On the contrary, Mr Dutton, nuclear generated electricity is not “emissions free”.
Helen Caldicott, 7 Oct 24
On the contrary, Mr Dutton, nuclear generated electricity is not “emissions free”.
Large quantities of CO2 are emitted during the mining, milling and enrichment of the uranium ore, and during the construction of the concrete reactor, nuclear fuel rods, and the transport and storage of radioactive waste for 240,000 years
Mutagenic radioactive gases are also routinely released during reactor operations including tritium – radioactive hydrogen which enters the body through the skin and lung, carbon 14 and noble gases – xenon, krypton and argon. These carcinogenic elements are inhaled and also bioconcentrate in the food chain near the reactors thereby exposing the surrounding population to the development of cancer and leukemia.
It is important to note that children are 10 to 20 times more susceptible to radiation induced cancer than adults.
Reference – Nuclear Power is Not the – Helen Caldicott – The New Press – 2011.
What nuclear power in the United States tells us about the Coalition’s controversial energy policy
“If nuclear power were a person, it would be weeping with its head in its hands over the Vogtle story. Vogtle is clear proof that large nuclear construction is not an economic way to go.”
ABC News, By Eric Campbell, 7 Oct 24
“…………………………………It’s been touted as the start of a new era for the US’s flagging nuclear power industry. Vogtle’s newest reactors are among the first built in the US in decades.
“Thank you for your service to our nation in providing this arsenal of clean power,” Energy Department Secretary Jennifer Granholm said at the May opening ceremony for Vogtle’s latest reactor.
“Now let’s draw up some battle plans for new reactors. I don’t know about you but I for one am reporting for duty!” she said, saluting.
Peter Dutton is ready to enlist Australia. If he wins next year’s election, he plans to build seven nuclear power stations at retiring coal-fired plants.
Mr Dutton has flagged the AP1000 reactor used at Vogtle could be one of the models used to power homes and businesses in Australia.
“We don’t want to be the purchaser of the first in class or have an Australian-made technology, we want to rely on the Westinghouse AP1000,” he said in June. Beyond this, he’s given little detail about how exactly the plan would work.
Four Corners travelled around the US to examine the Coalition claims that developing nuclear power plants was the best way to replace coal power.
It has cited the US, which remains the world’s largest producer of nuclear energy, as one of the places to see the benefits it could bring Australia. Before launching the policy, Coalition MPs accompanied two groups of engineers and environmentalists around the US and to Ontario in Canada to see the potential first-hand.
In our experience, the reality was more complex.
Cost blowout
The Coalition’s pitch for nuclear is that it’s reliable, clean and cheap. And Vogtle certainly ticks two of those boxes. The plant almost never stops running and it produces no [greenhouse] emissions. But here’s the problem. It was expensive to build.
The giant AP1000 reactors designed by Westinghouse opened seven years late at more than twice the budgeted cost. The final bill of around $US35 billion ($50 billion) makes them among the most expensive nuclear generators ever built.
Now, Georgia residents are paying the price for Vogtle’s overruns in their electricity bills.
Community organiser Kimberley Scott said people have been struggling to keep up.
“Power bills have gone up hundreds of dollars for consumers including myself,” she said.
Georgia ratepayer Anna Hamer said she now has had to ration air conditioning in the Atlanta summer as her bills rise. In July she was hit with her highest power bill ever: $US618 for one month.
“They were telling us everything was going to be OK with this plant, that it would be on time and it would be on budget. It’s over budget and we are paying for that. That seems wrong to me.”
It’s very different to what the Coalition has been suggesting in media interviews and energy speeches since it launched its nuclear policy over three months ago.
At the nuclear policy launch in June, Mr Dutton said: “Electricity is cheaper where there is a presence of nuclear energy. That is a fact. So we can rely on that international experience.”
The Coalition often cites the Canadian province of Ontario as a model, saying its three nuclear plants contribute to much lower power bills than Australia. The plants are owned and subsidised by the provincial government…………….
Peter Bradford, a former member of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which licences commercial reactors, told Four Corners building nuclear plants was always the most expensive option.
“It’s an unbroken string of economic disappointment,” he said.
“If nuclear power were a person, it would be weeping with its head in its hands over the Vogtle story. Vogtle is clear proof that large nuclear construction is not an economic way to go.”
………………………….Ted O’Brien said the Coalition’s policy has been shaped by the lessons learned by other countries.
“If you look at the Vogtle example, one of the lessons we need to learn in Australia is we should not be adopting first of a kind technology. We should only be adopting what’s referred to as next-of a kind proven technology.”
He said a Coalition government would spend two-and-a-half years studying the sites and consulting communities before an independent authority chooses the most appropriate reactor design.
The SMR conundrum
The other type of reactor the Coalition wants in its nuclear power arsenal has been promoted as a game changer for the industry…………………………
The Coalition wants SMRs operating in Australia from 2035. There’s just one problem.
They don’t exist yet, at least not commercially.
Billions of dollars are being spent to make them a reality. But so far, all attempts are years from completion or have already failed.
The only project that won approval from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission was abandoned last November because of rising costs, even after the US Department of Energy pledged more than $US500 million in grants.
Four Corners went to the latest place where there’s a concerted attempt to break this conundrum. It’s a sleepy coal town in south-west Wyoming called Kemmerer, with a population of nearly 3,000.
……Enter Bill Gates. In June the billionaire climate change activist came to town and turned a sod on his project to construct a working SMR, declaring: “This is a big step towards safe, abundant, zero carbon energy.”
He’s putting $US1 billion of his own money into trying to make it a success, with the federal government pledging another $US2 billion.
…………………………………………….. Fortunately for the project, the town administration welcomes the prospect of anything that might bring work.
“Essentially, the town was going to lose a couple of hundred jobs or more,” Mayor Bill Thek said.
“We’re hoping that the people that work for the power plant, the current coal burning power plant will be able to transition, or at least some of them, into the nuclear plant.”
For now, all that’s being constructed are the bits around the reactor, while the project waits for approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). Project spokesman Jeff Navin said they still hoped to finish construction by 2030………..
SMRs face a challenge. They’re small, producing far less power. Any power they produce would therefore be more expensive, unless the modules can be mass produced to make them cheaper to construct to offset the generation cost.
But nobody is going to mass produce anything until there is a working model that promises to produce power economically that attracts lots of eager customers. Which takes you back to square one.
Peter Bradford has seen promised breakthroughs like SMRs come and go.
“In this industry, vendor claims about cheaper nuclear costs have a long, well-documented and very sad history — they just don’t come true.
“There is no basis for believing that this utterly unproven technology is going to sweep in and make a success of a field that up to now has been an unmitigated economic failure.”
Even in the Gates-backed project’s most optimistic scenario, it’s unlikely SMRs would be mass produced to bring down costs before Australia plans to install them.
When asked about this, Ted O’Brien did not appear fazed…………..
Getting it done
The uncertainty around SMRs, and the cost blowout in Georgia, point to the practical difficulties Australia would face in trying to build reactors cheaper than countries with decades of experience, when we’ve never built a nuclear energy plant before.
The US is not the only nuclear country struggling to build new plants.
- France’s latest reactor opened 12 years behind schedule and around 10 billion euros over budget.
- Britain’s Hinkley Point plant is running six years late and facing a 20 billion British pound overrun.
- A South Korean consortium was able to build four reactors in the United Arab Emirates over 12 years. Even under an authoritarian regime, each reactor was connected to the grid around three years later than expected.
US journalist and nuclear historian Stephanie Cooke has been covering the industry since 1980.
“I have never seen a project come in on time or budget. They’ve come in way, way over budget and way over time. It amazes me that there’s so much hype about something that’s been such an abject failure in my opinion.
“I mean, yeah, it’s produced electricity, but at what cost? I don’t think that we should be wasting our money on it plain and simple.”
……………………………………………. The finer points of how the Coalition plans to overcome the challenges it will confront are still unclear.
It’s yet to reveal how much its plan will cost or how it will overturn federal state bans on nuclear energy.
It says SMR plants could be operating by 2035, or 2037 if it starts with larger reactors. But the timing beyond that is unclear…………………. more https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-07/nuclear-power-us-coalition-energy-policy-australia-four-corners/104432870
Finally Free, Assange Receives a Measure of Justice From the Council of Europe
In the U.S., “the concept of state secrets is used to shield executive officials from criminal prosecution for crimes such as kidnapping and torture, or to prevent victims from claiming damages,” the resolution notes. But “the responsibility of State agents for war crimes or serious human rights violations, such as assassinations, enforced disappearances, torture or abductions, does not constitute a secret that must be protected.”
In his first public statement since his release, Assange said, “I’m free today … because I pled guilty to journalism.”
By Marjorie Cohn , Truthout, October 4, 2024
he Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), Europe’s foremost human rights body, overwhelmingly adopted a resolution on October 2 formally declaring WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange a political prisoner. The Council of Europe, which represents 64 nations, expressed deep concern at the harsh treatment suffered by Assange, which has had a “chilling effect” on journalists and whistleblowers around the world.
In the resolution, PACE notes that many of the leaked files WikiLeaks published “provide credible evidence of war crimes, human rights abuses, and government misconduct.” The revelations also “confirmed the existence of secret prisons, kidnappings and illegal transfers of prisoners by the United States on European soil.”
According to the terms of a plea deal with the U.S. Department of Justice, Assange pled guilty on June 25 to one count of conspiracy to obtain documents, writings and notes connected with the national defense under the U.S. Espionage Act. Without the deal, he was facing 175 years in prison for 18 charges in an indictment filed by the Trump administration and pursued by the Biden administration, stemming from WikiLeaks’ publication of evidence of war crimes committed by the U.S. in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay. After his plea, Assange was released from custody with credit for the five years he had spent in London’s maximum-security Belmarsh Prison.
The day before PACE passed its resolution, Assange delivered a powerful testimony to the Council of Europe’s Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights. This was his first public statement since his release from custody four months ago, after 14 years in confinement – nine in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and five in Belmarsh. “Freedom of expression and all that flows from it is at a dark crossroads,” Assange told the parliamentarians.
A “Chilling Effect and a Climate of Self-Censorship”
The resolution says that “the disproportionately harsh charges” the U.S. filed against Assange under the Espionage Act, “which expose him to a risk of de facto life imprisonment,” together with his conviction “for — what was essentially — the gathering and publication of information,” justify classifying him as a political prisoner, under the definition set forth in a PACE resolution from 2012 defining the term. Assange’s five-year incarceration in Belmarsh Prison was “disproportionate to the alleged offence.”
Noting that Assange is “the first publisher to be prosecuted under [the Espionage Act] for leaking classified information obtained from a whistleblower,” the resolution expresses concern about the “chilling effect and a climate of self-censorship for all journalists, editors and others who raise the alarm on issues that are essential to the functioning of democratic societies.” The resolution also notes that “information gathering is an essential preparatory step in journalism” which is protected by the right to freedom of expression guaranteed by the European Court of Human Rights.
The resolution cites the conclusion of Nils Melzer, UN Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, that Assange had been exposed to “increasingly severe forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, the cumulative effects of which can only be described as psychological torture.”
Condemning “transnational repression,” PACE was “alarmed by reports that the CIA was discreetly monitoring Mr. Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy in London and that it was allegedly planning to poison or even assassinate him on British soil.” The CIA has raised the “state secrets” privilege in a civil lawsuit filed by two attorneys and two journalists over that illegal surveillance.
In the U.S., “the concept of state secrets is used to shield executive officials from criminal prosecution for crimes such as kidnapping and torture, or to prevent victims from claiming damages,” the resolution notes. But “the responsibility of State agents for war crimes or serious human rights violations, such as assassinations, enforced disappearances, torture or abductions, does not constitute a secret that must be protected.”
Moreover, the resolution expresses deep concern that, according to publicly available evidence, no one has been held to account for the war crimes and human rights violations committed by U.S. state agents and decries the “culture of impunity.”
The resolution says there is no evidence anyone has been harmed by WikiLeaks’ publications and “regrets that despite Mr Assange’s disclosure of thousands of confirmed — previously unreported — deaths by U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, he has been the one accused of endangering lives.”
Assange’s Testimony
The testimony Assange provided to the committee was poignant. “I eventually chose freedom over realizable justice … Justice for me is now precluded,” Assange testified. “I am not free today because the system worked. I am free today after years of incarceration because I pled guilty to journalism.” He added, “I pled guilty to seeking information from a source. I pled guilty to obtaining information from a source. And I pled guilty to informing the public what that information was.” His source was whistleblower Chelsea Manning, who provided the documents and reports to WikiLeaks. “Journalism is not a crime,” Assange said. “It is a pillar of a free and informed society.”………………………………………………………………………………
PACE Urges US to Investigate War Crimes
The resolution calls on the U.S., the U.K., the member and observer States of the Council of Europe, and media outlets to take actions to address its concerns.
It calls on the U.S., an observer State, to reform the Espionage Act of 1917 to exclude from its operation journalists, editors and whistleblowers who disclose classified information with the aim of informing the public of serious crimes, such as torture or murder. In order to obtain a conviction for violation of the Act, the government should be required to prove a malicious intent to harm national security. It also calls on the U.S. to investigate the allegations of war crimes and other human rights violations exposed by Assange and Wikileaks.
PACE called on the U.K. to review its extradition laws to exclude extradition for political offenses, as well as conduct an independent review of the conditions of Assange’s treatment while at Belmarsh, to see if it constituted torture, or inhuman or degrading treatment.
In addition, the resolution urges the States of the Council of Europe to further improve their protections for whistleblowers, and to adopt strict guidelines to prevent governments from classifying documents as defense secrets when not warranted.
Finally, the resolution urges media outlets to establish rigorous protocols for handling and verifying classified information, to ensure responsible reporting and avoid any risk to national security and the safety of informants and sources.
Although PACE doesn’t have the authority to make laws, it can urge the States of the Council of Europe to take action. Since Assange never had the opportunity to litigate the denial of his right to freedom of expression, the resolution of the Council of Europe is particularly significant as he seeks a pardon from U.S. President Joe Biden. https://truthout.org/articles/finally-free-assange-receives-a-measure-of-justice-from-the-council-of-europe/
Dutton at odds with Queensland LNP over nuclear plans
Federal Liberal leader joined the state’s election campaign on Friday as David Crisafulli reiterated his objection to nuclear sites at Tarong and Callide
Andrew Messenger, Fri 4 Oct 2024, https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/oct/04/queensland-election-liberal-national-party-nuclear-plan-peter-dutton?fbclid=IwY2xjawFsifVleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHatRzSolvCpDyme9yMGAFlBbI6wl6H_xHENLi2ILNvm4yPKbJbAux77dWQ_aem_EASDYfMnhAhutdbQArg8oA
The federal opposition leader, Peter Dutton, has dismissed the Queensland LNP’s rejection of his nuclear power plan as just a “difference of opinion” between friends as he joined the state’s election campaign on Friday.
At their first joint press conference since the controversial plan was announced, Queensland LNP leader David Crisafulli reiterated his defiance of Dutton’s plan for two nuclear plants in Queensland. Crisafulli said he would oppose them if elected at the 26 October poll.
It was their first joint appearance since June, when the federal leader announced plans for seven nuclear sites across Australia.
“Friends can have differences of opinion, that’s healthy,” Crisafulli said. Dutton agreed.
Dutton said he would have a “respectful” conversation with Crisafulli if he was elected.
“We can have that conversation,” Dutton said.
“The first step is to get David elected as premier. When the prime minister stops running scared, he’ll hold an election, and I intend to be prime minister after the next election, and we can have that conversation.
“In the end, we want the same thing, and that is cheaper electricity for Queenslanders.”
Crisafulli said he would not change his mind.
He has repeatedly ruled out repealing the state’s nuclear ban under any circumstances.
Dutton has previously suggested overriding state legislation.
“Commonwealth laws override state laws even to the level of the inconsistency. So support or opposition at a state level won’t stop us rolling out our new energy system,” he said in June.
Labor has repeatedly accused Crisafulli of secretly supporting the nuclear plan.
“He’ll have to roll over when it comes to nuclear power, because his entire state party, all of those state LNP MPs in the federal party, all of those state LNP senators in the federal Senate and all of his grassroots members, they want nuclear power, and he’ll have to roll over,” the deputy premier, Cameron Dick, said.
The LNP is widely tipped to win the election.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, is yet to appear alongside the premier, Steven Miles, on the campaign trail.
The associate director of research at the ANU’s initiative on zero carbon energy for the Asia Pacific Institute, Emma Aisbett, said having major policy differences between federal and state governments raised investment risk.
“It means that investors in energy will face higher policy uncertainty, which is also known as political risk,” she said. “It has a particularly strong depressing effect on investment for long-lived assets, which have high upfront costs, and both nuclear and renewables, either PV or wind, really fit into that category.”
She said having a dispute between governments could bring back the “energy wars”.
“What that does is slow and delay the net zero transition, and we do not have decades more to waste, slowing and delaying the transition away from fossil based energy.”
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“He’ll have to roll over when it comes to nuclear power, because his entire state party, all of those state LNP MPs in the federal party, all of those state LNP senators in the federal Senate and all of his grassroots members, they want nuclear power, and he’ll have to roll over,” the deputy premier, Cameron Dick, said.
The LNP is widely tipped to win the election.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, is yet to appear alongside the premier, Steven Miles, on the campaign trail.
The associate director of research at the ANU’s initiative on zero carbon energy for the Asia Pacific Institute, Emma Aisbett, said having major policy differences between federal and state governments raised investment risk.
“It means that investors in energy will face higher policy uncertainty, which is also known as political risk,” she said.
“It has a particularly strong depressing effect on investment for long-lived assets, which have high upfront costs, and both nuclear and renewables, either PV or wind, really fit into that category.”
She said having a dispute between governments could bring back the “energy wars”.
“What that does is slow and delay the net zero transition, and we do not have decades more to waste, slowing and delaying the transition away from fossil based energy.”
Today. In praise of Joe Biden – an unfashionable opinion.
Yeah. We’ve all gotta agree. Joe Biden is silly, demented, – blah blah.
Well, I don’t agree. I watched that famous debate, after which everyone affirmed that Biden was a disaster.
The thing is – Biden made a couple of obvious glitches – mixing up names – during this debate (something that could happen to anybody, in the stress of the moment).
So the media, and the rest of the world, blindly agreed on how badly Biden debated. Never mind the fact that he gave a clear and lucid discussion on the achievements and policies of his government.
Meanwhile – the media coverage of the more colourful Trump was much more fun. There was definite disagreement about it between media outlets. The big question was exactly how many lies did Trump tell? Was it 32? No – some argued that it was only 28.
So – now that we’re all convinced that Biden doesn’t matter -we can ignore what he says and does about current urgent issues?
On the present Israeli military crisis – how will Israel punish Iran for its attacks on Israel? There’s this great idea that I’m sure that Netanyahu would love – to attack Iran’s nuclear site. But the Israelis do need the USA’s blessing to do that. But President Biden has said that while he is working with Israel he wouldn’t support strikes on Iran’s nuclear facility.
On the present Ukraine military crisis, the Western media seems to be in complacent agreement that Ukraine can defeat Russia, and all that Ukraine needs is long-range missiles – supplied by USA/NATO. These missiles could strike deep inside Russia, could potentially strike Moscow. Russia’s President Putin has repeatedly warned against this. Now Putn has changed Russia’s doctrine on using nuclear weapons, making it clear that he is prepared to use them, in the event of Ukrainian attacks deep within Russia.
President Biden, while allowing Ukraine some use of long-range missiles in areas near Ukraine, continues to rule out strikes deep within Russia.
For this attitude, Biden gets criticism, near to ridicule, from the media, almost universally – summed up by the Washington Post editorial board – “Mr. Biden needs to give permission and set the ground rules quickly.”
Donald Trump has come out with a very sensible-sounding policy on Ukraine. Trouble is – (a) you cannot trust a word that this man says, and (b) Trump’s record as president promotes nuclear war – undoing the Iran nuclear deal and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty with Russia.
It is now perhaps only President Joe Biden who is stalling and preventing the rush to nuclear Armageddon.
I can only conclude that the Western media in general (some exceptions):
*doesn’t do its homework – check on the facts.
*likes to please its nuclear-military-industrial-complex sponsors
*finds Trump much more entertaining to write about.
I am grateful to Julie Hollar, who clearly set out the case for questioning the corporate media’s judgement in covering this issue of the risk of Ukraine using long-range missiles.
Hey Australia, Ontario is no model for energy and climate policy
Energy and climate strategy should prioritize options with lowest economic, environmental, technological and safety risks. Ontario’s does the opposite.
by Mark Winfield October 4, 2024, https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/october-2024/ontario-energy/
Over the past few weeks, word has begun to reach Ontario of a series of stories in the Australian media in which the province is being held up as a model for climate and energy policy Down Under.
It seems that Peter Dutton, the leader of the federal opposition Liberal (the conservative party in Australian politics), has been promoting Ontario’s nuclear heavy energy plans as a pathway for Australia.
For those in the province familiar with the ongoing saga of its energy and electricity policies, the reactions to the notion of Ontario being an example of energy and electricity policymaking have ranged from “bizarre” to “you couldn’t make this up.”
Poor maintenance and operating practices led to the near-overnight shutdown of the province’s seven oldest reactors in 1997, leading to a dramatic rise in the role of coal-fired generation and its associated emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and smog precursors. The refurbishment of the “laid-up” reactors themselves went badly. Two ended in write-offs, and the others ran billions over budget and years behind schedule, accounting for a large portion of the near doubling of electricity rates in the province between the mid-2000s and 2020.
Towards a $100-billion nuclear binge?
Only two other provinces followed Ontario’s lead on nuclear. Quebec built two reactors and New Brunswick one, each of them completed in the 1970s or the early 1980s. The Gentilly-1 facility in Quebec was barely ever operational and closed in 1977. The Gentilly-2 facility was shut down in 2012, and assessed as uneconomic, particularly in light of Ontario’s experiences in attempting to refurbish its own. The construction and then refurbishment of the Point Lepreau facility has repeatedly pushed New Brunswick Power to the brink of bankruptcy.
The current government of Ontario, led by Conservative Premier Doug Ford, has seemed determined to ignore the nuclear experiences of these provinces, and its own history of failed nuclear megaprojects. The government’s July 2023 energy plan includes the refurbishment of six reactors at the Bruce nuclear power facility (owned by OPG), and four reactors at the OPG’s Darlington facility. It subsequently added the refurbishment of four more reactors at OPG’s Pickering B facility, an option that had previously been assessed as unnecessary and uneconomic. The plant had originally been scheduled to close in 2018. There are also proposals for four new reactors totaling 4,800 MW in capacity at Bruce and four new 300MW reactors at Darlington. (The current capacity is 6,550 MW at Bruce, and 3,512 MW at Darlington.)
The total costs of these plans are unknown at this point, but an overall estimate in excess of $100 billion would not be unrealistic:
- $13 billion for the refurbishment at Darlington;
- approximately $20 billion for the refurbishment at Bruce;
- $15 billion for Pickering B (based on Darlington costs and plant age for both this case and Bruce);
- about $50 billion for the new build at Bruce, based on previous new build proposals;
- and the Darlington new build (unknown, but likely $10 billion or more).
Even this 100$-billion figure would assume that things go according to plan, which rarely happens with nuclear construction and refurbishment projects.
The government’s ambitious nuclear plans have not been subject to any form of external review or regulatory oversight in terms of costs, economic and environmental rationality, or the availability of lower-cost and lower-risk pathways for meeting the province’s electricity needs. Rather, the system now runs entirely on the basis of ministerial directives that agencies in the sector, including the putative regulator, the Ontario Energy Board, are mandated to implement.
The province’s politically driven policy environment is very advantageous to nuclear proponents. When previous nuclear expansion proposals had been subject to meaningful public review, the plans collapsed in the face of soaring cost estimates and unrealistic demand projections. This was the case in the early 1980s with the Royal Commission on Electric Power Planning – aka the Porter commission, at the turn of the 1990s with the Ontario Hydro demand and supply plan environmental assessment, and in the late 2000s, with the Ontario Power Authority’s integrated power system plan review.
A halt to renewable energy
There is a second dimension to Ontario’s electricity plans that also should not be overlooked. Upon arriving in office the Ford government promptly terminated all efforts at renewable energy development, including having completed wind turbine projects quite literally ripped out of the ground at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. It then scrapped the province’s energy efficiency strategy for being too effective at reducing demand. Repeated offers of low-cost electricity from the hydropower-rich neighbouring province of Quebec were ignored. The results of studies by the province’s own electricity system operator on energy efficiency potential and the possible contributions of distributed generation, like building and facility-level solar photovoltaics (PV) and storage, have been largely disregarded.
These choices have left the province with no apparent option but to rely on natural gas-fired generation to replace nuclear facilities that are being refurbished or retired. With existing facilities dramatically ramping up their output, and new facilities being added, GHG and other emissions from gas-fired generation have more than tripled since 2017, and are projected to continue to increase dramatically over the next years. On its current trajectory, gas-fired generation will constitute a quarter of the province’s electricity supply, the same portion provided by coal-fired plants before their phase-out, completed in 2013. The province has recently announced a re-engagement around renewable energy, but the seriousness of this interest has been subject to considerable doubt.
Given all of this, it would be difficult to see Ontario as a model for Australia or any other jurisdiction to follow in designing its energy and climate strategy. The province has no meaningful energy planning and review process. Its current nuclear and gas-focussed pathway seems destined to embed high energy costs and high emissions for decades to come. And it will leave a growing legacy of radioactive wastes that will require management of timescales hundreds of millennia.
A rational and transparent process would prioritize the options with the lowest economic, environmental, technological and safety risks. Higher-risk options, like new nuclear, should only be considered where it can be demonstrated that the lower-risk options have been fully optimized and developed in the planning process. Ontario’s current path goes in the opposite direction. To follow its example would be a serious mistake.
If Peter Dutton has a better understanding of the cost of building nuclear, then let’s see it
Johanna Bowyer & Tristan Edis, l Oct 4, 2024, https://reneweconomy.com.au/if-peter-dutton-has-a-better-understanding-of-the-cost-of-building-nuclear-then-lets-see-it/
Two weeks ago, the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis released a report analysing how much electricity prices and Australian household energy bills would need to rise to make nuclear power plants financially viable.
The report found that household energy bills across the four states analysed would rise by an average of $665 a year relative to existing prices.
Federal opposition energy spokesperson Ted O’Brien claimed the report’s analysis was based on a “cherry-picked” sample of nuclear power projects. Opposition treasury spokesperson Angus Taylor described the analysis as “nonsense.”
The leader of the opposition Peter Dutton had the opportunity to provide a detailed response to our research in a speech he gave on nuclear power several days later. Yet his speech contained no alternative economic analysis or costing to support the opposition’s claims our research is incorrect.
Our analysis was informed by the actual construction costs of all nuclear power projects that have been committed to construction in the past 20 years across the European Union and North America.
In addition, we also considered two projects that had reached the tender contract pricing stage. A sample of six projects may appear small but the lack of a significant number of projects committed to construction is a warning bell in itself.
The limit of 20 years was chosen because projects from any earlier would have employed reactor technologies that lacked critical safety features now deemed essential by EU and US regulators.
The EU and North America were chosen for the following reasons:
– Those regions have relatively similar labour market conditions to Australia, particularly wages and rights to collectively bargain and strike;
– Similar systems of government – liberal democracies with a free press;
– The reactor technologies they certify as safe are likely to be the only technologies Australia will be willing to adopt, and;
– Regulatory structures that ensure transparent and reliable cost data such as investor disclosure or competition law requirements.
It is important to note that within our sample, we included the agreed price Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Company has bid to build two reactors in Dukovany in Czechia.
History suggests that a tender bid price is highly likely to be an underestimate of the actual construction cost of a nuclear reactor. Nonetheless, we included this project in the study as the Korean APR reactor technology is mentioned as an option in the Coalition’s nuclear policy statements.
Our report explains in further detail that Korea’s experience in building reactors in its own country is highly unlikely to be replicable in Australia. This is because the scale of their nuclear reactor build program is vastly larger than the Coalition’s plans.
Instead, the Dukovany project is a better representation of the costs the Koreans might be able to achieve outside their home base, in a developed, democratic nation.
O’Brien also cited the exclusion Japanese projects from our sample. The only two projects to have been committed to construction in Japan in the past 20 years were halted by regulatory authorities due to safety concerns. We would also note that investigations following the Fukushima Reactor explosion in 2011 uncovered serious problems with the rigour and independence of Japan’s nuclear regulatory safety regime.
The fact that the Japanese regulator had a tendency to overlook or ignore safety issues puts into serious question the applicability of Japanese nuclear construction experience as one Australia would wish to replicate.
It is more than decade since the Fukushima accident prompted the suspension of Japan’s reactor operations pending safety reviews. Since that safety review, only 12 reactors have restarted operations, with 21 units remaining mothballed and a further 21 reactors decommissioned.
China, Russia and the Middle East are often cited by nuclear power lobbyists as better representing reactor construction costs than the EU or North America. However, conditions in these markets vary significantly from Australia, such as:
– Vastly lower wages for construction workers;
– Outlawing of collective bargaining and strikes;
– Severe penalties including jail terms for people peacefully protesting or publicly criticising government authorities;
– The use of nuclear reactor technologies not certified as safe by EU or North American nuclear regulatory authorities, and;
– Reliance on Russian suppliers that are subject to trade sanctions in Australia.
Our research is detailed and extensively referenced, with the methods laid out transparently for others to review. If the federal Coalition has a better understanding of the cost of a nuclear build in Australia than the real-world experience of the EU and North America, we look forward to seeing their analysis.
In the absence of that, expect household power bills to rise by about $665 a year if and when nuclear power plants are built in Australia.
Johanna Bowyer is the Lead Analyst in the Australian Electricity Program at the Institute of Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, Tristan Edis is Director of Analysis and Advisory at Green Energy Markets. They are co-authors of the report, Nuclear in Australia would increase household power bills.
Australia’s mining lobby is running a pro-nuclear campaign using Liberal Party-linked ad firm
Topham Guerin, best known for its role in helping global conservative political campaigns and a number of other controversial clients, has been enlisted to promote nuclear energy in Australia.
Crikey, Cam Wilson, Oct 03, 2024
Australia’s mining industry has launched a pro-nuclear influence campaign powered by the digital advertising firm credited for its role in Scott Morrison and Boris Johnson’s surprise election victories.
At the end of August, the Get Clear on Nuclear campaign kicked off with the creation of social media posts and advertisements run on platforms on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube; as well as its own website.
The campaign, which urges “Australia to rethink nuclear as part of our sustainable future”, is only identified on its website as being backed by the Mineral Councils of Australia at the bottom of its terms and conditions page.
Get Clear on Nuclear’s social media accounts feature a political authorisation mentioning the council, too. (Although its social media advertisements on Meta’s platforms have not been tagged as content about social, political or election issues, limiting the amount of information that be seen about them).
A review of the website’s registration reveals the involvement of Topham Guerin, a New Zealand-founded advertising agency best known for its involvement with Australia’s Liberal Party and the UK’s Conservative Party’s election victories in 2019.
The website itself is registered to Topham Guerin Pty Ltd and its registrant is the firm’s global tech director Andrew Macfarlane…………………….
The firm has attracted controversy for its reported involvement in running a “large-scale professional disinformation network on behalf of paying clients including major polluters, the Saudi Arabian government, anti-cycling groups and various foreign political campaigns”, as well as its efforts to pay influencers to attack a critic of one of its clients, Palantir.
While playing down its links to conservative politics, the firm has promoted its ability to shift elections through social media strategy. In 2019, Guerin spoke about how its harnessing of “boomer memes” helped Morrison’s come-from-behind victory over Bill Shorten.
This meme-savviness can be seen in its content for the Mineral Council of Australia campaign. Its TikTok account posts videos of parodies of the popular video game Fortnite and faked text messages purportedly sent to the account’s “girlfriend”, all promoting nuclear energy.
Minerals Council of Australia CEO Tania Constable did not answer Crikey’s questions, instead giving a general statement about the campaign.
“This campaign, entirely apolitical, is about educating and informing Australians about the unique benefits and advantages of nuclear energy, dispelling myths and misconceptions that are being used to denigrate an energy source that the developed world has long embraced,” she said.
Topham Guerin did not respond to a request for comment. https://www.crikey.com.au/2024/10/03/minerals-council-nuclear-campaign-scott-morrison/
Big Super is still investing in nuclear weapons: report
| Quit Nukes / The Australia Institute, 1 October 24 https://theaimn.com/big-super-is-still-investing-in-nuclear-weapons-report/ |
A new report has found that despite claiming not to invest in ‘controversial weapons’ 13 of the top 14 Australian super funds are still investing in nuclear weapons companies, in some cases even in an option described as ‘responsible’.
One of the 14, Hostplus, has excluded nuclear weapons companies across its portfolio since December 2021.
At least $3.4 billion of Australian retirement savings are invested by these funds in companies involved in making nuclear weapons, according to the new research conducted by Quit Nukes in collaboration with The Australia Institute.
The report analyses financial returns and finds that the exclusion of nuclear weapon companies from portfolios has an immaterial impact on returns.
Rosemary Kelly, Director, Quit Nukes:
“It’s frankly unconscionable to sell super fund members a responsible investment option and then use their money to invest in nuclear proliferation.
“The thing that makes this baffling is that investing in nuclear weapon companies is just completely unnecessary in the broader scheme of things..
“Superannuation funds should divest immediately from weapons manufacturers who produce nuclear weapons. If you’re a member of 13 of these 14 leading funds you can request that your fund divest or threaten to take your savings elsewhere.
“Super funds are being sneaky by boasting of policies to exclude “controversial weapons” but not counting nuclear weapons as “controversial.” That’s pretty hard to swallow when you consider that most ESG advisers now consider nuclear weapons as controversial weapons, given the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons that came into force in 2021.
Alice Grundy, Research Manager, The Australia Institute
“The most frustrating thing about the lack of process in this area is that excluding nuclear weapon companies from super portfolios is so easy. Divesting has an immaterial impact on investment returns.
“Your super fund could divest your money from nuclear weapon companies without materially impacting your returns.
“So long as nuclear weapons exist, nuclear war is an ever-present risk. Its impacts would be catastrophic. Even a limited nuclear war, involving say 250 of the over 12,000 nuclear weapons in the world, would kill 120 million people outright and cause nuclear famine, putting 2 billion lives at risk. There would be massive impacts on global supply chains and manufacturing.
“The long-term financial implications should be factored into decisions about where to invest Australian super.”
The full report Media contacts: Anil Lambert 0416 426 722
South Australia sets spectacular new records for wind, solar and negative demand
Giles Parkinson, Sep 30, 2024, https://reneweconomy.com.au/south-australia-sets-spectacular-new-records-for-wind-solar-and-negative-demand/
Records continue to tumble across Australia’s main grids as the spring weather boosts the output of wind and solar and mild weather moderates demand, but none are as spectacular as those being set in South Australia.
The state’s unique end-of-the-line grid already leads the country, and arguably the globe, in the integration of variable wind and solar, with an average of more than 70 per cent of its demand over the last year and a world-first target of 100 per cent net renewables by 2027.
On Sunday, at 9.35 am, the state set a new milestone, setting a new record share of wind and solar (as a percentage of state electricity demand) of 150.7 per cent, beating a record set on Christmas Day last year, when – for obvious reasons – there was little electricity demand.
As Geoff Eldridge, from GPE NEMLog, notes, this means that the rooftop PV, along with large scale wind and solar farms, were generating 50.7 per cent more power than the state’s total electricity demand at the time.
The scale of excess output was further crystallised later in the day with a new minimum record for instantaneous residual demand, which hit minus 927 megawatts at 12.35pm.
Eldridge says residual demand is what’s left for other generators to supply after wind and solar have met a share of the demand. A negative residual demand means wind and solar were producing more electricity than SA needed, resulting in excess renewable generation which can be managed by exporting and battery charging. The remainder is curtailed.
Of the surplus 927 MW, the state was exporting 685 MW to Victoria, while another 163 MW was being soaked up by the state’s growing fleet of battery storage projects, and 730 MW of output was curtailed. Prices at the time were minus $47/MWh, a good opportunity for batteries to charge.
A further 84 MW was being produced by a couple of gas generators – not because their power output was needed, but because the state, at least for the moment, relies on them for essential grid services such as system strength and fault current.
That will be reduced considerably when the new link to NSW is completed in a few years, and it will allow the state to both export more, and import more when needs be.
“Balancing the system with such high renewable penetration is challenging but necessary as the energy transition progresses,” Eldridge says. “Managing excess generation through exports, storage, and curtailment is critical to keeping the grid stable and efficient.”
It wasn’t the only record to fall over the weekend. In Queensland, the country’s most coal dependent state in terms of annual share of demand and generation, large scale solar hit a record share of 34 per cent, and coal output – in megawatt terms – hit a record low of 2,882 MW.
The Queensland coal fleet capacity is more than 8,000 MW, so that is about as low as it can run until more units are closed down.
In Victoria on Saturday, just before the AFL grand final, rooftop solar also hit a new record output of 3,164 MW – although it did not push operational demand down low enough for the market operator to enact Minimum System Load protocols and possibly switch off some rooftop solar panels to maintain grid stability.
It had flagged a potential MSL event on Friday but cancelled it in the morning. Those events will likely occur at other times in spring and over the summer holidays, although the market operator is now working on new rules for big batteries to avoid a potentially unpopular and unwieldy solar switch off.
Department of Justice Notified of Suspected Faulty Welds on SUBMARINES, Aircraft Carriers at Newport News Shipbuilding
Sam LaGrone, September 26, 2024 https://news.usni.org/2024/09/26/doj-notified-of-suspected-intentionally-faulty-welds-on-subs-aircraft-carriers-at-newport-news-shipbuilding
Shipuilder Newport News Shipbuilding, Va., informed the Department of Justice of faulty welds that may have been made intentionally on non-critical components on in-service Navy submarines and aircraft carriers, USNI News has learned.
HII reported to the Navy that welds on new construction and in-service submarines and Ford-class aircraft carriers were made not following welding procedure, according to a Tuesday memo from Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition Nickolas Guertin to Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti.
Guertin told SECNAV and CNO the workers did not follow proper techniques to weld the suspect joints with an early indication that some of the welding errors were intentional. Based on the Newport News assessment of the welds, the shipyard notified the Department of Justice over the issue.
Portions of Guertin’s memo were first circulated on social media sites on Thursday.
Newport News acknowledged their internal quality assurance systems discovered production problems in a Thursday statement to USNI News
“We recently discovered through internal reporting that the quality of some welds did not meet our high-quality standards. Upon this discovery, we took immediate action to communicate with our customers and regulators, investigate, determine root cause, bound these matters and insert immediate corrective actions to prevent any recurrence of these issues,” reads the statement.
“HII’s Newport News Shipbuilding is committed to building the highest-quality aircraft carriers and submarines for the U.S. Navy. We do not tolerate any conduct that compromises our company’s values and our mission of delivering ships that safeguard our nation and its sailors.”
The Navy acknowledged the ongoing look into the scope of the welding problem in a Thursday statement to USNI News.
“The Navy is aware of the issue and a thorough evaluation is underway to determine the scope. The safety of our Sailors and our ships is of paramount importance. We are working closely with industry partners to address this situation and will provide additional information when available,” reads the statement.
The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for additional information from USNI News on Thursday on the probe into the welds.
Newport News is one of two nuclear shipyards in the U.S. The yard builds the Ford-class aircraft carriers and the bow and stern sections of the Virginia-class attack submarines and the Columbia-class nuclear ballistic missile submarines in cooperation with General Dynamics Electric Boat.
Shipbuilders across the country have been wrestling with ongoing workforce problems due in part to a green labor pool that was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Week to 30 September- countering the nuclear-military-industrial-political spin
Some bits of good news.
– Women Wage Peace . Countries’ climate obligations could be legally defined at top UN court in December.Vertical Greening Brings Nature to Urban ‘Heat Islands’ Quickly and Easily.
TOP STORIES. How civilisation could end – an all-too-possible nuclear scenario.
The Israeli nuclear risk no one is talking about.
Cold War II: US Congress passes 25 anti-China laws in 1 week, funds propaganda campaign. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tix5L5qDaNw
Ukraine’s Zelensky arriving in US….to pitch WWIII.
The Madness of Antony Blinken. Antony Blinken LIED?! State Dept Caught WITHHOLDING Humanitarian Aid From Gaza https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hb30Sn6WR-s
Nuclear finance will rely on consumers’ stomach for risk. ALSO AT …… https://nuclear-news.net/2024/09/27/2-a-nuclear-finance-will-rely-on-consumers-stomach-for-risk/
From the archives. Questions still remain on the suspicious death of nuclear worker Karen SilkwoodWeek to 30 September.
Climate. Green campaigners lambast UN climate summit hosts for clinging to fossil fuels .
Noel’s notes. Hurricane Helene : when global heating collides with our dependence on digital systems. I would rather have tough-guy macho men, than slimy sweet-talk hypocrites.
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AUSTRALIA.
Defence Minister Marles, with all pretension, flogging a dead seahorse.
Nuclear Concerns – Hiroshima, Maralinga and Dutton’s Australia.
Climate Change Authority head Matt Kean contradicts Peter Dutton’s claim on nuclear and renewables working together.
Australians are installing batteries at a record rate, as rooftop solar heads for major new milestone. Renewable and Energy storage jobs will soon overtake those in coal and gas.
More Australian news headlines at https://antinuclear.net/2024/09/24/australian-nuclear-news-headlines-23-30-september/
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NUCLEAR ITEMS
ATROCITIES. Israel’s Tally of War Crimes in Lebanon Increases in Wake of Exploding Pagers.
CLIMATE.
Hurricane Helene Floods Closed Duke Nuclear Plant in Florida.
ECONOMICS. Nuclear fuel costs soar as conversion and enrichment bottleneck strains supply.
US company eliminated from race to build Britain’s first mini-nuclear. ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2024/09/29/2-b1-us-company-eliminated-from-race-to-build-britains-first-mini-nuclear-plant/ Why NuScale Power Stock Dropped Today.
EDUCATION. “Peaceful” and war-making nuclear industries get together in tertiary education.
| ENERGY. Microsoft’s Three Mile Island deal: How big tech is snatching up nuclear power. US nuclear plants won’t power up Big Tech’s AI ambitions right away. |
| ENVIRONMENT. Charities call for greater transparency over Sizewell C. |
ETHICS and RELIGION
Cardinal Parolin: ‘World threatened by irreversible nuclear destruction’.
EVENTS. Sleepwalking into War? IPAN Conference 2024 –– October 4-6 in Perth,Australia or attend online The Independent and Peaceful Australia Network.
| HUMAN RIGHTS. Assange to Testify at Council of Europe. |
MEDIA. Losing The Narrative War: Israel Illegally Raids and Shuts Down Al Jazeera’s West Bank Bureau. Going From “The Civilian Buildings Are Hamas” To “The Civilian Buildings Are Hezbollah“. The Looming Catastrophe in the Middle East (w/ Gideon Levy) | The Chris Hedges Report.
PLUTONIUM. Japan and 11 other countries call for early start of fissile material ban talks.
POLITICS. A push for compensation for U.S. nuclear testing fallout resumes on Capitol Hill. . Mistaking Militarism for Statecraft, Empire for Democracy and Debt for Prosperity.
Nuclear Weapons and the U.S. Presidential Elections.
Weatherwatch: UK Labour’s stance on nuclear power is worryingly familiar. Scottish National Party blasts Labour for ‘frittering away’ money on nuclear plant instead of winter fuel payment.
POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY.
- Iran ready for nuclear talks at UN ‘if other parties willing‘, foreign minister says.
- Walking a fraying nuclear tightrope. The UN won’t protect Gaza, but can adopt a ‘Pact for the Future?’. Biden would rather defend Israeli impunity than stop a regional war.
- Julian Assange’s Interview with the Late Hezbollah Leader Hassan Nasrallah – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3M1fHfKenTM
- Public scrutiny of UK-US nuclear pact is essential.
- Indonesia, Solomon Islands join countries banning nuclear weapons, putting Australia at odds with neighbours
SAFETY.
- IAEA chief says situation tense around Russia’s Kursk plant, but no permanent mission planned.
- Swarm of over 100 earthquakes hits Hanford nuclear site near Tri-Cities in Washington.
- U.S. Outgoing French nuclear safety chief warns of 25% budget cut.
- Incident. China’s Newest Nuclear Submarine Sank, Setting Back Its Military Modernization.
SECRETS and LIES
Blinken Lied To Congress About Israeli War Crimes Because He Knows He’ll Get Away With It. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYEBm0eKuo0
Karen Silkwood and Kerr-McGee: A Reinvestigation.
SPACE. EXPLORATION, WEAPONS. NASA’s uncrewed Artemis mission highlights radiation risk to astronauts.
Woomera Manual: International Law Meets Military Space Activities.
WASTES. Despite vastly different social and political contexts, Finland, Germany and France are all grappling with the question of safe nuclear waste disposal.
Spent nuclear fuel shipped to Japan’s 1st interim storage facility in Aomori.
New developments at Sellafield for endless storage of ever-increasing amounts of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel.
WAR and CONFLICT. After destroying Ukraine and Gaza, Biden seeks a destroyed nation trifecta in Lebanon.
The Illusion of a Solution: Killing Hassan Nasrallah. Netanyahu: Israel Is Fighting a War on Seven Fronts . Israel: ‘Escalate to De-escalate’.
Putin outlines new rules for Russian use of vast nuclear arsenal. Ukraine army attacks nuclear plant substation: Russia.
Ambassadors called upon to refrain from military action involving nuclear plants. Wars, Propaganda Wars and Funding Them.
WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES. US Gives Israel $8.7 Billion in Military Aid for Operations in Gaza and Lebanon. War Forever, Everywhere, War Doesn’t End When It “Ends“.
Japan’s new Prime Minister calls for deployment of US nuclear weapons.
‘Cheaper with nuclear’: What will Dutton’s nuclear plan really cost?
The Age, Mike Foley, September 27, 2024
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is refusing to release the costings of his nuclear energy policy, despite claiming a national fleet of reactors would slash power bills.
But enough work has been done by independent agencies to give us some idea of the potential price tag.
What Dutton said
“We can have cheaper, cleaner and consistent energy if we adopt nuclear power,” Dutton said last week, adding that nuclear plants did not require the thousands of kilometres of transmission lines that link renewables to the grid, and took up less space than wind and solar farms.
A Coalition government would build seven nuclear plants on the sites of existing coal plants, including two small modular reactors and five large-scale plants, and plans to have the first operating by 2037.
Dutton says residents of Ontario, Canada enjoy cheaper power prices – 18¢ a kilowatt-hour (kWh) – courtesy of the province’s eight nuclear reactors generating about 60 per cent of the electricity supply.
He told Nine’s Today program on September 20 that Ontarians were “paying one-third the cost of electricity that we are here”. In July, he said they were “paying about a quarter of the price for electricity that we are here in Australia”.
These claims are overstated.
Power prices
Victoria pays about 28¢ a kWh, NSW 33¢ and Queensland 30¢. So rather than prices being three to four times higher, they are a bit less than twice the 18¢ figure. South Australians pay more than the other states at 45¢, but still less than Dutton’s claim.
However, this comparison is questionable because Australian prices include a range of costs that Ontarians must pay on top of their kWh charge. Network charges – the cost of building, running and maintaining power poles and wires across the grid – are listed separately on Ontario’s bills and can run into hundreds of dollars a year.
Construction costs
The CSIRO’s latest energy cost report card estimated a large-scale nuclear reactor in Australia would cost $16 billion, based on the low-cost construction of plants in South Korea, and take nearly two decades to build. It calculated that cost could fall to about $8 billion per reactor as efficiencies of scale were achieved after at least five and possibly 10 reactors were built.
Britain’s Hinkley Point C plant, which was announced in 2007 with an estimated $18 billion price tag, is set to be completed 13 years late at a cost of $90 billion.
If a Dutton government built reactors in Australia, that cost would have to be repaid, which could come via consumers’ electricity bills……………………………………………………………. more https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/cheaper-with-nuclear-what-will-dutton-s-nuclear-plan-really-cost-20240920-p5kc8z.html
AustralianSuper ESG option invested in nuclear weapons: report.
Hannah Wootton, 1 Oct 24 https://www.afr.com/wealth/superannuation/australiansuper-esg-option-invested-in-nuclear-weapons-report-20240926-p5kdpp .
Australia’s 14 biggest superannuation funds are investing about $3.4 billion of workers’ retirement savings in nuclear weapons despite many promising to avoid controversial arms, new research shows.
Industry fund gorilla AustralianSuper alone had $1.5 billion in nuclear weapons companies, while UniSuper, Aware Super and HESTA invested more than $200 million each.
Hostplus was the only major fund on the Australian market to exclude nuclear weapons, according to the study by Quit Nukes and the Australia Institute.
It comes as members ramp up engagement with super funds over concerns about unethical or environmental investments and regulators crack down on companies making false promises to consumers about their social good.
It also follows Treasurer Jim Chalmers saying there was an opportunity for super funds to “think more strategically” about how institutional capital flows into the defence industry as part of his push last year to tap $3.9 trillion for nation building investments, which funds and experts pushed back on.
Looking at funds’ default MySuper options, which account for the bulk of their members and funds under management, the report found Aware Super was the most exposed to nuclear weapons.
About 0.91 per cent of its total funds in the option were in nuclear weapons, outstripping AustralianSuper with 0.7 per cent and UniSuper and HESTA with just under 0.5 per cent.
Nuclear weapons ‘excluded’
Quit Nukes director and report co-author Rosemary Kelly said if funds wanted to keep pace with international law, global investment norms and members’ expectations and make the best risk-adjusted financial decisions, they would exclude atomic weapons.
“Super funds are being sneaky by boasting of policies to exclude ‘controversial weapons’ but not counting nuclear weapons as ‘controversial’,” she said.
“That’s pretty hard to swallow when you consider that the United Nations now considers nuclear weapons as controversial weapons.”
The report was based on portfolio holdings at December 31, 2023, and termed nuclear weapons companies as those which have a meaningful stake in the manufacture, maintenance, detonation or development of nuclear warheads and missiles or components exclusively used in them.
AustralianSuper and Spirit Super’s ESG options invested in them to the tune of $20.1 million and $400,000 respectively, despite targeting ethical investors and promising to exclude controversial (but not nuclear) weapons.
“That was a big surprise and it’s unacceptable. People read the headlines of funds’ websites and don’t have the tools to drill down into what’s actually happening – so if a fund says it excludes controversial weapons, a normal punter would think that includes nuclear,” Dr Kelly said.
Only Hostplus excluded nuclear weapons from its MySuper offering, while nine more funds ruled out controversial weapons but not atomic ones. AustralianSuper, Brighter Super, UniSuper and Care Super did not exclude any arms.
Financial sting
Dr Kelly, who is a former Aware Super director and headed its investment committee, said super funds needed to take the long-term economic implications of nuclear war seriously given their legal obligation to always act in the best financial interests of members.
“Any nuclear war, started intentionally or by accident, will be disastrous for global financial markets. This is clearly not in anyone’s best financial interest,” she said.
Even a “limited nuclear war”, which some conflict strategists view as a tactical alternative to full nuclear war should deterrence ever be deemed necessary, involving just 250 of the 12,000-plus atomic weapons in the world would kill 120 million people outright.
It would then risk a further 2 billion lives through a nuclear famine and have significant consequences for global supply chains and manufacturing.
Modelling included in the report showed there was no meaningful change in super fund returns when nuclear weapon companies were excluded from portfolios compared to when they were included.
An Aware Super spokeswoman said the fund’s investments in nuclear were only in companies where the weapons component was “a very small part of their overall business”, and its controversial weapons policy more broadly was under review.
A HESTA spokesman said only a small portion, 0.15 per cent, of the fund’s total assets were in nuclear weapons and that Quit Nukes’ data was outdated.
But the report acknowledged the fund had reduced its holdings since the data collection and sold out of four of the five companies it had previously held in breach of its own commitment to exclude companies earning more than 5 per cent of revenue from nuclear weapons.
An AustralianSuper spokesman said the fund’s members had “diverse values, preferences and attitudes when it comes to investing”, with any exclusions and screens communicated to them on its website.
Spirit Super planned to review its ESG and nuclear weapons positions after its current merger with Care Super completed.
TODAY. Hurricane Helene : when global heating collides with our dependence on digital systems
It’s going to happen more often – extreme weather events paralysing our digital systems. We had a taste of this with the global digital outage in July.
When digital fails – analogue radio still works, and real money – coins and paper cash still work
From Thursday, 26 September Millions were without electricity as Hurricane Helene lashed parts of Florida, Georgia , Tennessee, and North Carolina. Many people in Florida were left stranded, without shelter and awaiting rescue, and without communication, even after the hurricane had swept through.
Helene then soaked the Carolinas and Tennessee with torrential rains, sending creeks and rivers over their banks and straining dams. Western North Carolina was isolated because of landslides and flooding that closed the Interstate 40 and other roads. Additional heavy rains are likely across portions of the Central Appalachians,
At least 88 people died, and hundreds, perhaps thousands, have been made homeless. Business, education, all organisations and services are disrupted.
If there’s one thing that Americans are good at, it’s helping each other out in times of crisis. And there have been so much on-the ground help from neighbours, and heroic rescues.
But to add to the suffering, is the dreadful loneliness of people in need, but cut off from all communication – no TV, no Internet, no email, no mobile phone, – electricity being cut off, and mobile phone towers downed.
By Sunday, more than 2.1 million customers remained without electricity across several states. Apart from those desperate cases of need, there would be so many situations, even where businesses, shops were safe – but could not function, because of digital systems not working.
IIt’s not surprising that the tech squillionaires have been rather silent about this, because they like their technology to be in charge of everything
After all – people are so resilient – with repairs swinging into action, and everything digital will be back in function – soon. All can use their apps, their mobile phones, their credit cards
Until next time.
1 This month
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– go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com/
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