Low uranium prices stopping new projects
Uranium too low to incentivise new mines Mining Weekly By: Liezel Hill17th November 2009 TORONTO– Uranium prices still will need to firm significantly to justify the development of many of the mining projects being considered around the world, Jean Nortier, the CEO of Vancouver-based Uranium One, reiterated on Monday……… Continue reading
Review: Maralinga land, USA and UK nuclear ‘push’
Australia: Four Mile uranium mine mired in a legal mess. Rudd anxious to sell uranium to India? Aborigines get back contaminated Maralinga land. Regional push for renewables, while New South Wales starts solar gross feed-in tariff, and smart grid could include small, decentralised, energy sources. Australian book provides detailed evidence that could form the basis for atomic veterans’ legal action.
International: USA politicians pushing hard for nuclear to be part of Copenhagen global warming ‘solution’. Meanwhile new nuclear proving wildly expensive. UK govt pushes ahead to reduce incentives for renewables, and prevent local power to stop nuclear.plants. Calls for UN to properly investigate depleted uranium’s effects in Iraq. Calls for tracking patients’ radiation screening. – the week that has been
Rudd anxious to sell uranium to India?
I bet Rudd would love to sell uranium to India – but then he has to be careful not to offend China. So – the disarmament posture is good for a while, while government and nuclear lobby work on manipulating opinion in Australia Continue reading
Australian uranium company’s big revenue loss
oilweek Nov 12, 2009 Paladin Energy suffers big loss; revenue down almost US$14M (Paladin) Ca PERTH, Australia _ Continue reading
Four Mile uranium mine held up in legal dispute
- Miners clash on native title Sarah-Jane Tasker
- From: The Australian
- November 13, 2009
THE joint-venture partners in what is expected to be Australia’s next uranium mine are locked in a legal dispute over a native title agreement on the project.
Alliance Resources, a 25 per cent stakeholder in the Four Mile project in South Australia, has moved in the Supreme Court against joint-venture partner Quasar Resources, an affiliate of US-based Heathgate Resources.
Alliance is accusing Quasar and Heathgate of negotiating a native title agreement combining the Four Mile project with Heathgate’s Beverley mine.
The company said it was not involved in negotiations on the agreement and was concerned it exposed Alliance to liabilities that might apply only to the Beverley operation.
“As the native title mining agreement hasn’t been registered, a mining lease can’t be offered to the joint venture at this time, and therefore onsite construction at Four Mile can’t commence,”Alliance said………..http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/miners-clash-on-native-title/story-e6frg9dx-1225797126479
Continued secrecy, denial, about radiological warfare
Before the Bomb – book review – On Line Opinion, by Noel Wauchope – 9/11/2009 Where do we go, to find out about the radiological effects of atomic weapons?We usually seek out the rather patchy and incomplete stories of the victims – those at the “receiving end” of bombing, at Hiroshima, or of the atomic tests of Nevada, of Mururoa, Montebello, Maralinga. These have been covered in several books.But, how much was known about these radiological effects before the Bomb?
Here, at last, is the book that answers this question. And Paul Langley’s book The Prediction of the Radiological Effects of Atomic Bombs From Knowledge Published Prior to August 1945 answers it with evidence in forensic detail, a plenitude of exact primary documentary evidence, including digital evidence available on the Internet.
This is also a book that raises questions: questions that matter very much right now. Today, World War II veterans, Pacific Islanders, Navajo people and Australian Aborigines seek acknowledgment and justice for their diseases from exposure to radiation. Iraqi doctors and communities, and US, Canadian and UK Gulf War veterans claim health damage from depleted uranium. Where is the truth?…………..
It is an Australian shame that recognition has not been given to aboriginal victims. The reaction of Australian authorities has been a record of “lies, denial, racial taunts and suppression of evidence.” In Project Sunshine’s calculations of exposure dose to Australians, two population groups were excluded. These were: Aborigines living in remote areas around the bomb test sites, and the soldiers and others involved in the tests. In other words the two most affected groups.
A later health study continued to exclude the Aborigines, ignoring the testimony of survivors, their memory of the “Black Mist”, and even of those with Beta burns. Secrecy surrounded the investigation. Professor Ernest Titterton, Chairman of the Australian Atomic Weapons Test Safety Committee, kept project information from the Committee. As he stated “I was subject to American control on information.”
Review: fossil fuel puppets, ANSTO’s poll, France’s nuclear doubts
Review. Australia: Fossil fuel lobbyists using their muscle on Rudd govt to further weaken the already pathetic Emissiosn Trading Scheme. Meanwhile Rudd govt ignores Australia’s chance for solar energy leadership. ANSTO’s latest opinion poll results show overwhelming opposition to nuclear power. A Labor politician claims that South Australians wants a nuke waste dump, just to add to their existing radioactive contamination.
International: world-wide push by well-paid puppets of fossil fuel industries, in order to ruin December’s Copenhagen talks. Continued agonising in USA over mounting nuclear waste. Japan embarks on dangerous trip towards fast breeder nuclear reactors. France’s nuclear export industry has dubious future as safety concerns rise. – the week that has been.
Uranium projects uneconomic due to weak uranium prices
DJ ERA: Weak Uranium Prices, Weak USD Makes Projects UneconomicMon. TRADING MARKETS November 09, 2009; SYDNEY, Nov 09, 2009 Dow Jones Commodities News via Comtex) – Uranium miner Energy Resources of Australia Ltd. (ERA.AU), a unit of Rio Tinto Plc (RTP), said Tuesday weak uranium prices as well as the weak U.S. dollar would render new mining projects uneconomic in the longer-term.
This would leave the market heavily dependent on expansions in Kazakstan, in an industry where the global financial crisis was likely to slow new reactor build……………………
Malawi community rallying against Australian uranium miner
AFRICA: We Are the Government By Jessie Boylan LAGO DISTRICT, Mozambique, Nov 6 (IPS)
“………Organised by the Citizens for Justice (CFJ), the meeting had representatives from Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), non-governmental organisations (NGOs), churches, communities and universities; and concluded with a clear strategy and action plan as to how the new civil society ‘movement’ would proceed. …… Continue reading
Media silence on land grab for uranium
Pilger: Breaking the Australian Silence by John Pilger 06 November 2009 Pacific Free Press “I would like to talk about this silence: about how it affects our national life, the way we see the world, and the way we are manipulated by great power Continue reading
Paul Howes defies ACTU policy on nuclear
Paul Howes and Bill Shorten are a couple of young gungho, publicity-seeking right-wing Labor politicians. They’re both bent on getting to the top, and know who to make friends with – the big powerful corporations.
Paul Howes doesn’t miss an opportunity to spruik pro-nuke. And, it doesn’t bother him if he has no sensible answers to the critics of the uranium/nuclear industry.
Paul is quite happy to use the time-honoured methods of the nuclear lobby – just denigrate your opponents – so much easier than addressing the issues.
The Age, 7 November 09, on Paul Howes: “He dumps on Labor’s opposition to nuclear power, describing the stance as ‘ancient, hypochondriac…superstitions of another age’ that ignore the evidence of its potential as a clean and viable source of long-term energy.
Howes advocacy of the nuclear option flies in the face of its staunch rejection by the ACTU – of which he is vice-president”
The strange mentality of some nuclear commentators
In a week of dubious comments from fossil-fuel and nuclear industry puppets, it’s been hard to choose the weirdest comment.
But I like the one from Northern Territory Labor MP Damien Hale. Apparently, Hale’s view is that if a state is already contaminated with radioactive pollution, then it’s just fine to go ahead there and add more pollution. Is South Australia stuffed already, as far as radioactive contamination goes – so it can be open slather for nuclear waste in S.A.?
The Labor Member for Solomon, Damien Hale, .. says there is political support for the dump to be built in South Australia.”Now we all know there’s areas of Australia that are already contaminated through radioactivity,”Territory MP wants nuke waste dumped in SA – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Job losses at BHP’s uranium mine
Olympic mine job losses The Age BARRY FITZGERALD November 7, 2009 BHP Billiton has warned of job losses among its contractor workforce at the damaged Olympic Dam copper-gold-uranium mine in South Australia Continue reading
Paid puppets spout ‘climate scepticism’
I know who I prefer to believe in debate TheAge Lynne Holroyd, 6 Nov 09
AL GORE is right when he points to the phoney war of the climate science ”debate”. On one hand is the scientific consensus and on the other are the loony theories financed by those with the most to lose if we cut carbon emissions.
The mouthpieces and puppets of the big polluters are just as hard at work in Australia as they are in the US, where there are four industry lobbyists working against climate change action for every member of the US Congress. Funny how the handful of ventriloquist dolls of Australia’s big polluters tend to be geologists who study rocks – not climate, atmosphere and oceans. Geologists are typically employed by big mining companies. Think the carbon lobby – coal, oil, gas – those fighting the Government-proposed carbon pollution bill tooth and nail.
On the other hand, warning us about the imminent dangers of climate change are the thousands of independent, disinterested climate experts of high repute who checked one another’s findings and published their report in 2007, a report signed off and agreed to by more than 100 countries. I know who I would prefer to believe.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/letters/guilty-until-proven-innocent-20091105-i04s.html
Powerful influence of big polluting industries
revealed-polluters-fear-tactics-on-climate Brisbane Times MARIAN WILKINSON AND FLINT DUXFIELD
November 6, 2009
BIG greenhouse polluting companies around the world, employing thousands of lobbyists, are exerting heavy pressure on governments to weaken climate change laws at home and slow progress on an international climate agreement in Copenhagen, a global investigation reveals.
In Australia, 20 companies who have already won the most concessions from the Rudd Government’s emissions trading scheme employ 28 lobbying firms with well over 100 staff, many of them former politicians, political advisers or government officials.
In the US there are more than 2800 climate lobbyists, five for every member of Congress, an increase of more than 400 per cent over the past six years. From Washington to Canberra and New Delhi to Brussels, companies and their lobbyists are often raising the same widespread fears about jobs, power blackouts and economic losses unless governments weaken commitments to combat climate change.The report by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists examined the climate lobby in eight countries including the US, Canada, Australia, India, Japan, China, Belgium and Brazil. It relied on more than 200 interviews, lobbying registers and political donation records. ………………In the US, chief executives of coal and power companies have hosted a public campaign against climate legislation which is being blocked in the Senate……….
Industry lobby groups have also carved out a permanent role at the UN talks as representatives of the so-called BINGOS – Business and Industry Non-Government Organisations.
While lobbyists for the renewable energy industry, the carbon traders and environmental groups are also becoming more prominent, the report finds that their voices ”can barely be heard above the clamour of the older, well-capitalised and deeply entrenched industries that have been lobbying on climate change for more than 20 years”.http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/revealed-polluters-fear-tactics-on-climate-20091106-i0ju.html
1 This month
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
Antinuclear 