Australia’s students take to the streets against the uranium/nuclear industry
7 July 2010, Students take to the street to hold nuclear scumbags accountable.
Today hundreds of students from across Australia will take to the streets of Adelaide on The ‘Nuclear Scumbags Tour’. This will be a creative and informative demonstration by Traditional Owners, students, and community members speaking out against the coercion and exploitation of Aboriginal communities by Government and nuclear industry alike. The irresponsible industry practices combined with the lack of ethical government policy shows complete disregard for the environment, water and indigenous rights. Continue reading
Radioactive wastes are produced at all stages of the nuclear fuel cycle
The NUCLEAR INDUSTRY and the GLOBAL NUCLEAR WASTE PROBLEM – our theme for June 2010
From the uranium mine to the final destruction of the nuclear reactor….
Australia – To Russia with Nukes
“the reality is that Australia would effectively be relinquishing responsibility for supplying the raw ingredient for bomb fuel to a nuclear weapons state with an acknowledged lack of transparency in its civil/military arrangements,”
Melbourne, 29 April 2010: The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear weapons (ICAN) is deeply disappointed at Foreign Minister Stephen Smith’s announcement that Australia will ratify a new agreement allowing uranium exports to Russia.
The move will see Australia supplying uranium to a nuclear weapons state whose nuclear security is poor, whose facilities are off-limits to international inspectors, and whose record on disarmament is woeful. Continue reading
Russia’s nuclear security and nuclear weapons proliferation dangers
A great example of Russia’s unscrupulousness is the $1 billion Bushehr nuclear station in Iran……..….
………….the plant designs promoted by Russian companies (in particular, the floating stations) present high proliferation and environmental risks because they use uranium of a very high enrichment level, have caused accidents in the past, and create a byproduct that scientists are yet to learn how to dispose of.
Russia: A Nuclear Security Leader? Partnership for a Secure America , by Volha Charnysh |26 April 2010, Considered the Pandora’s box of nuclear security issues for decades, Russia is now being recast as a nuclear security leader……. However, Russia’s active and at times reckless pursuit of nuclear business contradicts its claim to nuclear security leadership and could weaken the commitments made at the Summit. Continue reading
Uranium Enrichment company Silex now runs Solar Firm
the re-opening of the plant will force a moral dilemma on go-greeners in the country. Do they really want to invest in Australian-made solar panels, when they will also, indirectly, be investing in nuclear energy?
Sydney’s largest solar panel plant rescued from the brink of extinction, Photovoltaics International27 April 2010 | By Emma Hughes “……As BP closed its doors for the final time, Australia’s PV manufacturing industry looked like it would never again see the light of day. Continue reading
Did Russia’s lack of nuclear security enable smuggling of enriched uranium?
Saakashvili accuses Russia of supplying enriched uranium to Caucasus, News.Az 23 April 2010, President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili accused Russia “of creating unstableness”.According to RBK, in the opinion of the Georgian leader, the unstableness enables the smugglers to deliver the highly enriched uranium to the Caucasus………..The Georgian leader underlined that Russia should be responsible for maintaining control of the nuclear weapon distribution in these territories so long as “it has occupied them”. In his opinion, the incidents with the highly enriched uranium threaten Georgia’s safety. News.Az – Saakashvili accuses Russia of supplying enriched uranium to Caucasus
Nuclear corporation AREVA guiding Nuclear Security policies
The roundtable was hosted by Vice President Biden.
AREVA CEO Lauvergeon Participates In Nuclear Security Summit, Nuclear Power Industry News, 21 April 2010, – By Stephen Heiser – “……AREVA CEO Anne Lauvergeon participated in Nuclear Security Summit activities taking place this week in Washington, D.C. President Obama and global leaders were meeting to pursue a comprehensive nuclear security agenda to secure vulnerable nuclear materials around the world in four years…… Continue reading
Kentucky legal case over radiation contamination
The Kentucky Supreme Court ruled then that the landowners don’t have to prove they were actually harmed to sue past contractors for trespassing by allowing contaminants to spread beyond the plant.
The high court also held that land devaluation by intentional trespassing is a recognized measure of damages once actual injury is determined. There is injury if groundwater is contaminated and it can’t be consumed.
Ky. landowners settle lawsuit over uranium leaks, BusinessWeek, By BRETT BARROUQUERE 21 April 2010, !LOUISVILLE, Ky.A group of landowners have settled in a long-running lawsuit for $1.75 million over allegations that water leaks from a western Kentucky uranium enrichment plant devalued property values….compensating between 70 and 80 homeowners for the devaluation of their property because of radiation contamination….. Continue reading
Review: nuclear waste, Security Summit, Non Proliferation
Review. Australia. Government and media doing a fine job keeping quiet about the Senate Inquiry into Radioactive Waste Management Bill, while opposition mounts locally to the Northern territory nuke waste dump plan. South Australia’s Rann govt embarassed at $million cost likely from its court defeat regarding uranium protestors. Confusion in the uranium mining lobby, as prices tumble. Even more confusion about the Nuclear Security Summit plan to promote recycled uranium. Meanwhile ANSTO salivates at the thought of setting up a lucrative nuclear waste management business, and ANSTO’s baby, Silex promotes its dangerous laser nuclear technology.
International: Some 20 countries or more join up to Nuclear security Summit plan to send their enriched uranium to USA or to Russia, for recycling. Anxiety over earthquake risks in this plan. Much confusion over Recycling, Reprocessing, Fast Breeder Reactors, Integral Fast Reactors. Nuclear lobby gears up, with AREVA promoting its products at Nuclear Security Summit. More nuclear power promotion for upcoming Non-Proliferation talks. India grappling with problem of nuclear insurance, and of a dramatic radiation exposure incident
Now use of weapons fuel sends uranium price plummeting
Greens welcome fall in uranium price, Scott Ludlam 15th April 2010, The Australian Greens have welcomed this week’s fall in global uranium prices, due to a global peace deal to reduce nuclear weapons.“When world leaders sign off agreements to reduce their weapons arsenals the uranium market becomes flooded with weapons-usable nuclear fuel,” the Party’s Nuclear Spokesperson, WA Senator Scott Ludlam said…. Continue reading
Earthquake danger to Nuclear plants, and fuel transport
Quake rattles Chilean-U.S. uranium move , SANTIAGO, Chile, April 14 (UPI) – A Chilean-U.S. nuclear waste disposal arrangement was nearly derailed, with dangerous consequences for North and South America, when a magnitude-8.8 earthquake struck Chile Feb. 27, interfering with deliveries of radioactive waste to U.S. processing plants. Chilean reports on the narrowly missed mishap involving the weapons-grade uranium, published by The Santiago Times, weren’t immediately commented upon by industrial sources and officials……
Chile doesn’t produce nuclear power but has a research reactor and the uranium usually is stored at the reactor site and a military base.
The quake caused widespread concern in Chilean and American nuclear communities. A U.S. team sent to Chile was especially keen to ensure the volatile material didn’t set off a chain reaction while in transit. Quake rattles Chilean-U.S. uranium move – UPI.com
Limitations of Nuclear Security Summit’s achiievement
What the summit did not address in any detail was the likelier and more easily achievable possibility that a terrorist organisation might obtain highly radioactive material and attach it to a conventional, crudely made dirty bomb that could still spread lethal material over a wide area.
World takes aim at nukes | The Australian, Brad Norington, Washington correspondent, April 16, 2010 Obama’s plan, endorsed at the summit by all attending countries including Australia, is to conduct an enormous accounting exercise with the objective of securing all nuclear materials across the world during the next four years. Continue reading
But anyway, Gareth Evans is right about nuclear fuel recycling.
In a perfect world. the plan to send enriched uranium and plutonium to USA and Russia, to fuel nuclear reactors, might be part of a good move. That would be the move to wind down all nuclear power plants. ( but I doubt that this is the intended plan)
It would also put a stop to the dirty dangerous industry of uranium mining.
However, Gareth Evans points out that recycling nuclear fuel simply creates new stockpiles of very dirty, very dangerous, radioactive wastes. Sure, Gareth Evans’ point of view promotes Australia’s uranium mining companies. But he’s right, anyway.
Gareth Evans against recycling nuclear fuel, and FOR Australian uranium miners
Mr Evans and a former US ambassador-at-large, Robert Gallucci, said recycling created stockpiles of dangerous materials ripe for theft……...
Recycling fuel should end: Evans, Sydney Morning Herald, April 15, 2010, WASHINGTON: A former Australian foreign minister, Gareth Evans, was at the centre of a dispute over reactor suppliers recycling nuclear fuel even as US officials sought to skirt the issue during a summit in Washington organised by the President, Barack Obama. Continue reading
Like AREVA, nuclear energy company Silex buys into solar power
Solar panel factory sees the sun again, Sydney Morning Herald BEN CUBBY, April 14, 2010 – THE biggest solar-panel factory in the southern hemisphere is to open in Sydney this morning – after it was rescued by a nuclear energy research company. Continue reading
Antinuclear 