Why the nuclear lobby spruiks about climate change (when they really couldn’t care less) – theme for August 2021
It’s a breathtaking hypocrisy, in this month when we remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki – but the real purpose for new ”advanced”nuclear technology is simply support for nuclear weapons. ”Small nuclear reactors” have no hope of affecting global heating – quite the reverse – as they take funding and human energy away from genuine solutions.
Why does the nuclear lobby bang on about climate change?
Simply in order to get tax breaks and other financial incentives that go with being accepted as ”green” and ”sustainable”
This is why the nuclear industry, IAEA, and all the associated bodies and governments are bent on convincing everybody that the goal of nuclear power is to fight climate change.
The journalists buy their arguments, because those arguments are cleverly dressed up in technicaljargon – avoiding discussion of matters that journalists might understand better, (such as the costs, waste disposal problems, environmental and health impacts)
The essential connection with nuclear weapons is obscured, making everybody involved feel better.
Need to investigate ANSTO’s tax-payer funded, loss-making, unnecessary nuclear medicine production
Australian government watcher, 28 Aug 21, The production of isotopes for medical purposes by nuclear reactors is a declining industry due to its inherently dangerous and risky nature and its extremely high manufacturing costs
These isotopes are being replaced by cyclotron produced isotopes which are practically and completely free of any risk to the patients and can be produced by relatively easier and safer means at a greatly reduced costs
The only reason that isotopes produced by nuclear reactors are used for medical purposes is that their manufacture is highly and unrealistically subsidised by government grants as is the case with ANSTO in Australia
The rapid growth in the international use of cyclotron isotopes for medical therapies is making the production of isotopes by nuclear reactors obsolete
As a result the continued production of isotopes for medical purposes by ANSTO at Lucas Heights could be stopped
immediately with huge savings in government expenditure and no effect on the provision of medical therapies
There were also arguments within ANSTO against the proposed corporatising of the medical isotopes production since this would expose all of its problems including its obsolete and outdated status and the extremely high production costs
In addition there are concerns both externally and within ANSTO internally about the cost and marketing difficulties with the Synroc technology which is far from the initially promoted commercial success and has been overtaken in many countries by their own developed alternatives to reduce the volume of nuclear waste and treat it to make it suitable for long-term storage and eventual disposal
In view of this it is essential for a full and proper independent inquiry and investigation into ANSTO to determine the true situation and make practical and hopefully cost saving recommendations as to its future operations
Australian Labor Party backs bills to de-register most political parties
Australian Labor Party backs bills to de-register most political parties, WSWS, Mike Head, 25 August 2021 In a nakedly anti-democratic and self-serving move, the Labor Party’s parliamentary caucus this week agreed to assist the Liberal-National Coalition government push four far-reaching electoral bills through parliament with breakneck speed.
As a result of Labor’s complicity, the bills could be rammed through both houses of parliament and become law within days. In fact, the three main bills were rushed through the House of Representatives yesterday.There has been virtually no public discussion or media coverage on this historic attack, unveiled suddenly last week on the eve of the next federal election, which is due by May next year.
The bills contain a host of measures to suppress alternative political parties and the basic rights of voters. Neither the Morrison government nor Labor has offered any explanation as to why these bills have been brought forward now, seemingly out of the blue……..
The most sweeping provision in the bills seeks to strip party registration from every party not currently represented in parliament. It would compel parties to provide lists and details of 1,500 members—triple the existing requirement—within three months of the laws passing, all in the middle of widespread lockdowns.
Without party registration, federal election candidates for the Socialist Equality Party (SEP) and 35 other currently registered parties would be prevented from having their names and thus identifying their political affiliations on ballot papers. Their candidates would have to stand without any party name, or as undifferentiated and unexplained “independents.”
…….. Predictably, the existing parliamentary parties would continue to be exempt from any membership requirement whatsoever. They could well have difficulty nominating 1,500 members, unless they could count MPs, staffers, trade union officials and other office holders.
……… The only provision that Labor will not support is the lowering of “political campaigner” financial disclosure obligations for advocacy, welfare, environmental and other groups that participate in election campaigns.
…………. The same bipartisan front has been formed on every attack on fundamental democratic rights over the past two decades. This includes the repeated tightening of police-state “terrorism” laws, the “foreign interference” legislation to potentially outlaw links to international or overseas parties, and the 2017–2018 expulsion of members of parliament who were possibly entitled to dual citizenship, effectively disqualifying millions of people with immigrant backgrounds from even nominating for election.https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/08/26/elea-a26.html
International Atomic Energy Agency doubts the ability of Japan to clean up Fukushima nuclear wreck by intended date 2051
UN team: Unclear if Fukushima cleanup can finish by 2051, MARI YAMAGUCHI, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT, ASSOCIATED PRESS, August 27, 2021,
TOKYO — Too little is known about melted fuel inside damaged reactors at the wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant, even a decade after the disaster, to be able to tell if its decommissioning can be finished by 2051 as planned, a U.N. nuclear agency official said Friday.
“Honestly speaking, I don’t know, and I don’t know if anybody knows,” said Christophe Xerri, head of an International Atomic Energy Agency team reviewing progress in the plant’s cleanup.
“We need to gather more information on the fuel debris and more experience on the retrieval of the fuel debris to know if the plan can be completed as expected in the next 30 years,” he told reporters.
The cleanup plan depends on how the melted fuel needs to be handled for long-term storage and management, he said.
The IAEA team’s review, the fifth since the disaster, was mostly conducted online due to the coronavirus pandemic. Only Xerri and another team member visited the plant this week before compiling and submitting a report to Japan’s government on Friday.
In the report, the team noted progress in a number of areas since its last review in 2018, including the removal of spent fuel from a storage pool at one of the damaged reactors, as well as a decision to start discharging massive amounts of treated but still radioactive water stored at the plant into the ocean in 2023………. https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/un-team-unclear-if-fukushima-cleanup-can-finish-by-2051/?ref=recent
We’re Number One in Weapons Sales, by Polly Mann — Rise Up Times
The main recipient region in 2016–20 was Asia and Oceania (accounting for 42 percent of global arms imports), followed by the Middle East (33 percent), Europe (12 percent), Africa (7.3 percent), and the Americas (5.4 percent).
We’re Number One in Weapons Sales, by Polly Mann — Rise Up Times
NSW stuns with 34GW of wind, solar proposals for New England renewable zone — RenewEconomy
NSW gets 34GW of project proposals for its New England renewable energy zone, one of five designed to build the capacity to replace coal. The post NSW stuns with 34GW of wind, solar proposals for New England renewable zone appeared first on RenewEconomy.
NSW stuns with 34GW of wind, solar proposals for New England renewable zone — RenewEconomy
Nationals Senator Matt Canavan is leading the charge in his party’s anti-science war, with the CSIRO a main target.
Nationals v CSIRO: why a party of government attacks its own scientific agency
Kishor Napier-Raman
Nationals Senator Matt Canavan is leading the charge in his party’s anti-science war, with the CSIRO a main target.
Development of ‘zombie’ gasfield areas would create waste, water issues.
Development of ‘zombie’ gasfield areas would create waste, water issues: opponents
Large swaths of some of the state’s best farmland could be opened up for coal seam gas development, resulting in the extraction of many gigalitres of groundwater
US fails to provide evidence for COVID-19 “lab leak” claims
The reason why the US intelligence agencies failed to find anything is simple: There is no evidence, secret or otherwise, that the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) has anything to do with the origins of COVID-19.
More than half a year since the Trump State Department released a fact sheet claiming that researchers at the WIV showed symptoms, prior to the outbreak of the pandemic, “consistent with… common seasonal illnesses,” there has not been a single piece of evidence—whether made public or even hinted at–that substantiates the lab leak “theory.”
In March of this year, the World Health Organization (WHO) team investigating the origins of COVID-19 said in its report that it had seriously considered the lab leak hypothesis but declared it “extremely unlikely” based on the absence of evidence. The report expressed willingness to follow up on “new evidence supplied around possible laboratory leaks,” but since then, none has been provided.
US fails to provide evidence for COVID-19 “lab leak” claims, WSWS, Andre Damon @Andre__Damon, 25 August 2021 On May 25, US President Joe Biden publicly embraced the conspiracy theory that COVID-19 may have been released from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology, ordering the US intelligence agencies to produce a report within 90 days into the potentially man-made origins of the disease.
Three months later, the US intelligence agencies have failed to produce a shred of evidence to substantiate claims by the Trump administration, Biden administration and every major US media outlet that a lab leak is a “plausible” scenario.This was despite what was, according to media reports, a “giant” US effort. On August 5, CNN reported that the US was examining “a giant catalog of information [that] contains genetic blueprints drawn from virus samples studied at the lab in Wuhan, China.”
To process the massive amount of data in its possession, US intelligence agencies were “relying on supercomputers at the Department of Energy’s National Labs, a collection of 17 elite government research institutions.”In its reporting, CNN strongly indicated that the United States had carried out a cyberattack on medical and scientific institutions, writing “the machines involved in creating and processing this kind of genetic data from viruses are typically connected to external cloud-based servers—leaving open the possibility they were hacked.”
And after all this, what are the findings? The report was, in the massaged words of the New York Times write-up, defined by an “absence of conclusions.” It did not, in the words of the Wall Street Journal, “yield a definitive conclusion.” Both newspapers claim to be passing on the statements of “senior officials.”
The Times and the Journal claim that the intelligence agencies could not come to a conclusion due to “China’s refusal to continue to cooperate with international investigations” and China’s refusal to “give access to certain data sets.”
However, neither report mentioned CNN’s reporting about US access to a “giant” catalog of secret data, and why, if the US had access to the data being “hidden” by China, nothing was found.
The reason why the US intelligence agencies failed to find anything is simple: There is no evidence, secret or otherwise, that the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) has anything to do with the origins of COVID-19.
More than half a year since the Trump State Department released a fact sheet claiming that researchers at the WIV showed symptoms, prior to the outbreak of the pandemic, “consistent with… common seasonal illnesses,” there has not been a single piece of evidence—whether made public or even hinted at–that substantiates the lab leak “theory.”
In March of this year, the World Health Organization (WHO) team investigating the origins of COVID-19 said in its report that it had seriously considered the lab leak hypothesis but declared it “extremely unlikely” based on the absence of evidence. The report expressed willingness to follow up on “new evidence supplied around possible laboratory leaks,” but since then, none has been provided.
The members of the team “found no evidence for leads to follow up,” and that remains so to this day, they wrote in an article published in Nature on Wednesday, timed to correspond with the submission of the intelligence agencies’ report………… https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/08/26/pers-a26.html
August 27 Energy News — geoharvey
Science and Technology: ¶ “This Center In Dubai Is Growing ‘Future-Proof’ Food In The Desert” • In the Dubai desert, farmers must contend with intense heat, limited freshwater and sandy soil. Here, the International Center of Biosaline Agriculture is transplanting and growing salt-loving superfoods in an effort to expand food diversity in the region. [CNN] […]
August 27 Energy News — geoharvey
Murdoch’s THE AUSTRALIAN grudgingly admits that nuclear power has no future in Australia
Uncharted waters leave little room for nuclear option, THE AUSTRALIAN, GRAHAM LLOYD AUGUST 25, 2021 The proposals being put forward are not necessarily geared to supporting any one option. ………..
Generation is not the only problem raised by the lower-emissions transition. The ESB makes it clear that massive investments are still needed in grid infrastructure to accommodate an electricity system more dependent on intermittent sources of power…..
It favours the creation of renewable energy zones to give the benefit of economies of scale to the infrastructure investment.
Individual states will also be given greater powers to make decisions to safeguard their own interests within the national market.
The ESB is probably correct that community concerns about the impact of fossil fuel generation on carbon emissions, together with the declining financial viability of thermal coal generation, leaves little interest or commercial appetite for future investment in thermal coal generation.
Supporters of the nuclear option have little to cheer about in this transition road map.
The big focus on renewables backed up by batteries from electric cars and sophisticated management systems and minimal gas leaves little room for a return on investment for a [nuclear] technology…..
Stock Journal poll found that the overwhelming majority wanted more consultation on the government’s plan for Kimba nuclear waste dump
Is more nuclear consultation needed? | POLL
20 Aug 2021,
YES 74.8%
NO no 25.2%
Weaponising space -the high road to World War 3, but profitable for weapons and space companies
Insane U.S. Plan to Spend Billions on Weaponizing Space Makes Defense Contractors Jump for Joy—But Rest of World Cowers in Horror at Prospect of New Arms Race Leading to World War IIICovertAction Magazine By Karl Grossman – August 25, 2021 Imagine this scenario from the year 2045: The U.S. and China, after years of belligerence, go to war over control of the Taiwan straits; most of the battles are fought through cyber-attacks and space-based weapons systems that had been perfected over the previous decades.
In a desperate maneuver, the U.S. activates its “rods from God”—a scheme developed in Project Thor involving telephone-pole-sized tungsten rods being dropped from orbit reaching a speed ten times the speed of sound [7,500 miles per hour] hitting with the force of nuclear weapons—and Beijing’s military command centers and other significant targets are destroyed.
The above scenario looks increasingly plausible given a) the growing prospect of war between the U.S. and China; and b) the growing militarization of space by the U.S.—in violation of the landmark Outer Space Treaty of 1967 that sets aside space “for peaceful purposes.”
U.S. Space Force and the Evisceration of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty
Donald Trump declared at a meeting of the National Space Council of the U.S. in 2018 that “it is not enough to merely have an American presence in space, we must have American dominance in space…. I’m hereby directing the Department of Defense and Pentagon to immediately begin the process necessary to establish a Space Force as the sixth branch of the armed forces … It is going to be something.”
Indeed, the U.S. Space Force, established in December 2019, is something—and can, if not will, destroy the visionary Outer Space Treaty of keeping space for peace.
The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 was put together by the U.S., Great Britain and the former Soviet Union and has wide support from nations around the world. 111 countries are parties to the treaty, while another 23 have signed the treaty but have not completed ratification.
As Craig Eisendrath, who as a young U.S. State Department officer was involved in the treaty’s creation, told me—and I quote him in my book Weapons in Space—“we sought to de-weaponize space before it got weaponized … to keep war out of space.”
“This foundational treaty has allowed for half a century of ever expanding peaceful activity in space, free from man-made threats,” writes Paul Meyer, in his chapter “Arms Control in Outer Space: A Diplomatic Alternative to Star Wars” in the book Security in the Global Commons and Beyond.[1]
The Outer Space Treaty bars placement “in orbit around the Earth any objects carrying nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction or from installing such weapons on celestial bodies.”
Biden Signs Off on Space Force
Republican Trump’s successor as U.S. president, Democrat Joe Biden, has not pulled back on the U.S. Space Force. As Defense News headlined in 2021: “With Biden’s ‘full support,’ the Space Force is officially here to stay.”
Its article opened: “U.S. President Joe Biden will not seek to eliminate the Space Force and roll military space functions back into the Air Force, the White House confirmed.” It continued: “White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters during a Feb. 3 briefing that the new service has the ‘full support’ of the Biden administration.” And it went on: “‘We’re not revisiting the decision,’ she said.”
Most Democrats in the U.S. Congress voted for the legislation providing for formation of the U.S. Space Force as pushed by Trump. All Republicans in the U.S. Congress voted for it.
False Pretext
For decades there has been an effort to extend the Outer Space Treaty and enact the Prevention of an Arms Race, the PAROS treaty, which would bar any weapons in space.
China, Russia (and U.S. neighbor Canada) have been leaders in seeking passage of the PAROS treaty. But the U.S.—through administration after administration, Republican and Democrat—has opposed the PAROS treaty and effectively vetoed it at the United Nations.
Although the PAROS treaty has broad backing from nations around the world, it must move through the UN’s Conference on Disarmament which functions on a consensual basis.
A rationale for the U.S. Space Force now being claimed is that it is necessary to counter moves by China and Russia in space, particularly development of anti-satellite weapons.
That is what a CNN report in August 2021, titled “An Exclusive Look into How Space Force Is Defending America,” centrally asserted. There was no mention in the six-minute-plus CNN piece of how China and Russia (and Canada) have led for decades in the push for PAROS, and how China and Russia in recent times have reiterated their calls for space to be weapons-free.
“We are calling on the international community to start negotiations and reach agreement on arms control in order to ensure space safety as soon as possible,” said the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Zhao Lijian, in April 2021. “China has always been in favor of preventing an arms race in space; it has been actively promoting negotiations on a legally binding agreement on space arms control jointly with Russia.”
A day earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called for talks to create an “international legally binding instrument” to ban the deployment of “any types of weapons” in space. Lavrov said: “We consistently believe that only a guaranteed prevention of an arms race in space will make it possible to use it for creative purposes, for the benefit of the entire mankind. We call for negotiations on the development of an international legally binding instrument that would prohibit the deployment of any types of weapons there, as well as the use of force or the threat of force.”
Onward and Upward!
Meanwhile, the U.S. Space Force drives ahead.
It has requested a budget of $17.4 billion for 2020 to “grow the service,” reports Air Force Magazine. “Space Force 2022 Budget Adds Satellites, Warfighting Center, More Guardians,” was the headline of its article. And in the first paragraph, it adds “and fund more than $800 million in new classified programs.” (“Guardians” is the name adopted by the U.S. Space Force in 2021 for its members.)
A recruitment drive is under way.
The U.S. Space Force “received its first offensive weapon … satellite jammers,” reported American Military News in 2020. “The weapon does not destroy enemy satellites, but can be used to interrupt enemy satellite communications and hinder enemy early warning systems meant to detect a U.S. attack,” it stated…………
“US Space Command—dominating the space dimension of military operations to protect US interests and investment. Integrating Space Forces into war-fighting capabilities across the full spectrum of conflict,” trumpeted Vision for 2020……….
I displayed the comments of U.S. Space Command Commander-in-Chief Joseph W. Ashy in Aviation Week and Space Technology in 1996: “It’s politically sensitive, but it’s going to happen,” said the general.
Some people don’t want to hear this … but—absolutely—we’re going to fight in space. We’re going to fight from space and we’re going to fight into space…. We will engage terrestrial targets someday—ships, airplanes, land targets—from space.” U.S. Space Command Commander-in-Chief General Joseph W. Ashy……………
Political bribes beat the planet as gas fracking gets public hand-outs
Beetaloo Boondoggle: political bribes beat the planet as gas fracking gets public hand-outs, Michael West Media, Michael West| August 26, 2021
As a block, the two major parties voted to give our money, public money, to corporations to drill for coal seam gas in the Northern Territory, to open up a gigantic new territory, the Beetaloo Basin, for fracking.
The latest capitulation to corporate profits came yesterday morning as both the Coalition and Labor opposed a disallowance motion in Parliament to prevent $50m in public grants going to gas explorers in the Northern Territory. It was yet another political capitulation for corporate bribery, gas company donations.
And so it was that they voted to wreck the planet for their own financial gain. They even voted for money over common sense; because Australia is the world’s biggest gas exporter already. We don’t need more gas, that’s a myth peddled by Australia’s most powerful lobby groups such as APPEA, in turn controlled by foreign fossil fuel corporations such as Shell and Exxon.
They voted to make a US billionaire richer. For, among the prospective winners from this act of political betrayal, is Tamboran Resources, a speculative explorer backed by a US shale-oil billionaire.1
That company, incredibly, is threatening to sue Michael West Media and gas analyst Bruce Robertson from IEEFA, for defamation. So, effectively, Parliament has voted to give money to a US billionaire threatening to sue a small independent journalism business in Australia for exercising free speech, threatening to soak up the time in the Australian courts attempting to muzzle journalists with the menace of making them bankrupt.
Another winner from the escapade is senior Liberal Party figure Paul Espie, whose Empire Energy is slated to get half of the $50m in funding from his Beetaloo Cooperative Drilling grant program.
This is not just a case of our politicians being bought off yet again by corporations, bribed to push through a policy which wrecks the planet, it is a case of them using our money, public funds to pay foreign interests to poison the water tables of the world’s driest continent, to contaminate our most precious resource.
Meanwhile, 2700 kilometres south-east at Narrabri in NSW, Santos has won its long battle against farmers and the local community to frack for gas.
Santos is a large political donor to both major parties……….. https://www.michaelwest.com.au/beetaloo-boondoggle-political-bribes-beat-the-planet-as-gas-fracking-gets-public-hand-outs/
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 