Australia’s failed nuclear front group bites the dust.
Ben Heard’s lobby group is closing down, June 2021: Heard’s ‘Bright New World’ group — which received secret corporate donations from the Nuclear Industry — is closing down.
Concerted efforts to have state and federal laws banning nuclear power have failed in recent years. At a guess, the corporate donors have given up and will no longer fund Bright New World.
A stocktake on Heard’s 10 years of pro-nuclear, anti-renewables campaigning: renewable capacity grew by an incredible 1500+ gigawatts worldwide and renewables now account for 30% of global electricity generation. Nuclear generation was stagnant and nuclear’s contribution to global electricity generation fell to 10%.In Heard’s home state of South Australia, renewables have grown to 60% of electricity generation and the conservative state government is enthusiastically committed to 100% net renewables by 2030.Heard’s efforts to turn South Australia into the world’s nuclear waste dump were equally unsuccessful.Good riddance to Bright New World. https://nuclear.foe.org.au/ben-heard-secret-corporate-donations/
Old cracked infrastructure – the Florida building collapse – a warning for old cracked nuclear reactors.
embrittlement, pipe cracking, component degradation, technical obsolescence, an aging workforce, rampant incompetence, and worse define the reality of virtually every operating atomic reactor, here and around the planet.
Collapsed Florida Condo Sends a Giant Nuke Warning https://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/70146-rsn-collapsed-florida-condo-sends-a-giant-nuke-warning, By Harvey Wasserman, Reader Supported News, 28 June 21 he horrifying collapse of a south Florida condo should alarm us all about the next reactor catastrophe.
The owners of that 13-story condo were warned years ago that it could implode. They were apparently getting ready for repairs, but in the interim did nothing.
The owners of America’s 93 licensed reactors have been warned for decades that they could both implode and explode. They have also done nothing.
More than 150 people may have died in this avoidable Florida disaster. The death toll from the next avoidable reactor disaster could stretch into the millions, with property damage in the trillions, a blow from which our economy and ecosystems might never recover.
South Florida authorities have now ordered inspections of large buildings over forty years old. Nearly all US reactors – including four on the ocean in South Florida – are also now around forty years old.
They all must be immediately shut for rigorous inspection. To wait is to invite a radioactive version of what just happened to that condo.
The argument is not about nuclear power. It’s about basic sanity.
The industry is currently pushing “new” designs based on fusion, thorium, breeder technologies, molten salt, small modular, and more. None have been proven safe or effective in fighting climate chaos. Nor can they compete with renewables. None have a reasonable prospect of coming online before being completely left in the radioactive dust by accelerating advances in wind, solar, batteries, and LED efficiency.
All are certain to consume huge quantities of public money, pouring into private pockets (like those of Bill Gates) before failing utterly.
But they pale in importance alongside the 93 US reactors (there are some 430 worldwide) now plummeting toward certain catastrophe.
None of these reactors can get private liability insurance against an apocalyptic disaster. Most were designed in the pre-digital 1950s and ‘60s. Many were built with inferior materials and understanding.
Critical welds at California’s Diablo Canyon, for example, contain metal components long since banned. But Unit One continues to operate.
Critical concrete at New Hampshire’s Seabrook and Ohio’s Davis-Besse is crumbling. Fort Calhoun in Nebraska was flooded. Intake pipes at South Texas froze. Reactors in Ohio and Virginia have been damaged by earthquakes. Diablo is surrounded by earthquake faults set to deliver seismic shocks which a Nuclear Regulatory Commission resident inspector has said it can’t withstand. The owners of San Onofre want to bury their high-level wastes ONE HUNDRED FEET from the tide line. Meaningful evacuation planning is nonexistent at sites where nearby population centers have exploded since the original siting approval.
All these old reactors contribute to climate chaos with emissions of heat, radiation, and carbon. They suck up billions of gallons of precious water, then dump it or evaporate it with chemical, radioactive, and thermal pollution. In every case, our planet would benefit from their shutdown.
Virtually all US reactors are almost certainly embrittled, meaning emergency cooling water poured into the core to quell a meltdown would shatter critical components, resulting in apocalyptic hydrogen and possibly fission explosions, as at Chernobyl and Fukushima.
To put it most simply: no embrittled reactor has a workable set of brakes. Yet states like California, and the NRC itself, refuse to conduct relatively cheap and simple open inspections.
Thus embrittlement, pipe cracking, component degradation, technical obsolescence, an aging workforce, rampant incompetence, and worse define the reality of virtually every operating atomic reactor, here and around the planet.
So when we look in horror at that collapsed south Florida condo, with all those innocent souls buried in the rubble, we must remember that later today, parallel pictures could show a mega-hot runaway reactor spewing Chernobyl/Fukushima levels of radiation throughout the ecosphere.
Thankfully, the Solartopian realities of fast-accelerating wind, solar, battery, and efficiency technologies give us the leeway to shut them all NOW.
Let’s do it before it’s too late!!
Harvey Wasserman co-convenes the weekly Election Protection 2024 ZOOM. His People’s Spiral of US History is at www.solartopia.org.
Australian Local Gov Association support Mount Isa nuclear weapons ban motion
Australian Local Gov Assoc pass Mount Isa nuclear weapons motion https://www.northweststar.com.au/story/7316487/australian-local-gov-assoc-pass-mount-isa-nuclear-weapons-motion/
Derek Barry ocal Government Association has supported Mount Isa City Council’s letter to the federal government looking for a nuclear weapons ban……..(subscribers only)
Portrait of a pro nuclear shill – Ben Heard
Ben Heard and the nuclear lobby group ‘Bright New World’ that accepts secret corporate donations
For factual rebuttals of the misinformation promulgated by other nuclear advocates, please visit: https://nuclear.foe.org.au/propaganda/
Ben Heard founded the South Australia-based ‘Bright New World’ nuclear advocacy group that accepts secret corporate donations from the nuclear industry.
Like so many other nuclear advocates, Heard very rarely or never says or does anything about the problems of the nuclear industry such as its systemic racism (abundantly evident in his home state, South Australia) or the inadequate nuclear safeguards system and the associated WMD proliferation risks.
A big part of Heard’s schtik is his conversion from a nuclear critic to a supporter. It is a back-story built on slender foundations. A mining industry magazine article said Heard was “once a fervent anti-nuclear campaigner” but in fact he never had any involvement whatsoever in anti-nuclear campaigning. Heard made no effort to correct the error in the magazine article — indeed he put the article, uncorrected, on his own website and only corrected it after the falsehood was publicly exposed. Likewise, Heard made no effort to correct an ABC article which described him as a “former anti-nuclear advocate”.
Heard has a recurring disclosure problem. He rarely disclosed his consulting work for uranium company Heathgate when spruiking for the nuclear industry. He said the reason he rarely disclosed his consulting work with Heathgate was that it was mentioned on his website. So any time you hear anyone speaking about anything in the media, it’s your responsibility to do a web-search to see if they have a financial interest! More recently, he rarely discloses corporate funding — indeed his lobby group has a policy of accepting secret corporate donations. Moreover, Heard rarely if ever discloses his connection to nuclear power company Energy. https://nuclear.foe.org.au/ben-heard-secret-corporate-donations/rrestrial Energy.
Serious questions about government funding Bill Gates’new confidence-trick, the NATRIUM nuclear reactor
Can we be sure that we will not end up with plutonium-fueled reactors coupled with reprocessing?
Dangerous Decisions about Advanced Nuclear Reactors Could Lead to New Threats https://portside.org/2021-06-27/dangerous-decisions-about-advanced-nuclear-reactors-could-lead-new-threats
Congress should have answers to tough questions before giving the Energy Department’s Advanced Reactor Development Program additional funding. June 27, 2021 Victor Gilinsky, Henry Sokolski
The Department of Energy’s recently launched Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP) is slipping by without any close Congressional oversight, which is unfortunate as there are some serious questions that should be answered, including ones related to national security. The program was launched with an award of $160 million to TerraPower for its Natrium design and X-energy for its Xe-100. Each is to build a full-scale nuclear reactor within the next seven years, one that could be duplicated and sold commercially. While not a huge sum, it is intended to be the down payment on over $3 billion, a sum that is supposed to be cost-shared by the companies, with more for other projects.
At a March 25 Senate Energy Committee hearing on “advanced” reactors, executives of the two companies described a future with almost unlimited opportunities worldwide for their reactors, hundreds, maybe thousands. They got an enthusiastic reception from both sides of the aisle, summed up by Chairman Joe Manchin’s (D-WV) final observation that while wind and solar power were OK, “nuclear really does the job.” No one asked how the reactors will be fueled. Will they be fueled with nearly highly enriched uranium, or with plutonium? And what will be the security consequences of selling and encouraging reactors fueled with such fuels around the world?
Despite the enthusiasm for new technology, the “advanced” label is misplaced. These are re-engineered versions of old designs, some over fifty years old. “Advanced small modular reactors” trips off the tongues of people who think they are talking about the nuclear future, whereas in fact, they are talking about reviving the past.
“Small” is also an inaccurate label. Yes, there are lots of projects for small reactors, but they are a sideshow, for niche applications. The real action, the main ring, concerns larger units. TerraPower’s CEO, Chris Levesque, told the senators at the March 25 hearing that the company was pursuing a 300-megawatt (electric) unit because that was what today’s market would accept. But as it gained experience, TerraPower anticipated “growing Natrium output back up to gigawatt scale,” the size of current large light water reactors. The obvious conclusion is that TerraPower doesn’t think the smaller units would be economic, despite the current ballyhoo about the economic advantages of such units. Levesque thought there was a market for hundreds of the large units domestically and more abroad. As much of the talk was on competing with Russia and China, it is clear that the nuclear industry business plan centers on exporting the technology around the world.
Above – a different model – NuScale, but see the person indicated – this ”small” reactor is not small
The Natrium reactor TerraPower has promised to build with DOE funds is not, as many people think, the highly advertised “traveling wave” reactor design that TerraPower pursued when started by Bill Gates. That idea involved the active (fissioning) reactor region slowly “traveling” from the center of the reactor core over the life of the reactor, “breeding” plutonium from uranium and fissioning it in place, therefore with no need for reprocessing. That Bill Gates was assumed to be a shrewd investor boosted the company’s credibility. The traveling wave idea didn’t work, but TerraPower retained the label for a different design, apparently because it aids marketing.
The Natrium reactor is a scaled-up version of a General Electric design for a small sodium-cooled, plutonium-fueled fast breeder reactor (natrium is German for sodium, and “fast” means it relies on energetic neutrons). This is the reactor the nuclear enthusiasts have wanted to build since Congress canceled the Clinch River Fast Breeder Reactor in 1983. The Atomic Energy Commission, the DOE’s predecessor agency, pushed the liquid metal fast breeder (LMFBR) reactors in the 1970s as the energy solution in what was thought to be a uranium-poor world. But it turned out we live in a uranium-rich world so the expensive LMFBR made no economic sense.
It also made no sense to flood the world with untold tons of plutonium when a few kilograms is enough for a bomb. That’s why Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter made it U.S. policy to discourage commercializing of plutonium-fueled reactors. Enthusiasts tried but failed to revive fast reactors as part of the second Bush administration’s Global Nuclear Energy Partnership program. It appears they are trying again.
TerraPower’s CEO told the senate hearing that the Natrium reactor would be fueled with uranium enriched to just short of 20 percent U-235 (a level that America is trying to prevent Iran from enriching to). It’s the borderline between low and highly enriched uranium. That choice seems to be related to DOE’s interest in developing a large enrichment market for the DOE-created Centrus Corporation, which is a story in itself.
Widespread use of reactors in this mode would dramatically increase demand for enriched uranium. Will 20 percent enriched uranium remain the preferred fuel for Natrium, or will it revert to plutonium with reprocessing to meet foreign customer interest? (The original GE design included an onsite reprocessing plant.) So configured, the reactor would make and reuse massive quantities of material that could be used to create a bomb. Recently, the Senate armed Services Committee raised this worry with regard to China’s fast reactor program. Congress should nail down the answer to this key question with regard to DoE’s programs.
There is a natural tendency to loosen the financial reins on projects that fall into the research and development category. But the two ARDP projects are prototypes for the commercial market. Congress should have answers to tough questions before giving the Energy Department’s ARDP additional funding. A good start would be to ask: Can we be sure that we will not end up with plutonium-fueled reactors coupled with reprocessing?
Taylor wants CCS in Emissions Reduction Fund to help fossil fuel hydrogen — RenewEconomy
Taylor seeks new avenue to fund controversial technology a week after Senate blocked his attempt to expand ARENA’s remit to include CCS. The post Taylor wants CCS in Emissions Reduction Fund to help fossil fuel hydrogen appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Taylor wants CCS in Emissions Reduction Fund to help fossil fuel hydrogen — RenewEconomy
Department refuses to disclose details of Collinsville coal study approval process — RenewEconomy
The Morrison government has refused to release details of approvals for a controversial $3.6 million grant for a coal plant feasibility study. The post Department refuses to disclose details of Collinsville coal study approval process appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Department refuses to disclose details of Collinsville coal study approval process — RenewEconomy
Offshore wind: Taylor pushed to remove regulatory blocks to new technology — RenewEconomy
Labor says Australia’s first offshore wind projects at risk, after Angus Taylor delays removal of regulatory blockages. The post Offshore wind: Taylor pushed to remove regulatory blocks to new technology appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Offshore wind: Taylor pushed to remove regulatory blocks to new technology — RenewEconomy
Frydenberg talks up gas and CCS, skates over climate in Intergenerational Report — RenewEconomy
Coalition’s 198 page Intergenerational Report dedicates 119 words to climate mitigation, and says almost nothing about the risks of global warming. The post Frydenberg talks up gas and CCS, skates over climate in Intergenerational Report appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Frydenberg talks up gas and CCS, skates over climate in Intergenerational Report — RenewEconomy
June 28 Energy News — geoharvey
Opinion: ¶ “California PUC’s Clean Energy Order: Necessary, Timely, And Ambitious” • The California Public Utilities Commission decided to acquire 11.5 GW of mostly carbon-free electricity over the next five to seven years. This decision firmly places the state on course have a zero carbon electricity and a carbon neutral economy by 2045, without nuclear […]
June 28 Energy News — geoharvey
Napandee still the targeted site for nuclear waste? South Australia’s radioactive nightmare.
The Senate’s nuclear waste dilemma, Pearls and Irritations, By Noel Wauchope, Jun 27, 2021 ”……….. Australia’s obligations mount – to have some credible plan for long term management of its nuclear waste from its present Opal, and previous HIFAR nuclear reactors.The new amendment made this very significant change – and a real career-on -knife edge situation for Keith Pitt. Instead of specifying Napandee as the site for – let’s face it – just another temporary nuclear waste dump – the Bill now says that a selection is to be made from one of the listed sites. …
Well this seems to boil down to just one site anyway……… after all the promotional activity, and significant funding already granted to Kimba, it looks as if Napandee is still the targeted site….
Legal challenges to this site selection ? …….. the first consideration will be the Barngarla Native Title Owners………. [There] are farmers, local residents and business leaders, who are asking the government for funding for an independent review and assessment of the dump project. Up till now, information on the project has been confined to government and ANSTO promotion of the dump as a ”medical necessity” for Australia.
Then there are residents of the wider Eyre Peninsula, who have had no say in the Kimba decision. There are the various communities whose residents are likely to object to having radioactive waste transported through their area. There’s South Australia, too, which has clear laws prohibiting the establishment of a nuclear waste dump in that State, the Nuclear Waste Storage Facility (Prohibition) Act 2000.
But even those who have no ”local” interest in this project have been raising objections, with that rather old-fashioned motivation – the greater good. Thirteen of Australia’s top non government organisations rejected the Napandeed plan and the original Act as deeply flawed There were many submissions to the Senate Committee’s Inquiry into the plan, raising well-argued doubts about economic problems with the plan, about geological unsuitability of the location, environmental risks, and the likely outcome of Kimba being burdened with ”stranded wastes”
It is an issue of national concern, but it has been pitched by the government as a matter only for the 824 eligible voters of the Kimba Shire.
Looking at this in the wider and historical context, the plan is not so new. The federal government and ANSTO have been aiming for years to transfer the responsibility of the reactor wastes to some distant location, preferably out of New South Wales. ANSTO, under the recently departed CEO Dr Adi Paterson had grand plans for expanding its operations, to build a marketing empire for medical radioisotopes, This is a dubious plan, as now these isotopes are being produced in a safer, more practical way, using non nuclear cyclotrons.
A greater dream, (or perhaps nightmare) lies behind the nuclear lobby’s push for a radioactive waste dump. It’s the idea, promoted by the company PANGEA, in 1999, of Australia becoming the importer of international nuclear waste – the world’s nuclear waste hub. PANGEA has been reborn as ARIUS, with the same dream. In 2016, that dream was pushed by the South Australian Nuclear Fuel Cycle Commission, which failed to convince South Australians. Two Citizens Jury processes rejected the plan, and the South Australian Premier Steven Marshall announced that it was definitely axed.
There’s still more. The dream of plutonium and other end products of nuclear reactors coming to Australia was tied to the aspirations for an Australian nuclear future, first with the goal of the full nuclear fuel cycle, with advanced nuclear reactors, small nuclear reactors, thorium reactors, (that need plutonium to kick-start the fission process), nuclear submarines, nuclear-propelled spacecraft and so on……..
[Ed. note – the Bill was passed by the Senate on 22nd June]
Australian Conservation Foundation Nuclear Free Campaigner David Sweeney said “The return of legal review is important but it is extraordinary that the Minister ever thought its removal was reasonable,” Mr Sweeney said.“A day in court is a fundamental right and to seek to remove this was deeply flawed – as is the government’s wider plan.”
The ACF along with other peak environmental, health and community organisations, has spelt out its objections in a document on its website, stating that the plan for the Kimba waste dump is unnecessary and deeply flawed. More importantly, they are calling for what is instead really needed . They demand a properly funded and expert independent review of Australia’s radioactive waste management, based on evidence and global best practice.
https://johnmenadue.com/the-senates-nuclear-waste-dilemma/
South Australian Minister Dan van Holst Pellekaan shuns Supreme Court Justice’s ruling to release Kimba nuclear documents
Senator Rex Patrick (at left) 27 June 21, MIN It’s an extremely disturbing state of affairs when a Minister of the Crown simply ignores a Supreme Court Justice’s ruling.
You might recall late last year, Minister Dan van Holst Pellekaan denied me access to documents related to the Kimba National Radioactive Waste Management Facility in what I thought was an incompetent Freedom of Information (FOI) decision.
When I made an application to the South Australian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (SACAT) to challenge his decision, I was unbelievably threatened with costs. I ignored the Ministerial bullying. The challenge was heard by Supreme Court Justice Judy Hughes (sitting as the President of SACAT) who found the document I was after was NOT exempt from release under FOI. Orders to that effect were issued on 17 May 2021.I did not expect the document to be provided to me until the appeal time (1 month from the making of the decision) had expired.
It has now expired, and I have made a demand for the documents, but the Minister is refusing to abide by Her Honour’s decision.It looks like I’ll have to go to court to enforce the order.
First Nations and Farmers condemn the federal government’s selection process for nuclear waste dump
Barngarla criticise Kimba waste site process, Port Lincoln Times, Louis Mayfield JUNE 24 2021 Members of the Barngarla Determination Aboriginal Corporation (BDAC) have launched a scathing attack on the federal government’s process of selecting a site near Kimba to establish a radioactive waste dump.
A joint statement released by the First Nations corporation and the No Radioactive Waste on Agricultural Land in Kimba or SA group outline several issues with the government’s consultation process.
In the media release the two bodies claim that the government has “completely and utterly miscarried” the site selection process by not allowing First Nations people to vote in the community ballot.
“The simple fact remains that even though the Barngarla hold native title land closer to the proposed facility than the town of Kimba, the First Peoples for the area were not allowed to vote,” they said.
“They prevented Barngarla persons from voting, because native title land is not rateable. They did not allow many farmers to vote, even though they were within 50km of the proposed facility, because they were not in the Council area.
“They targeted us, because they knew that if they had a fair vote which included us, then the vote would return a “no” from the community.”
The results of the Kimba community ballot demonstrated a “majority support” for the federal government’s proposed nuclear facility, with 61 per cent voting in favor of the dump.
Further criticism was directed at a lack of consultation with communities that will be affected by the transport of nuclear waste to the facility.
“Those communities, where the waste will be transported through, have had no right to have a say. South Australians more broadly have had any rights to have a say,” they said………..
Minister Pitt said the specific transport routes from radioactive waste storage locations around Australia would be determined once a decision has been made on a site for the facility.
The National Radioactive Waste Management Amendment (Site Specification, Community Fund and Other Measures) Bill 2020 was passed by the Australian Parliament on Tuesday……….
After a 60-day period period, the Minister can then declare a site and acquisition of a site by the government for the purpose of hosting the National Radioactive Waste Management Facility.
This story Scathing attack on radioactive waste process first appeared on Whyalla News. https://www.portlincolntimes.com.au/story/7312689/scathing-attack-on-radioactive-waste-process/?fbclid=IwAR0bdbcqMq8QRGHYeBnwFNFlKHydpL-QEX8AfcaRdvjRxdJvOl2xOxDnDCs
Barnaby Joyce wants his legacy to include enabling nuclear power in Australia
‘Adelaide Sunday Mail. 27June 21, Barnaby Joyce says he wants his legacy to include enabling nuclear power in Australia.- (behind a paywall)
Senator Rex Patrick explained how the government’s nuclear waste process was a botched job.
there were a number of people who were quite close to the facility who were unable to express their view in the vote because they lived outside the council area—the voting area—so they were excluded. Lots of people were excluded from the vote. We ended up with a completely flawed process.
Senator McAllister did a fantastic job drawing out in the committee stage that this bill, as it originally entered the Senate, was about ousting the jurisdiction of a court to deal with a botched process. This bill now, as a ruse, says that it’s about maybe three sites, again, when we know the government is going to select Napandee. That’s what’s going to happen as a result of this.
Senator PATRICK (South Australia) Senate 21 June 21, (18:26): I rise to speak on the National Radioactive Waste Management Amendment (Site Specification, Community Fund and Other Measures) Bill 2020. I want to go back a bit in history so that the chamber’s aware of how we got to where we are today, because the bottom line is that this bill is a bit of a ruse, a facade. I need to ground that properly in order for people to understand exactly what I’m talking about.
We’ll go back to 2012, the bill where we’re seeking to establish a national radioactive waste management facility. I might point out that I’m in favour of such a facility. I think we need a facility. We do need to take responsibility for our own radioactive waste. In terms of the safety aspects and the philosophy,………….
Firstly, the concept behind the whole process is fundamentally flawed. Instead of selecting the best site for a facility in Australia, we kind of had a raffle and said, ‘Who wants to have a site in their backyard?’ or ‘Who wants to have a site on their land?’ Of course people put up their hand, but that’s not the best way to select the best location. It’s like trying to say, ‘Let’s build a highway, and we’ll go out and see who wants to have their house knocked down to have the highway run somewhere.’ That’s not the way in which you tackle a project. You work out the best route and then you deal with the issues along the way. That’s not what we’ve done in this process. We’ve just said, ‘Anyone who wants to stick up their hand, we’ll have a look at your property and see if it fits.’ It’s not the best way to do it.
……….what we should have done is look around the country and ask, ‘Where is the best site? What are the best characteristics for a site for a radioactive waste management facility?…..
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