR Nuclear exploitation: how uranium mining harms communities. https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_iThP7xYKRVy6XxQ46hOwpA#/registration
| HEALTH. St. Louis-area residents make plea for compensation for illnesses tied to nuclear contamination. | LEGAL UK govt lawyers conclude Israel in breach of humanitarian law. Sprawling Sellafield Nuclear Waste Site Prosecuted for Cybersecurity Failings. Lawsuit challenges $1 billion in federal funding to sustain California’s last nuclear power plant. | MEDIA. An interview with Annie Jacobsen, author of ‘Nuclear War: A Scenario’. ‘Oppenheimer’ finally opens in Japan, the only nation to experience horror of nuclear war |
POLITICS. U.S. government extends key nuclear power subsidy by another 40 years.
Dennis Kucinich: the US engineered a coup to drag Ukraine into a conflict.
| POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY. US Secretary of State Blinken says Ukraine will be NATO member. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddI8OJKTWxc Japan confirms experts met in China to ease concerns over discharge of treated radioactive water. The Case for Nuclear Diplomacy (doesn’t mention the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons!) | SAFETY. M6.0 earthquake hits coast of Japan’s Fukushima: Japan Meteorological Agency. EDF confirms cracks on 1.3 GW Paluel 2 reactor. TEPCO plans new installations at Fukushima nuclear plant, to deal with radioactive leakage. Mystery of America’s first fatal nuclear disaster – explosion of small nuclear reactor. Russia urges IAEA to publicly reveal Ukrainian attacks on nuclear plant. Ukrainian artillery cuts last backup power line to Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant. |
SPINBUSTER. Jim Green demolishes Rolls Royce’s claims about so-called “small” and “cheap” nuclear reactors for Australia.
TECHNOLOGY. Not content with nuclear wastes to the seas, the nuclear lobby now wants floating nuclear power – (for the environment! they say).
| WAR and CONFLICT. The day of nuclear Armageddon: Newly declassified documents reveal in macabre minute-by-minute detail what the end of the world would like. And why those vaporised instantly by an atomic bomb will be the lucky ones… The Looming Ukraine Debacle. Ukrainian counteroffensive ‘biggest debacle in modern military history’ – David Sacks. West helping Ukraine attack deep inside Russia – CNN. | WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES. U.S. Nuclear Weapons Costs, Projections Continue to Rise. ‘Obscene’: Biden Quietly OKs More 2,000-Pound Bombs, Warplanes for Israel. Ukraine aid will bankrupt future US generations – congressman. |
Updated Climate Council statement re nuclear power
Nuclear power stations are not appropriate for Australia – and never will be
March 2024By Climate Council
The prospect of nuclear power in Australia has been a topic of public debate since the 1950s. While Australia has never had a nuclear power station, we do have 33% of the world’s uranium deposits and we are the world’s third largest producer of it. Periodically, as with the changing of the seasons, various individuals appear in the media singing the virtues of nuclear energy – claiming it is the only option for clean and reliable electricity in Australia.In fact, over one third of Australia’s electricity is already powered by renewables, and new initiatives like the Capacity Investment Scheme are set to push us towards 82% renewable energy by the end of this decade. While the move to clean energy is still not happening fast enough, it is underway and starting to speed up. We do not need distractions like nuclear to derail our progress now, so let’s set the record straight.
Why doesn’t nuclear power make sense for Australia?
1. Nuclear power stations can’t be built anywhere in Australia.
They are banned in every state, and in every territory. Such bans were introduced because of community concerns about the health and environmental risks. Many parliamentary inquiries at a federal and state level – see this Victorian Inquiry, this Federal Inquiry, and this South Australian Inquiry for instance – have been held into nuclear energy, and all have concluded that it makes no sense in Australia.
2. Nuclear power stations are expensive and take too long to build.
Australia’s independent science information agency, CSIRO, has found that solar and wind are by far the cheapest ways of producing electricity(even when factoring in storage). In contrast, the cost of building and operating nuclear in Australia remains prohibitively high.
Analysis conducted by the nuclear industry itself shows nuclear power stations take an average of 9.4 years to build – compared to 1–3 years for a major wind or solar project. Australia needs to replace its ageing coal-fired power stations as quickly as possible to rapidly reduce emissions this decade. As shown in the Australian Energy Market Operator’s Integrated System Plan, by far the cheapest and quickest way to do this is to ramp up renewable energy paired with storage like pumped hydro, and batteries.
3. Nuclear power poses significant community, environmental, health and economic risks.
Radiation from major nuclear disasters, such as Chernobyl in 1986 and Fukushima in 2011, have impacted hundreds of thousands of people and contaminated vast areas that take decades to clean up. Even when a nuclear power station operates as intended, it creates a long-term and prohibitively expensive legacy of site remediation, fuel processing and radioactive waste storage.
4. Nuclear power is not renewable, and it is not safe.
Uranium is a finite resource just like coal, oil and gas. It needs to be mined and, just like mining coal, oil and gas, this carries serious safety concerns, including contaminating the environment with radioactive dust, radon gas, water-borne toxins, and increased levels of background radiation. On the other hand, energy generated from the sun and wind releases no pollutants into the air and is overwhelmingly considered to be safe.
There you have it: nuclear power is expensive, illegal, dangerous and decades away from powering our homes and businesses. It makes no sense. On the other hand, energy from the sun and wind is cheap, abundant, safe and available now. So, let’s get on with building more renewable energy!
Jim Green demolishes Rolls Royce’s claims about so-called “small” and “cheap” nuclear reactors for Australia.
Nuclear Fuel Cycle Watch Australia, Jim Green 7 Apr 24
According to reports in The Australian, Rolls-Royce claims it could build a 470-megawatt reactor in Australia for A$3.5-5 billion. That equates to A$7.4-10.6 billion / gigawatt (GW). For comparison, the cost for the two EPR reactors under construction at Hinkley Point, the only reactor construction project in the UK, is A$27.8 / GW.
So Rolls-Royce claims its cost-per-GW will be just 27-38% of the cost of Hinkley Point, for a reactor type that it has never built and doesn’t have a licence to build, anywhere in the world. Clearly Rolls-Royce’s cost claims need to be treated with scepticism.
Rolls-Royce claims it could build a reactor in Australia in just four years (once licensing and a myriad of other issues were sorted). Let’s compare that speculation with real world experience:
* Hinkley Point was supposed to be a seven-year construction project. That has blown out to 12-13 years with further slippage likely.
* The one EPR under construction project in France was meant to be completed in five years but it remains incomplete after 17 years.
* The one EPR recently completed in Finland was meant to be a four-year construction project but ultimately took 17 years to complete.
* The two AP1000 reactors in the US were meant to be completed in three years, but ultimately took 10 and 11 years to complete.
Rolls-Royce’s 470-MW design is being marketed as a small modular reactor (SMR) even though it falls well outside the <300 MW definition of SMRs. Only two SMR plants are said to be operating anywhere in the world (though there’s nothing modular about either of them). Russia’s floating ‘SMR’ was supposed to be a three-year construction project but that blew out to 12 years (and costs increased six-fold). China’s ‘SMR’ was supposed to be a four-year construction project but that blew out to nine years (and costs increased three-fold).
Clearly Rolls-Royce’s claim that it could build a reactor in just four years needs to be treated with scepticism.
Peter Dutton vows to bring small nuclear reactors online in Australia by mid 2030 if elected.
April 5, 2024, The Australian, Simon Benson
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/peter-dutton-vows-to-bring-small-nuclear-reactors-online-in-australia-by-mid2030-if-elected/news-story/eaf9eaf2084916fa118fbeebf2ed72c9
Cheaper power prices would be offered for residents and businesses in coal communities to switch from retiring coal-fired generators to nuclear power if the Coalition wins government.
Peter Dutton has pledged that if elected, the Coalition could deliver the first small modular reactors into the grid by the mid-2030s, with British manufacturer Rolls-Royce understood to be able to deliver them at an estimated $3.5bn to $5bn each.
Economic impact statements will also be conducted on at least seven communities identified by a shadow cabinet subcommittee established by the Opposition Leader to develop the Coalition’s energy security policy.
Mr Dutton confirmed to The Weekend Australian that under the Coalition’s net-zero energy plan, to be released before the May budget, cheaper electricity bills would be offered to those communities that took up nuclear when coal-fired power stations were retired.
The plan will involve the creation of new precincts for advanced manufacturing centred on cheap energy from small nuclear reactors.
Mr Dutton met privately last week with executives from nuclear power plant manufacturer Rolls-Royce and its Australian partner Penske over the pursuit of low-cost small modular reactor technology for Australia.
It is understood Rolls-Royce is confident that its small modular reactor technology could be ready for the Australian market by the early to mid-2030s with a price tag of $5bn for a 470 megawatt plant.
Each plant would take four years to build and have a life span of 60 years.
Rolls-Royce will also build the nuclear reactors for the second tranche of the future AUKUS nuclear-powered naval submarines under contracts signed in February with the Albanese government.
“There is every reason to be optimistic about bringing small modular net-zero emission nuclear into the power mix in the 2030s,” the Opposition Leader said in an interview with The Weekend Australian, adding: “I think the mid-2030s.
Grattan Institute Deputy Energy Director Alison Reeve says the nuclear energy debate is a “bit of a distraction” when there are “immediate problems” to worry about. Ms Reeve joined Sky News Australia to discuss the future of energy in the country. “The federal opposition has said they want to take the ban off nuclear power – they could do that,” she said. “The thing is that there’s a hell of a lot of things that would need to happen before you end up with being able to actually build a nuclear power station. “In the meantime, we’ve got an awful lot of other stuff that we need to concentrate on building.”
“If we win the election, it is clear to me that (South Australian Labor Premier) Peter Malinauskas would be the first to sign up, and we could deal with regulatory burdens quickly.
“There is no question about that. And there is every reason to believe other jurisdictions would follow suit.
“I think when you look at where technology has advanced and what Rolls-Royce is doing with the nuclear submarines the government has signed up to buy, the future is much closer than we think.
“The ability to produce zero-emissions baseload with 24/7 electricity to firm up renewables is within our grasp.
“My honest view is we have to embrace a new energy system and we have to have an orderly transition but the government doesn’t have a credible pathway to net zero by 2050.”
Mr Dutton said a community engagement process would soon be rolled out once the potential coal sites had been finalised. He confirmed that those communities supportive of future transitions from coal to nuclear would be offered cheaper power prices and higher-paid jobs…………………
The first phase of the Coalition’s net-zero energy plan was taken to shadow cabinet two weeks ago and will be released before the May budget.
The debate facing the Coalition now is over the cost and timely delivery of nuclear into the energy mix, as well as the future of some coal communities facing bleak socio-economic outcomes one coal-fired generators exit the system……………….
Anthony Albanese told The Weekend Australian his government had a clear focus on the future of coal communities and insisted that no one would be “left behind”, claiming Labor’s renewable energy plans would drive new manufacturing jobs in those regions.
“Eleven coal-fired power plants have already closed and the former Coalition government didn’t lift a finger to help workers in these communities,” the Prime Minister said
“Rather than playing politics with the transition, the government is putting in place practical measures to ensure workers are looked after. The Net Zero Economy Authority will support workers to access new employment and to help create jobs in new businesses and industries.
“The Energy Industry Jobs Plan introduced into parliament last week outlines a redeployment scheme to align workers with jobs in new industries.
“The authority will work with business unions and communities.
“We will not leave them behind.
“A practical example is the Liddell site in the Upper Hunter which is being transformed into an energy and manufacturing hub, employing more people than the old power station did.
“Recently, Rio Tinto signed Australia’s biggest renewable energy deal to power its Boyne aluminium smelter in Gladstone.”
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/peter-dutton-vows-to-bring-small-nuclear-reactors-online-in-australia-by-mid2030-if-elected/news-story/eaf9eaf2084916fa118fbeebf2ed72c9
Nuclear energy is an ugly duckling in every possible respect: Too late, too costly, too toxic
Jeremy Cooper, Apr 5, 2024, https://reneweconomy.com.au/nuclear-energy-is-an-ugly-duckling-in-every-possible-respect-too-late-too-costly-too-toxic/
Twenty-five years ago, Australia banned nuclear energy generation at a Federal, State and Territory level. Partly because of this, Australia would be one of the last places you would invest in nuclear energy, notwithstanding our large uranium deposits.
Australia has no nuclear power industry, so it has multi-level legislative barriers and no social licence. It also has abundant land, sun, and wind (with a vibrant renewables industry) and no obvious need for nuclear power.
On top of all those impediments, renewable sources of power are already profoundly changing how our energy markets and infrastructure operate.
Rooftop solar often accounts for all electricity grid demand and more during the day. This means consumers can use their non-grid (or ‘behind the meter’) electricity for free.
Rooftop solar is expected to increase fourfold over the next 20 years. These changes create further impediments to costly, centralised, slow to build and ‘always on’ nuclear power. Try telling rooftop solar consumers that they’ll have to make way for nuclear power at who knows what cost.
The Clean Energy Council recently reported that renewable energy provided 39.4% of Australia’s total energy generation in 2023, up from just 17% as recently as 2017. Combined large and small-scale additional renewable capacity in Australia reached around 5.9 gigawatts (GW – ie a billion watts) in 2023.
Total investment in large-scale storage was $4.9 billion in 2023, up from $1.9 billion in 2022. Last month, Rio Tinto signed a landmark 25-year renewable energy purchase deal worth billions to power its alumina and aluminium facilities. The large-scale solar and wind farms are the largest of such projects ever financed in Australia.
According to the International Energy Agency, new solar installations globally were 420GW in 2023 and new wind 117GW. New nuclear fell to just 5.5GW.
On a per GW basis, barely 1% of the capital spent globally last year was on nuclear. These data make it abundantly clear that there is no ‘nuclear renaissance’. While many nations promised to invest more in nuclear at COP28 last year, we are yet to see this happen.
Looking at the four big nuclear plants recently completed or nearly finished in the US, UK, France and Finland, cost overruns averaged over 300%, with more bad news to come.
The builders either went bankrupt or were nationalised. Consumers, investors, and taxpayers will be paying for this for a generation. But cost is not the worst drawback.
The more serious problem is that radioactive nuclear waste is extremely toxic and gets air-brushed out of arguments in favour of going nuclear. All the focus is on zero carbon emissions as if the toxic waste didn’t exist. This is disingenuous at best.
Nuclear waste needs to be stored expensively and safely by experts for thousands of years; and longer. Given how things are going in the world (a ‘hot’ war in Europe; unprecedented middle East tensions and Trump Mark II), what confidence could we have in this being delivered?
The risks of storing nuclear waste are imponderable because of the time horizons involved – well beyond our brief Anthropocene era. It is the height of human folly to assume that we can manage these risks.
We have no idea what will happen when distant, future generations are involuntarily charged with looking after waste that they didn’t consent to nor benefit from and, critically, weren’t paid to look after.
Another catchy, but fallacious, argument against renewables revolves around ‘baseload power’. This is the old argument based around the fact that the sun doesn’t shine at night and therefore on-demand power is the only option.
The reality is that Australia is already rapidly moving towards flexible, dispatchable power because of the increasing contribution from rooftop solar and wind backed up by battery (and other storage technologies, including hydro).
Despite comments to the contrary, nuclear power cannot ‘firm up’ renewable power sources; only variable sources of power can do this: batteries; hydro or ‘gas peaking’ – things that can be switched on and off quickly.
This leads to the question of what we expect nuclear energy to do if and when it turns up in the 2040s. AGL’s CEO has already ruled out any nuclear plants being located on its former coal-fired power station sites citing the idea as potentially ‘de-railing’ investment in the energy transition.
If nuclear power does arrive in Australia, it will be an ugly duckling in every possible respect; too late; too costly; too toxic and unable to supply a 21st century power grid that will have moved to flexible power sources. Unlike the famous Danish children’s story, the nuclear duckling will never be recognised as a ‘swan’.
This is not to say that the transition to renewable energy is without challenges, costs, and the potential for delays. There are and will be obstacles, but we cannot afford to wait for nuclear energy while continuing to burn fossil fuels in the meantime.
The risk-free and low-cost renewable alternatives are already here and that is where the market has already decided to allocate its capital.
Jeremy Cooper is Director, Bennelong Funds Management; Chair, Carbon Advisory Board, Future Group; a former Deputy Chair of ASIC and chair of the 2009-10 Super System Review.
China’s quiet energy revolution: the switch from nuclear to renewable energy
By Derek Woolner and David Glynne Jones, Apr 6, 2024 https://johnmenadue.com/chinas-quiet-energy-revolution-the-switch-from-nuclear-to-renewable-energy/
There is now a policy dispute about the roles of nuclear and renewable energy in future Australian low emission energy systems. The experience of China over more than a decade provides compelling evidence on how this debate will be resolved. In December 2011 China’s National Energy Administration announced that China would make nuclear energy the foundation of its electricity generation system in the next “10 to 20 years”. Just over a decade later China has wound back those ambitious targets and reoriented its low emission energy strategy around the rapid deployment of renewable solar and wind energy at unprecedented rates.
Australia has seen a campaign against the use of renewable energy technologies and for the benefits of nuclear energy in developing Australia’s future low emission energy systems. The Federal Opposition has now adopted this position as their policy. The recent experience of China provides a compelling commentary on this decision.
In December 2011 China’s National Energy Administration (NEA) announced that China would make nuclear energy the foundation of its electricity generation system in the next “10 to 20 years”, adding as much as 300 gigawatts (GWe) of nuclear capacity over that period.
This was followed by a period of delay as China undertook a comprehensive review of nuclear safety in the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
Subsequently, moderated nuclear energy targets were established, aiming for a nuclear energy contribution of 15% of China’s total electricity generation by 2035, 20-25% by 2050 and 45% in the second half of the century.
However by 2023 it was becoming clear that China’s nuclear construction program was well behind schedule. The target for 2020 had not been achieved, and targets for subsequent 5-year plans were unlikely to be achieved.
In September 2023 the China Nuclear Energy Association (CNEA) reported that China was now aiming to achieve a nuclear energy contribution of 10% by 2035, increasing to around 18% by 2060.
The CNEA also indicated that ‘greenlighting’ of new construction would now be at the rate of 6-8 large nuclear power reactors per year – not the 10 per year previously targeted for 2020-2035 and beyond. This will result in new nuclear generation increasing by 60-80 terawatt-hours (TWh) annually.
Meanwhile the deployment of renewable energy (primarily solar and wind energy) was dramatically accelerated in 2023, with the installation of 217GWe of new solar capacity and 70GWe of new wind capacity.
This represents an increase of around 400TWh in annual low emission generation – the quantitative equivalent of 40 large nuclear power reactors, or four times the average annual output of the Three Gorges Dam hydroelectric system (the world’s largest power station).
In 2023 energy analysts started reporting that China was now expected to achieve or exceed its 2030 target of 1200GWe for the total installed capacity of solar and wind energy by 2025, and was now planning to triple the 2030 objective, to reach 3900GWe.
Previously China expected that its energy emissions would peak in 2030, but revised forecasts are now indicating that this could happen as early as 2024, 5-6 years ahead of target.
By the end of 2023 it was clear that nuclear energy was no longer going to be the foundation of China’s future electricity generation system, and that this task had shifted to renewable energy.
So what has happened? There’s no single answer, but two key factors appear to be at play.
The first is the emergence of renewable energy technologies at competitive scale and cost since 2011.
Between 2011 and 2022, the cost of solar PV modules declined by 85%, wind energy costs by 60-70%, and battery costs by 90%.
China now dominates the global production of solar PV panels, wind turbines and batteries, with costs expected to continue to decline significantly for the foreseeable future while performance improves.
The consequence is that renewable energy generation can now be deployed economically at rates five to eight times faster than nuclear energy, which is constrained by logistical and regulatory capability, safety, site availability and other factors.
The second is the slow delivery of new nuclear generation which contributed to continued ‘greenlighting’ of new coal-fired generation to underwrite energy security, as it became clear that deployment rates for new low emission electricity generation were insufficient to blunt demand from provincial governments for new coal-fired generators, even though many existing plants are operating at uneconomically low capacity factors
By 2035, under the original plan, combined nuclear, solar and wind generation would have been comparable to current coal generation but insufficient to meet significantly increased new electricity demand.
Under the new plans, combined solar, wind and nuclear generation is likely to match current coal generation and meet new demand, with solar and wind energy contributing around 85% of this low emission generation.
By 2030 another factor will come into play, with China’s battery giant CATL developing long duration utility battery systems that will provide dispatchable electricity from renewable sources at competitive or lower costs than either coal or nuclear generated electricity.
The central message here is that even in China – the world’s largest industrial economy and preeminent builder of advanced civil infrastructure in the 21st century – nuclear energy cannot compete with renewable energy to deliver low emission electricity generation at the deployment rates needed to meet mid-century emission targets.
1
Killing Aid Workers: Australia’s Muddled Policy on Israel
Australian anger at the government level must therefore be severely qualified. Support roles, thereby rendering Australian companies complicit in Israeli’s military efforts, and in ancillary fashion the Australian government, continue to be an important feature. The F-35, a mainstay US-made fighter for the Israeli Air Force, is not manufactured or built in Australia, but is sustained through the supply of spare parts stored in a number of allied countries. According to the Australian Department of Defence, “more than 70 Australian companies have directly shared more than $4.13 billion in global F-35 production and sustainment contracts.”
April 5, 2024, by: Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.com/killing-aid-workers-australias-muddled-policy-on-israel/
The Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, was distraught and testy. It seemed that, on this occasion, Israel had gone too far. Not too far in killing over 32,000 Palestinians in Gaza, a staggering percentage of them being children. Not too far in terms of using starvation as a weapon of war. Not too far in bringing attention to the International Court of Justice that its actions are potentially genocidal.
Israel had overstepped in doing something it has done previously to other nationals: kill humanitarian workers in targeted strikes. The difference for Albanese on this occasion was that one of the individuals among the seven World Central Kitchen charity workers killed during the midnight between April 1 and 2 was Australian national Lalzawmi “Zomi” Frankcom.
Frankcom and her colleagues had unloaded humanitarian food supplies from Cyprus that had been sent via a maritime route before leaving the Deir al-Balah warehouse. The convoy, despite driving in a designated “deconflicted” zone, was subsequently attacked by three missiles fired from a Hermes 450 drone. All vehicles had the WCK logo prominently displayed. WCK had been closely coordinating the movements of their personnel with the IDF.
In a press conference on April 3, Albanese described the actions as “completely unacceptable.” He noted that the Israeli government had accepted responsibility for the strikes, while Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu had conveyed his condolences to Frankcom’s family, with assurances that he would be “committed to full transparency”.
The next day, the Australian PM called the slaying of Frankcom a “catastrophic event”, reiterating Netanyahu’s promises from the previous day that he was “committed to a full and proper investigation.” Albanese also wished that these findings be made public, and that accountability be shown for Israel’s actions, including for those directly responsible. “What we know is that there have been too many innocent lives lost in Gaza.”
Australian Foreign Minister, Penny Wong, restated the need for “full accountability and transparency” and Australian cooperation with Israel “on the detail of this investigation.” She further acknowledged the deaths of over 30,000 civilians, with some “half a million Palestinians” starving.
Beyond an investigation, mounted and therefore controlled by the Israeli forces themselves, nothing much else can be hoped for. The Albanese approach has been one of copybook warnings and concerns to an ally it clearly fears affronting. What would a ground invasion of Rafah do to the civilian population? What of the continuing hardships in Gaza? Push for a humanitarian ceasefire, but what else?
Australian anger at the government level must therefore be severely qualified. Support roles, thereby rendering Australian companies complicit in Israeli’s military efforts, and in ancillary fashion the Australian government, continue to be an important feature. The F-35, a mainstay US-made fighter for the Israeli Air Force, is not manufactured or built in Australia, but is sustained through the supply of spare parts stored in a number of allied countries. According to the Australian Department of Defence, “more than 70 Australian companies have directly shared more than $4.13 billion in global F-35 production and sustainment contracts.”
The Australian government has previously stated that all export permit decisions “must assess any relevant human rights risks and Australia’s compliance with its international obligations.” The refusal of a permit would be assured in cases where an exported product “might be used to facilitate human rights abuses.” On paper, this seems solidly reasoned and consistent with international humanitarian law. But Canberra has been a glutton for the Israeli military industry, approving 322 defence exports over the past six years. In 2022, it approved 49 export permits of a military nature bound for Israel; in the first three months of 2023, the number was 23.
The drone used in the strike that killed Frankcom is the pride and joy of Elbit Systems, which boasts a far from negligible presence in Australia. In February, Elbit Systems received a A$917 million contract from the Australian Defence Department, despite previous national security concerns among Australian military personnel regarding its Battle Management System (BMS).
When confronted with the suggestion advanced by the Australian Greens that Australia end arms sales to Israel, given the presence of Australian spare parts in weaponry used by the IDF, Wong displayed her true plumage. The Australian Greens, she sneered, were “trying to make this a partisan political issue.” With weasel-minded persistence, Wong again quibbled that “we are not exporting arms to Israel” and claiming Australian complicity in Israeli actions was “detrimental to the fabric of Australian society.”
The Australian position on supplying Israel remains much like that of the United States, with one fundamental exception. The White House, the Pentagon and the US Congress, despite increasing concerns about the arrangement, continue to bankroll and supply the Israeli war machine even as issue is taken about how that machine works. That much is admitted. The Australian line on this is even weaker.
The feeble argument made by such watery types as Foreign Minister Wong focus on matters of degree and semantics. Israel is not being furnished with weapons; they are merely being furnished with weapon components.
Aside from ending arms sales, there is precedent for Australia taking the bull by the horns and charging into the mist of legal accountability regarding the killing of civilians in war. It proved an enthusiastic participant in the Joint Investigation Team (JIT), charged with combing through the events leading to the downing of the Malaysian Airlines MH17 over Ukraine in July 2014 by a Buk missile, killing all 298 on board.
Any such equivalent investigation into the IDF personnel responsible for the killing of Frankcom and her colleagues is unlikely. When the IDF talks of comprehensive reviews, we know exactly how comprehensively slanted they will be.
Nuclear Power Plants: NRC Should Take Actions to Fully Consider the Potential Effects of Climate Change
GAO-24-106326 Apr 02, 2024
Climate change is likely to exacerbate natural hazards—such as floods and drought. The risks to nuclear power plants from such hazards include damage to systems and equipment that ensure safe operation.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s oversight process includes addressing safety risks at these plants. However, NRC doesn’t fully consider potential increases in risk from climate change. For example, NRC mostly uses historical data to identify and assess safety risks, rather than data from future climate projections.
We recommended that NRC fully address climate risks to nuclear power plants.
What GAO Found
Climate change is expected to exacerbate natural hazards—including heat, drought, wildfires, flooding, hurricanes, and sea level rise. In addition, climate change may affect extreme cold weather events. Risks to nuclear power plants from these hazards include loss of offsite power, damage to systems and equipment, and diminished cooling capacity, potentially resulting in reduced operations or plant shutdowns.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) addresses risks to the safety of nuclear power plants, including risks from natural hazards, in its licensing and oversight processes. Following the tsunami that led to the 2011 accident at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, NRC took additional actions to address risks from natural hazards. These include requiring safety margins in reactor designs, measures to prevent radioactive releases should a natural hazard event exceed what a plant was designed to withstand, and maintenance of backup equipment related to safety functions.
However, NRC’s actions to address risks from natural hazards do not fully consider potential climate change effects. For example, NRC primarily uses historical data in its licensing and oversight processes rather than climate projections data. NRC officials GAO interviewed said they believe their current processes provide an adequate margin of safety to address climate risks. However, NRC has not conducted an assessment to demonstrate that this is the case. Assessing its processes to determine whether they adequately address the potential for increased risks from climate change would help ensure NRC fully considers risks to existing and proposed plants. Specifically, identifying any gaps in its processes and developing a plan to address them, including by using climate projections data, would help ensure that NRC adopts a more comprehensive approach for assessing risks and is better able to fulfill its mission to protect public health and safety.
Why GAO Did This Study
NRC licenses and regulates the use of nuclear energy to provide reasonable assurance of adequate protection of public health and safety, to promote the common defense and security, and to protect the environment. Like all energy infrastructure, nuclear power plants can be affected by disruptions from natural hazards, some of which are likely to be exacerbated by climate change. Most commercial nuclear plants in the United States were built in the 1960s and 1970s, and weather patterns and climate-related risks to these plants have changed since their construction.
GAO was asked to review the climate resilience of energy infrastructure. This report examines (1) how climate change is expected to affect nuclear power plants and (2) NRC actions to address risks to nuclear power plants from climate change. GAO analyzed available federal data and reviewed regulations, agency documents, and relevant literature. GAO interviewed officials from federal agencies, including NRC, the Department of Energy, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and knowledgeable stakeholders from industry, academia, and nongovernmental organizations. GAO also conducted site visits to two plants.
Recommendations
GAO is making three recommendations, including that NRC assess whether its existing processes adequately address climate risks and develop and implement a plan to address any gaps identified. NRC said the recommendations are consistent with actions that are either underway or under development.
Recommendations for Executive Action
……………………………………………………………………………more https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-24-106326
1 This month.
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30 July – WEBINAR (Free) – Is Nuclear Power the Solution to Climate Change? https://my.acaw.org.au/event/acaw-is-nuclear-power-the-solution-to-climate-change
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