Australia’s nuclear reactor unnecessary for medical isotopes
(more Australian news at
Werribee rejected Uranium and the nuclear fuel cycle through political action. Reactors leak and genes mutate.
DINKUMDEMOCRATS by Roger Howe, 31 July 09“……………Werribee was mooted as a potential site for a Nuclear Reactor, but the quiet giant of public opinion stirred. The proposal was quickly stilled.
Now, Labor has increased the scale of uranium mining in Australia, and continues to operate 2 nuclear reactors at Lucas Heights.
The more modern reactor was shutdown pending investigation of incidents during its operation.
The older has suffered a number of incidents, no doubt obliging the decision to replace it.
…….. with the appropriate use of particle accelerators, nuclear reactors would no longer be required for nuclear medicines and medical research, the stated justification for keeping the reactors.
Australia is trading the genetic health of generations in return for quick bucks – Is it really worth it??
Australia was once proudly nuclear free, with uranium left safely in the ground. Now we have operating and planned Uranium mines and two sick nuclear reactors. This is NOT progress.
Australia’s new uranium mine linked to arms sales and spying
The company with the right contacts
The Brisbane Times, Ben Cubby, 30 July 09
GENERAL ATOMICS, the company behind the nation’s newest uranium mine, has been patiently lobbying Australian politicians for more than a decade to encourage it to allow mining, to develop nuclear reactors and buy high-tech weapons.
The company has ferried members of the US Congress, their families and aides to Australia for high-level talks. It has paid for Labor MPs to travel to the United States to see its weapons and nuclear reactors first-hand, as well as hosting taxpayer funded trips……………………………………
To put its case for more mines and more weapons in Canberra, the company uses Hawker Britton, a lobbying firm that includes many former ALP staffers and MPs.
But among the biggest supporters of uranium mining expansion is the South Australian Premier, Mike Rann, who was on the Greenpeace executive that launched the Rainbow Warrior protest ship to try to block French nuclear weapons tests in 1972……………………………….
General Atomics flew a group from the US Congress to Australia, accompanied by company executives, to persuade the Federal Government to buy the company’s Predator unmanned aircraft………………………….
As well as its interest in unmanned spy planes, General Atomics has employed human spies. Last year it was caught hiring a former undercover police officer turned private investigator to infiltrate Australian environment groups and report on their actions. The former officer was posing as a Kurdish refugee and feeding information back to General Atomics.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/the-company-with-the-right-contacts-20090729-e1lk.html
Neal Blue: U.S. arms salesman in charge of South Australian uranium mines
Digging dirt with a sledgehammer
The weapons manufacturer who converted Labor’s staunchest opponents to nuclear development has a controversial past, write Nick O’Malley and Ben Cubby…………………………….
………………..Neal Blue’s single-mindedness emerged during the battle over a Blue-owned uranium processing plant on an Indian reservation in Oklahoma.
After a series of radioactive spills a nine-legged frog was discovered outside the yellowcake factory.
A government investigation eventually established the company had known for years that radioactive material was leaking and that radioactivity in water around the plant was at levels 35,000 times higher than US federal laws permitted………………………………….
As General Atomics grew, Blue kept an eye on Australia. One of his former employees recalls that in the late 1980s Blue was sure the future was nuclear and Australia was going to be a key part of it.
He went about buying pastoral leases sitting on uranium deposits in South Australia and the Northern Territory, gambling that bans on uranium would one day be lifted.
He was right. In 1990 Blue established Heathgate Resources to operate the new Beverley uranium mine, near Lake Frome in South Australia……………………..The South Australian Government has recorded 59 spills of radioactive material on the surface at the site,……………..
there is no requirement it decontaminate the site when mining ceases.
The environmental impact assessment for Blue’s nearby Four Mile mine, approved this month by the federal Environment Minister, Peter Garrett, similarly carries no such requirement.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/digging-dirt-with-a-sledgehammer-20090729-e1lj.html
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Fraud background of 4 Mile uranium mine’s owner
Arms maker behind uranium mine settled fraudulent pricing case
The Brisbane Times, Nick OMalley and Ben Cubby
July 30, 2009
THE arms manufacturer that received approval through an Australian subsidiary for a new uranium mine in central Australia this month was sued for fraudulently hiking uranium prices and manipulating costs at a neighbouring mine.
Neal Blue, owner and chairman of General Atomics, was accused in the proceedings of instructing executives at his Australian subsidiary, Heathgate Resources, to prepare false reports for customers, telling them costs at Heathgate’s Beverley uranium mine were higher than anticipated, and production lower……………………….
The Illinois District Court case was settled last year. One of General Atomics’s customers, Exelon, received $US41 million from the company. It is estimated Mr Blue made $US200 million by breaking the contracts and selling uranium on the spot market…………………………………
Four Mile mine will be owned by a General Atomics subsidiary, Quasar Resources, and an Australian-owned minerals explorer, Alliance Resources.
Uranium mining company jumps the gun at Beverly 4 Mile in South Australia,
Traditional Owners call for immediate halt to uranium operations at Beverley 4 Mile
Coober Pedy Regional Times 28 July 09
Traditional Aboriginal owners of the country that includes the Beverley 4 Mile uranium deposit are outraged with mining operations having commenced prior to the completion of State and Federal approvals processes.
Last week Traditional Owners visiting the site were greeted by new fences and locked gates. They were advised by company representatives that future visits would require company consent and supervision as the mining site was ‘already operational’.
Community members believe the company has pre-empted the Australian approvals process as Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett has not yet approved a Monitoring and Management plan, a Mine Closure plan and a Community Engagement plan, all of which are required prior to the start of mining works at Beverley 4 Mile.
Similarly Petratherm announced the commencement of drilling without community consultation being satisfied and without a Risk Assessment being obtained to satisfy community concerns of their intentions regarding chemicals use and contaminated waste disposal procedures.
“On the 4 Mile a number of important South Australian Aboriginal heritage assessment processes are also currently unfinished or incomplete. This was not the deal. The company has jumped the gun. Our community is being left out and our concerns are being ignored,” said Adnyamathanha elder Enice Marsh.
“We want the Federal and State governments to make this company stop work now.”
Traditional Owners and custodians are deeply saddened and angered by the position taken by the mining company Quasar Resources, an affiliate of the US weapons and nuclear energy corporation General Atomics ……………..
Dr Helen Caldicott – international campaigner for the truth about nuclear power
Profile – Helen Caldicott
Sydney Morning Herald By Lucinda Schmidt July 29, 2009This anti-nuclear campaigner has spent a lifetime striving to create a better world.
The day after the Federal Government approved a new uranium mine in South Australia, veteran anti-nuclear campaigner Helen Caldicott was appalled. In her view, exporting uranium, to any country, is morally indefensible.
“I think it’s devastating,” she says, describing Prime Minister Kevin Rudd as “a wolf in sheep’s clothing” and accusing Environment Minister Peter Garrett of moral turpitude.
“I’m so ashamed to be an Australian at the moment,” says Caldicott, 71, a Melbourne-born medical doctor.
“As we export uranium, we’re in fact exporting nuclear weapons, cancer, leukaemia and genetic disease. It’s a public health issue.”
In the 1970s and 1980s, Caldicott was one of the world’s leading anti-nuclear voices, as the Cold War generated fear of a nuclear holocaust.
In Australia, she played a big role in forcing the French atmospheric nuclear tests underground, after writing a letter to a newspaper in 1971 about the increase in radiation levels in Adelaide’s water supply following tests over the Pacific Ocean.
Profile – Helen Caldicott – Money – Business – Home – smh.com.au
Australia’s nuclear hypocrisy
Unholy Trinity
ON LINE opinion by Bill Williams 28 July 09
“……………………………..the moral and political quagmire created by our ongoing export of the raw ingredient for nuclear weapons fuel, uranium. The not-so-subtle identification of China as our most likely aggressor in the White Paper’s purview ought to raise questions about the role our uranium will play in that nation’s anticipated rearmament…..………..The capacity to produce nuclear power intrinsically involves the capacity to produce fissile material usable for nuclear weapons. A world free of nuclear weapons will be more readily achieved and sustained in a world in which nuclear power generation is phased out. Bomb-making ingredients will be harder to acquire and more conspicuous to seek. This will substantially deter proliferation, while facilitating timely detection and intervention, focusing scarce intelligence resources on needles, not haystacks.
With the weapons’ retirement age fast-approaching, Australia can contribute to real progress in abolishing these apocalyptic anachronisms, by putting some real spirit into driving the NWC agenda, by politely withdrawing from the US nuclear umbrella and by reducing the flow of raw material into the nuclear fuel chain.
Martin Ferguson undermining climate change policy
Sydney Morning Herald Marian Wilkinson, Environment Editor July 27, 2009THE state and federal energy ministers, led by Labor’s Martin Ferguson, are being accused of undermining the Rudd Government’s climate change policies in light of a report which finds the national electricity market they oversee is discouraging energy efficiency and new renewable energy.
“Energy ministers are rewarding polluting energy and blocking efficiency and clean alternatives”, said Jane Castle of the NSW Total Environment Centre which commissioned one of the leading energy consultancy firms, McLennan Magasanik Associates, to report on the role of the National Electricity Market in climate change……………………
The report comes after Mr Ferguson launched an attack on environmentalists for failing to support the expansion of Australia’s liquid natural gas projects and uranium mining, saying they did not understand, “where our electricity comes from, who pays for it and what the future of the global energy landscape looks like”.
But Ms Castle accused Mr Ferguson of thwarting the Rudd government’s climate change policies. “He heads the Ministerial Council on Energy which is actively obstructing the development of energy solutions which would bolster the economy, create jobs and protect us from rising carbon costs,” she said. “His overblown statements are intended to simply disguise his defence of Australia’s biggest polluters.”
The consultants’ findings were backed by one of Australia’s leading renewable energy companies, Pacific Hydro. Its spokesman, Andrew Richards, said the energy ministers needed to intervene to get the National Electricity Market to “transition from the old way of doing things”. As a first principle, he said, the electricity market needed to include a commitment to climate change policies.
Martin Ferguson’s climate change policy | Marian Wilkinson | Environment and ALP
Nuclear power proposal ridiculed
The Bendigo Advertiser 27/07/2009
Last week the chairman of the Federal Government’s Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, Dr Ziggy Switkowski, said Australia was the best-placed country in the world to use nuclear power…………………………..Environmentalists have called his proposal “ridiculous” and unnecessary given the number of renewable, and cleaner, energy options available.
Bendigo Sustainability Group president Karen Corr said Mr Switkowski’s idea was irrelevant.
“It is a ridiculous plan to even be considering nuclear power,” she said.
“There is existing technology now for green energy and nuclearpower is not clean, there are so many problems with it, especially with the waste.”
Ms Corr said any nuclear power plant would take at least 20 years to build, which seemed pointless given that wind and solar projects were already running and could be installed relatively quickly.
Mount Alexander Sustainability Group chairman Jim Norris agreed.
“We are saying no to nuclear power, we do not see it as clean and safe, there are other solutions readily available,” he said.
“Nuclear power generation is not entirely renewable clean energy, mine site to power point energy costs are quite considerable; you have got to dig the uranium out of the ground then store it for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.”
Mr Norris said the CSIRO’s Maine’s Power project was “absolute proof” that Australia did not need to rely on nuclear energy.
“Four major Castlemaine businesses will save between 30 and 40 per cent of their energy usage by means other than nuclear power by the end of 2010,” he said.
N-power proposal ridiculed – Local News – News – General – The Advertiser
A dark dawn: the nuclear age is with us
ON LINE opinion By Jake Lynch – 27 July 2009 “…………………In Australia.. investigative reporting by the Sydney Morning Herald established that Peter Garrett,…. had approved a proposal for a new uranium mine from a “reclusive billionaire” named James Neal Blue. Blue, the paper noted, was “one of the world’s biggest arms dealers” and the supplier, through his company, General Atomics, of the Predator drone aircraft being used in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.The new Four Mile mine, in South Australia, would use the same “acid corrosion technique” to extract uranium from aquifers, environment reporter Ben Cubby wrote, as the nearby Beverley mine, which had recorded 59 separate spills of radioactive material in the past decade.
Cubby didn’t raise the point, but real fears have surfaced, over the same period, that South Australia might run out of water, with its state capital, Adelaide, afflicted by salination and drought. It seemed that the exploitation of a resource with a high market value was taking precedence over the preservation of one with unique life-giving properties…………………..
Time then, perhaps, to dredge up some of the nuances otherwise in danger of being forgotten, but emphasised usefully in two new books, Plutonium: A History of the World’s Most Dangerous Element, by Jeremy Bernstein (Cornell University Press) and In Mortal Hands: A Cautionary History of the Nuclear Age, by Stephanie Cooke (Black Inc Books)…………….
…………The element at the heart of humanity’s deadliest weapons is plutonium, and Bernstein describes the science leading to its eventual production in sufficient quantities to manufacture bombs, evoking intrigues, along the way, that crossed the borders of Mitteleuropa, with protagonists fleeing Nazi persecution and heading for points west. Plutonium is a by-product of civil nuclear reactors, and Bernstein ends with a wry commentary on its sheer uselessness for any but military purposes. From the initial laboratory quantities measured in millionths of a gram, the world is now “awash” with the stuff, he says: 155 metric tons in total………………………….
Britain…. still has not settled on one site for the long-term disposal of waste from its existing nuclear plants. The cost, now estimated at well over £70 billion, or about US$120 billion, has been palmed off on the government,…
…Across the Atlantic, the Hanford reactor that produced plutonium for Los Alamos was mothballed long ago, Bernstein notes. The risk from leaks to swimmers and anglers downstream on the Columbia River was hushed up when it was operational, but it now represents a US$10 billion time bomb……………..
In the civil domain, the “nuclear renaissance” now underway creates a lucrative market for uranium suppliers like Australia, but, she observes, also multiplies the risk, of both accidents and proliferation.
A dark dawn: the nuclear age is with us – On Line Opinion – 27/7/2009
Australia’s threatened water resources, and the uranium mining risk
(for more Australian news, go to
What impact is uranium mining having on our water?
The Advertiser, by Jim Green, 25 july 09
ENVIRONMENT Minister Peter Garrett buttressed his decision last week to approve in situ leach (ISL) uranium mining at Beverley Four Mile with the claim that he is “certain this operation poses no credible risk to the environment”.
Thus Mr Garrett adds another chapter to the history of spin surrounding ISL mining.
Environmental debates typically revolve around differing assessments of the possibility of environmental contamination.
But with ISL mining, environmental pollution – specifically contamination of groundwater with radionuclides, heavy metals and acid – is a certainty.
ISL mining involves pumping an acidic solution into an aquifer, dissolving the uranium ore and other heavy metals and pumping the solution back to the surface.
After the uranium has been separated, liquid radioactive waste is simply dumped in the aquifer. Isolation and containment of the pollutants would not be difficult or expensive, but the mining companies will take the cheaper option of polluting groundwater for as long as the politicians let them……………………
A 2003 Senate References and Legislation Committee report recommended banning the discharge of radioactive liquid mine waste to groundwater. ISL uranium mining is used at the Beverley uranium mine and it is the mining method proposed for Beverley Four Mile, Oban and Honeymoon.
The future of this mining technique is plain to see: short-lived mines leaving SA with a legacy of polluted aquifers.
Spills and leaks are common at ISL mines. The SA Department of Primary Industry and Resources lists 59 spills at Beverley from 1998 to 2007.
Serious questions must be raised as to BHP Billiton’s capacity to safely manage radioactive tailings at Olympic Dam if, as planned, tailings production increases sevenfold to 68 million tonnes annually and water consumption increases to more than 250 million litres daily.
BHP Billiton pays nothing for its massive water take for the Olympic Dam mine, despite recording a $17.7 billion profit in 2007-8. That arrangement is enshrined in the Roxby Downs Indenture Act 1982………
……… The Indenture Act provides a raft of exemptions and overrides from the SA Natural Resources Act 2004, the Environment Protection Act 1993, the Aboriginal Heritage Act 1988 and even the Freedom of Information Act 1991.
BHP Billiton and the Rann Government are currently engaged in secret discussions over the future of the Indenture Act.
Fairfax News has conflict of interest in reporting on nuclear power
Becruz by Robert Vose 25 July 09The Chairman of the Board for Fairfax Media Limited is Mr Ron Walker. Ron Walker was also one of the three owners of a company that aimed to build Australia’s first nuclear power station:
Herald Sun Michael Harvey February 28, 2007
JOHN Howard has admitted he had known of a private bid by a Liberal powerbroker to build Australia’s first nuclear power station since the middle of last year.
Mr Howard received a phone call from businessman Ron Walker about the time the Federal Government established its expert investigation into the viability of nuclear power.
Mr Walker told the Prime Minister he was registering a private company interested in nuclear power…
The Herald Sun revealed yesterday that Mr Walker joined forces with fellow business chiefs Hugh Morgan and Robert Champion de Crespigny to establish a private company called Australian Nuclear Energy Pty Ltd.
If Fairfax newspapers such as The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald are starting up a campaign to subtly promote nuclear power – through these pretend allegorical stories of the last couple of days – THEY NEED TO DECLARE A POSSIBLE CONFLICT OF INTEREST!!!!
These nuclear power puff pieces do not constitute rational debate. They do not look at the options for energy systems that could replace coal power stations. The writing style even suggests that the authors are embarrassed to have to present these kinds of positions in their writing.
……………………….If editors and the board are pushing the nuclear power wheelburrow they need to declare their interests in nuclear power.
Becrux » Blog Archive » Why is Fairfax Promoting nuclear power?
Australia: Aboriginal voices raise uranium concerns
ANFA – protecting country, supporting communities – www.anfa.org.au
Australia’s poor record as a uranium mining nation
ARCHIES ARCHIVE 24 July 09
Ranger:• despite being expected to operate under a “no-release” water management system, incidents involving misplaced low grade ores or failures in water control bunds have led on numerous occasions to contaminated runoff waters being leaked into adjacent creeks (especially Corridoor Creek, a tributary of Magela Creek).• in early 2004 incorrect plumbing saw the process water circuit being connected to the potable drinking water circuit – leading to rapid and significant toxic process water being mixed with drinking water, and much of the Ranger workforce being potentially exposed to both acute chemical and radiological exposure.Olympic Dam:• after operating for nearly a decade, a major ongoing leak from the tailings dam was revealed, amounting to the loss of billions of litres of tailings water to groundwater.• in March 1999, and again October 2001, major explosions and fires caused substantive damage to the mill and smelter complexes, including major releases of noxious fumes – though the extent of radiological releases remains highly contentious, the fact that the uranium solvent extraction circuit in the 2001 incident was on fire raises serious concerns about how these incidents are handled by current regulators.
Beverley:
• numerous spills and leaks from pipelines have occurred………………Can uranium mines be satisfactorily rehabilitated?
The experience of rehabilitating uranium mines to date in Australia is questionable. The first generation of uranium mines from the Cold War, namely Rum Jungle, Radium Hill, Mary Kathleen and the South Alligator group of mines, all still present environmental and radiological management problems and require constant vigilence and maintenance.
Examples include: – Rum Jungle –….mine drainage continues to pollute the Finniss River…… Radium Hill…………tailings requires ongoing maintenance…..Mary Kathleen………… ongoing seepage of saline, metal and radionuclide rich waters from the tailings dam
From a briefing paper by Gavin M. Mudd for <a
Uranium Mining and a National Park #2 « Ærchies Archive – The Curmudgeon’s Magazine
Bligh rules out Queensland uranium mining
ABC News By Chrissy Arthur Jul 23, 2009
Queensland Premier Anna Bligh says uranium mining will not be allowed in the state under her government.Earlier this week, Federal Resources Minister Martin Ferguson said it was inevitable that uranium would be mined in Queensland.Ms Bligh says she made a promise at the last election not to allow uranium mining and she will not be breaking it.”It’s not like coal, or nickel or zinc,” she said.”This is a material that is used for a range of very serious and violent purposes around the world.”
Bligh rules out Qld uranium mining – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
1 This month
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
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