Gupta secures China EPC contract for $350 million Cultana solar farm — RenewEconomy
Gupta signs contract with Shanghai Electric to undertake construction of the Cultana solar farm in Whyalla. The post Gupta secures China EPC contract for $350 million Cultana solar farm appeared first on RenewEconomy.
via Gupta secures China EPC contract for $350 million Cultana solar farm — RenewEconomy
Victoria Police add Tesla Model X to highway patrol fleet — RenewEconomy
Victoria Police unveils specially modified Tesla Model X SUV for state’s highway patrol, says fully electric cars the future for Australian road policing. The post Victoria Police add Tesla Model X to highway patrol fleet appeared first on RenewEconomy.
via Victoria Police add Tesla Model X to highway patrol fleet — RenewEconomy
Queensland cuts regional solar feed-in tariffs as renewables push prices down — RenewEconomy
The Queensland Competition Authority has cited strong investment in renewables as a reason for reducing solar feed-in-tariffs in regional Queensland. The post Queensland cuts regional solar feed-in tariffs as renewables push prices down appeared first on RenewEconomy.
via Queensland cuts regional solar feed-in tariffs as renewables push prices down — RenewEconomy
June 3 Energy News — geoharvey
Opinion: ¶ “China Is Eating Our Lunch, And What We Can Do About It” • Solar, wind, batteries, and their industrial mass production use common raw materials and processes that are available in most countries. There is nothing in them that is exclusive to China. And rare earth metals are not all that rare. But […]
Queensland National Party MPs keen for nuclear power in Australia
Queensland Coalition MPs push for inquiry to lift Australia’s nuclear power ban, Guardian, 2 June 19,
Keith Pitt and James McGrath behind move, saying ‘we have to be able to investigate all options’ A group of Queensland Liberal National party MPs reportedly want parliament to consider the feasibility of nuclear power in Australia.The energy source is banned as a source of power but several Coalition MPs will put forward a motion in the Senate to create a committee to investigate using nuclear power in the energy mix.
Queensland MP Keith Pitt and his Senate colleague James McGrath are behind the push, the Sunday Telegraph reports.……
The MP says nuclear energy has helped to reduce carbon emissions and power prices in Europe, while also being a reliable source of power. ……
But Labor’s new shadow treasurer, Jim Chalmers, said an inquiry was not a good idea.
“I invite them now to put their hands up for which communities that they would like to see nuclear power stations built in,” he told reporters in Brisbane on Sunday.
“Rather than these just being thought bubbles for the opposition to respond to, the onus is on them to outline their plans for nuclear power stations for our suburbs.”
During the federal election campaign prime minister Scott Morrison said he had no plans to reverse the ban on nuclear energy, after earlier saying he’d be open to it if the sector paid its own way. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jun/02/queensland-nationals-mps-push-for-inquiry-to-lift-australias-nuclear-power-ban
Julian Assange will now not face Espionage Act charges.
Assange won’t face charges over role in devastating CIA leak The decision surprised national security experts and some former officials, given prosecutors’ recent decision to go after the WikiLeaks founder on Espionage Act charges.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will not face charges for publishing Vault 7, a series of documents detailing the CIA’s arsenal of digital code used to hack devices Politico, By 6/2/19
It’s a move that has surprised national security experts and some former officials, given prosecutors’ recent decision to aggressively go after the WikiLeaks founder on more controversial Espionage Act charges that some legal experts said would not hold up in court. ……
Prosecutors were stymied by several factors. First, the government is facing a ticking clock in its efforts to extradite Assange to the United States from the United Kingdom, where he is being held. Extradition laws require the U.S. to bring any additional charges against Assange within 60 days of the first indictment, which prosecutors filed in March, accusing Assange of helping former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning hack into military computers.
The U.S. Justice Department has decided not to charge Julian Assange for his role in exposing some of the CIA’s most secret spying tools, according to a U.S. official and two other people familiar with the case.
It’s a move that has surprised national security experts and some former officials, given prosecutors’ recent decision to aggressively go after the WikiLeaks founder on more controversial Espionage Act charges that some legal experts said would not hold up in court. The decision also means that Assange will not face punishment for publishing one of the CIA’s most potent arsenals of digital code used to hack devices, dubbed Vault 7. The leak — one of the most devastating in CIA history — not only essentially rendered those tools useless for the CIA, it gave foreign spies and rogue hackers access to them.
First, the government is facing a ticking clock in its efforts to extradite Assange to the United States from the United Kingdom, where he is being held. Extradition laws require the U.S. to bring any additional charges against Assange within 60 days of the first indictment, which prosecutors filed in March, accusing Assange of helping former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning hack into military computers.
Second, prosecutors were worried about the sensitivity of the Vault 7 materials, according to an official familiar with the deliberations over whether to charge Assange. Broaching such a classified subject in court risks exposing even more CIA secrets, legal experts said. The CIA has never officially confirmed the authenticity of the leaked documents, even though analysts widely believe them to be authentic……
So instead, the Justice Department will go after Assange on the one count for allegedly assisting Manning and the 17-count Espionage Act indictment. There are no plans to bring any additional indictments prior to his extradition. https://www.politico.eu/article/julian-assange-wont-face-charges-over-cia-leak-whistleblower-spy-tools-national-security/
Australia’s uranium lobby imports a very unreliable “radiation expert” to spruik at Adelaide conference
The Uranium Conference is on in Adelaide on July 4th and 5th. The conference will be addressed by
Hon Dan van Holst Pellekaan MP, South Australian Minister for Energy and Mining. The keynote speaker will be Professor Geraldine Thomas, from Imperial College . She will also speak later on Radiation: Science, Protection and Communication.
Dr Keith Baverstock refutes Prof Geraldine Thomas’ pro nuclear propaganda
This is part of a very important article, in which Dr Baverstock thoroughly refutes the claims of Professor Geraldine Thomas’ made in a BBC interview, about Fukushima ionising radiation not being much to worry about. The BBC has since withdrawn her statements.
But that hasn’t stopped the South Australian government bringing Thomas out here to spin her stuff, in support of Weatherill’s push for SA as the global nuclear waste dump.
Thomas’ comments in the video were insulting to the intelligence of the Japanese authorities and their advisors, and extremely ill-judged from a professional radiological point of view. The BBC was right to withdraw her comments as incorrect
‘This was quite clearly scientific misconduct’ by Dr Keith Baverstock, Fissiononline 23 Sept 16 . I will take the BBC interview first. In this interview Thomas questions the whole basis of the Japanese response to the Fukushima accident in terms of its evacuation policy. Is one to imagine that those authorities and the Japanese scientific establishment are so stupid as not to recognise that there is no risk entailing living in those areas?
The internationally agreed public dose limit is 1 mSv per year in addition to approximately 2 mSv per year from natural background radiation. The single measurement made in that television interview indicate 2.8 microsieverts per hour, which is close to 25 mSv per year. That includes the natural background doses o at that point the dose rate is at least 20 times the public dose limit.
Surely Thomas can recognise that this must demand serious consideration by the appropriate authorities as to the safety of those who would live there? Continue reading
Debunking the comfortable Fukushima spin from nuclear propagandist Prof Geraldine Thomas
Is this a problem for human health? You bet it is. The question no-one asked is what is causing the excess dose? The answer is easy: radioactive contamination, principally of Caesium-137. On the basis of well-known physics relationships we can say that 3Sv/h at 1m above ground represents a surface contamination of about 900,000Bq per square metre of Cs-137. That is, 900,000 disintegrations per second in one square metre of surface: and note that they were standing on a tarmac road which appeared to be clean. And this is 5 years after the explosions. The material is everywhere, and it is in the form of dust particles which can be inhaled; invisible sparkling fairy-dust that kills hang in the air above such measurements.
The particles are not just of Caesium-137. They contain other long lived radioactivity, Strontium-90, Plutonium 239, Uranium-235, Uranium 238, Radium-226, Polonium-210, Lead-210, Tritium, isotopes of Rhodium, Ruthenium, Iodine, Cerium, Cobalt 60. The list is long.
the Japanese government wants to send the people back there. It is bribing them with money and housing assistance. It is saying, like Gerry Thomas, there is no danger. And the BBC is giving this misdirection a credible platform.
They keep the lid on the truth using ill-informed individuals like Geraldine Thomas.
Fukushima is far from being over, and the deaths have only just begun.
Is Fukushima’s nuclear nightmare over? Don’t count on it https://www.rt.com/op-edge/335362-fukushima-nuclear-japan-bbc/ Chris Busby 12 Mar 16
On the 5th Anniversary of the catastrophe, Prof Geraldine Thomas, the nuclear industry’s new public relations star, walked through the abandoned town of Ohkuma inside the Fukushima exclusion zone with BBC reporter Rupert Wingfield-Hayes.Thomas was described as “one of Britain’s leading experts on the health effects of radiation”. She is of the opinion that there is no danger and the Japanese refugees can come back and live there in the “zone”. Her main concern seemed to be how untidy it all was: “Left to rack and ruin,” she complained, sadly.
At one point, Rupert pulled out his Geiger counter and read the dose: 3 microSieverts per hour. “How much radiation would it give in a year to people who came back here,” he asked. Thomas replied: “About an extra milliSievert a year, which is not much considering you get 2mSv a year from natural background”.
“The long term impact on your health would be absolutely nothing.”
Now anyone with a calculator can easily multiply 3 microSieverts (3 x 10-6 Sv) by 24 hours and 365 days. The answer comes out to be 26 mSv (0.026Sv), not “about 1mSv” as the “leading expert on the health effects of radiation” reported.
I must personally ask if Gerry Thomas is a reliable expert; her CV shows she has published almost nothing in the way of original research, so we must ask how it is the BBC has taken her seriously. Continue reading
Capitalism, Fukushima, Creative Reconstruction and The History Of Olympics
Fukushima and Chernobyl: The Art of the Cover-up
Capitalism, Fukushima, Creative Reconstruction & The History Of Olympics by Labor Video Project Monday May 27th, 2019
Professor George Wright discusses the history of the Olympics and how privatization and control by the corporations of the world have led to in allowing the Olympics going to Japan and the contaminated Fukushima. The three broken nuclear reactors still have melted nuclear rods which must be cooled with water. He discusses the systemic corruption of the Olympic Committee and how it is now ignored the safety of the athletes and the public.
Thomas Bach, The Head of The Olympics
Morrison government fails first climate test – Greens demand answers on missing emissions data — RenewEconomy
Greens demand answers and the Climate Council slams the Government for once again sitting on greenhouse emissions data, ignoring release deadline. The post Morrison government fails first climate test – Greens demand answers on missing emissions data appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Japan’s Olympic torch relay to start in Fukushima – even children are invited to carry it
Tokyo 2020 reveals Olympic Torch route will begin in Fukushima, Inside the Games, By Matthew Smith, 1 June 2019
The Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee has revealed the Olympic Torch Relay route, which will take in many of Japan’s most historic and famous sites – and also areas touched by tragedy.
The Flame will be taken all over Japan inside 121 days, culminating in the Olympic Games next summer.
It will begin the final leg of its journey on March 26, 2020 from the J-Village National Training Centre in Fukushima, the training facility of the Japan football team.
The Flame will travel to all 47 prefectures of Japan, with the Organising Committee claiming around 98 per cent of Japan’s population live within one hour’s travel of the proposed route.
The route will take in World Heritage Sites such as Mount Fuji and Itsukushima Shrine, but will also visit areas affected by recent disasters.
Fukushima has been chosen as a start point after the Tohoku region was struck by an earthquake and tsunami in 2011, which also caused a nuclear incident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.
As well as revealing the route, Tokyo 2020 also unveiled the Torchbearer uniforms and how members of the public could apply to take part in the Relay.
The uniform features the Relay emblem on the front and the Olympic symbol on the back.
The most notable design feature is a diagonal red stripe, echoing the sash used in place of batons in Ekiden, Japan’s historic long-distance relays…….
“In Japan, these Games are being referred to as ‘the Recovery Games’ and so the Olympic Flame will start its journey from an area affected by recent natural disasters……
Games organisers say the Olympic Torch Relay will feature around 10,000 Torchbearers including men, women and children of a wide range of nationalities and ages. People from all over the world are encouraged to apply and can do so here……..https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1079973/tokyo-2020-reveals-olympic-torch-route-will-begin-in-fukushima
Clive Palmer’s plan for new coal-fired power station in Galilee Basin
|
Federal election 2019: Clive Palmer unveils new coal-fired power station plan in Qld marginal seat, ABC,
Climate change makes plan dangerous: Australia InstituteWaratah Coal is the largest tenement holder in the Galilee Basin, which sits in the electorate of Capricornia, one of the most marginal seats of the 2019 election. And today’s announcement comes amid Mr Palmer’s federal election campaign….. Climate change is the biggest threat to wellbeing and to industries in this region. “If we build new coal-fired power stations and pump more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere then that’s going to make it worse.” The Australia Institute (AI) predicts that by 2070 there will be 35-day heatwaves and a 50 per cent reduction in rainfall in Capricornia due to climate change. AI spokesman Mark Ogge said in light of the report, Mr Palmer’s announcement was dangerous.
“Climate change is the biggest threat to wellbeing and to industries in this region…… https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-08/clive-palmer-new-coal-mine-plan-waratah-coal-central-queensland/11092102 |
|
Adani coal project has a doubtful financial future
the most fundamental problem may lie within the Adani group itself. The A$2 billion required from the project will ultimately come, in large measure, from chairman Gautam Adani’s own pocket.Adani Group founder Gautam Adani. Wikimedia,
With an estimated wealth of A$7 billion, he can certainly afford to pay if he chooses to. But it would represent a huge bet on the long-term future of coal-fired electricity, at very bad odds.
|
Explaining Adani: why would a billionaire persist with a mine that will probably lose money? http://theconversation.com/explaining-adani-why-would-a-billionaire-persist-with-a-mine-that-will-probably-lose-money-117682?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20June%203%202019%20-%201325612392&utm_content=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20June%203%202019%20-%201325612392+CID_41d453460eeb0abec7025e8daebe0960&utm_source=campaign_monitor&utm_term=Explaining%20Adani%20why%20would%20a%20billionaire%20persist%20with%20a%20mine%20that%20will%20probably%20lose%20money
June 3, 2019 The road to Adani. There are more hurdles to overcome, and Gautam Adani might have to put up his own money. AAP By mid-June, if everything goes as expected, Adani Australia will receive the final environmental approvals for its proposed Carmichael coal mine and rail line development.Newspaper reports based on briefings from Adani suggest that, once the approvals are in place, the company could begin digging “within days”. On Friday the Queensland government approved Adani’s plan to protect a rare bird, apparently leaving it with just final regulatory hurdle: approval for its plan to manage groundwater. Its billboards in Brisbane read: “We can start tomorrow if we get the nod today”. But several big obstacles remain. Even after governments are out of the way, it will have to deal with markets and companies that aren’t keen on the project. Obstacles aplentyFirst up, there’s the problem of access to Aurizon’s rail line. Adani originally planned to build its own 388km railway from the Galilee Basin to its coal terminal at Abbot Point. However, in the scaled-down version of the project announced last year, Adani plans to build only 200km of track, before connecting to the existing Goonyella line owned by the rail freight company Aurizon. That requires an agreement of access pricing and conditions. Aurizon is legally obliged to negotiate with Adani, but has shown itself to be in no hurry to reach a deal. Then there’s insurance. Faced with rejection by every major bank in the world, Adani announced it would fund the project from its own resources. But now insurers, including nearly all the big European firms and Australia’s own QBE, are saying the same sort of thing as the financiers. Without insurance the project can’t proceed, and the pool of potential insurers is shrinking all the time. Not particularly financialBut the most fundamental problem may lie within the Adani group itself. The A$2 billion required from the project will ultimately come, in large measure, from chairman Gautam Adani’s own pocket.Adani Group founder Gautam Adani. Wikimedia, CC BY
With an estimated wealth of A$7 billion, he can certainly afford to pay if he chooses to. But it would represent a huge bet on the long-term future of coal-fired electricity, at very bad odds. In my analysis of the original Carmichael mine proposal in 2017 I concluded that the profit from operating the coal mine would be around A$15 per tonne. A recent analysis of the revised project by David Fickling for Bloomberg yielded a marginally more favorable estimate of US$16 per tonne, or US$160 million a year for the initial output of 10 million tonnes a year. That’s an 8% rate of return on $US2 billion, before considering overheads and depreciation. It’d need a long life…Such an investment could only be profitable on the basis of a mine with a long life and substantial potential for future expansion. How likely is that? When the start of construction was re-announced last November, it was suggested the coal might be shipped by 2021. With six months’ delay, and the insurance problem noted already, 2022 seems like the earliest possible date. But by that time, the current construction pipeline for coal-fired plants in India will have been worked through, and very few new ones will be being commissioned. A mere 8 gigawatts of new coal-fired power was commissioned in 2017-18, partly offset by 3.6GW of coal-fired power stations that closed down. The Indian government has stated that no new coal plants will be needed after 2022, or 2027 at the latest. …which it might not getIn these circumstances, newly opened coal mines will be able to sell coal only if they can displace existing suppliers. This suggests prices will have to fall to a level sufficient to ensure further closures of existing mines. Such a fall would erode or eliminate Adani’s already thin margins. By 2030, with the project still in its relatively early stages, most developed countries will have stopped using coal-fired power. The others will be moving fast in that direction. So far under President Trump, the United States has closed 50 coal-fired power stations, and will almost certainly never build another. The only glimmer of hope for coal has been in less developed countries in Asia. But over the course of this year, even these hopes have dimmed. Major banks in Japan and Singapore have withdrawn from funding new coal projects, following the lead of the global banks based in Europe and the US. Read more: If the Adani mine gets built, it will be thanks to politicians, on two continents That leaves South Korea and China as potential sources of funding. Korea is already phasing out coal-fired power domestically and its banks are being pressured to divest globally. The option of relying solely on China is problematic to say the least. To sum up, unless current trends change dramatically, the economic life of the Carmichael mine is unlikely to be more than a decade – nowhere near enough to recover a A$2 billion investment. The only glimmer of hope for coal has been in less developed countries in Asia. But over the course of this year, even these hopes have dimmed. Major banks in Japan and Singapore have withdrawn from funding new coal projects, following the lead of the global banks based in Europe and the US. |
|
Australia joins with Japan and USA in urging North Korea to return to nuclear talks
Japan, U.S., Australia urge North Korea to return to nuclear talks, Japan Times , 2 June, 19, KYODO SINGAPORE – The Japanese, U.S. and Australian defense chiefs on Saturday agreed to cooperate on denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula and urge North Korea to return to disarmament negotiations that have remained at a standstill since the collapse of a second summit between Washington and Pyongyang in late February.
Acting U.S. Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan reached the agreement with Japanese and Australian defense ministers Takeshi Iwaya and Linda Reynolds at their meeting on the sidelines of the Asia Security Summit, known as the Shangri-La Dialogue, in Singapore…….https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/06/02/national/politics-diplomacy/japan-u-s-australia-urge-north-korea-return-nuclear-talks/#.XPRJ-BYzbGg
1 This month.
Australians deserve the truth
about
AUKUS – https://aukuspublicinquiry.com/
Australians deserve the truth
about AUKUS
PETITION – To: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Australian Labor Government
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
Antinuclear 