Snowy 2.0 construction costs blow out to more than $5 billion — RenewEconomy
Snowy 2.0 construction costs now put at least $5.1 billion, and its timeline stretches out to 2027. The post Snowy 2.0 construction costs blow out to more than $5 billion appeared first on RenewEconomy.
via Snowy 2.0 construction costs blow out to more than $5 billion — RenewEconomy
Coalition spends millions on electric vehicles despite claiming Labor push will ‘end the weekend’
SMH, By Nicole Hasham April 8, 2019 The Morrison government’s derision of Labor’s electric cars policy has been undermined after it emerged that the Coalition has spent millions of dollars encouraging Australians to use the vehicles and its MPs routinely spruik the technology.The government has aggressively criticised Labor’s election pledge that half of all new cars sold in 2030 would be electric, claiming it would “end the weekend” by forcing Australians to stop driving petrol-guzzling 4WDs…….. https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/coalition-spends-millions-on-electric-vehicles-despite-claiming-labor-push-will-end-the-weekend-20190408-p51bz5.html
April 8 Energy News — geoharvey
Opinion: ¶ “Air Pollution: How Does London’s New Emissions Zone Compare?” • There are several different ways of describing cities or towns that have restrictions on vehicles, with the goal of tackling air pollution. A CAZ is a clean air zone, a LEZ is a low-emissions zone. Now London has the world’s first ULEZ, or […]
Victorian fruit farmer slashes power costs by $62k a year with solar — RenewEconomy
Goulburn Valley fruit grower cuts grid power consumption by one-third, and annual electricity costs by $62,000 a year, after installing 200kW of solar. The post Victorian fruit farmer slashes power costs by $62k a year with solar appeared first on RenewEconomy.
via Victorian fruit farmer slashes power costs by $62k a year with solar — RenewEconomy
The biggest names in energy storage come together in Sydney — RenewEconomy
The Australian and international energy sector will meet in Sydney from 13–14 June to discuss the latest in storage technologies and how they are enabling the transition to new energy systems and a more reliable grid. The post The biggest names in energy storage come together in Sydney appeared first on RenewEconomy.
via The biggest names in energy storage come together in Sydney — RenewEconomy
About torture, about pyschology, about the persecution of Julian Assange
John Pilger speaks out for Julian Assange
an example of the sensitive, clandestine, real-world CIA psychology deployed against ‘terrorists’ and enemies of the state, as Julian Assange and Wikileaks have been branded.
In this case, the adversary in the US crosshairs has been not only Julian Assange and Wikileaks, but the global populations that Wikileaks seeks to inform. It is our own vulnerabilities – the vulnerabilities in the information processing systems of all human beings – that have been leveraged and exploited in order to undermine and discredit Wikileaks.
The fundamental psychological task is to render truth suspicious and deceit reassuring, war criminals virtuous and their critics corrupt, pacifism threatening and violence comforting, abuse of power righteous and resistance reprobate, torture forgivable and whistleblowing a crime, censorship a bastion of democracy and free speech a menace to be overcome. Much as George Orwell foresaw.
In order to justify the psychological war on Wikileaks, US powerbrokers have branded Wikileaks and Assange “anti-American” “terrorists”, a “non-state hostile intelligence service” and “enemy combatants”. Bolstered by these factually indefensible slurs, Julian Assange now faces imminent extradition to the United States to face secret charges, most likely for 2010 scoops exposing US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Peace is bad. War is good. Truth is dangerous. Censorship will set you free. These are the positions underpinning the war on Wikileaks.
The Psychology Of Getting Julian Assange, Part 1: What’s Torture Got To Do With It? https://newmatilda.com/2019/02/19/psychology-getting-julian-assange-part-1-whats-torture-got/ Dr Lissa Johnson on February 19, 2019
“…. Assange faces extradition to the United States and secret charges for his publishing activities should he step outside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. This cross-border, extraterritorial persecution threatens not only Assange’s health, and possibly his life according to a recent UN statement, but poses grave legal risks both to journalism and dissent…..
The Australian rallies join a growing international chorus of organisations and individuals sounding increasingly urgent alarms over Julian Assange’s plight, and its implications for freedom of speech and democratic rights.
Late last year, as secret US charges against Julian Assange surfaced, and the threat of his imminent extradition to the US loomed, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD) issued a strongly worded statement to the UK Government, having previously ruled twice that Assange is being arbitrarily detained in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.
In its statement, the UNWGAD demanded that the UK abide by its “binding” legal obligations and “immediately” secure freedom for Julian Assange. The UN reminded the UK Government that “human rights treaty law is binding law, it is not discretionary law. It is not some passing fancy”.
The same fears prompted 33 EU parliamentarians to write a similarly strongly worded letter to the British Prime Minister, the Ecuadorian President and the UN Secretary General on December 10th, condemning the “very serious and egregious violations of human rights in the heart of Europe.” They called for Assange’s “immediate release, together with his safe passage to a safe country.”
Two German MPs followed with a visit to the Ecuadorian Embassy on December 20th, at which they denounced the violation of Assange’s “fundamental rights” and expressed their “demand that this case has to be solved: that no publisher, no editor, no journalist is detained because of publishing the truth”.
The politicians’ and UN statements added to previous condemnations of Assange’s persecution from Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and a former senior lawyer for the UNHCR and UN Expert on the Promotion of International Order.
All of these leading legal and human rights authorities have been making essentially the same fundamental point: that Julian Assange is being persecuted for publishing truth in the public interest, placing public interest journalism itself at risk, along with freedom of speech and other democratic and human rights principles.
It is the same fundamental point made by several speakers at an earlier Australian rally to free Julian Assange, held in Sydney in June last year. John Pilger spoke at that rally also.
Pilger’s important 2018 speech, however, like the rally itself, was subject to a near total, if not total, mainstream media blackout. So if you missed it, that may be why. And if you haven’t followed the US war on Wikileaks from the outset, as I hadn’t when I attended last year’s rally, Pilger’s speech is a powerful way to bring yourself up to speed. Continue reading
Australian voters back Labor to deal with climate change
Ipsos poll: Voters back Labor to deal with climate change, The Age, Michael Koziol, 7 Apr 19 Only half the Coalition’s voters believe it is the best to handle climate change, as the Morrison government struggles to manage a damaging split over the Adani mine and shift the focus back to Labor’s energy policies…..
an Ipsos poll taken last week – after Labor released its climate policy on Monday – shows voters have firmed in their view that Labor is better than the Coalition on climate change, with 42 per cent saying the opposition had the superior policy of the two major parties.
Only 25 per cent felt the Coalition’s climate policy was preferable – a decrease of 12 percentage points from when the question was asked in 2012. …
Climate and the environment have returned to the fore as Prime Minister Scott Morrison prepares to call an election, with Labor wheeling out its energy policy and the government exposed to internal divisions over the final ministerial approvals for the Adani coal mine.
Queensland Liberal National MPs and candidates are agitating for Environment Minister Melissa Price to rubber stamp the process quickly while they work to defend vulnerable Coalition seats up north, but Liberals in capital cities are urging a delay to avoid the issue blowing up just as the campaign begins.
Cabinet sources indicated they did not want to “elevate” Adani in the national mindset, nor risk any decision being challenged in the courts because it had been rushed……..
The Ipsos phone poll of 1200 voters found Labor supporters were much more likely to back their party’s climate policy than Coalition supporters: 72 per cent of Labor voters said their party had the best policy, while 5 per cent backed the Coalition and 23 per cent didn’t know.
People who lived in capital cities, had a university degree or earned more than $100,000 a year were significantly more likely to say Labor had the better policy on climate change. https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/ipsos-poll-voters-back-labor-to-deal-with-climate-change-20190407-p51boe.html
The world has just avoided nuclear conflagration between India and Pakistan
South Asia’s nuclear-armed neighbors pull back from the abyss…barely
India and Pakistan have created the most perilous place on Earth. Salon DILIP HIRO, APRIL 7, 2019 This piece originally appeared on TomDispatch.
It’s still the most dangerous border on Earth. Yet compared to the recent tweets of President Donald Trump, it remains a marginal news story. That doesn’t for a moment diminish the chance that the globe’s first (and possibly ultimate) nuclear conflagration could break out along that 480-mile border known as the Line of Control (and, given the history that surrounds it, that phrase should indeed be capitalized). The casus belli would undoubtedly be the more than seven-decades-old clash between India and Pakistan over the contested territory of Kashmir. Like a volcano, this unresolved dispute rumbles periodically — as it did only weeks ago — threatening to spew its white-hot lava to devastating effect not just in the region but potentially globally as well.
The trigger for renewed rumbling is always a sensational terrorist attack by a Pakistani militant group on an Indian target. That propels the India’s leadership to a moral high ground. From there, bitter condemnations of Pakistan are coupled with the promise of airstrikes on the training camps of the culprit terrorist organizations operating from the Pakistan-controlled part of Kashmir. As a result, the already simmering relations between the two nuclear-armed neighbors are quickly raised to a boiling point. This, in turn, prompts the United States to intervene and pressure Pakistan to shut down those violent jihadist groups. To placate Washington, the Pakistani government goes through the ritual of issuing banning orders on those groups, but in practice, any change is minimal.
And in the background always lurks the possibility that a war between the two neighbors could lead to a devastating nuclear exchange. Which means that it’s time to examine how and why, by arraying hundreds of thousands of troops along that Line of Control, India and Pakistan have created the most perilous place on Earth.
How It All Began Continue reading
Environment Minister Melissa Price confirms Malaysia’s request for Australia to take back Lynas’ radioactive trash
Minister confirms Malaysian request on Lynas waste, Fin Rev 2 Apr 19 Brad Thompson Environment minister Melissa Price has confirmed receiving a letter from her Malaysian counterpart requesting collaboration on the removal of low-level radioactive waste produced by Lynas Corporation.
Ms Price’s office said on Tuesday that it was premature to comment further until the request had been properly considered.
Malaysia wants Australia to accept 450,000 tonnes of waste created at the Lynas plant near Kuantan in the processing of rare earths from the company’s Mount Weld mine in Western Australia.
A spokesman for Ms Price said Australia’s Department of the Environment and Energy handled import permit applications for hazardous materials on a case-by-case basis.
Similarly, the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency handled import permit applications for radioactive material on a case-by-case basis.
It remains unclear how the Lynas waste will be classified. It is understood West Australian authorities would also have to sign off on the transport of any waste within the state, possibly all the way back out to the remote Mount Weld mine.
Lynas refuses to concede it will have to find a way to remove low-level radioactive waste from Malaysia to keep its operations going, despite increasing political pressure.
The Wesfarmers’ takeover target said on Tuesday that it continued to engage productively with the Malaysian government over the waste issue.
Lynas remains optimistic it can resolve the issue within Malaysia despite an order to remove the waste by September if it wants to continue operating its $800 million Kuantan plant.
Lynas, led by Amanda Lacaze, declined to comment on the Malaysian minister’s formal request for the Australian government to collaborate on the waste removal………
Wesfarmers is reported to have told Lynas it is willing to build a first-stage processing plant at Kwinana, south of Perth, to overcome the waste issue. Connect with Brad on Twitter.Email Brad at bradthompson@afr.com.au https://www.afr.com/business/mining/environment-minister-confirms-malaysian-request-on-lynas-waste-20190402-p51a1x?fbclid=IwAR3P_yvHRTW0Z3LAj1bBwWTkFrfdiLP0S9wmykaxQoY-QZfymcRZXtG5U5g
How Sky News and Peter Ridd try to mislead Australians about the Great Barrier Reef
Great Barrier Reef: Sky News and Peter Ridd are deliberately misleading, Independent Australia, By Graham Readfearn | 6 April 2019, According to misinformation from sources such as Sky News and scientist Peter Ridd, the Great Barrier Reef is in perfect health, writes DeSmogBlog’s Graham Readfearn.
AUSTRALIA’S GREAT BARRIER REEF is in some serious trouble, with the latest research in the journal Nature showing the number of new corals has dropped by 89%.
In 2016 and 2017, the Reef was smashed by back-to-back mass bleaching events and heat stress caused by global warming that killed about half the corals.
‘Dead corals don’t make babies,’ said James Cook University’s Professor Terry Hughes, the paper’s lead author.
‘We used to think that the Great Barrier Reef was too big to fail — until now,’ added colleague Professor Morgan Pratchett.
The paper was just the latest in a steady and, many would agree, depressing parade of findings for the World Heritage icon. And if the scientific papers don’t do it for you, then there are always the pictures.
But the release of the study served as a remarkable contrast to the way the Rupert Murdoch-owned Sky News, furnished with material from climate science denial think tank the Institute of Public Affairs, has been “reporting” on reef science in the past week.
On at least five occasions, the channel has interviewed the IPA’s policy director, Gideon Rozner, who has been updating the channel on the case of Dr Peter Ridd, a marine scientist specialising in sediments who was fired in March 2018 from James Cook University.
According to the various interviews, the Reef is in great shape, the science is probably wrong, and Ridd is a “world renowned” Reef expert in a historic fight for freedom. None of this is true, yet the claims have been allowed to stand unchecked.
The saga of Peter Ridd
Ridd’s saga is a long one, but here’s the short version (and, while we’re here, in the interests of full disclosure, in the time since I first started writing about Ridd’s case, I’ve taken a part-time job at an Australian marine conservation charity as a media adviser).
Ridd does not think that human-caused climate change is a problem and he thinks the Reef is in fabulous health. This has been his public position for at least a decade.
But in 2017, Ridd started to publicly accuse his scientific colleagues, some of who were based at his own university in Townsville, of being untrustworthy. This went against the university’s code of conduct. The university censured him. Ridd refused to back down and made more statements. He published “private” university correspondence on his website. He was further disciplined, so he sued his employer. Then they fired him.
Last week, Ridd’s case was finally heard in court with three days of hearings. A judgment is expected in the coming months.
Now, the IPA has gone all out to create a narrative around Ridd’s case. …….https://independentaustralia.net/business/business-display/great-barrier-reef-sky-news-and-peter-ridd-are-deliberately-misleading,12545
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg passes the buck on Adani coal mine to Minister For Coal , Melissa Price
Adani mine in minister’s hands: treasurer, SBS News 7 Apr 19, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg says 
the final approvals for the Adani coal mine are in the environment minister’s hands, defending an apparent delay on the project.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has defended a hold-up in final approvals for the Adani coal mine in Queensland.
Mr Frydenberg said all major boxes had already been checked, and the environment minister was now working through “sub-approvals” in consultation with scientists.
“That’s in the hands of the minister,” he told the ABC’s Insiders on Sunday……https://www.sbs.com.au/news/adani-mine-in-minister-s-hands-treasurer
Reflective roofs can reduce overheating in cities and save lives during heatwaves
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-04/uoo-rrc040519.php UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, 5 Apr 19, A new modelling study from the University of Oxford and collaborators has estimated how changing the reflectivity of roofs can help keep cities cooler during heatwaves and reduce heat-rated mortality rates.
Cities are generally a few degrees warmer than the countryside, due to the urban heat island effect. This effect is caused partly by a lack of moisture and vegetation in cities compared with rural landscapes, and because urban building materials store up heat. During heatwaves, daytime temperatures can get dangerously high in cities, leading to serious health effects and increasing mortality risk.
The idea of ‘cool’ roofs is to make roof surfaces more reflective to sunlight (for example by painting roofs a lighter colour) thereby reducing local temperatures.
Scientists used a regional weather model to look at how temperatures changed across the study city of Birmingham and the West Midlands, depending on the extent of cool roof deployment. They looked at the hot summers of 2003 and 2006, and found that the intensity of the urban heat island (the urban-rural temperature difference) reached up to 9oC for Birmingham city.
Previous work has shown that the extra heat associated with the urban heat island is responsible for around 40-50% of heat related mortality in the West Midlands during heatwaves.
This latest study, published in Environment International, suggests that implementing cool roofs across the city can reduce peak daytime local temperatures by up to 3oC during a heatwave. This reduction in temperature could potentially offset around 25% of the heat-related mortality associated with the urban heat island during a heatwave.
The urban heat island effect is most pronounced at night time, because urban materials slowly release their stored heat overnight, however, the biggest benefits of cool roofs were seen to be during the hottest part of the day where sunlight was reflected away. The type of building made a difference too: modifying only half of all the industrial and commercial buildings had the same impact on lowering temperatures as modifying all the high-intensity residential buildings.
Co-author Dr Clare Heaviside, of the University of Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute comments: “Climate change and increasing urbanisation mean that future populations are likely to be at increased risk of overheating in cities, although building and city scale interventions have the potential to reduce this risk.
“Modelling studies like this one can help to determine the most effective methods to implement in order to reduce health risks in our cities in the future.”
U.S. Democratic candidate slammed the US for allowing firms to sell Saudi Arabia nuclear tech
‘How does this serve US interests?’ Gabbard slams decision to sell Saudi Arabia nuclear weapons tech https://www.rt.com/usa/455279-gabbard-saudi-arabia-extremism-isis/ 2 Apr, 2019 Tulsi Gabbard has slammed the US for allowing firms to sell Saudi Arabia nuclear tech despite its history of exporting extremism which inspires Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) and Al-Qaeda, which she says the Kingdom supports.
The Hawaiian congresswoman and Democratic presidential candidate took aim at the Kingdom’s history of extremism in a Twitter video that criticized Energy Secretary Rick Perry’s secret authorizations, to six US companies, allowing for the sale of nuclear power technology and assistance to Saudi Arabia, as Reuters revealed last week. Gabbard said the move is “both mind-blowing and inexplicable.”
Saudi Arabia is the “primary exporter of jihadist ideology, Wahhabi Salafist ideology that is the motivation and inspiration for terrorist groups like ISIS and al Qaeda – groups that the Saudis both directly and indirectly support,” Gabbard said.
The kingdom has been tied to Al-Qaeda and extremism in the past, with 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers coming from Saudi Arabia, according to the CIA. In 2015, one of the alleged hijackers, Zacarias Moussaoui, claimed several members of the Saudi royal family had been listed as Al-Qaeda donors in the database he worked on under orders of Osama bin Laden, US media reported.
WikiLeaks cables from the US State Department from 2009 revealed“donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide.” In a 2014 email, published by WikiLeaks, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Saudi Arabia was “providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region.” It has also supplied weapons to IS in Syria.
Saudi Arabia is reportedly planning to create at least two nuclear power plants, but many are concerned that’s a precursor to developing nuclear weapons, which would further destabilize the region. It was also reported, last year, that Israel was selling Saudi Arabia nuclear secrets.
Small modular reactors want to make headlines — Beyond Nuclear International
Instead, they are already in the obituary column
via Small modular reactors want to make headlines — Beyond Nuclear International
1 This month.
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about
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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)
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