“Rapid and irreversible:” AEMO says energy crisis is accelerating switch to renewables — RenewEconomy
AEMO says the energy chaos is likely to accelerate the switch to renewables, but the scale of the transition is immense, and the need to act is urgent. The post “Rapid and irreversible:” AEMO says energy crisis is accelerating switch to renewables appeared first on RenewEconomy.
“Rapid and irreversible:” AEMO says energy crisis is accelerating switch to renewables — RenewEconomy
NSW backs three solar and battery recycling plants in new state funding round — RenewEconomy
Five New South Wales solar and battery recycling initiatives receive combined total of $7.4m in state government funding. The post NSW backs three solar and battery recycling plants in new state funding round appeared first on RenewEconomy.
NSW backs three solar and battery recycling plants in new state funding round — RenewEconomy
Europe saw Morrison’s Australia as “handbrake” on global climate action, Albanese says — RenewEconomy
Anthony Albanese says Scott Morrison’s recalcitrance on climate change almost scuttled a major trade deal with the European Union. The post Europe saw Morrison’s Australia as “handbrake” on global climate action, Albanese says appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Europe saw Morrison’s Australia as “handbrake” on global climate action, Albanese says — RenewEconomy
Labor to introduce legislation for climate targets and EV tax cuts in first week of parliament — RenewEconomy
Labor will seek to legislate its 2030 target, EV tax cuts and a revival of the Climate Change Authority during the first week of the new parliament. The post Labor to introduce legislation for climate targets and EV tax cuts in first week of parliament appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Labor to introduce legislation for climate targets and EV tax cuts in first week of parliament — RenewEconomy
Gas exporters sucking gas out of domestic market in middle of crisis, data shows — RenewEconomy
Australia’s LNG exporters are contributing to an ongoing energy crisis, by diverting gas away from the domestic market, AER data confirms. The post Gas exporters sucking gas out of domestic market in middle of crisis, data shows appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Gas exporters sucking gas out of domestic market in middle of crisis, data shows — RenewEconomy
June 29 Energy News — geoharvey
Opinion: ¶ “We Don’t Need Base Load Power” • Base load power often supplies the electricity in the middle of the night, but we can use power from other sources instead. The issue is not technical. It is just a matter of cost. Because of low battery costs, our electricity can be cheaper and better. […]
June 29 Energy News — geoharvey
Russia to Bolster Border With Nuclear Weapons, Missiles if Sweden, Finland Join NATO
Medvedev says Moscow doesn’t fear the Nordic states but needs to be ready for any retaliatory action, WSJ, 29 June 22.
MOSCOW—Russia threatened to station ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons on its border if Sweden and Finland are allowed to join NATO, and warned that Ukrainian membership of the military alliance could trigger World War III.
Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, said Moscow didn’t envision any threat from Sweden and Finland as potential North Atlantic Treaty Organization members because past relations with these countries had been “quite respectful and mutually well meaning,” but that Russia would still need to be ready for any retaliatory action……. (subscribers only) https://www.wsj.com/articles/russia-to-bolster-border-with-nuclear-weapons-missiles-if-sweden-finland-join-nato-11656417583
Harsher anti-protest laws targeting environmentalists are putting greed before green
Guardian, Bob Brown 27 June 22,
Penalties for peaceful action are now the same as for aggravated assault.
Last Friday dozens of armed New South Wales police officers raided a camp near Sydney and arrested two environmentalists. One was Aunty Caroline Kirk, an Aboriginal elder. She was charged with “wilfully obstructing and intimidating police”.
“I can’t run, I can’t climb,” she said. “All I can do … is teach my culture. Why are they doing this?”
The answer lies in the showdown of our age between greed and green.
At the heart of this is greenophobia, the fear of things green, including environmentalists. It involves the blighted idea that people should be stopped from taking action to defend the environment, especially if it gets in the way of making money.
It has infected the world of natural resource extractors and they have found the established political parties around the world extra helpful. So, in this year’s Queen’s speech, Boris Johnson announced a bill to jail peaceful UK protesters for up to 10 years. The proposal of those measures was one of the triggers that brought 400 alarmed scientists out to support environmental activists last year.
Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, is a greenophobe who is letting the Amazon rainforest and its Indigenous cultures be destroyed. His nation has descended into environmental lawlessness in which two rainforest defenders, British journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian Indigenous advocate Bruno Pereira, were murdered this month. Globally, 220 environmentalists were murdered last year and thousands more were injured, terrorised or imprisoned. Most of the perpetrators have not been arrested or charged.
MMG’s lobbying helped influence the Tasmanian parliament to vote last week for harsher penalties for the defenders of the Tarkine and its giant masked owls. A clear majority of Tasmanian MPs want MMG to get its toxic waste dump in the Tarkine and Tasmania’s defenders of nature to get a cell in Risdon prison.
Tasmania’s laws match those of NSW, with penalties of up to $11,000 for peaceful environmental protest and double that, or two and a half years in jail, for a second offence. Had these laws been in place in other jurisdictions at other times, the Franklin River would be dammed, the Daintree rainforest razed and much of Kakadu national park mined.
Victoria has also introduced legislation, one aim of which is to deter scientists who have previously gone into the highlands and found forests with protected species – such as the greater glider and the state’s critically endangered faunal emblem, the Leadbeater’s possum – being logged. That’s illegal. While the loggers faced no charges, the intention of the new laws is to stop or arrest those scientists next time.
In Newcastle last year a young man was sentenced to a year in jail for delaying a coal train. The court did not hear the assessment of the former chief scientist at Nasa who told the US Congress that, in this world of dangerous global heating, transporting coal is a criminal activity.
Greenophobia is percolating down. On the Monday before Aunty Caroline’s arrest, 100 or so officers raided Blockade Australia’s camp for peaceful protest at Colo near Sydney after four undercover officers who failed to identify themselves “feared for their lives” – though the police had the guns and the people in the camp, including the children, had none……………………………..
Corporate PR machines, with the rightwing media ready to go, are developing greenophobia to divert attention to their business wellbeing and away from the graver threat of the collapse of Earth’s biosphere, including through global heating and species extinctions. As the NSW attorney general, Mark Speakman, put it: “What we are stopping, or criminalising even further, are protests that shut down major economic activity.” It’s money before the planet.22
The new federal environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, is now Australia’s most powerful environmentalist. She will decide if MMG should treat its toxic wastes inside or outside the Tarkine rainforest. In doing so she will also decide if Tasmania’s environmentalists will face the new draconian sentences there. Those penalties, for peaceful environmental action, are now the same as for aggravated assault or for threatening neighbours with a shotgun.
Such laws may be tested in the high court as earlier laws were, after I was among those arrested in Tasmania’s Lapoinya rainforest in 2017. The court found those laws unconstitutional because they took away the right to peaceful protest. Meanwhile the Lapoinya forest was flattened and burnt, along with its rare wildlife. No one was arrested for that… The court found those laws unconstitutional because they took away the right to peaceful protest. Meanwhile the Lapoinya forest was flattened and burnt, along with its rare wildlife. No one was arrested for that.
If MMG’s needless waste dump is given the go-ahead I, for one, will help defend that vital forest, its owls, kingfishers and Tasmanian devils. They can take us out of nature but they can’t take nature out of us.
As for the “terrifying” Aunty Caroline, I would like to meet her and thank her. She may not be able to run or climb but she is an inspiration. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jun/27/harsher-anti-protest-laws-targeting-environmentalists-are-putting-greed-before-green-bob-brown
- Bob Brown is a former senator and leader of the Australian Greens and is patron of the Bob Brown Foundation……
Assange’s wife sounds alarm over his treatment
Assange’s wife sounds alarm over his treatment, https://www.rt.com/news/557738-assange-wife-treatment-extradition-us/ 27 June 22.WikiLeaks founder was subjected to ‘especially cruel’ treatment after extradition to US was approved in UK, Stella Moris has said.
Julian Assange was strip-searched and moved to a bare cell on the very day the UK Home Secretary Priti Patel approved his extradition to the US, the WikiLeaks founder’s wife, Stella Moris, told journalists on Thursday. The 50-year-old remained there for a weekend as prison guards searched his own cell, she added.
“Prison is a constant humiliation but what happened on Friday felt especially cruel,” Moris, who married Assange in March, has said, adding that the guards had told their inmate that it had all been done “for his own protection.”
According to Moris, the guards were looking for any things that could be used by a person to take their own life. In the bare cell where Assange was placed, the guards checked his status every hour until he was allowed to return to his cell on Tuesday.
The WikiLeaks founder currently remains in the maximum security Belmarsh Prison in south-eastern London, having been placed there in April 2019 as the UK was deciding on his extradition to the US. On June 17, Patel approved his transfer to US custody.
A British court had initially refused the extradition request on the grounds that Assange may otherwise kill himself, or that he’d be subjected to inhumane treatment in US detention. But Washington successfully appealed the ruling, offering the UK assurances that the Australian’s rights would be observed.
“The fact he is imprisoned while this outrageous extradition proceeds is a grave injustice in itself. He needs to deal with all that, while preparing for a complex appeal to the High Court,” Moris said. Assange still has a right to appeal the decision within 14 days of June 17.
“This kind of thing never becomes more tolerable. Any person would find it degrading. The mental strain on Julian is enormous as it is, having to process what is essentially a death sentence,” Moris said, adding that extradition to the US would “drive him to take his own life.”
It is not some “regular discussion about mental health,” she has insisted, adding that “we are talking about driving a person to take their own life.”
Moris, who has two children with Assange, has vowed to “use every available avenue” and “every waking hour fighting for Julian until he is free.” John Rees, a leading member of the campaign aimed at making the authorities free Assange has also branded Patel’s ruling “illegal” and said the WikiLeaks founder’s supporters “need to redouble our efforts to stop the extradition.”
The UK Home Office said last week that the British courts “have not found that it would be oppressive, unjust or an abuse of process to extradite Mr. Assange,” adding that they also believed his rights would be observed.
Assange has been a target for the US since 2010, when WikiLeaks published a trove of State Department cables and Pentagon documents that depicted alleged war crimes committed by US forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. He has since been accused of attempting to hack Pentagon computers and is charged under America’s Espionage Act, over WikiLeaks’ publication of classified materials. If extradited to the US, he might face up to 175 years behind bars.
Fast-tracking Australia toward nuclear subs
(ED I like this one: it is appealingly silly )
https://spectator.com.au/2022/06/fast-tracking-australia-toward-nuclear-subs/ Tom Lewis 27 June 22, The path to Australia acquiring nuclear submarines is being portrayed as too steep. We could get ourselves one Virginia-class nuclear-propelled submarine within a year or two if we pursued a less formal approach. And then we could get another, and another, very quickly…
The Australian Submarine Officer Pipeline Act, for Australian sailors to train on US nuclear-powered submarines, recently became part of the US military budget negotiations. Memorandums of understanding like this are showing that the path is being cleared. But here’s a way to make it easier.
It would involve the Defence Minister and the Chief of Navy going to America with a can of paint, a White Ensign, 90 of the best Australian apples, and 45 of our best Navy submariners. The paint is to paint over the nameboard of an existing Virginia with the new name – I suggest HMAS Taylor after a sailor who fought to the end in battle aboard HMAS Yarra in the second world war. The White Ensign is to fly from the fin as it leaves harbour for Australia. And the apples are to give a taste of Australia to the 90 United States Navy crew who would accompany our 45 on their first trip back to Australia.
Step through (or sail, if you like), how this fairly informal process might work. It basically would involve the USN loaning us a submarine. It could be an older Virginia, taken up from service immediately. The sailors are a loan too. They would be to initially man the submarine and train our people once here. To make it formal, call it a lease and draft up who pays for what over the terms.
Before the Defence Minister and CN leave America, they could sign a purchase order for a new Virginia. The Americans have them coming off the production line every six months. The purchase order should be accompanied by a gift of money to speed up the production line a bit. That way we could ask General Dynamics Electric Boat to accelerate matters a bit. America is a nation that put a man on the moon in less than a decade from announcement to landing. When they’re pushed they can work miracles. In the second world war they produced 324,750 military aircraft – a capacity unmatched by any other country in the world. Turning up the heat somewhat on the Virginia-class line should be possible.
On the way back across the Pacific, the Americans would be showing their new Aussie mates the handling requirements for a nuclear. Making firmer friends with the American people has a double purpose. It should be possible to speed up both the number of Americans working within our Navy and – with their governmental approval – advertising for experienced submariners to come and work Down Under.
In an acknowledgement of the increased tension of the times, we wouldn’t even need to necessarily purchase a new Virginia. We could purchase another operational boat. If this seems like our submarine force would be becoming almost part of the US Navy, then so be it. We have fought alongside the Americans since the first world war, and we have no better friend. Who better than to show us the way into this new capability? (A capability which we definitely must have.)
There is no better deterrent against a possible enemy than having submerged submarines at sea for months at a time. They could be anywhere, and the enemy must guard against that. Having a nuclear lie deep and quiet is infinitely better than having diesel-electric boats, which must come to periscope depth regularly to run their diesels to recharge their batteries.
This informal approach would allow Australia to have at least two nuclear boats online within a year or two. Of course, we’d try for more as soon as we could. Their presence should not be any cause for alarm. We have had nuclear boats alongside our wharves before – the author recalls sleeping aboard USS Houston in Darwin as part of Navy work. There are, however, a host of doubters who will raise a host of alarms. Some of these are necessary – what to do in the event of a major reactor leak (which the USN has never had by the way)? Others are minor – would more port security be needed?
Other ‘concerns’ are negligible. For example, one doubt that some have raised is whether Australia needs ‘a nuclear industry’ to operate these vessels. In the main though it is an engine we are acquiring, a nuclear one indeed, but although much more complex, only an engine. And it is one that doesn’t need the equivalent of a tank of diesel on the wharf, as the nuclear reactor core life is estimated at around 33 years.
We are underway down this path already. The Aukus security pact between Australia, America, and the UK, which was released in September 2021, set 18 months for the three nations to develop a path for Australia to acquire nuclear submarines. All this does is clear some rocks out of the way. For we need nuclear submarines now, not in 10 years.
NATO to add Finland, Sweden, prepare Australia, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea — Anti-bellum
NATOJune 27, 2022 Secretary General: NATO to agree “fundamental shift” in defence posture NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Monday (27 June 2022) said NATO leaders meeting in Madrid this week are set to sign off on key decisions, including a new Strategic Concept, a major strengthening of NATO’s deterrence and defence and greater support […]
NATO to add Finland, Sweden, prepare Australia, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea — Anti-bellum
ERA looks at funding options for Ranger
https://www.australianmining.com.au/news/era-looks-at-funding-options-for-ranger/?fbclid=IwAR0d8ZOC6Sw7adxsNmSSEDnOWzZ319hiuqJB4clv0bQtKX5INnhiTtalqeY June 27, 2022 Ray Chan Energy Resources of Australia (ERA) is reviewing all available options to ensure that the forecast increase in the cost of rehabilitation of its Ranger uranium mine in the Northern Territory will be adequately funded.
In January 2021, ERA – in which Rio Tinto holds 86.3 per cent shares – ceased all mining and processing activities at Ranger after 40 years of operation. It was Australia’s longest continually operating uranium oxide producer.
ERA said it was committed to delivering a positive legacy for Traditional Owners and for all Australians for the future, with its closure plan outlining the path for progressive rehabilitation, which began in 1981, with final rehabilitation to be completed by January 2026.
But given ERA’s current cash on hand position, it said an urgent interim funding solution was required.
The company is engaging with its substantial shareholders in relation to a potential interim entitlement offer to raise ongoing funding for the rehabilitation of the project, the size, price and structure of which are still to be determined.
The operations of ERA are located on Aboriginal land and surrounded by, but separate from, Kakadu National Park. ERA respectfully acknowledges the Mirarr, Traditional Custodians of the land on which the Ranger project area is situated.
During its lifetime, Ranger produced in excess of 132,000 tonnes of uranium oxide.
Tanya Plibersek declares environment ‘is back front and centre’ in Australia at UN ocean conference
Tanya Plibersek declares environment ‘is back front and centre’ in Australia at UN ocean conference Environment minister receives enthusiastic welcome in Lisbon and flags five blue carbon projects to safeguard ocean health
The Greens are our best hope for the urgent climate action we need
The Greens are our best hope for the urgent climate action we need
Richard Barnes
The Greens have the right and the duty (a “mandate” if you will) to use the numbers in which they were elected by Australian voters, to go hard on getting the climate policy outcomes they proposed.
WA targets more than 1,000 standalone power systems, with $37m funding boost — RenewEconomy
WA tips another $37m to deploy 180 standalone power systems across the state, as it aims for 1,000 over four years. The post WA targets more than 1,000 standalone power systems, with $37m funding boost appeared first on RenewEconomy.
WA targets more than 1,000 standalone power systems, with $37m funding boost — RenewEconomy
1 This month.
PETITION – To: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Australian Labor Government
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/235274195556
19 May – Webinar- Webinar: No Nuclear Weapons in Australia
Start: 2026-05-19 18:00:00 UTC Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney (GMT+10:00)
End: 2026-05-19 19:30:00 UTC Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney (GMT+10:00)
20 May – Webinar – The dangerous world of AUKUS, US, military occupation and suppression of dissent
National Webinar, 20th May, 2026, 6.30pm AEST. Confronting laws restricting/suppressing protest speech and action
Speakers: Former Sen. Rex Patrick, Lawyer Nick Hanna ,Arthur Rorris ,Jorgen Doyle, Sen David Shoebbridge,
Facilitator Kelley Tranter.
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
Antinuclear 