Big public response on Roxby
Adelaide now 9 August 09August 08, 2009
THE State Government will deliver two reports on BHP Billiton’s proposed expansion of Olympic Dam mine because of the sheer number of responses to the company’s environmental impact statement.
Premier Mike Rann said the Government had already completed a draft submission, but would produce a second after it had sorted through the 3950 responses.
“The EIS (Environmental Impact Statement) has generated a significant public response and we believe the Government should take into account those views before making its own final submission,” he said.
Labor’s right wing making a nuclear flap
Union boss calls for nuclear energy
The Age MICHELLE GRATTANAugust 19, 2009
AUSTRALIA should develop a domestic nuclear industry and cast off ”ancient, hypochondriac policies” to get maximum benefit from its uranium, one of the country’s leading union figures has said.National secretary of the Australian Workers Union Paul Howes said the Federal Government should lift its ban on a nuclear power industry. Prohibitions on uranium mining in Queensland and exploration in NSW and Victoria – ”superstitions of another age” – should also go.
Australians would be ”dills” not to seize the prize presented by use of nuclear energy and it should consider establishing nuclear processing facilities to add value to our export ore, Mr Howes told the Sydney Institute last night.
Union boss calls for nuclear energyBob Hawke in new plug for nuclear waste industry
THE AUSTRALIAN Paul Kelly, August 19, 2009
“Australia can make a significant difference to the safety of nuclear generation by agreeing to take waste from nuclear power stations. This would be an important contribution to safety and energy security. It would also become a strong source of national income for Australia that could be dedicated to our own environmental and water requirements.”…………… He says the financial benefits from any decision would be immense.
Darwin Council worried about uranium transport risk
Yellowcake cyclone impact concerns council
ABC News 18 August 09 By Gina MarichThe Darwin City Council says a new uranium storage and handling facility proposed for Darwin’s main port could pose a risk to the environment.
BHP Billiton is considering a facility at the East Arm Port to export up to 1.6 million tonnes of uranium oxide a year, once it expands its Olympic Dam mine in South Australia.
The Darwin Lord Mayor, Graeme Sawyer, says this poses a range of issues, including possible leakage during cyclones and tidal storm surges.
BHP have made some assurances that the stuff that they’re dealing with is not on the high end of the dangerous scale,” Mr Sawyer said.
“But we’d like some independent analysis of that and a range of assurances on some of it.
“There’s going to be some material on that site which needs to be very safely handled so there’s a whole range of issues.”
Yellowcake cyclone impact concerns council – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Renewable energy stocks rise, and Australia to pass renewables legislation
Green companies get wind in their sails
August 17, 2009
CLEAN chip stocks outperformed the S&P/ASX 200 by 7.6 per cent in the first half of this year, showing companies focused on climate change solutions are capable of earning superior returns, according to analysis from The Climate Institute.
Over three years, clean indices recorded returns 47 per cent greater than the benchmark index, according to findings from The Climate Institute study.
The analysis combined three clean technology indices; the RepuTex Carbon Leaders Index Series, the RepuTex Climate Change Index Series and Bakers Investment Groups ALTEX Australia Index and compared them with the Standard and Poors ASX 200 index.
The findings came as Climate Change Minister Penny Wong yesterday announced the Federal Government had bowed to pressure and would decouple the Renewable Energy Target Bill from the emissions trading legislation rejected in the Senate on Thursday.
The RET Bill is now widely expected to be passed this week, paving the way for more than $28 billion of investment in a clean energy sector, expected to help the economy draw 20 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources, such as wind and solar, by 2020.
Some ‘ethical’ funds invest in uranium
……….After a decade-long share-market boom – only marginally clouded by the reversals of early June – ethical investing has moved from the margins to the mainstream………………..
the pioneering idealists that started the industry suddenly face stiff competition. What’s more, the working definition of “ethical” becomes malleable…………..……………The stakes have risen so high because of compulsory superannuation. On 1 July 2005, “superannuation choice” became law, allowing employees to choose where they invest their superannuation money.
……………..some ethical funds have invested in the asbestos company James Hardie and the uranium miner BHP…………….
………………..One of the oldest and largest ethical funds on the ASX is Australian Ethical Investment, which has led the pack in banning Woolworths after its move into gambling. But AEI is suffering because of its hardline approach. Many of its rivals are growing faster than it is. While AEI and other traditional funds still espouse such high-minded ideals as “the preservation of endangered eco-systems”, newer fund managers such as Ausbil Dexia talk about “ethical opportunities”.
Exposing nuclear hype about global warming
Nuclear instability
ON LINE opinion By Helen Caldicott, 14 August 2009
Australia seems determined to lead the way to an unstable world which could result in two very different outcomes – global warming or nuclear winter. We burn and export coal in massive amounts producing more CO2 per capita than any other country and we are about to become one of the world’s major uranium exporters. Continue reading
Rudd to sign up for uranium to India, in November?
comment by Christina Macpherson
Australia’s Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, will have to pull off some sort of conjuring trick in November. Posing as the international hero of the disarmament movement, Rudd has, until now, firmly rejected India’s call for uranium, as India has not, and will not, sign the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty.
To change this stance in November will require all those skills of spin that politicians inevitably develop, if they wish to stay in office.
Sadly, this will mean yet another conning of the Australian public, and the world – in the service of corporate and military /industrial interests.
Australia to supply uranium to India
Thursday, 13 Aug 2009
India has expressed its interest in having civil nuclear cooperation with Australia, amid indications that the two countries are likely to sign an energy agreement in November under which Australia may supply uranium for joint venture power plants.
Australia’s policy of not supplying uranium to countries that have not signed the Nuclear Non proliferation Treaty was noted by External Affairs Minister S M Krishna, who had discussions on a wide variety of bilateral subjects with Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and his counterpart Stephen Smith.
……….Mr Rudd is expected to visit India in November when the two countries are likely to sign an Energy Declaration for generation of nuclear power for which his country may supply uranium.
http://steelguru.com/news/index/2009/08/13/MTA2ODM2/Australia_to_supply_uranium_to_India.html
BHP Billiton caught in U.S. climate change scandal
BHP Billiton caught in US climate change scandal
Sydney Morning Herald August 13 2009
Marian Wilkinson Environment Editor
BHP BILLITON and two other leading US energy companies operating in Australia have been caught up in a lobbying scandal that was aimed at defeating the landmark US climate change bill but is now under investigation by a congressional committee.
The scandal involves 12 forged letters sent to members of Congress urging them to vote against the US climate change bill. The bill, which was passed by the US House of Representatives in June, is designed to cut America’s greenhouse gas pollution and promote clean energy.
The forged letters were purportedly sent by grassroots groups in coalmining districts to three Democratic members. But a Washington lobby firm working on behalf of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity admitted that an employee forged the letters and faxed them.
BHP Billiton is a prominent member of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity along with Peabody Energy, America’s biggest coal company which owns mines in NSW and Queensland, and Chevron Mining which has two major gas projects in north west Australia.
The Democratic congressman Ed Markey, who co-sponsored the US climate change bill, announced an investigation into the forged letters calling them ”an appalling abuse” and saying his committee would be examining the scope and extent of fraud in the lobbying campaign against the bill.
Australia: a nuclear waste colony?
by Christina Macopherson 11 August 09
Australia started out as a colony of Britain. We became a strategic and cultural colony of Los Angeles. We’re sort of a beginning economic colony of China and others.
But hey! Australia can become a nuclear waste colony of everybody! This idea has been on the table since Pangea in the 1970’s , and since John White’s Australian Nuclear Fuel Leasing (ANFL)in more recent years.They spent $45 million up until Sept 2007 in promoting this.
“Such companies are effectively “middlemen” in the nuclear fuel industry and are likely to be sustained so long as the volume of Australian uranium exports is maintained or increased. …Herald Sun George Lekakis – February 28, 2007.……………”
Australia’s carbon scheme to boost markets
Carbon scheme to boost markets
Giles Parkinson | August 10, 2009Article from: The Australian“……………..Lagging behind in renewables
WITH the federal government’s Renewable Energy Target also facing a standstill in the Senate, there are growing concerns in the local renewable energy industry that the country is being left behind.There are billions of dollars of projects currently on hold, and while the government says it wants to be a leader in renewable technologies, other countries are marching ahead.China has recently upgraded its renewable energy target from 15 per cent to 20 per cent by 2020, which will translate to around 150 gigawatts of wind power, 20GW of solar power and 30GW of biomass power.India joined the push towards solar last week, announcing plans to install 20GW of solar capacity by 2020 — its reliance on an equivalent amount of diesel-sourced power means solar will be cost-competitive — with a grand plan to lift that to 200GW of solar by 2050.
“Everyone wants to be world leader,” says Ray Wills, head of the WA Sustainable Energy Association. “Other developed and developing nations are moving aggressively to develop their lesser renewable energy resources while Australia — with the world’s best resources — is lagging behind.”
In the US, the amount produced by renewable energy sources (11.1 per cent) has overtaken that of nuclear power (10.4 per cent), according to the latest data from the US Energy Information Administration.Professor Wills notes that $US155 billion was invested directly into clean-energy companies and projects worldwide in 2008, and total transactions in the sector, including acquisitions and buyouts, were $US223 billion. Precious little of that occurred in Australia.
Govt and media silence on uranium/nuclear issues
by Christina Macpherson 10 August 09 Almost 4000 submissions were received by the South Australian government, in response to BHPBilliton’s Environmental Impact Statement on their plan to create the world’s biggest hole, and biggest uranium tailings pile at Roxby Downs.
This momentous proposal has barely got a mention in the mainstream media.
The Australian government and the mainstream media seem to be coyly ignoring big questions of the moment. The Olympic Dam (Roxby Downs) uranium mine expansion is just one of them.
Also behind the scenes, machinations are going on between uranium/nuclear corporations and government to quiettly condition the Australian public, and particularly the aboriginal community, to the idea that a nuclear waste dump is a fine thing, and that nuclear power plants swill inevitably come in Australia
Many public submissions on BHPB’s plan to expand uranium mine
Australia may supply uranium to India
(More Australian news at nuclear news Australia )
Australia may supply uranium to India for JV power plants
indian express.con. Aug 07, 2009 Cairns:
India expressed its interest in having civil nuclear cooperation with Australia amid indications that the two countries are likely to sign an energy agreement in November under which Australia may supply uranium for joint venture power plants.
Australia’s policy of not supplying uranium to countries that have not signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) was noted by External Affairs Minister S M Krishna who had discussions on a wide variety of bilateral subjects with Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and his counterpart Stephen Smith.
…………………Rudd is expected to visit India in November when the two countries are likely to sign an “Energy Declaration” for generation of nuclear power for which his country may supply uranium.
Evidence of cancer in the environment near uranium mines
(Australia) (For more Australian news go to
Is there evidence of cancer in the environment near uranium mines?
Arch1 5 August 09
The British Columbia Medical Association had this to say in 1988:
“Epidemiological and experimental evidence indicates that alpha radiation [from radon] is more effective (per unit dose) in producing cancer when exposure is at low dose rates over long periods of time, than when the equivalent dose is given at a high rate for short periods of time.(26)
`Uranium tailings will remain radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years, and will require such expensive long-term surveillance and maintenance by government and the local citizenry as to make statements about uranium mining providing revenue very misleading’
They also concluded that nuclear industry proponents have tended to minimize risk through lack of knowledge, generalizations, quoting outdated studies, dilution of risk estimates, unsubstantiated arguments, personal bias, basing conclusions on inadequate studies, doublethink, and assuming people cannot absorb the full truth…………..
Cancer, for example. Cases among Aborigines near Australia’s biggest uranium mine appear to be almost double the normal rate, according to a study by the Federal Government’s leading indigenous research body.
The study compared Aborigines diagnosed with cancer in the Kakadu region with the cancer rate among all Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory from 1994 to 2003.
It found the diagnosis rate was 90 per cent higher than expected in the Kakadu region, with 27 cases reported. If the diagnosis rate had been proportional to the territory’s overall Aboriginal population, there would have been 14 cases.
The study also found there had been no monitoring in the past 20 years of the Ranger mine’s impact on the health of local indigenous people. Yet since 1981, there have been more than 120 spillages and leaks of contaminated water at the mine, located in the World Heritage-listed Kakadu National Park.
http://arch1design.com/blog/?p=1859
Increased cancer, child deaths and deformities in uranium mining communities
(India) Uranium and the secret society
Arch1 5 August 09
“………….In a shocking report, the Indian Doctors for Peace and Development (IDPD) has revealed facts regarding health hazards faced by miners working in the Uranium Corporation of India Limited (UCIL) in the form of a detailed survey report.
The survey was undertaken by the organisation affiliated to Germany-based International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) in association with Jharkhandi Organisation Against Radiation (JOAR).
The study was took place between May and August 2007. It was conducted in two different phases. While one survey concentrates on villages within the radius of 2.5 km from the mines, a similar one was undertaken in villages about 30 km from the mining areas.
A total of 2,118 households were studied in the first category, while another 1,956 households in the second category.
According to the survey, DPD found significant increases in congenital deformities and childhood deaths due to congenital deformities; increased sterility; and elevated numbers of deaths due to cancer.
http://arch1design.com/blog/?p=1859
Overuse of CT scans – radiation and cancer risk
(Australia) Doctors ‘cavalier’ on use of CT scans
THE AUSTRALIAN Adam Cresswell, Health editor | August 07, 2009
A CONTROVERSY over excessive ordering of CT scans has widened, with the Medicare watchdog saying it is “horrified” that GPs are misusing the high-radiation technique for patients with uncomplicated back pain.
CT scans subject patients to 400 times more radiation than ordinary X-rays, and health experts warned this week that, despite the danger, doctors appeared to be referring patients for CT chest scans without good cause.
Now Tony Webber, the head of the federal government’s Professional Services Review that investigates doctors suspected of inappropriate practice and over-servicing, says he plans a crackdown on CT scans because doctors are making referrals “in a very cavalier fashion”.
CT, or computed tomography, scans pack in so much radiation that experts have estimated unnecessary chest CT scans alone could be responsible for 40 fatal cancers a year in Australia.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25894639-2702,00.html
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