2013 countering Australia’s pro nuclear propaganda

In 2013 corporate Australia and their lackey media, and  political parties – Labor and Liberal,  will follow their usual pattern of actively promoting Australia’s uranium industry . More quietly, they, and associated vested interests and camp followers, will be promoting nuclear power for Australia and the world, and also promoting  Australia as an international nuclear waste dump.

So – we can expect propaganda about nuclear reprocessing “generation IV” nuclear reactors, Thorium nuclear reactors, Small Modular nuclear Reactors (SMRs) .

The pro nuclear push in Australia also comes from some unexpected quarters.  For example – medical research, funded by USA Department of Energy, aims to show that ionising radiation is OK, in fact, good for you. (Flinders University Research by professor Pam Sykes).    And, alone amongst environmentalists and climate scientists, Prof Barry Brook at University of Adelaide, heads a nest of pro nuclear advocates – pushing the idea of nuclear as the cure for climate change.

Of course, they’re all praying that the next nuclear catastrophe will hold off until 2014, at least.  And, in the absence of a new nuclear disaster –   their strategy will be to downplay Fukushima, and to spread their myth that “low level”  ionising radiation is not harmful.

So – for 2013, this little website will provide, as well as a daily news item,   also regular  reminders  that refute the toxic propaganda that claims that radiation is not toxic.

For a more complete account of each day’s  nuclear news for Australia, please go to http://antinuclear.net/

Clean energy making more news than nuclear, in Australia

Renewable Energy -  yes the news is all about this area. The indomitable Giles Parkinson of REneweconomy just keeps on revealing interesting stuff  - like:

• the growth in community renewable energy - community solar network Farming the Sun in NSW”s Northern rivers region, the first of several such groups in New South Wales. NSW government’s Office of Environment and Heritage has approved funding for up to 9 groups to develop similar proposals.   Community wind farms exist in Victoria (Hepburn Wind project) and in Albany, W.A.
• Australian businesses are taking to solar energy, with 1,460 commercial solar installation in the first quarter of this year. This is causing financial distress to fossil fuel energy utilities. Australia needs to follow Germany’s lead in helping fossil fuel utilities to cope with the transition – they will still be needed as the renewable energy revolution progresses, for backup energy.
• Meanwhile the Energy Supply Association of Australia (ESAA)  got  a bit desperate, blaming home solar owners for  ‘avoiding network charges’. As Parkinson pointed out,  the ESAA ignored the cross-subsidy paid by households with no air conditioning for those who do.
• Victorian Organic Solar Cell Consortium (VICOSC)  launches  screen printing for solar energy – an Australian scientific first!

Federal politics. Greg Hunt Shadow Minister for Climate Action, Environment and Heritage reiterated the Liberal Coalition’s plans to repeal the Carbon Tax, remove the Clean Energy Act, and remove Federal powers over Environmental Law.  Christine Milne gave  a spirited stand for Australia’s environment.

Uranium

• Share prices for Australian uranium companies ERA, Paladin, Bannerman Resources, have fallen over 90% since 2007
• A new study  ‘Economics at Large’ examines Toro Energy’s Wiluna uranium project., and finds that it is financially risky. It might just manage to be financially viable   if Toro can avoid clean-up and decommissioning costs.
•  Paladin Energy is the news again, for all the wrong reasons. Very poor and unsafe working conditions in Paladin’s  Kayelekera uranium mine, in Malawi, having led to blindness in one worker. Paladin blamed all this on  a”sub-contractor”.  They couldn’t get away with this in Australia. Sadly, our mining companies can be “The Ugly Australian” in Africa.

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Wiluna uranium project’s poor economic prospects

Claims Toro’s uranium project may struggle May 20, 2013 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-20/claims-toro27s-uranium-project-not-financially-viable/4700982 An economist is warning that the first proposed uranium mine in Western Australia may struggle to get off the ground.

The comments are made in a report, commissioned by Greens Senator Scott Ludlam and environmental groups, into the viability of Toro Energy’s proposed Wiluna project.

The study by ‘Economics at Large’ indicates the project’s profitability relies on a number of sensitive factors. The paper’s author, Roderick Campbell, says Toro may struggle to make the project viable.

“The Wiluna project sits very high on the cost curve of global uranium projects,” he said. ”It’s difficult to see why any of the major uranium players would invest in this project when there’s a lot of cheaper projects out there.”

Toro has released a statement saying the Wiluna project has won WA and Federal Government environmental approval to proceed after a rigorous three and a half year assessment process. It says, as a result, there is significant market interest from international energy utilities and global resource investors in the Wiluna project.

Senator Ludlam claims the project will just manage to be financially viable if Toro can avoid clean-up and decommissioning costs.He says Toro has not submitted a costed mine closure plan and the numbers are against the company when the cost of the clean-up is factored in.

Toro is yet to respond to that particular claim.

Radioactivity in food – the quiet negotiations to make it OK?

CODEX and food safety? The hidden world of radioactive food! http://nuclear-news.net/2013/05/19/codex-and-food-safety-the-hidden-world-of-radioactive-food/  By Arclight2011 19 May 2013

The Japanese limits are based on the assumption that 50% of nationally distributed foods are contaminated

[...]

A suggestion of a member to introduce additional values for food corresponding to non-accidental situations,such as releases of radioactive effluents,was not supported, as it was noticed that such releases are under regulatory control.

[...]

One member suggested reconsidering the previous situation of the GLs in 1989 with a single food category, as that was protective of both infants and adults. Other members of the eWG did not support this proposal, stating that society expects infants and young children to receive better protection.Another member proposed to add the category of dairy foods. There was also no support for this suggestion. Both members withdrew the proposals

Uranium industry held back by Aboriginal resistance; Yvonne Margarula

Fifteen years on and still no mine at Jabiluka

Sunday May 19^th marks fifteen years since Yvonne Margarula – Senior Traditional Owner of the Mirarr clan – was arrested for ‘trespassing’ on her traditional land at Jabiluka.

In the early hours of May 19^th 1998 Yvonne Margarula was arrested along three other Aboriginal people – Jacqui Katona, Christine Christophersen and Reuben Nango – on the Jabiluka mineral lease. The highly controversial proposed Jabiluka uranium mine was under construction at the time of the arrests but development of the mine was eventually halted as a result of the campaign lead by Ms Margarula.

Ms Margarula argued that her protest against the Jabiluka uranium mine was “traditional action taking a modern form” and that her long standing opposition to the mine was fulfilling her duties as a Traditional Owner. However, in an extraordinary court ruling Ms Margarula was found guilty of trespassing on her own land and after appeal was fined $500.

Yvonne’s arrest took place on a shipping container which was the property of the mining company and she was aware of the fact that she may be arrested. This combination of factors was enough to see tens of thousands of years of living culture and connection with land overruled by the imposition of an unwanted mining project. Amidst significant publicity surrounding this ludicrous legal situation, Yvonne’s fine was anonymously paid and legal history was made.

Fifteen years ago Yvonne Margarula stood on her country and said no to unwanted mining just as her father said no to unwanted mining on Mirarr country at Ranger fifteen years before that. The efforts of the Mirarr to protect their country and culture continue. Please support the Mirarr in their continued fight to ensure responsibility at Ranger and to permanently protect Jabiluka.

 

Radioactive eels found in Tokyo River

Local governments ignore cesium detection in Tokyo river eels, Asahi Shimbun May 17, 2013 By YUSUKE FUKUI/ Staff Writer Tokyo and Chiba local governments took no action for nearly two months after being informed that radioactive cesium had been detected in eels caught in a boundary river between the two prefectures.

Officials of both governments said no independent study was conducted because the eels were not caught by professional fishermen intending to sell the catch.

The detection of the cesium was also not publicized. On March 9, a 47-year-old self-employed woman caught an eel from the Edogawa river in Tokyo’s Katsushika Ward. Concerned about reports that cesium had accumulated downstream in the river, she sent the eel to Hideo Yamazaki, a professor of environmental analysis at Kinki University in Osaka Prefecture. Using a germanium semiconductor detector, Yamazaki found that the eel had 147.5 becquerels of radioactive cesium per kilogram, higher than the central government standard of 100 becquerels.

Yamazaki reported his finding to the Fisheries Agency in late March because he felt there was a need for an official investigation to back up his finding as well as further studies to look into the effects on other fish.

Although the Fisheries Agency informed both the Tokyo metropolitan and Chiba prefectural governments about the finding, neither had conducted an official study as of May 16.

An official with the Tokyo metropolitan government’s fisheries division said, “Basically, only fish that enter the distribution network is subject to studies. The eel fishing season also does not start until summer.”….. Yamazaki conducted further studies on four eels caught by the same woman in April and May in the Edogawa river. The eels had cesium levels between 97.4 becquerels and 129.6 becquerels per kilogram, with three of the eels having cesium levels exceeding the central government standard….. http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201305170079

Australian government’s hypocrisy on “consultation” about mining in Woomera

Government’s “consultation” on mining in Woomera more like a ram raid Australian Greens nuclear policy spokesperson Senator Scott Ludlam.  17 May 2013. The Federal Government made a mockery of public consultation by allowing three working days for initial submissions on opening up the Woomera Prohibited Area to miners, Greens Senator Scott Ludlam said today.

“On Wednesday 8 May Defence Minister Stephen Smith and resources Minister Gary Gray released the draft exposure of legislation to increase access to Woomera Prohibited Area to miners, and three working days later on 13 May the submission period closed.  It’s not good enough,” said Senator Ludlam.

“Lawyers representing the Maralinga people, who in addition to being the Traditional Owners own approximately 40,000sqkm of freehold land in the area, advise that they have not been consulted on this legislation despite approaching the Defence Minister on the issue in July 2011.

“It is a relatively short amendment at nine pages but it is high-impact legislation. This area has an estimated 78 per cent of Australia’s known uranium reserves.  The implications are massive.

“After years of review and the production of an 82 page report, we do not want to see a long process brought to an abrupt and shallow end.”

The plight of animals, in Fukushima’s irradiated areas

PROMETHEUS TRAP/ The disaster and animals (8): Woman repeatedly rescued pets in the Fukushima off-limits zoneAsahi Shimbun May 08, 2013 By MISUZU TSUKUE/ Staff Writer

Editor’s note: This is the eighth part of a new series that has run in the past under the title of The Prometheus Trap. This series deals with how pets and livestock fared in the evacuation zone around the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. The series will appear on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

After the government on April 22, 2011, banned entry into a 20-kilometer radius from the disaster-stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, declaring it to be an evacuation zone, many people still began to enter the area illegally to rescue pets left behind.

One of them was Mieko Yoshida, a 63-year-old cram school teacher who lived in Odaka Ward in the city of Minami-soma…….

Yoshida started a one-woman campaign for the rescue and protection of pets left behind in the no-go zone. When she stood in front of the city office, carrying a placard reading, “Give me back my family,” many pet owners approached her, saying, “The same here.”

Yoshida compiled a list of some 80 houses in the off-limits zone where pets had been left behind. She secretly went to these houses to feed and rescue the animals. Her concern for the lives of these vulnerable animals outweighed her fear of radiation.

Police kept bolstering the barricades erected to keep people from entering the zone, but that didn’t deter Yoshida from her stealth animal rescue mission…… http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/life_and_death/AJ201305080006

Fukushima radiation danger to Japan, and USA – covered up

Cover-up as radiation danger from Fukushima continues http://www.veteranstoday.com/2013/05/14/fukushima-fallout-threat-and-cover-up-continues/

by Allen L Roland A creeping and never ending deadly fog of radiation, invisible to the eye but not to the immune system, continues to blanket the West Coast while its human cost is just beginning to be perceived.

 The threat and ongoing cover up of the nuclear fallout of the Fukushima melt down in 2011 continues unabated and now, two years later, the human cost of this catastrophe and cover up are now being published ~ especially with infants.

For example, a peer-reviewed research paper, published in the Open Journal of Pediatrics, found increased rates of congenital hypothyroidism (CH) in West Coast babies born within nine months of the Fukushima meltdowns beginning March 11, 2011 ~  “ Newborns in Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon and Washingtonshowed up to 28 percent higher rates of CH than in 36 control states. If left untreated, congenital hypothyroidism can impede physical and mental development.“   See report

It also appears that radiation has already killed over 14,000 Americans as Thom Hartman shockingly discovered during his 7 minute video interview with Dr. Janette Sherman, M.D., Internist and Toxicologist. These are apparently the same levels of death that were found at Chernobyl and the radiation effects could easily last over 300 years.   

WHAT ABOUT THE ONGOING THREAT OF FUKUSHIMA FALLOUT ?

Nuclear and clean energy news this week in Australia

Nuclear wastes and the old dead High Flux nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights back in the news, as Federal Government plans (listed in Budget) to move these from South Sydney, for dumping on Aborignal land in the Northern Territory. This would clear the way for further nuclear development at Lucas Heights. Nobody seems to have thought of the idea of just stopping making this radioactive trash, importing radiopharmaceuticals made by non nuclear methods. Sydneysiders are anxious about the radioactive transport.

Federal Budget. 

• Uranium miners  squealing as the Federal Budget moves to stop the rorts on tax exempt exploration, (but they keep all their other perks, such as the fuel rebate).
• Nuke Dump gets $35.7m over 4 years.
•  ANSTO gets $38.7m for decommissioning High Flux Nuclear Reactor and $8.1 m for increasing costs of running OPAL Nuclear Reactor
• ARPANSA  Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency gets  $ 7.8 m over four years 
•  Rum Jungle radioactive decontamination  funds gets $1.5m this year.
• A mixed result for renewable energy and climate change action.  The Australian Renewable Energy Agency survives, with funds deferred. The Clean Technology Programs did not receive rumoured cuts. It could have been worse – and certainly will be, if Abbott gets in, in September.

Uranium market gloom.  .Underneath the hype of the future “uranium boom”, some analysts actually coming out now and predicting indefinite stagnation for Australia’s (and everybody’s)  uranium industry.

Trans Pacific Partnership negotiations going on, in secret, in Lima, Peru.  I bet you’re not hearing anything about this.  So far, the Australian government has resisted conditions that would endanger the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, limit access to Internet material, and permit US corporations to over-ride Australian legislation, in investor-state dispute provisions.  Australia is admired, as a model for resisting this. However, this could all change very quickly if the Liberal Coalition wins on September 14.   You think that this is not nuclear-related?  Well, I think that it’s related to everything!

Problem of old dead reactor and radioactive trash at Lucas Heights, Sydney

Nuclear waste on the move in clean-up  http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/nuclear-waste-on-the-move-in-cleanup-20130515-2jmu5.html#ixzz2TV9sbj00  May 16, 2013 Heath Aston  Radioactive waste and parts of Australia’s oldest nuclear reactor will be trucked out of Sydney under plans to clean up the Lucas Heights nuclear facility and develop a national hazardous-waste dump in the outback.

But residents in Sydney’s south are concerned at the prospect of having radioactivematerial transported past their homes.

They believe the dismantling and removal of the 1960s-era ”high-flux Australian reactor” and spent fuel rods is a bid to clear the way for further development at Lucas Heights and the production of more dangerous waste.

The plan to move the retired reactor, switched on by former prime minister Robert Menzies in 1958 and taken out of service in 2007, emerged in the budget papers.

The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, which manages Lucas Heights, has been given $28.7 million to prepare for the move. The four-year funding package will pay for ”pre-disposal conditioning of existing radioactive waste in preparation for long-term storage and disposal, and for the clean-up of buildings and infrastructure containing hazardous materials” at Lucas Heights.

Separately, the government has put $35.7 million into securing a site to become the nation’s repository for radioactive material. It will host waste from Lucas Heights and may provide the state government with a destination for contaminated soil from the former uranium smelter site at Hunters Hill.

An area at Muckaty, 800 kilometres south of Darwin, is the government’s preferred site after it struck an agreement with the Northern Land Council. But development of the semi-arid claypan site is bogged down in a legal challenge by some traditional owners. The budget papers do not identify Muckaty specifically, but a spokesman for Resources and Energy Minister Gary Gray said Muckaty, 100 kilometres north of Tennant Creek, remained the only location under consideration.

Within four years a facility that could centralise waste from Lucas Heights, and 100 or so other industrial and medical waste facilities, would be ready for construction. An ANSTO spokesman confirmed the plan to move the reactor and waste. The load will include fuel rods due to arrive in Botany Bay for transportation back to Lucas Heights after they were reprocessed at a nuclear facility in France.

Local resident groups who supported a previous plan to encase the reactor in concrete will meet ANSTO management in Engadine in the next few days.