Legal case: Aboriginal owners do not want nuclear waste dump on their land
Mr Newhouse says his clients do not want compensation but for the nomination of the site to be withdrawn.
NT nuclear waste dump faces legal challenge. ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation), By Jane Bardon and Gina Marich Jun 3, 2010 A legal challenge to the Federal Government’s plan to establish a national nuclear waste dump in the Northern Territory has been taken to the Federal Court. Continue reading
Secrecy about nuclear wastes, and Australia’s hypocrisy
This website might well give the impression that it is anti-American, anti-British etc, – especially on the subject of nuclear wastes.
But – spare a thought for those two countries. At least the nuclear waste subject is RAISED there. (That’s how we can publish it)
Very hard to get a few lines about Russia’s nuclear wastes.
As for China, France and also a few other countries (India, Korea, European states , Israel...) – well there’s nary a word about their nuclear wastes! What do they do with radioactive wastes? It’s a worry. And it seems to me to be complete lunacy for countries like Australia to piously claim safety policy, while selling uranium to such countries.
Britain’s multibillion black hole in nuclear waste costs
Chris Huhne warns of £4bn black hole in nuclear power budget, guardian.co.uk, Patrick Wintour, 1 June 2010
“………Britain is facing a £4bn black hole in unavoidable nuclear decommissioning and waste costs, Chris Huhne, the energy and climate change secretary disclosed tonight. The decommissioning costs over the next four years revealed by officials to Huhne are so serious that he has already flagged the crisis up to the cabinet. Continue reading
Gulf oil disaster is bad news for uranium industry
One virtually certain outcome of the environmental disaster currently blackening the Gulf of Mexico is that federal regulators will take a harder line on enforcement of environmental regulations. Uranium miners are likely to be particularly hard hit because there isn’t a person in the US who doesn’t fear the consequences of radiation exposure….Playing fast and loose with the environment is no longer a winning strategy.
Uranium Miners Get Some Good News and Some Bad 24/7 Wall St., Paul Ausick, June 1, 2010 “….The first installment of the investment will help USEC to continue its deployment of its American Centrifuge Plant which produces enriched uranium for use in nuclear power generation. The cash will also help support USEC’s $2 billion loan guarantee application with the US Department of Energy.
The not-so-good news for uranium companies was delivered Continue reading
Review: hypocrisy on uranium and nuclear industry
Australia: what a load of hypocrisy is going on. about the Resources Tax! BHP saying that Olympic Dam uranium mine’s expansion is threatened. Of course it is! – By the collapse of the uranium market ! ANSTO forced to admit its safety failures. And, we wait to see if Peter Garrett will be able to promote AREVA’s uranium mining in Koongarra, while he still poses as Minister for Environment
International: hypocrisy as the closing Nuclear Non Proliferation conference promotes the nuclear industry, as pro-nukes suggest nuke bombing the oil spill, as the industry touts new, little, thorium reactors. All in a desperate bid to keep the “peaceful” nuclear industry afloat, as nuclear reactors age and close down, while new ones just aren’t getting built, except in secretive totalitarian states, such as China
Uranium a cancer risk like asbestos, says union
“Corporate interests, and their political supporters in the Labor and Coalition parties, are also trying to buy working families off with high wages, while denying the true short-term and long-term health risks of such jobs.”
‘Uranium is the new asbestos’: union ban on nuclear work, Brisbane Times, May 31, 2010 –
The Electrical Trades Union has banned its members from working in uranium mines, nuclear power stations or any other part of the nuclear fuel cycle.
The union says uranium is the new asbestos in the workplace. Continue reading
ANSTO admits safety failures at Lucas Heights: whistleblower still suspended
Mr Reid remains suspended…..The Greens say he should be reinstated immediately.
Chief vindicates Lucas Heights whistleblower – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) 1 June 2010, “………….In August 2008, a worker at the ARI facility dropped a vial of highly radioactive material in a containment cell, which went unreported for several hours.”We started investigating and the more we investigated the more we couldn’t understand because it was such a massive dose,” Mr Reid said.”None of our instruments could measure it – it was way off scale. Continue reading
Escalating and long term costs of nuclear wastes
The equipment and reactors cannot easily or cheaply be dismantled and will remain radioactive for hundreds of years
Nuclear and radioactive waste disposal – by Patrick Boniface -Helium, 30 May 2010, Nuclear waste is dangerously toxic, its environmental impact if released would be devastating, as was witnessed during both the Chernobyl explosion, the American Three Mile Island scare and the Windscale fire of 1957.In these cases radioactive material was released into the atmosphere. With the Windscale fire some 15,000 terabequerels (TBq) of radioactive material (notably Iodine-131) were released (3). Continue reading
Garrett’s chance to support environment rather than AREVA
“The Federal Government needs to chose which is more important – the long-term national interest of Australia or the corporate interest of a French nuclear company.”
Garrett keen to see Kakadu expansion ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) 30 May 2010 Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett says he would like to seize the opportunity to expand Kakadu National Park, following a request from traditional owners. Continue reading
Koongarra land to be saved from uranium mining
Mr Lee, the sole member of the Djok clan and senior custodian of the land known as Koongarra, could have become one of Australia’s richest men if he had allowed the French energy giant Areva to extract 14,000 tonnes of uranium from its mineral lease in the area……….
Land of riches given over to Kakadu, The Age, LINDSAY MURDOCH, KAKADUMay 29, 2010 T HE World Heritage-listed Kakadu National Park will be expanded to include thousands of hectares of ecologically sensitive land that has uranium worth billions of dollars.
Aboriginal traditional owner Jeffrey Lee has offered the land to the federal government so it can become part of Kakadu, where he works as a ranger. Continue reading
Navajo oppose new uranium mining
Navajo Activists Protest Uranium Mining Plans May 28, 2010 , warresisters . By Bruce FinleyThe Denver Post Uranium-mining leaders and fed
eral regulators poised to fuel a resurgent nuclear power industry gathered in Denver on Wednesday, ….outside the conference Wednesday, American Indian demonstrators with drums and signs demanded a halt to all new uranium mining on Navajo land, where federal regulators have permitted several projects.“Our Navajo communities rely on the groundwater for everything. These new projects could contaminate the source of drinking water for 15,000 Navajo community members,” said Nadine Padilla of the Multicultural Alliance for Safe Environments. “Our communities are still living with the legacy of contamination from past uranium mining.” Navajo Activists Protest Uranium Mining Plans « The War Resisters League Blog
Mirrar Aboriginal people oppose expansion of Ranger uranium mine
Indigenous owners to block mine plans, Lex Hall , The Australian May 29, 2010 “…….TRADITIONAL owners at Kakadu will oppose Energy Resources Australia’s plans to expand the Ranger uranium mine unless the company can make what they say are necessary improvements in its environmental performance, following revelations of radioactive waste leaking into wetlands in the World Heritage-listed national park. Continue reading
AREVA’s Northern Territory uranium plans blocked by one Aboriginal man
Owner wants uranium-rich land to be added to Kakadu, Sydney Morning Herald, LINDSAY MURDOCH IN KAKADU, May 29, 2010 “……….Areva executives in Australia did not return calls from the Herald. The blocking of the mine comes five years after a federal takeover of uranium mining from the Northern Territory Labor government that was supposed to boost uranium mining. But the move is in tatters, Continue reading
Warren Buffett- ” a major nuclear event virtually a certainty”
…..Quote: “We’re going to have something in the way of a major nuclear event in this country. It will happen. Whether it will happen in 10 years or 10 minutes, or 50 years … it’s virtually a certainty.” Buffett said this on CNN in May 2002,….. Warren Buffett is not your grandpa – Financial Adviser – WSJ
Earthquake danger ignored in BHP’s planned Olympic Dam uranium mine expansion
Edward Cranswick, a geophysicist and expert on earthquakes, has warned the South Australian and federal governments of the earthquake danger for the Olympic Dam uranium mine area.
This risk has been ignored in BHP Billiton’s Environmental Impact Statement for its proposed gigantic expansion which would form the world’s biggest mining hole.
The Kalgoorlie Earthquake and the Proposed Olympic Dam Mine Expansion. by Edward Cranswick, 25 May 2010, BHP Billiton has proposed to dig the largest open pit mine on the Earth at Olympic Dam, 4.1 km long, 3.5 km wide, 1 km deep. As a geophysicist who investigated earthquakes for the US Geological Survey for 22 years [1], I strongly criticised BHP’s Olympic Dam Expansion Draft Environmental Impact Statement 2009 (ODXdEIS) [2] because it omitted consideration of seismicity, i.e., rockbursts or earthquakes, caused by open pit mining, despite the fact that seismic hazard is well-known in the Australian mining industry (Hudyma et al. 2003 [3], Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines (KCGM) [4]).
The recent Kalgoorlie Earthquake emphasises the probability and consequences of these seismic events as mines grow larger and deeper – the ODXdEIS needs to be re-evaluated because it does not address this issue at all. I discuss the connection between mining and seismicity and how it is obscured in Australia, particularly the seismic hazard of the Olympic Dam mine, and I make recommendations about these matters. Read on for the complete submission. Continue reading
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 