Queensland solar and wind pipeline warrants higher renewables target, says report — RenewEconomy
Green groups call on Queensland government to aim higher on renewables, pointing to ample wind and solar project pipeline. The post Queensland solar and wind pipeline warrants higher renewables target, says report appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Queensland solar and wind pipeline warrants higher renewables target, says report — RenewEconomy
WA’s first vertically integrated battery graphite company launches IPO — RenewEconomy
International Graphite launches IPO to accelerates plans to become first vertically integrated, ASX-listed graphite company operating entirely in WA. The post WA’s first vertically integrated battery graphite company launches IPO appeared first on RenewEconomy.
WA’s first vertically integrated battery graphite company launches IPO — RenewEconomy
Eraring battery to be built in two stages, as Origin targets 2GW virtual power plant — RenewEconomy
Origin outlines plans for Eraring big battery, and for a 2GW virtual power plant which it says will provide “very low cost” replacement for coal. The post Eraring battery to be built in two stages, as Origin targets 2GW virtual power plant appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Eraring battery to be built in two stages, as Origin targets 2GW virtual power plant — RenewEconomy
Higher prices and food shortages to hit Australia as climate crisis worsens — RenewEconomy
Higher food prices and empty supermarket shelves could become common practice under worsening climate change. The post Higher prices and food shortages to hit Australia as climate crisis worsens appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Higher prices and food shortages to hit Australia as climate crisis worsens — RenewEconomy
“Amazing:” Origin bowled over by rush of offers from solar and wind projects — RenewEconomy
Origin “amazed” by number of wind and solar projects knocking on the door since Eraring closure announced, with some interesting pricing proposals. The post “Amazing:” Origin bowled over by rush of offers from solar and wind projects appeared first on RenewEconomy.
“Amazing:” Origin bowled over by rush of offers from solar and wind projects — RenewEconomy
New IPCC Report Calls for Adapting Today to Ensure Tomorrow’s Climate Security — The Center for Climate & Security
By Brigitte Hugh and Sofie Bliemel “The future depends on us, not the climate,” said Dr. Helen Adams from King’s College London, a lead author of the Working Group II (WGII) contribution to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), published on February 28, 2022. In this article we discuss its…
New IPCC Report Calls for Adapting Today to Ensure Tomorrow’s Climate Security — The Center for Climate & Security
Chernobyl power supply cut but IAEA says no imminent safety threat
Chernobyl power supply cut but IAEA says no imminent safety threat, Guardian, Julian Borger in Washington, Thu 10 Mar 2022,
UN’s nuclear watchdog voices concern over ‘worsening’ situation for staff at defunct Ukrainian plant Ukrainian authorities have said the power supply has been cut to the defunct Chernobyl power plant, but the UN’s atomic watchdog said the spent nuclear fuel stored there had cooled down sufficiently for it not to be an imminent safety concern.
Ukraine’s nuclear regulator said the power supply to the Chernobyl plant failed on Wednesday morning, and the national power company Ukrenergo said it was impossible to restore the power lines because of fighting in the surrounding areas.
The nuclear energy company Energoatom said in a post on the Telegram messaging app: “Emergency diesel generators are switched on at the site to supply power to safety-critical systems. In case of trouble-free operation, the stock of diesel fuel on diesel generators will be enough for 48 hours.”
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said that after the 48 hours were up, “cooling systems of the storage facility for spent nuclear fuel will stop, making radiation leaks imminent.”
However, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said there was enough water in the spent fuel pools for the fuel rods to cool sufficiently to avoid an accident. It referred back to a statement the agency made on 3 March which said that due to the amount of time since the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, the spent fuel had cooled down enough that “the pool is sufficient to maintain effective heat removal without the need for electrical supply”.
The IAEA voiced concern that the site had stopped transmitting data on ambient radiation and other variables, and expressed concern for the staff, who were under Russian guard and had not been able to change shifts. The situation for the staff was worsening, the IAEA said, citing the Ukrainian nuclear regulator.,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/09/chernobyl-power-supply-cut-completely-after-russian-seizure-warns-ukaine
Poor conditions of Chernobyl nuclear workers, under Russian control
Chernobyl workers are reportedly “exhausted and desperate” and surviving
on one meal of bread and porridge a day, sparking fears over their ability
to look after the nuclear plant safely.
The plant, where the world’s worst
nuclear disaster happened in 1986, was taken by Russian forces at the start
of the invasion of Ukraine. Hundreds of workers and guards have been
trapped for nearly two weeks, having not been able to leave since Feb 23.
The plant is not configured for workers living there, and they are sleeping
on floors, tables and camp beds. Communication with the Chernobyl workers
is currently limited to emails. Rafael Grossi, director general of the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), called on Russia to allow
Chernobyl staff to be relieved by colleagues. Mr Grossi has offered to
travel to the Chernobyl plant where 200-plus staff have been on-site for 12
days straight.
Telegraph 8th March 2022
Russia’s disinformation machine, (and USA’s)
Russia’s Disinformation Machine Runs So Deep, Some Don’t Know War Is Happening, William Rivers Pitt, Truthout , March 7, 2022
Imagine that you, as a refugee from extreme violence in Ukraine, called your family across the border for help — and were flatly told they did not believe you, that there was no war. You’ve witnessed the indiscriminate shelling of your city, including your own apartment building. You have been hiding in a train station with a thousand others as the crash and smash of an artillery bombardment shakes the rubble from the cracked ceiling. You’ve seen dead people, soldiers and civilians, left in the street. If this is not real, “real” does not exist. How can your relatives in Russia not know this is happening?
The Washington Post explains:
As Ukrainians deal with the devastation of the Russian attacks in their homeland, many are also encountering a confounding and almost surreal backlash from family members in Russia, who refuse to believe that Russian soldiers could bomb innocent people, or even that a war is taking place at all.
These relatives have essentially bought into the official Kremlin position: that President Vladimir V. Putin’s army is conducting a limited “special military operation” with the honorable mission of “de-Nazifying” Ukraine. Mr. Putin has referred to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, a native Russian speaker with a Jewish background, as a “drug-addled Nazi” in his attempts to justify the invasion.
Those narratives are emerging amid a wave of disinformation emanating from the Russian state as the Kremlin moves to clamp down on independent news reporting while shaping the messages most Russians are receiving.
It is estimated that there are approximately 11 million people in Russia with relatives in Ukraine. It would be an act of stupendous hubris for Russian President Vladimir Putin to believe he could keep so many in the dark about the reality of Ukraine, but this is exactly what he has endeavored to do. Most of what passed for an independent press in Russia has been swept away, and overwhelmingly, the information being provided comes from Russian state media. There is no war, they preach, no mass civilian displacement. This is a limited act of liberation to free Ukraine from Nazi control by way of precision strikes on military targets only, they say, with Russian soldiers bringing food and warm clothes to all affected civilians.
It is an absolute wonder, however thoroughly horrifying, that Putin is attempting to pull off a gaslighting of such magnitude. ………….
However, Russia’s disinformation campaign should not look entirely unfamiliar to us in the United States. Let us not forget that, not so long ago, we were led into a long and bloody war under the false pretenses of “weapons of mass destruction,” which reverberated across mainstream media. In certain media sectors, those official lies echo strongly to this day.
And then, there is the lie-based future Donald Trump and his allies have been striving to construct for the U.S. for the last seven years. Any story not in praise of Trumpism is immediately labeled false, backed by an anti-logic that mangles civic discourse beyond recognition. Even trying to deconstruct a Trumpist’s “fake news” charge is a victory for the one leveling it, because it means you have accepted the premise that it could be fake news, thus giving partisans just enough of a peg to hang their hat on.
With a tight enough media bubble, reinforced by the long-espoused idea that other viewpoints stem from evil sources and must be shunned as a moral imperative, a segment of any population can be manipulated and even controlled in ways that leave those outside looking in astonished and stunned. While Trump likely would not have been able to hide a whole war with a neighbor, he has painted a masterwork of disinformation about COVID-19, masks, vaccines and basic safety measures. Tens of millions have bought what he is peddling, to the ongoing detriment of the COVID fight, leaving the country badly fractured and unable to escape the gravity well of the pandemic.
Yet, we in the U.S. independent media know well that state attempts to manipulate public opinion cannot easily quell grassroots movements. Where there is war and repression, there is resistance, and the same is true in Russia in this moment. More than 13,000 antiwar protesters have been arrested in Russia, and still they come.
And resistance to the tyranny of the outside invaders is a touchstone of the Ukrainian ethos. They will not surrender it lightly.
Meanwhile, those of us in the United States, confronting Putin’s disinformation machine, must not assume that it can be torn down by sanctions, our own military and state mechanisms of information warfare. Rather, we must take note of the fact that if many thousands of Russians are protesting in the face of massive state repression, grassroots channels of information are being used and new ones created. We must work our hardest to amplify our own channels for truth, particularly those that lift up grassroots resistance movements. As Khury Petersen-Smith writes in Truthout, “Our challenge is to build protest across borders that stands in solidarity with those facing the violence of war, and is independent — and defiant of — the governments where we reside.” https://truthout.org/articles/russias-disinformation-machine-runs-so-deep-some-dont-know-war-is-happening/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=fcdefd4d-3561-4da4-9d86-8e4a6ec8a93a
How China uses renewable energy to restore the desert — The Earthbound Report
Climate stories out of China often involve big numbers, both positive and negative. This one caught my attention recently though. The latest state energy announcement is for 455GW of new renewable energy by 2030. That’s 10% of the entire globe’s renewable energy capacity right now, but it wasn’t the big number that I was interested […].
How China uses renewable energy to restore the desert — The Earthbound Report
March 9 Energy News — geoharvey
Opinion: ¶ “No Need To Be Freightened Of Electric Trucks” • Only 10% of vehicles on US roads are medium-to-large trucks, but they are responsible for the majority of hazardous air pollutants and nearly 25% of the greenhouse gas emissions from transportation. Some people have questions about electric trucks, but we can address their concerns. […]
March 9 Energy News — geoharvey
Russia prepared to stop war, if Ukraine agrees to conditions, including independence of Donbass areas
Russia will stop ‘in a moment’ if Ukraine meets terms – Kremlin, https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/russia-will-stop–in-a-moment–if-ukraine-meets-terms—kremlin/47409340 Mon, March 7, By Catherine Belton, LONDON (Reuters) -Russia has told Ukraine it is ready to halt military operations “in a moment” if Kyiv meets a list of conditions, the Kremlin spokesman said on Monday.
Dmitry Peskov said Moscow was demanding that Ukraine cease military action, change its constitution to enshrine neutrality, acknowledge Crimea as Russian territory, and recognise the separatist republics of Donetsk and Lugansk as independent states.
It was the most explicit Russian statement so far of the terms it wants to impose on Ukraine to halt what it calls its “special military operation”, now in its 12th day.
Peskov told Reuters in a telephone interview that Ukraine was aware of the conditions. “And they were told that all this can be stopped in a moment.”
There was no immediate reaction from the Ukrainian side.
Russia has attacked Ukraine from the north, east and south, pounding cities including Kyiv, Kharkiv and the port of Mariupol. The invasion launched on Feb. 24, has caused the worst refugee crisis in Europe since World War Two, provoked outrage across the world, and led to heavy sanctions on Moscow.
But the Kremlin spokesman insisted Russia was not seeking to make any further territorial claims on Ukraine and said it was “not true” that it was demanding Kyiv be handed over.
“We really are finishing the demilitarisation of Ukraine. We will finish it. But the main thing is that Ukraine ceases its military action. They should stop their military action and then no one will shoot,” he said.
On the issue of neutrality, Peskov said: “They should make amendments to the constitution according to which Ukraine would reject any aims to enter any bloc.”
He added: “We have also spoken about how they should recognise that Crimea is Russian territory and that they need to recognise that Donetsk and Lugansk are independent states. And that’s it. It will stop in a moment.”
NEW TALKS
The outlining of Russia’s demands came as delegations from Russia and Ukraine prepared to meet on Monday for a third round of talks aimed at ending Russia’s war against Ukraine.
It began soon after Putin recognised two breakaway regions of eastern Ukraine, where Russian-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian government forces since 2014, as independent – an action denounced as illegal by the West.
“This is not us seizing Lugansk and Donetsk from Ukraine. Donetsk and Lugansk don’t want to be part of Ukraine. But it doesn’t mean they should be destroyed as a result,” Peskov said.
“For the rest. Ukraine is an independent state that will live as it wants, but under conditions of neutrality.”
He said all the demands have been formulated and handed over during the first two rounds of talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations, which took place last week.
“We hope that all this will go OK and they will react in a suitable way,” Peskov said.
Russia had been forced into taking decisive actions to force the demilitarisation of Ukraine, he said, rather than just recognising the independence of the breakaway regions.
This was in order to protect the 3 million Russian-speaking population in these republics, who he said were being threatened by 100,000 Ukrainian troops.
“We couldn’t just recognise them. What were we going to do with the 100,000 army that was standing at the border of Donetsk and Lugansk that could attack at any moment. They were being brought U.S. and British weapons all the time,” he said.
In the run-up to the Russian invasion, Ukraine repeatedly and emphatically denied Moscow’s assertions that it was about to mount an offensive to take back the separatist regions by force.
Peskov said the situation in Ukraine had posed a much greater threat to Russia’s security than it had in 2014, when Russia had also amassed 150,000 troops at its border with Ukraine, prompting fears of a Russian invasion, but had limited its action to the annexation of Crimea.
“Since then the situation has worsened for us. In 2014, they began supplying weapons to Ukraine and preparing the army for NATO, bringing it in line with NATO standards,” he said.
“In the end what tipped the balance was the lives of these 3 million people in Donbass. We understood they would be attacked.”
Peskov said Russia had also had to act in the face of the threat it perceived from NATO, saying it was “only a matter of time” before the alliance placed missiles in Ukraine as it had in Poland and Romania.
“We just understood we could not put up with this any more. We had to act,” he said.
(Reporting by Catherine Belton, editing by Mark Trevelyan, Gareth Jones and Angus MacSwan)
Ukraine is a sacrificial pawn on the imperial chessboard.
 | |||
No meaningful diplomatic effort is being made by Washington to end the violence. Ukrainian lives are being spent like pennies to facilitate the agenda of US planetary domination by whipping up international support for the strangulation of Russia while pouring vast fortunes into the military-industrial complex rather than taking even the tiniest step toward de-escalation, diplomacy and detente.
Ukraine Is A Sacrificial Pawn On The Imperial Chessboard, https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2022/03/06/ukraine-is-a-sacrificial-pawn-on-the-imperial-chessboard/ Caitlin Johnstone, The war is not going well for Kyiv, and it would be unreasonable to expect that to change. As a vastly superior military force overwhelms the US client state, reality is in the process of crashing down hard in the face of western liberals who bought into the war propaganda that the brave, sexy comedian was leading an upset victory to kick Putin’s ass out of Ukraine.
Zelensky is now raging at NATO powers for refusing to intervene militarily against Russia, apparently having previously been given the impression that the US-centralized empire might risk its very existence defending its dear friends the Ukrainians from an invasion.
“Unfortunately, today there is a complete impression that it is time to give a funeral repast for something else: security guarantees and promises, determination of alliances, values that seem to be dead for someone,” Zelensky said Friday.
“All the people who will die starting from this day will also die because of you,” Ukraine’s president added. “Because of your weakness, because of your disunity.”
It must be hard, the process of learning that you were never actually a valued partner in western civilization’s fight for freedom and democracy. That you were always just one more sacrificial pawn on the imperial chessboard.
In a new article titled “U.S. and allies quietly prepare for a Ukrainian government-in-exile and a long insurgency“, The Washington Post reports that US officials anticipate Russia will reverse its early losses and successfully drive the Zelensky regime out of the country, after which “a long, bloody insurgency” is planned against the invaders backed by billions of dollars in US funding.
The US has a history of working to draw Moscow into gruelling, costly military quagmires which monopolize its military firepower while leaching it of blood and treasure. Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, author of US hegemonic manifesto The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives, openly bragged about having lured Russia into its own Vietnam fighting the US-backed mujahideen in Afghanistan for a decade.
Just two years ago then-US Special Representative for Syria engagement said during a video event hosted by the Hudson Institute that his job was to make Syria “a quagmire for the Russians”.
So this isn’t something new or out of the blue, and what it means is that all the self-righteous posturing by the western political/media class about the need to pour weapons into Ukraine is not really about saving Ukrainian lives (only negotiating a ceasefire can do that), but about seizing this golden opportunity to hurt Russia’s geostrategic interests as much as possible. Ukraine on its own is powerless to stop Russia from taking Kyiv no matter how many weapons are sent, but those weapons can be used to fight a “long, bloody insurgency” after that happens which costs many more lives, keeps Moscow militarily preoccupied and hemorrhaging money, and ultimately hurts Putin’s popularity at home.
This by itself would do a great deal to advance US interests, but on top of that you’ve got the even greater benefit of manufacturing international consent for unprecedented acts of economic warfare against the entire nation of Russia, as well as killing Nord Stream 2 and rallying immense support for NATO and the imperial military/intelligence machine. The western world is now a united front against the Sauron-like menace of Vladimir Putin in much the same way it united against the threat of global terrorism after 9/11, and we’re probably only seeing the beginnings of the agendas this will be used to roll out.
We can expect these agendas to be used in an attempt to impoverish, undermine, agitate, and ultimately collapse and balkanize Russia, as the CIA and Washington swamp monsters have wanted to do since the fall of the Soviet Union.
This would leave China standing alone without its nuclear superpower guard bear and much more vulnerable to imperial operations geared toward thwarting the emergence of a true multipolar world, a goal US imperialists have had in writing for three decades.
That’s a whole lot of potential benefit to the US empire just for losing Ukraine. Kind of like sacrificing a pawn to get the queen in chess.
I think a big part of why I and others wrongly underestimated the likelihood of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine was that the cost-to-benefit math never made sense; on paper Moscow stands so much more to lose by this action in the long term than it stood to gain. There was also a bit of an assumption that the empire would rather Russia not take Ukraine, preferring to gradually encroach with NATO salami slicing tactics than give up a useful client state on Russia’s border, and would adjust its actions accordingly.
But chess is all about out-maneuvering your opponent to leave them nothing but bad options to choose from, and in the end leaving the king with no safe moves. The drivers of empire would have known that, as the late Justin Raimondo explained all the way back in 2014 for Antiwar, Putin could not afford to lose Ukraine to the west without losing crucial support in Russia. Combine that with increased attacks on Donbas separatists and the west’s adamant refusal to make even the most meaningless concessions like guaranteeing they wouldn’t add a nation to NATO who they had no intention of adding anyway, and you can understand if not support Putin’s drastic course of action.
No meaningful diplomatic effort is being made by Washington to end the violence. Ukrainian lives are being spent like pennies to facilitate the agenda of US planetary domination by whipping up international support for the strangulation of Russia while pouring vast fortunes into the military-industrial complex rather than taking even the tiniest step toward de-escalation, diplomacy and detente.
And it’s entirely possible that this was all planned years in advance.
Is it a coincidence that before this started we were bombarded with shrieking anti-Russia narratives for five years, all of which were initiated by secretive and unaccountable intelligence agencies and none of which have ever been substantiated with hard evidence? The discredited conspiracy theories that there was a Kremlin asset in the Oval Office had nothing to do with Ukraine. Neither did the plot hole–riddled and still completely unproven claim that Russian hackers intervened in the US election, or the baseless claim that St Petersburg trolls did the same. Neither did the claim that Russia was paying Taliban-linked fighters to kill US troops in Afghanistan, which was eventually walked back by the same intelligence cartel that made it.
All these hysterical anti-Russia narratives were shoved in everyone’s face day after day, year after year, with nothing really uniting them apart from the fact that they drove up general anxiety about Russia and that they were initiated by the US intelligence cartel. Even the empty Ukrainegate scandal which led to Trump’s unsuccessful impeachment was initiated by a CIA officer who just happened to be in the right place at the right time.
And while all those shrill narratives about a Putin puppet serving as America’s commander-in-chief were being aggressively hammered into public consciousness, Trump’s actual policies toward Moscow were extremely hawkish and aggressive. Beneath the narratives about Kremlin servitude, a new cold war was being dangerously escalated.
And now, lubricated years in advance by these mass-scale anti-Russia narratives, I’ve got western liberals in my social media notifications with blue and yellow profile pictures calling me a Russian propagandist and a Kremlin shill all day, every day. Because of that mass-scale propaganda campaign, we were paced to this point all the way from where we were at a few years ago when Obama was mocking Mitt Romney for his then-outlandish Russia hawkishness.
So we’re looking at increasingly aggressive confrontations between the US power alliance and the China-Russia bloc for the foreseeable future in a struggle which has already erupted in hot war and could easily get infinitely worse. All because a few manipulators in high places convinced the US establishment that global unipolar domination would be a good thing. Many of these unipolarist empire architects were involved in the murderous and influential Project for a New American Century (PNAC), whose founding members are now providing expert punditry on what should be done about the war in Ukraine.
Michael Parenti saw this all coming long ago:
The PNAC plan envisions a strategic confrontation with China, and a still greater permanent military presence in every corner of the world. The objective is not just power for its own sake but power to control the world’s natural resources and markets, power to privatize and deregulate the economies of every nation in the world, and power to hoist upon the backs of peoples everywhere — including North America — the blessings of an untrammeled global “free market.” The end goal is to ensure not merely the supremacy of global capitalism as such, but the supremacy of American global capitalism by preventing the emergence of any other potentially competing superpower.
We should not have to live this way. We should not have to see the horrors of war inflicted upon humanity with the risk of total nuclear annihilation hanging over our heads every minute of every day, all for some dopey grand chessboard maneuverings of a few sociopaths who can’t just let humanity be.
There is no good reason why nations cannot simply collaborate with each other for everyone’s benefit. There is no good reason we should accept these omnicidal games of planetary conquest as inevitable, normal, or fine. If our minds weren’t so pervasively locked down by mass-scale psychological manipulation, there is no way we would stand for this madness.
I don’t know if the US will succeed in this grand strategic confrontation to prevent the rise of a multipolar world. From where I’m sitting it depends on which side of the conflict has more tricks up their sleeve, and that could easily be the emerging China-centralized alliance of which Russia is a key player. But I do think it’s far too early for anyone to declare that the US-led world order is over and a true multipolar world has solidified.
There are many moves on the chessboard still to be played.
$10b plan for nuclear submarine base under fire over timing, potential site
$10b plan for nuclear submarine base under fire over timing, potential site, The Age, By David Crowe, March 7, 2022 . A federal plan for a $10 billion nuclear submarine base on Australia’s east coast has sparked Labor claims that the move is a ploy to get a headline while others say Sydney would be a better location than the official options of Brisbane, Newcastle or Port Kembla.
Labor has backed the plan to build a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines under the AUKUS alliance signed last year with the United Kingdom and United States but has demanded a briefing on the new base after being promised regular briefings last year.
Independent Senator Rex Patrick, a former submariner, also questioned the timing of the government move and said the Department of Defence had favoured Sydney in previous plans, questioning whether election factors had influenced the new proposal.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison outlined the options for the new base in a speech to the Lowy Institute on Monday that said Defence had reviewed 19 potential sites and estimated a $10 billion cost for the base at one of the preferred east coast sites to add to an existing base near Perth.
While Defence Minister Peter Dutton said on Sunday the government would bring forward a decision on whether to choose British or American nuclear submarines for construction in Australia, Mr Morrison said on Monday this did not mean an announcement before the election.
The timelines for the vast project suggest a decision on the east coast base should be made in 2023 and the first submarine would be in the water by around 2040.
Senator Patrick said a process to choose the new submarines began in 2009 but the government had failed to deliver since coming to power in 2013.
“We’re 13 years and $3 billion into a future submarine project and what do we have to show for it? We’ve got a study into getting a nuclear submarine and, now, a study into where we might put them,” he said.
“Call me cynical, but this is another Scott Morrison announcement designed to gloss over his government’s disgraceful national security failures that have left our country vulnerable.”
Senator Patrick gained documents from the Department of Defence under freedom of information law that showed the search for an east coast base canvassed locations including Jervis Bay on the south coast of NSW and Western Port Bay in Victoria as well as Sydney…….
Mr Patrick said Sydney should remain the leading option but appeared to be dropped for political reasons.
“The fact that Sydney is the only city in Australia with a nuclear reactor, and the experienced personnel that maintain and operate it, only strengthens Sydney’s case,” he said.
……………………… Labor candidate Alison Byrnes, who is aiming to replace sitting Labor MP Sharon Bird in the seat of Cunningham around Wollongong and Port Kembla, called for a full briefing from the government rather than being asked to respond to a government “drop” to the media.
With a decision not likely until 2023, critics of the government questioned the timing of Mr Morrison’s announcement and the need for a swift response to his proposal.
“The suggestion for a base for nuclear-powered submarines is just another ploy from the Prime Minister to get a headline without providing any detail of how this will be implemented or even when it will be delivered,” Labor defence spokesman Brendan O’Connor said.
“It seems like Scott Morrison is trying to divert attention from the fact the nuclear-powered submarines won’t come into effect for more than a decade, leaving Australia with a significant capability gap. https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/10b-plan-for-nuclear-submarine-base-under-fire-over-timing-potential-site-20220307-p5a2bi.html
Morrison’s selected sites for nuclear submarine base were not the Defence Dept choices – and opposed by the local towns.
Coalition shortlist for nuclear submarines base were not in Defence’s top five in 2011 review, https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/mar/08/coalition-shortlist-for-nuclear-submarines-base-were-not-in-defences-top-five-in-2011-reviewDaniel Hurst and Royce Kurmelovs. 8 Mar 22, ‘We are not getting lumped with their mess’, Newcastle mayor says of prospect of basing nuclear fleet in city while Wollongong mayor also concerned.
The mayors of Newcastle and Wollongong have expressed unease at the Morrison government naming their cities as a potential base for nuclear-powered submarines, with one describing the Aukus plans as a “fantasy”.
Questions have also been raised about the government’s process for shortlisting Newcastle, Port Kembla in Wollongong and Brisbane for a new east coast base, given that a previous Defence review had not backed them as most-preferred sites.
The South Australian independent senator Rex Patrick, a former submariner, said Scott Morrison’s announcement on Monday was “thick with political fog” with an election looming, noting the final site would not be selected until 2023.
Patrick said: “Why pork barrel in one electorate when you can – for the same price – pork barrel in three?”
Morrison said the government had “provisioned more than $10bn to meet the facilities and infrastructure requirements” for the transition from Australia’s existing Collins-class submarines to the nuclear-powered submarines to be acquired under the Aukus pact with the UK and the US.
He said Defence had looked at 19 potential sites and narrowed them down to the three preferred locations. Defence would now discuss the plans further with state and local governments and “begin negotiations on what will be an enormous undertaking”.
The moves come amid continuing uncertainty about when the first of the nuclear-powered submarines will be operating. Morrison originally estimated it would be by about 2040 but the government now insists it may be sooner.
The new base – which the Coalition wants to build in either Brisbane, Newcastle or Port Kembla – would “enable the regular visiting of US and UK nuclear-powered submarines”, Morrison said in a virtual address to the Lowy Institute.
However, the mayors of Newcastle and Wollongong both said they were not consulted about the decision. With both cities historically home to anti-war movements they expected considerable community opposition.
Both cities have passed official resolutions to make them nuclear-free zones.
There is also believed to be opposition to nuclear power, particularly where it is used to propel a weapon of war – although spent fuel rods from the Lucas Heights reactor have passed through Port Kembla on their way for processing in France.
Wollongong’s lord mayor, Gordon Bradbery, an independent, said he was waiting for more detail about the proposal before he would consult the local community.
“It’s not only nuclear power and nuclear-powered submarines, but it’s the location of a strategic defence asset and that would make anyone who gets this particular facility a target,” Bradbery said.
“International tensions now are playing on a lot of people’s minds and there would be concerns about our city as a location for nuclear-powered submarines.”
Bradbery said Wollongong city council had previously worked with Regional Development Australia to make a submission to the federal government to relocate naval activities from Garden Island in Sydney Harbour to Port Kembla, but this was for conventional submarines only.
“It just disappeared into the ether at the time,” Bradbery said. “Many suggested it was pie in the sky as the navy wasn’t keen on relocating from Garden Island.”
Newcastle’s Labor lord mayor, Nuatali Nelmes, said the city had no intention of giving up its nuclear-free status over a “fantasy”.
“The whole deal is a fantasy,” Nelmes said.
“This announcement, the Aukus decision and the absolutely hopeless way they have handled this submarine contract – we are not getting lumped with their mess.
“It is also typical of the federal government to have unilateral decision making where cities like Newcastle, which have been for many decades, a nuclear-free zone, would even be considered.”
But the Liberal premier of New South Wales, Dominic Perrottet, welcomed the inclusion of Port Kembla and Newcastle on the federal government’s shortlist , saying the world faced “very uncertain times”.
“Defence protection for our country is paramount and we have worked very closely with the federal government to identify these sites for our state,” Perrottet told the Nine Network.
A spokesperson for the Queensland Labor government said it was “yet to receive any detailed information from the commonwealth”.
Study found Port Kembla ‘impractical’
A 2011 Defence report ranked potential options for a new east coast home port for submarines. The top three options were in Sydney Harbour, followed by two options in Jervis Bay, south of Sydney.
“Newcastle has its strengths, but the slight edge that it has with respect to positive people factors is compromised by its isolation from any other naval infrastructure, its susceptibility to flooding, and its sometimes difficult harbour entrance,” the future submarine basing study said.
Newcastle Port was sixth on the list and the Port of Brisbane was eighth.
The report included the caveat that detailed costing and environmental impact analysis “may generate a different outcome”. It placed a priority on the proximity to fleet assets in Sydney.
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 