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NUCLEAR NEWS ITEMS
- LATE 2005, EARLY 2006
* Check the nukes edition of the
online mag signature:
*
<http://s7digital.com/signature>
* uranium exports to China
* Roxby water
* government gutting renewables
* nukes no solution to climate change
* uranium mining in Australia
* consumerism
* terrorism - nuclear waste and
uranium
* SA company - nuclear waste
* Iran, China, WMD
* nuclear WMD proliferation
* nuclear power, safe as houses. not.
* James Lovelock and the end of the
world
* USA - Australia ANZUS alliance
* Australia's role in US missile
'defence' program
* smart money takes leave of uranium
* dirty bombs labs in Australia
* health hazards of low-level
radiation
-------------------->
Check the nukes edition of the online
mag Signature:
<http://s7digital.com/signature>
MARNI CORDELL speaks with Shadow
Minister for Industry and Resources,
Martin Ferguson about his push to
overturn the ALP's 'no new mines' position.
http://s7digital.com/signature/sig-stories.php?id=540
MIRIAM LYONS investigates one of the
longest running PR campaigns in
history: the push to sell nuclear
power as 'clean and green'.
http://s7digital.com/signature/sig-stories.php?id=535
And EVE VINCENT reports on the
Federal Government's radical Radioactive
Waste Management Bill.
http://s7digital.com/signature/sig-stories.php?id=532
In our photo story the Kupa Piti
Kungka Tjuta celebrate their success in
stopping a national radioactive waste
dump from being built on their country.
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URANIUM EXPORTS TO CHINA
Collection of articles on
proposed uranium exports to China at:
<www.geocities.com/jimgreen3/chinauran.html>
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ROXBY WATER
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Mine will ruin us: graziers
Jeremy Roberts
The Australian
26dec05
CENTRAL Australian pastoralists fear
BHP Billiton's plan to supply its massive Olympic Dam uranium mine with
water from the Great Artesian Basin will kill the grazing industry.
BHP, the world's biggest mining
company, is investigating whether to pump 150 megalitres of water a day
from the basin to supply its proposed doubling of the Olympic Dam
copper and uranium mine at Roxby Downs.
The company now pumps about 35
megalitres a day from the basin. The water is taken from two borefields
on Dulkaninna station, east of Lake Eyre, on a 200km pipeline south to
Roxby Downs.
But Shane Oldfield, owner of a
neighbouring station, said more pumping from Dulkaninna would suck the
local area dry.
"It's going to bloody kill us if they
do get the water from there because we are losing pressure now, and it
will cost us more pressure," he said.
Mr Oldfield said Olympic Dam pumping
had cut the level of the basin at his homestead by 5m in the past three
years.
This year, BHP and previous owner WMC
Resources drilled four wells around the area of its main source of
water for Olympic Dam, called Borefield B.
The four monitoring wells are being
used to determine the underground hydrogeology of the basin.
In conjunction with the local water
management board, BHP is attempting to assess the environmental impact
of a more than four-fold increase in its pumping.
Arid Areas Catchment Water Management
Board presiding member Lynn Brake said BHP was not yet in a position to
predict what would happen to the basin. "There is some more information
required -- there are areas where water does not flow very well, and
other areas that flow really well," he said.
Mr Brake's management board is part
of South Australia's system of water prescription, adopted by the Rann
Government in 2003. But state Environment Minister John Hill is yet to
ratify a draft water allocation plan for the Far North Wells Prescribed
Area.
The system is designed to ensure
water is used sustainably, with supply guaranteed for all uses,
including the environment.
But there may be another way for BHP
to take basin water.
Since WMC built Olympic Dam in 1984,
the mine has been administered under South Australia's Roxby Downs
Indenture Ratification Act.
The act contains a licence under
which BHP, which took over WMC earlier this year, takes water from the
basin.
Mr Brake said there remained "some
confusion" about what legal framework BHP was operating under -- the
Roxby Downs act or the state's water management regime.
Mr Hill said a water licence "may be
issued under a new indenture act".
But any additional extraction from
the basin "would be considered in accordance with the sustainability
principles outlined in the draft water allocation plan for the far
north wells prescribed area".
BHP is required by law to investigate
all possible sources of water for its proposed expansion of Olympic
Dam. Among the options is a desalination plant in the Spencer Gulf. A
company spokesman said that because of the cost of infrastructure, the
final decision would be in favour of one source only rather than a
combination of sources.
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GOVERNMENT GUTTING RENEWABLES
Cleaner projects gone with the wind
Greg Roberts
January 14, 2006
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17818173%255E601,00.html
WIND farm projects worth billions of
dollars are being scrapped by developers citing the federal
Government's refusal to boost renewable energy targets.
"We're quitting Australia," Energreen
Wind business development director Alan Keller told The Weekend
Australian yesterday. "That's the end of it for us."
As the inaugural meeting of the
Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate wrapped up in
Sydney, industry leaders claimed wind farm projects worth between
$10billion and $12billion were being lost to overseas markets.
Mr Keller said four Energreen wind
farms worth a total of $1.5billion that had state and local government
approvals - at Box Hill and Ben Lomond in NSW, Burra in South Australia
and Crows Nest in Queensland - were unlikely to proceed.
He said his company had slashed staff
numbers by 80 per cent in the past four months and he believed the
$10million it had invested in preliminary work would be wasted.
Instead, Energreen is expanding
projects in China and India - two of Australia's partners in the
climate change initiative.
"Unlike Australia, these countries
are looking at up to 30-fold increases in their use of wind power," Mr
Keller said.
He said Canberra's refusal to
increase its "mandatory renewable energy target" from the current 9500
gigawatt hours of electricity by 2020 meant that there was no future
for wind farms in Australia because the target had already been met.
He and other renewable energy
industry leaders were invited to the Sydney conference, but as
observers only - unlike the representatives from coal and other
mineral-based companies, who were active participants.
"It is disappointing that the
Government does not recognise that renewable energy is a
cost-effective, important way of addressing these issues," Mr Keller
said.
"In Sydney, they were interested only
in finding technical ways to reduce emissions. That's important, but
it's not enough."
Australian Wind Energy Association
president Andrew Richards said MRET had only marginally increased
Australia's use of renewable energy, with wind farms accounting for
less than half of 1 per cent of energy use. "We need a further 5 per
cent increase in MRET as a bare minimum," Mr Richards said.
He said his company, Pacific Hydro,
was reviewing plans for $1billion worth of wind farm projects in
Victoria and South Australia.
"It is very frustrating that we had
the foundations for a really good industry and now it is drying up," he
said.
Federal Energy Minister Ian
Macfarlane said MRET provided the incentive for the wind energy
industry to build a solid foundation after the target was adopted in
2001, adding there had been substantial expansion in the industry since
then, and the Government did not believe it was necessary to increase
MRET.
Instead, it was providing other
incentives such as the $25million earmarked for renewable energy
projects after the Sydney meeting.
"We believe in looking forward, not
backwards," Mr Macfarlane said. "We see renewables as every bit as
important as fossil fuels in the energy mix."
Wind power critics say although it is
cleaner than coal-fired power, it costs twice as much to generate -
costs that would be passed on to consumers in power bills - and that
its huge turbines are intrusive.
--------------------->
NUKES NO SOLUTION TO CLIMATE CHANGE
Unsafe, unsound and unattainable
October 13, 2005
The Age
The real danger of going nuclear is
diverting policymakers from developing
non-polluting alternatives and
cutting waste, writes Alan Roberts.
NOW that the world has generally
accepted the overwhelming evidence for climate change, a number of the
usual and unusual suspects are proposing we develop safe nuclear power
as a safe option and as a fallback if oil runs out soon. The nuclear
industry has found some surprising friends, including James Lovelock,
developer of the Gaia hypothesis, who hopes that nuclear energy will
become a bridge to cleaner, safer technologies.
Debate about the morality of nuclear
power has become intense. However, it's purely academic. There's no
point in arguing about whether nuclear power should be used to replace
fossil fuel. The truth is it can't - it won't do the job, and there
isn't enough uranium.
Let's examine a few facts.
A shift to nuclear power - even if it
were possible - would have no effect on the bulk of the greenhouse
gases emitted because most of these gases come from outside the
electrical power industry. For example, the 15 countries of the
European Union would still be pouring more than 3 million tonnes of
greenhouse gases into the air each year - close to 80 per cent of their
present emissions.
California's trucks and cars emit
more than 3 times as much greenhouse gas as its electrical plants, and
the humming of all-electric cars is still music of the future. Assuming
that no one is suggesting developing car-sized nuclear reactors,
emission levels will go on rising.
But what about the fossil fuel use
nuclear power can replace? Again, there's a lot of illusion here. The
construction of a nuclear station, and the mining and processing of the
fuel to supply it, requires significant energy and the associated
emissions. A detailed study by van Leeuwin and Smith (cited in Arena
Journal No.23) found that for poor grades of ore, more energy is needed
to process the uranium than the uranium delivers. If you decide to
build a nuclear power station, be prepared to wait 10 years. This, plus
the years of operation before energy output exceeds the energy taken to
build it, means that shifting to nuclear would initially worsen fossil
fuel emissions.
Uranium is subject to the same laws
of diminishing returns as any other commodity that has to be dug up.
The uranium being mined now is generally from very rich ores and these
stocks would replace only about nine years of global electricity
production. With poorer ore grades, extraction would take half to all
of the energy the uranium could yield.
These findings emerge from careful
studies. Governments know that nuclear power is no magic bullet for the
problem of greenhouse gas emissions. So why have government leaders in
the US, Britain, France and China advocated nuclear power - sometimes
quite forcefully? Because it is an industry essential to sustainability
- of the military rather than the environmental kind. Governments with
a nuclear arsenal need the services of a nuclear industry.
Quite aside from the expanded risks
of a nuclear accident - especially in poorly regulated areas such as
the developing world or the US - there would be the increased risk of
plutonium theft, and the more rigorous security apparatus governments
would need to create to counter it. It should be obvious that if you're
worried about "dirty bomb" terrorism, you shouldn't scatter nuclear
plants around as if they were coffee shop chains.
But the greatest danger in the
"nuclear solution" lies in the power it has to divert attention and
investment funds from the policies that would deal with climate change.
Policies to stop wasting energy and to develop non-polluting energy
sources such as solar and wind power.
It is significant that in Canada's
Action Plan 2000, for its manufacturing, electricity generation,
transport, oil and gas, and building industries, the recurring theme is
about improving energy efficiency. In California, authorities are
taking steps to ensure cars perform better and that solar panels on
houses are subsidised.
Such policies can stem the useless
flow of wasted energy from polluting sources, which serves no useful
purpose but threatens the only planet we have. If we are not hypnotised
by the illusory glitter of some sweeping technological fix, we can make
our governments adopt them.
Alan Roberts taught physics and
environmental science at Monash University. His sources are cited in
full in a longer article in Arena Journal No.23.
--------------------->
URANIUM MINING IN AUSTRALIA
Fuel for thought: nuke debate heats up
By Jamie Freed
January 14, 2006
<www.smh.com.au/news/business/fuel-for-thought-nuke-debate-heats-up/2006/01/13/1137118966693.html>
AT THE Asia-Pacific Partnership for
Clean Development and Climate meeting in Sydney this week, the focus
was on initiatives the six member countries could adopt to reduce their
production of greenhouse gases.
Nuclear power was one topic at the
forefront, as the US, Japan, South Korea, India and China all operate
nuclear power plants - and are planning to build more to help tackle
the issue of climate change. Australia, never having built a nuclear
power plant, is clearly the odd one out.
The nation's lack of a nuclear power
industry might seem curious to foreigners when Australia possesses more
uranium than any other country - although it has large reserves of
other energy sources such as coal and natural gas, and a small
population.
Despite its large trade deficit,
Australia mines a relatively low proportion of its uranium reserves,
meaning it isn't milking the export market as much as it could.
It's not due to lack of interest from
mining companies, which view Australia as a dream destination because
of its stable political system, skilled workforce and abundant natural
resources.
Rather, it's restrictive Australian
government policy - at both the federal and state level - that has so
far prevented most of the country's uranium from being mined.
Under the Coalition Government,
federal policy has changed, but all state Labor premiers except South
Australia's Mike Rann oppose mining uranium, in part because of Labor's
long opposition to it.
The policy has forced local miners to
look overseas for viable projects.
Take Perth's Paladin Resources.
Instead of mining or even closely studying one of its deposits in
Western Australia, it will start production at its Langer Heinrich
project in Namibia this year. And next on its list is a deposit in
Malawi, one of the world's poorest and most corrupt nations.
Paladin managing director John
Borshoff is upfront about why his company is developing its first
projects abroad. Countries in southern Africa are "less politically
hostile" than Australia, he says. "I know that sounds ironic," he's
quick to add.
Borshoff has a point. WA's premier,
Dr Geoff Gallop, is adamant no uranium mining will be allowed in his
state while he remains in office - and his current term lasts until
2009.
"In terms of uranium mining, I'm the
premier. We took this policy to the election [last year]," Gallop told
the Herald." Our uranium will stay in the ground in Western Australia."
Despite Gallop's firm stance - which
several industry sources liken to an ostrich with its head in the sand
- companies such as Redport are pinning their hopes on eventual change
in policy, or in government.
When Redport - a former gold explorer
and internet company - first picked up the Lake Maitland uranium
project in WA last April, the market reaction seemed almost
inexplicable.
The company's business plan was to
mine in WA and ship the nuclear power plant fuel off to China, despite
both actions being illegal under state and federal policy. Yet shares
in the tiny explorer more than doubled on the day of the announcement.
Unless investors - including
institutions such as Fidelity Investments, which holds 12.7 per cent of
Redport - have suddenly become keen to sink money into a project going
nowhere, it seems a paradigm shift is afoot.
Industry veteran Tony Grey, founder
of the now-defunct Pancontinental Mining, says "Australia is still in
irons as far as uranium development is concerned".
Grey should know. His company
discovered the giant Jabiluka deposit in the Northern Territory in 1971
- and it still hasn't been developed.
"[But] having said that," he adds,
"the winds of change are blowing."
While it's difficult to discern
whether public attitudes have changed, some Labor figures are beginning
to warm to uranium. Labor's federal industry and resources spokesman,
Martin Ferguson, is encouraging a widespread debate within his party
about the merits of uranium mining and supports exporting it to China
as long as it is used for peaceful purposes.
Redport chairman Richard Homsany
certainly believed change was coming when his company invested in Lake
Maitland. "I think at the moment there is enormous pressure to
re-examine that [WA] policy on uranium mining," he said in April. "One
cannot ignore the fact it is a clean fuel."
Neither, in the current climate, can
it be ignored that Australia is home to 41 per cent of the world's
economic uranium reserves and the world's biggest uranium mine, BHP
Billiton's Olympic Dam.
On the other hand, for all of coal's
environmental ills, Australia's cheap and plentiful supply of the
fossil fuel will last the nation hundreds of years.
Coal is also the reason there is a
ban on uranium mining in Queensland - its premier, Peter Beattie,
believes exporting uranium would undermine its lucrative coal industry.
"There are countries which have to
choose between sources for their power stations," says Beattie's
spokesman, citing Italy as an example. "He [Beattie] is not going to
encourage the nuclear industry."
And apart from coal, there are other
energy options in Australia.
Power stations fuelled by natural gas
are a possibility, based on large reserves of coal-seam gas and
conventional on- and offshore natural gas in Australia and Papua New
Guinea, although much of Australia's gas is sold at high prices for
export.
Still, Queensland is busy building
coal-seam gas power stations to meet environmental targets.
But although nuclear energy has lower
emissions than coal - or even natural gas - the costs of building a
nuclear power plant are daunting.
An International Energy Agency report
found the cost per kilowatt of building a modern nuclear reactor would
be around $US2000 ($2650), compared with $US1200 for coal and $US500
for gas.
But over the long lifetime of a
nuclear power station, the capital costs would be recouped, making it a
viable, low-emission alternative.
While some environmental activists
press for the use of renewable energy sources such as wind, water and
solar power, these are not effective generators of base-load power,
though they can help meet some energy needs.
Anti-nuclear activists add that a
nuclear plant malfunction - such as those at Three Mile Island or
Chernobyl - is far more devastating on a safety and environmental level
than a malfunction in a coal- or gas-fired plant.
Nuclear weapons proliferation is
another major issue. Australia does not allow the sale of uranium for
weapons purposes and uranium proponents argue that strict international
safeguards are effective, but WA's Gallop disagrees.
"The last time there was a major
expansion of the nuclear industry there was a proliferation of nuclear
weapons, and I have no reason to think the same thing wouldn't happen
again," he says. "Added to that, you have the new terrorist threats."
Radioactive waste disposal is another
problem - and a daunting one for WA voters. In 1998, the plan of the US
company Pangea Resources to build a nuclear waste dump in the state
came to public notice after a UK environmental group aired a corporate
video touting the project.
After widespread opposition, the WA
Parliament passed a bill that made it illegal to dispose of radioactive
waste in the state without specific approval. But Gallop worries that
if he allows uranium mining, his state will become "part of the nuclear
fuel cycle" and will be obliged to accept waste.
So despite the use of nuclear power
in developed countries such as the US, Canada, France and Japan,
Australia has long been regarded as hostile to uranium and nuclear
power.
It wasn't always that way. For a
time, it looked like Australia would join the nuclear club, both for
energy and weapons purposes.
The local history of uranium goes
back to the 1940s.
The Rum Jungle mine in the Northern
Territory, owned by the government and operated by Consolidated Zinc
(now Rio Tinto), was used to provide fuel for the UK's nuclear weapons
arsenal, and South Australia was used as a testing ground for those
missiles.
On Australia Day in 1958, the UK
provided Australia with its first nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights, and
by 1969 there were plans for a nuclear power plant at Jervis Bay, NSW.
At that time, the Liberal prime
minister John Gorton wanted to leave open the possibility of producing
nuclear weapons and refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty.
But after widespread protests,
Gorton's successor, fellow Liberal William McMahon, canned the Jervis
Bay project in 1971.
Retired nuclear scientist Keith
Adler, formerly the head of the Australian Atomic Energy Commission,
recently told a federal inquiry that anti-nuclear views were commonly
taught in schools in the early 1980s.
"At [the] Lucas Heights [nuclear
research centre] we had the experience of sending literature to high
schools and it coming back, sometimes torn in half," he said.
"I went to a couple of high schools
and, on one occasion, I met the then president of the Teachers
Federation. We went into the library and it was covered in anti-nuclear
literature."
And so in some ways Australia's
opposition to domestic nuclear power plants and its lack of nuclear
weapons means that its uranium mining industry is similarly
underdeveloped.
"Uranium was a proxy for nuclear,"
Pancontinental founder Tony Grey says. "For those who don't like
nuclear power, they can say they want to prohibit the mining of
uranium."
When Bob Hawke was elected prime
minister in 1983, the Labor Party soon instituted its Three Mines
policy, restricting uranium mining to the Northern Territory's Ranger,
South Australia's Olympic Dam and Queensland's Nabarlek - a mine that
has since been depleted.
The Labor Party had little choice to
allow mining at Nabarlek and Ranger, as both were already in operation
and Australia's good name as a reliable exporter would have been
smeared if they were suddenly closed down.
The case of Olympic Dam was a bit
trickier, as it was not in operation in 1983. But at the gigantic open
cut mine, uranium is actually a by-product of the huge copper deposit.
Copper brings in about 75 per cent of revenue, compared to 20 per cent
for uranium and 5 per cent for gold.
And the South Australia Labor leader
John Bannon wanted the jobs and royalty revenue the huge mine would
create - he needed them to help win the election and become premier in
1982. Therefore, federal Labor agreed to include Olympic Dam in the
Three Mines policy, although mining did not begin until 1988.
But Pancontinental's plan to develop
the Jabiluka deposit was thwarted.
The Howard Government quickly
overturned the Three Mines policy after taking power in 1996, but only
one mine has opened since: Beverley in South Australia, owned by US
company General Atomics.
But the ban on mining uranium in WA,
Queensland, NSW, Victoria - and, until recently, the Northern Territory
- is only one of many factors surrounding the uranium issue.
Energy Resources of Australia, which
operates the Ranger mine, has been stopped from developing the nearby
Jabiluka deposit because of issues with Aboriginal landholders. It
bought the deposit from Pancontinental for $125 million in 1991.
Although the Coalition declared the
Northern Territory "open for business" for uranium mining last year, it
remains a tricky operating environment.
"The most prospective area [for
uranium], perhaps in the world, is in the Northern Territory," Grey
says. "But that's bedevilled with Aboriginal issues."
The Mirarr people, native title
holders to the Jabiluka ground, argue that mining's social and economic
impacts would change their way of life. ERA and the Mirarr people
agreed last February to place the Jabiluka site on long-term care and
maintenance, and ERA will not develop it without consent from the
indigenous group.
Aside from the political issues,
however, perhaps the biggest hindrance to the development of
Australia's uranium industry has been the price of the commodity. At
the end of the Cold War, Soviet nuclear weapons soon became a cheap
source of fuel for nuclear reactors and depressed the price.
By November 2000, the spot price of
uranium was just $US7.10 a pound.
But the ex-Soviet supply has since
run out, and by the end of last month, the uranium price had quintupled
to $US36.25 a pound due to higher demand and a lack of supply.
Australia's next uranium mine looks
set to come from a Canadian company, SXR Uranium One, which has already
received approvals from the South Australian Government.
While Canada has much less uranium
than Australia, the North American country is the world's biggest
producer of yellowcake - and its capital markets are much friendlier
towards uranium companies.
In contrast to Australia, Canada
receives more than 12 per cent of its energy from nuclear power and its
CANDU reactor design has been sold around the world.
"The truncation of the Australian
development of uranium has had worldwide repercussions," says Grey, who
was born in Canada. "We sort of stood aside in order to allow the
Canadian uranium to develop."
Since he sold Pancontinental, Grey
has stayed involved with the uranium industry as a director of Canada's
Mega Uranium, which this week launched a $20 million bid for South
Australian explorer Hindmarsh Resources.
Mark Wheatley, an Australian who
serves as a director of Toronto-listed SXR Uranium One, says his
company listed in Canada in 1997 (as Southern Cross Resources) because
at the time "there was simply no support for uranium exploration and
development in Australia".
SXR, formed last month through the
merger of Southern Cross and South Africa's Aflease Gold and Uranium,
is fortunate that its Honeymoon project is in South Australia rather
than 90 kilometres away in Broken Hill, as there is a blanket ban on
uranium exploration in NSW.
Having gained nearly all of the
needed regulatory approvals, the $US30 million Honeymoon project could
be up and running in 18 months, but was delayed by the uranium price in
2004, given the relatively small size of the project.
When a study was done last year,
uranium was trading at around $US25 a pound. With the spot price at
$US36.25, and many analysts believing it will rise further, the board
has approved further development expenditure to gather the extra data
required to support a development decision, which could come as early
as the first half of this year.
Being in South Australia is
definitely a plus, with the Rann administration looking favourably on
uranium mining. Prospectors get government grants to help fund
exploration, and the environment is so cordial that the Australian
division of French nuclear giant Cogema plans to move its headquarters
from Perth to Adelaide.
"Adelaide, in five years' time, I
think, is going to become a real centre of activity for uranium in
Australia," says SXR's Wheatley.
Back in WA, however, large projects
owned by mining giants BHP and Rio - both of which might well be
economic at today's high uranium prices - are stalled indefinitely in
the face of Gallop's opposition.
For a time, Rio Tinto had looked set
to proceed with its Kintyre project in WA. It proved up a substantial
reserve base and installed a pilot plant to investigate how to process
the ore.
But development of the 35,000 tonne
deposit was stalled in 1997 because of the low uranium price. The site
was decommissioned and rehabilitated in 2002.
Now prices have risen, the
possibility of development is "academic", a Rio spokesman says, due to
Gallop's ban. But he says Kintyre is a good project that the company
plans to retain - meaning Rio seems hopeful of a change in policy.
BHP faces different issues with the
Yeelirrie project in WA, which it picked up with the $9.2 billion
acquisition of WMC Resources earlier this year (along with Olympic
Dam). At 52,000 tonnes, Yeelirrie is Australia's second largest unmined
source of uranium behind Jabiluka's 163,000 tonne resource base.
In the 12 years to 1983, WMC and
partner Esso spent $35 million planning Yeelirrie as an open cut mine,
but plans were withdrawn after Labor instituted its Three Mines policy
in 1984. WMC instead decided to focus on mining the 1.5 million tonne
resource base at Olympic Dam, by far the world's largest uranium
deposit.
Gallop's Government revoked
Yeelirrie's WA mining agreement last year, and a BHP spokeswoman said
her company's focus regarding uranium mining was "squarely on Olympic
Dam and its expansion".
While still in the early stages, if
approved, the proposed $5 billion expansion of the Olympic Dam mine
would be BHP's most expensive project.
So the mining giant has not decided
whether it would be willing to sell the Yeelirrie project - although if
it did, there would be no shortage of potential buyers.
With increased prices - along with
the Federal Government setting the stage for allowing exports to
China's booming nuclear power plant industry - projects not looked at
since the 1970s have suddenly become attractive for junior exploration
companies.
"Exploration activity now for uranium
is probably at the highest level it's been for 20 to 25 years," says
Fat Prophets senior resources analyst Gavin Wendt.
But Australia's history of shying
away from uranium means there is a dearth of uranium expertise.
"When you have a look at the number
of mines that are operating in Australia at the present time there is
very little operation and exploration experience in Australia," says
Wendt. "It's a real problem. You've got a generation of uranium
expertise that's rapidly ageing."
Malcolm Mason, who discovered
Paladin's Langer Heinrich uranium project in Namibia, serves as a
strategic adviser for Redport. It's one of the few Australian explorers
to have someone with uranium experience on board.
Redport marks Mason's second attempt
to develop the Lake Maitland deposit. He floated Acclaim Uranium in
1997 on the back of that, and other tenements, but now admits the
timing was "dreadful" due to the declining uranium price.
"The thing that fooled me was the
huge amount of nuclear weapons around," he says.
Mason returned from retirement to
take part in the most recent uranium boom. "The world is so short of
energy," he says. "You go talk to the Chinese and they are so desperate
for energy it's ridiculous."
Mason hopes the situation will change
soon, but like Paladin's Borshoff he believes the greatest hope for
uranium mining at the moment lies outside WA and most other Australian
states.
"[Redport is] looking for a variety
of deposits in a variety of countries," he says, adding "the political
risk [in WA] is real, and we would like to obtain assets elsewhere in
Australia."
--------------------->
CONSUMERISM
Headlong to growth overload
The Age
February 8, 2006
<www.theage.com.au/news/ross-gittins/headlong-to-growth-overload/2006/02/07/1139074226595.html>
The rapid growth in the global
economy is outstripping the ability of the planet's natural resources
to sustain it, writes Ross Gittins.
The greatest economic, geopolitical
and environmental event of our times is the rapid economic development
of China, closely followed by India's. Its full ramifications are yet
to dawn on us.
The bit we haven't twigged to is what
it might do to the environment. Two hundred years ago, the countries of
the West experienced an industrial revolution that eventually made them
far, far richer than all the other countries of the world.
What's happening now is that China
and India are going through their own industrial revolutions. But it's
taking decades rather than centuries because they're able to pick up
off the shelf the latest Western technology, as well as Western capital
to finance massive investment in factories and infrastructure.
Since 1980, China's economy has been
growing at a rate averaging about 9.5 per cent a year. That means it
doubles in size every eight years. India's economy has been growing by
only about 5.5 per cent a year, meaning that it doubles only every 13
years.
What makes this spectacular growth
far more significant, however, is that China and India are the two most
populous countries in the world, each with populations exceeding a
billion. Between them, they account for almost 40 per cent of the
world's population. By contrast, the rich countries of North America,
Europe, Japan and Australasia account for less that 15 per cent.
What happens when two such huge
countries sustain such rapid rates of economic growth? Well, for a
start, you get a lot of growth in international trade, since both
countries are pursuing export-oriented growth strategies. The Chinese
are rapidly turning themselves into the globe's chief source of
manufactured goods, while the Indians have already captured about half
the global offshore outsourcing business.
This is the bit that's frightening
people in America and Europe. All they see is low-skilled jobs
migrating to Asia. But the next effect is the two countries' rapidly
growing appetite for energy, food and raw materials, which perpetually
threatens to outstrip supply and keeps upward pressure on prices.
According to a briefing paper on
energy insecurity from the Lowy Institute, China is already the second
largest consumer of energy in the world (after the United States),
while India has moved into sixth place. Their joint share of world
primary energy consumption has roughly doubled over the past two
decades. Energy demand in both countries is also being boosted by
rising incomes and growing urbanisation.
We're most conscious of the effect of
demand on oil prices. By 2030, China is expected to be importing
three-quarters of the oil it needs, while India imports more than 90
per cent. But oil accounts for only between a quarter and a third of
the two countries' total energy consumption. Most of the rest comes
from . . . coal. (Sounds of Aussie cash registers chinking.)
By contrast, both countries are
largely self-sufficient in their consumption of food, even though the
average Chinese consumes today twice as much grain - wheat, rice and
corn - as in 1980, directly or in the form of livestock products. But
it's hard to see how this self-sufficiency can last. If extended
prosperity were again to double Chinese grain consumption per person -
to roughly the European level - the equivalent of nearly 40 per cent of
today's global grain harvest would be needed in China.
Then there's water. According to a
special article in this year's State of the World report by the
Worldwatch Institute in New York, China has just 8 per cent of the
world's fresh water to meet the needs of 22 per cent of the world's
population, while the World Bank has described India's water situation
as "extremely grave".
Crop land in China and India is
becoming less productive because of erosion, waterlogging,
desertification and other forms of degradation. Beyond worries about
what may happen to the scarcity and prices of energy and food, the
world will need to grapple with a more fundamental constraint: the
ability of Earth's ecological systems to support a continually growing
global economy while absorbing vast quantities of pollution.
The institute asks: "As China and
India add their surging consumption to that of the United States,
Europe and Japan, the most important question is this: can the world's
ecosystems withstand the damage - the increase in carbon emissions, the
loss of forests, the extinction of species - that are now in prospect?"
I doubt it. The concept of a
country's "global footprint" shows what its economy needs from nature,
measured as the number of global hectares of land and water, to provide
its material inputs and accommodate its wastes. The US, with less than
5 per cent of the world's population, requires a remarkable quarter of
global biocapacity to support itself. Europe and Japan, with 10 per
cent of the world's population, require another quarter. At present,
China and India, with almost 40 per cent, require another quarter.
What happens if the Chinese and
Indian economies double in the next decade? Remember that China already
uses 26 per cent of the world's crude steel, 32 per cent of the rice,
37 per cent of the cotton and 47 per cent of the cement.
The institute concludes: "Global
ecosystems and resources are simply not sufficient to sustain the
current economies of the industrial West and at the same time bring
more than 2 billion people into the global middle class through the
same resource-intensive development model pioneered by North America
and Europe.
"Limits on the ability to increase
oil production, shortages of fresh water, and the economic impacts of
damaged ecosystems and rapid climate change are among the factors that
make it impossible to continue current patterns on such a vastly larger
scale. Humanity is now on a collision course with the world's
ecosystems and resources. In the coming decades, we will either find
ways of meeting human needs based on new technologies, policies and
cultural values, or the global economy will begin to collapse."
Ross Gittins is a staff columnist.
--------------------->
Our consumerist culture is
unsustainable and the world must find alternative ways, says Robert
Newman.
<www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/consuming-the-future/2006/02/05/1139074104036.html>
February 6, 2006
There is no meaningful response to
climate change without massive social change. A cap on this and a quota
on the other won't do it. Tinker at the edges as we may, we cannot
sustain earth's life-support systems within the present economic system.
Capitalism is not sustainable by its
very nature. It is predicated on infinitely expanding markets, faster
consumption and bigger production in a finite planet. And yet this
ideological model remains the central organising principle of our
lives, and as long as it continues to be so it will automatically undo
(with its invisible hand) every single green initiative anybody cares
to come up with.
Much discussion of energy, with never
a word about power, leads to the fallacy of a low-impact, green
capitalism somehow put at the service of environmentalism. In reality,
power concentrates around wealth. Private ownership of trade and
industry means that the decisive political force in the world is
private power. The corporation will outflank every puny law and
regulation that seeks to constrain its profitability. It therefore
stands in the way of the functioning democracy needed to tackle climate
change. Only by breaking up corporate power and bringing it under
social control will we be able to overcome the global environmental
crisis.
Recently we have been called on to
admire capital's ability to take robust action while governments
dither. All hail Wal-Mart for imposing a 20 per cent reduction in its
own carbon emissions. But the point is that supermarkets are over. We
cannot have such long supply lines between us and our food. Not any
more. The very model of the supermarket is unsustainable, what with the
packaging, transport distances and destruction of national farming
sectors. Small, independent suppliers, processors and retailers or
community-owned shops selling locally produced food provide a social
glue and reduce carbon emissions.
All hail oil giants BP and Shell for
having got beyond petroleum to become non-profit eco-networks supplying
green energy. But fail to cheer the Fortune 500 corporations that will
save us all and ecologists are denounced as anti-business.
Many career environmentalists fear
that an anti-capitalist position is what is alienating the mainstream
from their irresistible arguments. But is it not more likely that
people are stunned into inaction by the bizarre discrepancy between how
extreme the crisis described and how insipid the solutions proposed? Go
on a march to your parliament. Write a letter to your MP. And what
system does your MP hold with? Name one that isn't pro-capitalist. Oh,
all right then, smart-arse. But name five.
We are caught between the Scylla and
Charybdis of climate change and peak oil. Once we pass the planetary
oil production spike (when oil begins rapidly to deplete and demand
outstrips supply), there will be less and less net energy available.
Petroleum geologists reckon we will pass the spike between 2006 and
2010. It will take, argues oil expert Richard Heinberg, a Second World
War effort if many of us are to come through this epoch. Not least
because modern agribusiness puts hundreds of calories of fossil-fuel
energy into the fields for each calorie of food energy produced.
Catch-22, of course, is that the
worst fate that could befall us is the discovery of huge new reserves
of oil, or even the burning into the sky of all the oil that's already
known about, because the climate chaos that would be unleashed would
make the mere collapse of industrial society a sideshow bagatelle.
Therefore, since we have got to make the switch from oil anyway, why
not do it now?
Solutions need to come from people
themselves. But once set up, local autonomous groups need to be
supported by technology transfers from state to community level.
Otherwise it's too expensive to get solar panels on your roof, let
alone set up a local energy grid. Far from utopian, this has a
precedent: back in the 1920s the London boroughs of Wandsworth and
Battersea had their own electricity-generating grid. As long as energy
corporations exist, however, they will fight tooth and nail to stop
this.
There are many organisational
projects we can learn from. The Just Transition Alliance, for example,
was set up by black and Latino groups in the US working with unions to
negotiate alliances between "frontline workers and fenceline
communities", that is to say between union members who work in
polluting industries and stand to lose their jobs if the plant is shut
down, and those who live next to the same plant and stand to lose their
health if it's not.
We have to start planning seriously
not just a system of personal carbon rationing but at what limit to set
our national carbon ration. Given a fixed national carbon allowance,
what do we spend it on? What kinds of infrastructure do we wish to
build, retool or demolish? What kinds of organisational structures will
work as climate change makes pretty much all communities more or less
"fenceline" and almost all jobs more or less "frontline"? (Most of our
carbon emissions come when we're at work.)
To get from here to there we must
talk about climate chaos in terms of what needs to be done for the
survival of the species rather than where the debate is at now or what
people are likely to countenance tomorrow morning.
If we are all still in denial about
the radical changes coming - and all of us still are - there are sound
geological reasons for our denial. We have lived in an era of cheap,
abundant energy. There never has and never will again be consumption
like we have known. The petroleum interval, this one-off historical
blip, this freakish bonanza, has led us to believe that the impossible
is possible, that people in northern industrial cities can have suntans
in winter and eat apples in summer. But as much as the petroleum bubble
has got us out of the habit of accepting the existence of zero-sum
physical realities, it's wise to remember that they never went away.
You can either have capitalism or a habitable planet. One or the other,
not both.
Robert Newman is a British novelist,
musician and comedian.
--------------------->
TERRORISM - NUCLEAR WASTE AND URANIUM
Terror attack fear for waste facility
NT News 1/11/05
By Nigel Adlam
THE Territory's nuclear waste
facility would be vulnerable to terrorist attack, one of Australia's
leading nuclear engineers said yesterday. Alan Parkinson, who oversaw
the clean-up of the Maralinga atomic bomb testing site in South
Australia, said the depository should be stored more securely. He
suggested Richmond air base or the Lucas Heights reactor site in New
South Wales. Mr Parkinson said waste would be attractive to terrorists
wanting to make a ''dirty bomb'', a crude nuclear weapon delivered by
conventional means. He said he doubted the Territory facility—which
will be built near Katherine or Alice Springs— would be guarded 24
hours a day. Terrorists could attack, steal the waste and escape long
before security forces could intervene. ''If terrorists can raid a
nuclear waste repository or store and steal radioactive material, they
can easily spread it by conventional explosives,'' said Mr Parkinson.
''Thus, the radioactive waste has to be well and truly guarded. ''I
believe it should not be dumped at a remote location simply surrounded
by a high fence. ''It has to be stored at a site with 24-hour guarding
and surveillance.'' The Central Land Council has come out against the
nuclear waste facility. The Northern Land Council has said it will
accept the depository if traditional owners are given a say in where it
is sited. But the CLC said yesterday: ''Despite assurances that the
radioactive waste will be carefully managed, the view of traditional
owners is that the radioactive waste facility poses serious long term
risks to country and people. ''Many Aboriginal people live near the
sites in small communities and outstations and they are extremely
worried about the proposals. ''They fought hard to get their country
back and they believe they should not be the ones to have to live with
radioactive waste on their land.''
--------------------->
Aust nuclear waste at risk of ending
up with terrorists: Downer
AAP News wire
By Max Blenkin
CANBERRA, Feb 7 AAP - The longer it
takes for Australia's nuclear waste to be stored securely, the greater
the risk of some falling into the hands of terrorists, the federal
government has warned. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told a
conference on terrorism and weapons of mass destruction that it had
taken a very long time to develop a national waste repository, a scheme
launched under the former Labor government but still not a reality.
Addressing the Australian Strategic Policy Institute conference in
Canberra, he said states and territories had taken the preposterous
view that no waste could be stored on their territory unless it was
produced in their territory." The sooner we build a facility the
better, he said.
"But we are talking about a low level
waste facility. We need medium and we need high level storage as well."
Those issues are going to have to be managed as well and there are all
sorts of political ramifications. But by definition the long this takes
the worse it is, the higher the risks.
We really need to get on with it."
Asked whether he was concerned that the slow rate of development of
secure nuclear waste facilities posed a security threat, he replied:
"The longer it takes the greater the risk." Mr Downer said the federal
government was building a facility for storage of Commonwealth low
level nuclear waste in the Northern Territory. He said nuclear waste
stored at facilities across Australia could not be used to make an
atomic bomb.
But it could be used to make a crude
radiological weapon, using conventional explosive to scatter
radioactive material, causing widespread contamination. Mr Downer also
warned that there was a danger a nuclear-armed Iran could transfer
nuclear weapons to terrorists. He said there was no doubt Iran had
direct links with terrorist organisations Hamas and Hizbollah. "There
is an argument that if Iran became a nuclear weapon state it could
easily transfer nuclear weapons technology to these terrorist
organisations," he said.
Mr Downer said others took the view
that it was unlikely the Iranian leadership would contract out WMD to
terrorists, even those over whom they exerted significant control."The
question here is do you want to take the risk. Every effort has to be
made to persuade Iran not to proceed down the path of enriching
uranium," he said. In his speech, Mr Downer said traditional techniques
for containing the threat of WMD were not enough and the Cold War tenet
of deterrence had little value in dealing with terrorists in
decentralised networks.
"Nor can we rely on moral repugnance
at the horrifying consequences of the use of WMD to constrain the
actions of individuals who have shown themselves to be limited only by
the tools at their disposal in the damage and death they seek to
inflict," he said. "In fact it is the uniquely gruesome consequences of
WMD which make them appealing to terrorists. The overriding imperative
must be to prevent terrorists from getting their hands on WMD."
--------------------->
Uranium security to be tightened
By Brendan Nicholson
Defence Correspondent
October 11, 2005
<www.theage.com.au/news/national/uranium-security-to-be-tightened/2005/10/10/1128796469464.html>
SECURITY is being tightened around
Australia's uranium production to prevent terrorists stealing nuclear
material.
A new report on Australia's role in
preventing the development of weapons of mass destruction says ASIO
this year completed a comprehensive risk review of uranium mines and
transportation.
The report says ASIO found no
significant shortcomings but said "some strengthening measures" were
envisaged.
Launching the report, Foreign
Minister Alexander Downer said yesterday there was a real risk that
terrorists could acquire weapons of mass destruction.
"We know that a number of terrorist
groups, such as al-Qaeda, are seeking nuclear, chemical and biological
weapons — and that in our own region, groups like Jemaah Islamiah have
similar ambitions."
Mr Downer said Osama bin Laden had
declared openly that he would use such weapons if he had them and Abu
Bakar Bashir, spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiah, recently stated that
the use of nuclear weapons was justified "if necessary".
"We know all too sadly the deadly
effect of Jemaah Islamiah's homemade bombs, but can we conceive the
devastation were they ever to get their hands on weapons of mass
destruction?" Mr Downer said.
"The terrorist menace makes our
efforts to address illicit WMD trade all the more urgent."
He said transnational terrorists
would not be deterred from using WMD by the threat of massive
retaliation.
He said terrorists were undeterred by
constraints such as deterrence, to which even maverick states could be
subjected.
"The only real constraints on
terrorists are the resources at their disposal to kill," he said.
Mr Downer said a handful of rogue
states were putting the nonproliferation regime under pressure. To make
the situation more worrying, Mr Downer said, the number of countries
with ballistic missile capability had increased more than threefold to
29 since 1972.
--------------------->
Nuclear option escalates jihad threat
<www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16774533%255E25377,00.html>
October 01, 2005
IN the past 12 months, influential
Islamist jihadist websites have carried an increased discussion on the
ethics and strategy of using weapons of mass destruction as part of the
global terror campaign. In the week when state and federal governments
in Australia have announced tougher rules to monitor and restrict
possible and suspected terrorists, we have to take this discussion very
seriously.
The Western policy-makers who deal
with this do so cautiously. Virtually nobody in authority is being
alarmist. But it is the WMD, especially the nuclear, dimension that
raises terrorism from the spectrum of gruesome criminality through
sustained insurgency and up to genuine strategic threat.
In an opinion piece for The Wall
Street Journal two weeks ago Prime Minister John Howard, in expressing
bitter disappointment at the UN's failure to do anything serious about
nuclear non-proliferation, noted that "al-Qa'ida has made no secret of
its ambitions to acquire -- and to use -- WMD".
The authoritative discussion of this
option among several key religious figures in the global jihadist
network should give us serious pause. Former foreign minister Gareth
Evans, now head of the International Crisis Group, while acknowledging
the real dangers, was this week urging caution and restraint in our
response to terrorism.
But his words on nuclear terrorism
were sobering: "We know very well how limited our capacity is, and
always will be, to deny access to terrorist groups to chemical and
especially biological weapons. But the same is true of nuclear weapons."
He spoke of the "stockpiles of
fissile material that litter the landscape of the former Soviet Russia,
and after the exposure in Pakistan we know far more than we did about
the global market for nuclear technology, materials and expertise, and
all of it is alarming ... the level of technical sophistication
required to make a nuclear explosive device is certainly above the
backyard level but it is not beyond competent professionals ... and
there is enough [highly enriched] uranium and plutonium lying around
now to make some 240,000 such weapons. Much of it -- particularly in
Russia -- is not just poorly but appallingly guarded."
In a new volume, Current Trends in
Islamist Ideology, published by the Hudson Institution, Reuven Paz of
the Israeli Herzliya Centre for the Study of Terrorism, examines
several definitive discussions and religious rulings on the use of WMDs
in jihadist websites.
Again, Paz is not remotely alarmist.
He notes the technical difficulty for terrorists in using nuclear
weapons and the relatively small number of such discussions in the
jihadist world. Nonetheless, they are disturbing.
In 2003 Saudi Sheikh Naser bin Hamad
al-Fahd published the first fatwa on the use of nuclear weapons (he is
now in jail in Saudi Arabia). Al-Fahd wrote: "If the Muslims could
defeat the infidels only by using these kinds of weapons, it is allowed
to use them, even if they kill all."
In a highly significant move, he
later published a long, theological defence, citing all the relevant
Islamic authorities and providing the kind of scholarly argument for
his position that is so important to the committed jihadist. He
discounted international law as this was not part of Islamic law. He
argued that the US had used WMDs in the past and it and its allies
possessed WMDs. He argued, with many recondite references, that Muslims
were enjoined to act to the full limit of their ability and this
logically necessitated the use of WMDs. His justification covered the
general question of using WMDs and the specific case of using them now
against the US.
As Paz comments: "Were any Islamist
group planning to use WMDs, they have now received the necessary
endorsement to do so from an Islamic point of view."
More recently, in December last year,
Abu Mus'ab al-Suri, a former leading theorist of al-Qa'ida, published
two documents on the "Islamist Global Resistance". He argues that using
WMDs is the only way for jihadists to fight the West on equal terms and
even goes so far as to urge Iran and North Korea to keep developing
their nuclear weapons, seeing them as potential allies. This is
particularly surprising as North Korea and Iran are generally regarded
as infidel regimes. Their mention in this context demonstrates the
flexibility and operational pragmatism even of global jihadism's
theoreticians.
He even criticises the 9/11 terrorist
attacks in the US for not using WMDs, and comments: "If I were
consulted in the case of that operation I would advise the use of
planes from outside the US that would carry WMDs. Hitting the US with
WMDs was and is still very complicated. Yet it is possible after all,
with Allah's help, and more important than being possible, it is vital
... the Muslim resistance elements [must] seriously consider this
difficult yet vital direction."
He is sceptical of the ultimate
strategic value of continued guerilla operations in Iraq, believing
they will not inflict a severe enough blow on the US.
He therefore writes: "The ultimate
choice is the destruction of the US by operations of strategic symmetry
through weapons of mass destruction, namely nuclear, chemical, or
biological means, if the mujaheddin can achieve it with the help of
those who possess them or through buying them."
Most of this discussion focuses on
the US as the ultimate target. However, other nations in the West are
routinely mentioned and in many cases secular Muslim regimes are
demonised. While naturally what one may call the theoretical
discussions of the jihadists focus on the US, it is clear that
Australia, along with countless other nations, is a target.
Global jihadism is truly protean; it
keeps changing into something new. Suicide terrorism has been a
devastating and effective tactic, as well as a kind of quasi-ideology
of its own. But there is no reason to think it is the end point of
terrorist evolution.
None of this means nuclear terrorism
is just around the corner. But these sorts of discussions have been
pivotal to the development of terrorist tactics in the past. That they
are now concerning themselves with nuclear terrorism in such a
considered and comprehensive fashion commands our closest attention.
--------------------->
N-terror the worst menace
John Kerin
October 11, 2005
<www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16880079%255E2702,00.html>
A JEMAAH Islamiah radioactive "dirty
bomb" attack on Australia ranks among the Government's worst terror
nightmares.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer,
launching a Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade report into weapons
of mass destruction, said a handful of rogue states, such as North
Korea and Iran, were jeopardising global security by trafficking in
weapons.
"We know that a number of terrorist
groups, such as al-Qa'ida, are seeking nuclear, chemical and biological
weapons, and that in our region groups like Jemaah Islamiah have
similar ambitions," Mr Downer said.
"Osama bin Laden has declared openly
that he would use such weapons ... and Jemaah Islamiah's spiritual
leader, Abu Bakar Bashir, recently stated that the use of nuclear
weapons was justified 'if necessary'."
The report -- "Australia's role in
fighting proliferation" -- says al-Qa'ida-linked groups such as JI lack
the capacity to develop nuclear, chemical and biological weapons of
mass destruction.
But it suggests the terrorists could
either steal materials from insecure nuclear facilities or obtain them
from proliferating states or underground networks.
The report adds that poor security at
nuclear facilities in Russia during the 1990s has added to fears that
radioactive material was smuggled out of the country and remains
unaccounted for.
The report says while a "dirty bomb"
-- which combines explosives with radioactive material -- would cause
mass panic, it might not produce mass casualties.
But Ross Babbage, head of new defence
think tank the Kokoda Foundation, said authorities, particularly in the
US, remained deeply troubled about the threat of a dirty bomb attack.
"There is great unease in the US that
some nuclear material was smuggled out of Russia in the late 1990s and
it still remains unaccounted for," Professor Babbage said.
"A truck loaded with some radioactive
material and conventional explosives could have a devastating impact on
a city. It could render an area unliveable for a year or perhaps
longer."
--------------------->
SA COMPANY - NUCLEAR WASTE
Nuclear deal in SA firm's sights
By MEREDITH BOOTH
Advertiser
07feb06
<www.theadvertiser.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,18062087%5E913,00.html>
AN ADELAIDE company is bidding for a
nuclear waste-management contract that it says could bring up to $270
million to the state.
Linkforce director David Osborne said
winning the deal for a Taiwanese nuclear power station's radioactive
waste management could lift his company's workforce from three to 30
engineers and bring $200 million to $270 million into the SA economy.
Design and construction engineers
would be taken on in the export of expertise for managing waste on-site.
Mr Osborne said China also offered
burgeoning business opportunities from its nuclear power industry.
"They've made provision for funding
waste management of it. The Chinese way of thinking is providing for
the future," he said.
Linkforce, a Hong Kong and SA-owned
company with an Asia-Pacific licence to use Geomelt technology, is
looking to Australia to contain hazardous chemicals and low and
medium-level nuclear waste. Geomelt technology was first used in
Australia in the late 1990s to contain 18 of 22 radioactive pits at
former British bomb-testing site Maralinga in the South Australian
Outback.
It used electrodes in the ground to
vitrify, or turn contaminated soil into rock, to trap radioactive
material.
The Maralinga contract ended in
controversy after an explosion on the site.
Mr Osborne worked for Linkforce's
forerunner, AMEC, on the Maralinga project but has also worked with
Geomelt technology in the U.S. to clean up former nuclear-weapons
testing and production facilities.
He said Australia was well behind the
U.S. and Asia in developing a strategy to deal with nuclear waste.
Linkforce had secured a contract to
manage hexachlorobenzene (HCB) waste, a source of cancer-causing
dioxin, from Orica's Botany Bay site in Sydney but this had been
indefinitely delayed by politicians, he said.
"The problem to a large extent with
any technology is nobody wants to be the first to use it," Mr Osborne
said.
Political reticence to deal with
nuclear and other hazardous wastes also made tendering for contracts in
Australia a drawn-out process, a reason why the company was focusing on
Asia.
Mr Osborne said it was a shame SA had
not grasped potential nuclear waste opportunities.
SA Chamber of Mines and Energy chief
executive Phil Sutherland said he was confident the State Government
would consider any reasonable project that would bring investment to
the state.
"As far as nuclear waste is
concerned, our geology is very stable and the far north of our state
features large areas of land that are remote and desolate," he said.
"Our uranium industry is governed by
stringent environmental and safety regulations. Unlike many other
countries, we have the benefit of a stable social and political
system."
--------------------->
IRAN, CHINA, WMD
Dangerous game of nuclear diplomacy
http://smh.com.au/news/national/dangerous-game-of-nuclear-diplomacy/2006/01/29/1138469607253.html
January 30, 2006
Pragmatism rules in some cases,
morality in others, writes Cynthia Banham.
IN LONDON tomorrow night, about 20
foreign ministers will sit down together for a meal. The ministers,
including the host, Britain's Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, and
Australia's Alexander Downer, will be in London for a two-day summit on
Afghanistan.
However, Afghanistan is not on the
menu of the dinner - it is Iran. Two days later the board of governors
of the International Atomic Energy Agency will talk on the same subject.
According to one government source,
the dinner will be a chance to "steel the resolve" of the international
community before the atomic agency meets, and "galvanise" its support
for the action the Americans and Europeans want the nuclear watchdog to
take - report Iran to the UN.
Australia is hardly a key player in
the brinkmanship being played out over Iran's nuclear ambitions. Yet
Australia's position on Iran is tough and unambiguous. It is "extremely
concerned" about Iran's recent actions and its plans for uranium
enrichment research, said a recent Department of Foreign Affairs
statement.
Back in Canberra recently Foreign
Affairs officials held closed-door discussions with Chinese negotiators
about a nuclear issue of a different sort. The Federal Government,
having announced in August it had agreed to export uranium to China, is
negotiating the sensitive nuclear safeguards agreement which will allow
that deal to go ahead.
The agreement will stipulate that no
Australian nuclear material is to be used for any military purpose -
although the Government has admitted it cannot guarantee this won't
happen. Detect any inconsistencies in the Government's handling of the
nuclear issue?
On one level, the situations of Iran
and China are hardly comparable.
Iran has a frighteningly extremist
President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has called for Israel's
destruction. Iran has among the world's largest oil and gas reserves,
and is hardly in need of alternative energy sources, rendering hollow
denials it wants to do nuclear research to build a bomb.
China is one of the five legitimate
nuclear weapons states which had nuclear devices before 1968, when the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty came into existence. It has a large
civilian nuclear program and has made clear it wants to expand its
reliance on nuclear energy.
"China is a recognised nuclear power
and a legitimate one, and it uses nuclear power not just for military
purposes; in fact for military purposes China uses nuclear power less
so than other powers," says Dr Gil Merom, an international security
expert from Sydney University, who sees no problem with Australia's
export deal with China.
With Iran, however, says Merom,
"everybody is rightly concerned".
While there might be no obvious
incongruities between the Government's dealings with Iran and China,
there is no denying pragmatism - of an economic and a strategic kind -
and not morality, directs Australia's nuclear foreign policies.
Take the agreement with China.
Australia has 40 per cent of the world's uranium resources and a
worsening trade deficit, and China has a huge demand for energy.
If there are any inconsistencies to
be found in Australia's nuclear policies, says Professor Hugh White,
who heads the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the university,
they are in the treatment of India and Pakistan. Both refused to sign
the non-proliferation treaty and went on clandestinely to develop
nuclear weapons, which they openly declared in the 1990s. Yet, says
White, Australia has given de facto recognition to their nuclear
weapons status.
He says there is less risk of an
Iranian nuclear weapon finding its way into the hands of an al-Qaeda
terrorist than there is of a Pakistani weapon doing so.
Downer's office denies any
inconsistency in Australia's treatment of different countries. That
Australia has refused to export uranium to India - a booming power with
huge energy demands like China - because it is not a member of the
non-proliferation treaty, his spokesman says, is proof of this.
--------------------->
NUCLEAR WMD PROLIFERATION
Newish Australian government
report/apologia - "Weapons of mass destruction - Australia's role in
fighting proliferation - practical responses to new challenges"
This is their pronouncement on all
things "WMD" proliferation, with chapters on:
* Overview: A
Changing World: Australia's Response
* The Proliferation
Threat
* Global WMD
Disarmament And non-proliferation Architecture
* Major Power
Initiatives in a Changing Security Environment
* Cutting Supply to
WMD Programs
* New Responses to
Contemporary Challenges
* The Proliferation
Challenge in the Asia–pacific
* Future Challenges
If you want to see where we are
headed, or where the government think we are headed on the issues of
nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, their proliferation and
countering the spread of these "WMD", this could be essential reading.
It does not address disarmament measures, but then is consistent
with the separation of disarmament and proliferation issues we
have seen in recent years by our governments and others. I haven't read
it in detail yet but invite your thoughts.
See all here:
http://www.dfat.gov.au/publications/wmd/
-------------------->
Published on Thursday, January 26,
2006 by CommonDreams.org
Living on the Edge: Skirting With
Nuclear Danger
by Alice Slater
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0126-25.htm
Speech by Alice Slater at the United
Nations, January 19, 2006
It is an honor to be here at the
United Nations to pay tribute to a genuine world hero, Colonel
Stanislav Petrov, who simply by his good instincts in 1983, went
against all he was trained to do and averted a terrible nuclear
holocaust on our planet. He refused to follow procedures that could
have led to the launching of the Soviet nuclear arsenal against the
United States, after he had observed an unexplained intrusion of Soviet
air space on his computer while serving as the duty officer at Russia's
main nuclear command center. It is incomprehensible that today, more
than 16 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold
War, the US and Russia are still targeting more than 3,000 nuclear
tipped missiles at each other’s cities, ready to go off with even less
assurances that an accidental launch could be avoided then we had back
in 1983 when Colonel Petrov performed his heroic act. Unhonored by his
own country for his extraordinary contribution to humanity, it wasn’t
until 2004 that the World Citizens Association acknowledged his
contribution. And I’d like to express my appreciation to the
Association for bringing this program to the UN today, to let the world
know that we are still not out of danger.
It seems, in 2006, that taking US and
Russian nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert would be a no-brainer.
The “Communist Threat”, used to justify the existence and development
of the huge US nuclear arsenals has evaporated. Surely we are in more
danger if the weapons remain in their current posture, than if we
separated the warheads from the missiles. While that would be an
enormous step toward a safer world however, it is not the main task
that lies before us. We have managed, under the nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty to keep a lid on the spread of nuclear weapons
for nearly 30 years, from the time the Treaty was signed in 1970 to the
time India and Pakistan startled the world with a series of underground
tests in 1998, announcing that they too had joined the nuclear club,
which under the NPT included the US, Russia, China, France and England.
Israel had also acquired a nuclear arsenal of about 300 weapons, which
the world learned about thanks to another hero, Mordecai Vananu, who
spent 18 years in prison for revealing Israel’s nuclear capability, 12
of them in solitary confinement!
But the underlying bargain of the
NPT, that the nuclear powers would give up their nuclear weapons in
return for a promise from the non-nuclear weapons states not to acquire
them was never honored. Indeed, the US is planning to refurbish its
entire nuclear arsenal of nearly 10,000 nuclear weapons, with design
plans for smaller, more usable nuclear weapons and nuclear tipped
underground earth penetrators. Since the time the Comprehensive Test
Ban Treaty was negotiated in 1992, the US started spending $4.6 billion
per year, now up to nearly $8 billion per year, for its so called
“stockpile stewardship” program that enabled these new designs to go
forward. England will soon be debating whether to replace its 400
nuclear weapons carried on its Trident submarine system. France, Russia
and China are also modernizing their weapons.
With the abhorrent US policy of
preemptive war, it’s new nuclear posture policy that authorizes the use
of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states, and its
designation of so called “rogue states” as the “axis of evil”, we are
reaping the grim whirlwind of that policy. We now see North Korea and
Iran relying on Article IV of the NPT to develop what is ostensibly
described as “peaceful” nuclear technology which would give them the
capacity and materials they need to build bombs of their own as a
deterrent against US threats. Article IV of the NPT provides an
“inalienable right to peaceful nuclear technology” as a sweetener to
the countries that agreed to forego nuclear weapons. The current flurry
of negotiations and the move to try to control the production of the
civilian nuclear fuel cycle in one central place, as recently proposed
by Mohammed ElBaradei, the Director of the International Atomic Energy
Agency, simply will not fly. It would be just an additional
discriminatory aspect of the NPT, creating yet another class of haves
and have-nots under the treaty, as was done with those permitted to
have nuclear weapons and those who are not. Now it is proposed that
some nations would continue to make their own nuclear fuel, while
others, such as Iran and North Korea, would be precluded from doing so.
It’s time to support a protocol to
the NPT calling for the establishment of an International Sustainable
Energy Fund, as we phase out nuclear power and begin to develop the
abundant energy of our earth from the sun, wind, tides, and geothermal
sources. Whoever heard of a terrorist attacking a windmill? Article
IV’s “inalienable right” to “peaceful” nuclear technology would become
obsolete, just as Article V, which provides for “peaceful” nuclear
explosions, has been rendered inoperative by the Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty which forbids nuclear explosions of any kind. Clean safe energy
is available to us now. We have the technology. We need to be vigilant
in providing the ample evidence against specious arguments that it’s
not ready, it’s years away, its too expensive--arguments which are made
by the corporations in the business of producing dirty fuel as they
spend millions of dollars in false advertising and planted stories in
the press.
These are corporation which don’t
want to lose their ability to continue to profit from the human misery
caused by nuclear and fossil fuels. The sun, the wind, the tides, and
geothermal energy are here in abundance for all the world’s people and
they are free. We already have the technology to harness the bounty of
the earth. And we know how to store it when the sun doesn't shine and
the wind doesn't blow, by using hydrogen fuel cells. It is clearly not
beyond our financial means, as argued by the corporate supporters of
toxic fuel industries?particularly when you compare the costs of clean,
safe energy to the hundreds of billions of dollars spent annually to
subsidize fossil and nuclear fuels. Not to mention the cost of war to
protect those poisonous energy sources.
So why don't we have it now? Why
don't we have a ten-year crash program to achieve a nuclear,
fossil-free, and biomass-free energy transition? Because of the forces
that insist on peddling their polluting and proliferating sources of
energy--their "cash cows". Once the infrastructure is created to
harness the sun, wind, tides, and geothermal, there will be nothing to
sell. It would probably be the best way to end poverty on the planet as
well--since poor countries can get free, clean earth energy, abundantly
available, and will not have to spend their meager budgets for their
critical power needs. We need new thinking and it has to start with
us?ordinary people who have no corporate interest in perpetuating
disastrous forms of energy on the planet. We mustn't buy into the
propaganda that it's not ready or that it's too costly. There's ample
evidence that those statements are falsehoods, deliberately expounded
by corporate interests to keep their profits coming and to oil the war
machine.
Now, with the headlines screaming
about imminent war against Iran, Mohammed El Baradei is proposing that
civilian nuclear materials be produced and controlled centrally to
avoid giving Iran and North Korea the keys to the bomb factory. But
going for controls and central processing of nuclear fuels, is like
starting down a path similar to the one we’ve been on for the last 50
some-odd years for nuclear arms control. Do you think France, Japan, or
the US, for example, will surrender control of nuclear materials
production, any more than the nuclear powers have surrendered control
of atom bombs? It would be a long drawn-out effort with discriminatory
rules in the end?when, instead, we could we be expending our energy and
intellectual treasure on shifting the energy paradigm to make nuclear
and fossil fuel obsolete. If, as we work to phase in safe, clean
energy, we continue to work for weapons abolition, we'll have a real
road map to a nuclear free world. Otherwise, I fear we are not dealing
with a full deck and are doomed to failure in two ways--halting nuclear
weapons proliferation and saving our planet from the ravages of climate
change caused by the massive carbon releases into our atmosphere. And
don’t be fooled by industry deceptions about how “clean” nuclear power
is carbon free. Fossil fuel is used in every step of the process of
creating these standing bomb factories?from the mining, milling, and
reprocessing of uranium to the decommissioning of ageing plants and the
transporting and storing of nuclear waste.
What are the prospects for taking
nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert and achieving nuclear abolition?
Last spring more than 40,000 people marched in Central Park calling for
the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons on the eve of the failed 2000 NPT
Review. More than 1,000 people came from Japan and we had over 40
Hibakusha - survivors of the terrible destruction of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki. The Mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have launched their
Mayors for Peace Campaign calling for negotiations for the elimination
of nuclear weapons to be completed in 2010 with complete dismantlement
by 2020. Abolition 2000, a global network of over 2000 organizations in
more than 90 countries is working with the Mayors for a treaty to
abolish nuclear weapons. It has drafted a model nuclear weapons
convention which is now an official UN document. Abolition 2000 has
recognized the inextricable link between nuclear weapons and nuclear
power and is circulating a model statute for the establishment of an
International Sustainable Energy Fund.
A newly formed Parliamentary Network
for Nuclear Disarmament is working with the Mayors and Abolition 2000
to get initiatives started in Parliament for nuclear abolition. Germany
has issued a call to work with like-minded countries to amend the NPT
to recognize the right to clean, safe energy as a human right and to
establish an International Renewable Energy Agency which would be added
as a protocol to the NPT. The Global Alliance for the Prevention of
Nuclear Weapons and Power in Space is working with grassroots groups
all over the world to support the Chinese and Russian annual
initiatives to keep weapons out of space which the US has repeatedly
blocked. The Norwegian Ministry of Finance has excluded seven companies
from their Government Pension Fund - because they are involved in the
production of nuclear weapons. A new Abolition 2000 Working Group has
been established to work on a divestment strategy. Another Abolition
2000 Working Group is campaigning to get US nuclear weapons out of
Europe where more than 400 US weapons are deployed in NATO countries.
Working with the Mayors and Parliamentarians, the Belgian Senate has
passed a resolution calling for the removal of US nukes from NATO. Next
year, a massive demonstration is being organized by the women of the UK
at Faslane in Scotland to protest the rebuilding of the Trident
submarine arsenals in England. Following the example of the women of
Greenham Commons whose 19 year protest and encampment resulted in the
removal of NATO’s nuclear tipped Cruise Missiles from the UK, we expect
this to be a great civil action that will serve to create a breach in
the armor of the nuclear powers, beginning with the UK.
This past fall, led by Canada and
Mexico, a group of middle power nations nearly succeeded in
establishing ad hoc committees in the Committee for Disarmament in
Geneva to begin discussions on nuclear disarmament and a space treaty.
Under enormous pressure from the US, they withdrew their proposal, but
promised to follow through next fall if there is no progress. The
Middle Powers Initiative is supporting this process and other potential
avenues to break the disarmament deadlock with its newly formed Article
VI Forum. There is a burgeoning grassroots movement for nuclear
abolition. The various elements must all be addressed. A realistic plan
for nuclear abolition includes the dealerting of nuclear weapons as a
first easy step. But if we do not phase out nuclear power and maintain
the heavens for peace, we will find ourselves in a state of perpetual
war with little chance for a lasting and peaceful nuclear-free world.
Humanity was given a great gift when Colonel Petrov followed his human
instincts to avert a global catastrophe. Let us not push our luck!
Alice Slater, President of the Global
Resource Action Center for the Environment, is an expert in the field
of nuclear disarmament. Email to: [email protected].
--------------------->
The new nuclear fear
January 11, 2006
<www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/the-new-nuclear-fear/2006/01/10/1136863236668.html>
The struggle to stem the spread of
nuclear weapons is being lost, writes Robert O'Neill.
TWO major challenges to our peace and
security lie not far ahead: managing relations with nuclear-armed Iran
and North Korea. These two countries extend the list of nuclear powers
from eight to 10. They present dangers in two ways: through pursuit of
their national agendas with their own nuclear weapons in the background
and by weakening further the whole international regime against
proliferation, in particular the credibility of the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty.
This regime is also under pressure
from the increased emphasis that the Bush Administration has been
giving to sustaining the usability of its nuclear arsenal. New weapons
are under development. The draft strategy prepared by the US Department
of Defence in March 2005 calls for the maintenance of an offensive
posture with weapons on high alert. The Bush Administration maintains a
right to use nuclear weapons pre-emptively against a country suspected
of preparing a major attack on the United States.
The incentives for nuclear
proliferation are rising while the credibility and cohesion of the
non-proliferation structure are declining. Governments in Tehran and
Pyongyang will be extremely difficult to persuade against acquiring or
retaining nuclear weapons in this context. Probably the real question
is what they will do with them.
A nuclear-armed Iran would be a
particularly powerful state. Iran has 10 per cent of the world's oil
reserves and the second-largest reserves of natural gas. In an
international gas market in which the potential role of the largest
supplier, Russia, is causing concern in Europe and abroad, Iran has
increasing political and economic leverage. In the high-cost oil era we
have entered recently, Iran's leverage has been further increased. Its
national cohesion has been tested through the 1980s by Saddam Hussein
and more recently by US-led sanctions.
Not only has Iran not fallen apart;
its determination to pursue its own, narrowly defined national
interests under the leadership of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has
been strengthened. Iran now has a very powerful position alongside Iraq
with potential to encourage the increasingly strong Shiite leaders and
generally to obstruct the US policy of trying to found a functioning,
recognisable democracy that can govern the whole of Iraq effectively.
Iran's calls for Israel to be wiped off the map have led to prime
ministerial aspirant Benjamin Netanyahu's public advocacy of
pre-emptive military strikes against Iran.
If the United States were not so
heavily committed in Iraq, there might be more discussion of a Western
military option against Iran but clearly the US now has little in
reserve by way of conventional military power. Given the slow rate at
which progress has been achieved in Iraq, and the cost in human and
financial terms, the Bush Administration's credibility as an alliance
leader has not been enhanced. In dealing with Iran, there is a strong
preference on the part of America's major allies in Europe, and the
Russians, to rely on multilateral diplomacy and to exclude the use of
force as an option.
The Russians, given their position
and their close links with Iran's energy industry, are in the most
powerful position to wield influence in Tehran. But the Iranians can
extend negotiations for a long time, and they have the leverage to stop
their dialogue partners from turning their backs. Will Russia stick
with the West or use this problem as leverage against the US for other
purposes?
The Iranians are not poor, they are
not weak and they are not deeply divided in their own camp. They have
been given some clear and expensive lessons by Saddam Hussein and by
wider regional events in recent years that must make them think that
nuclear weapons would be very handy options to have in their arsenal.
They have also seen how soon the great powers ceased berating India and
Pakistan for their development of nuclear weapons. The Iranian
leadership is probably not losing much sleep about whether to continue
their nuclear weapons-related programs.
We are going to have to live with the
consequences, which include a weaker non-proliferation regime, a
stronger and more assertive power in the Gulf with great local leverage
there, and a more dominant player in a tightening world energy market.
We will also have to live with the consequences of a more influential
Russia in the Iranian problem.
The second source of danger we have
to reckon with this year is North Korea. The country makes no bones
about the existence of its nuclear weapons program. It is a much weaker
power than Iran, politically, demographically, economically and
militarily. But it has in common with Iran a feeling of having been
treated as a pariah for a long time; it has cohesion and a leadership
willing to endure long confrontations; and it has a long record of
extremism in rhetoric and occasionally in military action and
infringement of diplomatic practice.
A North Korean strike against a local
power just before succumbing to external pressures is a very thinkable
possibility. The most likely target, for historical, geographical and
military reasons, is Japan. And Japan has virtually no leverage in
Pyongyang. The only power with much influence in Pyongyang is China. An
American military option against North Korea would require Chinese
consent that is most unlikely to be given.
The Bush Administration has learnt
several lessons from its unhappy experience in Iraq, which more
recently it has applied to the problem of North Korea. These include
placing prime emphasis on diplomacy rather than force, showing respect
for multilateral negotiations with and around the problem power, and
not falling victim to the nostrums of political evangelists who claim
to know just the person to set up and lead a new democracy in North
Korea. But while not stuck to the tar-baby here as in the Middle East,
the US does not have many levers to use on Pyongyang. Just as Russia is
a vital player in the Gulf, so is China in North Korea. For the sakes
of us all in the coming year, I hope it is the State Department that
will be in the ascendant in shaping the Bush Administration's policy on
Iran and North Korea, and that the President will recognise the
potentially vital roles of Russia, China and America's old allies in
Europe and the Pacific in preventing two difficult situations from
becoming much worse. The consequences of diplomacy breaking down
include regional war, nuclear strikes and massive cost, both human and
material. They also include two more steps on the way to a world of 20
to 30 nuclear weapon states. Just try to keep that under control.
Professor Robert O'Neill is a former
chairman of the Council of the International Institute for Strategic
Studies, London.
--------------------->
MI5 unmasks covert arms programmes
Document names 300 organisations
seeking nuclear and WMD technology
Ian Cobain and Ewen MacAskill
Saturday October 8, 2005
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1587751,00.html
The determination of countries across
the Middle East and Asia to develop nuclear arsenals and other weapons
of mass destruction is laid bare by a secret British intelligence
document which has been seen by the Guardian.
More than 360 private companies,
university departments and government organisations in eight countries,
including the Pakistan high commission in London, are identified as
having procured goods or technology for use in weapons programmes.
The length of the list, compiled by
MI5, suggests that the arms trade supermarket is bigger than has so far
been publicly realised. MI5 warns against exports to organisations in
Iran, Pakistan, India, Israel, Syria and Egypt and to beware of front
companies in the United Arab Emirates, which appears to be a hub for
the trade.
The disclosure of the list comes as
the Nobel peace prize was yesterday awarded to Mohamed ElBaradei, head
of the UN watchdog responsible for combating proliferation. The Nobel
committee said they had made the award because of the apparent deadlock
in disarmament and the danger that nuclear weapons could spread "both
to states and to terrorist groups".
The MI5 document, entitled Companies
and Organisations of Proliferation Concern, has been compiled in an
attempt to prevent British companies inadvertently exporting sensitive
goods or expertise to organisations covertly involved in WMD
programmes. Despite the large number of bodies identified, the document
says the list is not exhaustive.
It states: "It is not suggested that
the companies and organisations on the list have committed an offence
under UK legislation. However, in addition to conducting
non-proliferation related business, they have procured goods and/or
technology for weapons of mass destruction programmes."
The 17-page document identifies 95
Pakistani organisations and government bodies, including the Pakistan
high commission in London, as having assisted in the country's nuclear
programme. The list was compiled two years ago, shortly after the
security service mounted a surveillance operation at the high
commission which is the only diplomatic institution on the list. Abdul
Basit, the deputy high commissioner, said: "It is absolute rubbish for
Pakistan to be included. We take exception to these links."
Some 114 Iranian organisations,
including chemical and pharmaceutical companies and university medical
schools, are identified as having acquired nuclear, chemical,
biological or missile technology. The document also attempts to shed
some light on the nuclear ambitions of Egypt and Syria: a private
chemical company in Egypt is identified as having procured technology
for use in a nuclear weapons programme, while the Syrian atomic energy
commission faces a similar charge. Eleven Israeli organisations appear
on the list, along with 73 Indian bodies, which are said to have been
involved in WMD programmes.
The document also highlights concerns
that companies in Malta and Cyprus could have been used as fronts for
WMD programmes. The United Arab Emirates is named as "the most
important" of the countries where front companies may have been used,
and 24 private firms there are identified as having acquired WMD
technology for Iran, Pakistan and India.
A spokesman for the UAE government
said it had always worked "very closely" with the British authorities
to counter the proliferation of WMD.
--------------------->
NUCLEAR POWER, SAFE AS HOUSES. NOT.
Firstenergy Admits to Nuclear Power
Plant Cover-Up
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/34624/story.htm
USA: January 23, 2006
NEW YORK - FirstEnergy Corp. Friday
admitted that some of its employees made false statements to US
regulators about safety violations at one of its nuclear plants and
said it had reached a deal with the US Department of Justice to avoid
indictment of the utility.
The company's nuclear operating unit,
FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Co. (FENOC), agreed to pay a $28 million
penalty to the Justice Department and cooperate with criminal and
administrative investigations and proceedings. The penalty is the
largest ever imposed for nuclear safety violations in the United
States, according to the Justice Department.
If the company held to its side of
the deal, the DOJ would refrain from initiating criminal prosecution or
indicting the company for its conduct related to the problems at its
Davis-Besse nuclear plant in Ohio.
Davis-Besse, which can produce
electricity for about 900,000 homes, was forced to close in early 2002
when it was discovered that leaking boric acid had chewed a
pineapple-sized hole in the reactor vessel's carbon steel lid, a
serious safety violation.
Two former plant employees and a
contractor who worked on the plant were indicted in Ohio Thursday over
the alleged cover-up.
The indictment alleges that David
Geisen, Andrew Siemaszko, and Rodney Cook worked to conceal the
condition of Davis-Besse's reactor vessel head and lied about the
extent of inspections done at the plant.
Geisen and Siemaszko could face up to
25 years in prison if convicted on all counts. Cook could face up to 20
years in prison.
FENOC said it entered into the
deferred prosecution agreement with the Environmental Crimes Section of
the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the US Department of
Justice, as well as the US Attorney's office for the Northern District
of Ohio.
In the agreement, FirstEnergy
acknowledged that FENOC employees had submitted false statements to the
US Nuclear Regulatory Commission in letters arguing that Davis-Besse
could continue to operate safely and in compliance with NRC regulations.
It also accepted responsibility for
the violation of law.
"FENOC substituted its judgment for
what was necessary from a safety point of view for that of the NRC,"
David Uhlmann, chief of the Environmental Crimes Section. "There's no
place for that kind of brazen arrogance."
Uhlmann said he does not expect
further charges related to the violations at Davis-Besse at this time,
but wouldn't rule them out.
The plant went back into operation in
March 2004 after FirstEnergy replaced the reactor lid, made numerous
staff changes at Davis-Besse and revamped plant safety programs.
FirstEnergy said the $28 million
penalty would reduce its fourth-quarter earnings by about 9 cents per
share.
The agreement runs through the end of
2006. FENOC said it intends to remain in compliance with the deal.
In September FENOC agreed to pay a
$5.45 million fine proposed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for
the corrosion problem.
FirstEnergy shares fell 59 cents, or
1.2 percent, to $50.92 in late trading on the New York Stock Exchange
Friday.
Story by Michael Erman
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
--------------------->
Over 200 'abnormal events' at nuclear
plants since 2000
By Rob Edwards
http://www.sundayherald.com/53177
A DELIBERATE attempt to disrupt
security with a tripwire is one of more than 200 "abnormal events" at
Scotland's two nuclear power stations revealed in documents obtained by
the Sunday Herald.
Other safety incidents recorded at
Torness in East Lothian and Hunterston in North Ayrshire include
unauthorised waste discharges and problems with reactor fuel and fires.
The environment and equipment at the sites have also been contaminated
with radioactivity.
On a couple of occasions, manning
levels have breached those required by site emergency arrangements. And
once the wrong computer software was loaded into a reactor control
system.
The incidents were all reported to
the government's Health and Safety Executive (HSE) by the nuclear power
company British Energy in the last five years. The HSE released
summaries of the incident reports in response to a freedom of
information request from the Sunday Herald.
The most serious incident was the
discovery of the tripwire at Torness. Police were called to the plant
in March 2003 after a black cable was found stretched across the top of
a flight of stairs.
This had caused a security guard
patrolling the nuclear site to trip and fall down the stairs. Both the
police and British Energy launched investigations to try and trace the
culprit.
The cable was found to have been cut
from a coil at Torness, but forensic and other tests were unable to
track down the culprit. Investigations had to be abandoned due to a
lack of evidence.
The revelation of the incident has
rekindled fears that nuclear plants could be vulnerable to sabotage by
terrorists. Police chief superintendent David McCracken told East
Lothian councillors last week that Torness was a target for
international terrorist groups.
Pete Roche, a consultant to the
anti-nuclear group Greenpeace, described the tripwire incident as
"particularly worrying". The unknown insider who had set the trap could
still be working at Torness, he pointed out.
He said: "When considering whether we
want another nuclear station at Torness, we should ask ourselves what
kind of energy policy would Osama bin Laden want us to adopt."
Roche argued that many of the other
incidents at Torness and Hunterston were not trivial. "They illustrate
well that just saying we have never had a serious accident doesn't mean
we never will," he said.
Between June 2000 and June 2005
British Energy filed 230 incident reports about Torness to the HSE, 39
of then in the past six months. A further 59 reports were filed for
Hunterston B, 26 of them in 2005.
On February 17, 2005 at Torness,
according to one report, "a nuclear safety-related door in the
essential supply building was left open, thus degrading the hazard
boundary". At Hunterston on March 26, 2001 there was a "potential
discharge of boiler water via unconsented discharge route".
British Energy, however, argued that
most of the incidents were minor, reflecting the fact that it reported
any anomaly to the safety regulators. "By capturing and dealing with
the minor anomalies, the company and the industry ensures nothing
serious ever happens," said a company spokeswoman.
"The regulator is also able to prove
that it is holding us to account on the minute details so that the
public can be reassured about the attention to detail on safety. We
believe the public wouldn't want it any other way."
The tripwire incident had been taken
very seriously by British Energy, but nothing like it had happened
before or since. "Safety is one of the company's fundamental priorities
and any safety contravention is treated very seriously," the
spokeswoman added.
"In the nuclear industry there are no
grey areas. Something is either right or it is not. There are no
degrees of right or wrong."
04 December 2005
--------------------->
JAMES LOVELOCK AND THE END OF THE
WORLD
James Lovelock and the end of the
world
Edited version published in Crikey,
19/1/06.
Jim Green from Friends of the Earth
responds to yesterday's Crikey column on Professor James Lovelock's
latest book, in which he argues that it is unlikely that runaway
climate change can be prevented.
I must admit to considerable
scepticism when I hear James Lovelock's name. His work on the Gaia
Theory - on the interdependence of ecological systems - is important
and interesting. But it's not particularly original. His fame owes more
to his simplistic conception and presentation of complex phenomena. The
anthropomorphism of his 'Mother Earth' theory has probably also helped
to popularise it. And he has a poetic turn of phrase - "Through us,
Gaia has seen herself from space, and begins to know her place in the
universe" - which attracts mystics and repels his academic colleagues
in equal measure.
But my main problem with Lovelock is
that his proposal for a nuclear 'solution' to climate change, which has
attracted mountains of publicity, is so intellectually vacuous. For
example, he claims that less than 50 people were killed by the
Chernobyl disaster, but all the scientific estimates put the death toll
in the thousands or tens of thousands. Lovelock wants high-level
nuclear waste in the basement of his home to provide heating and for
food irradiation, and he insists it is a serious proposal. Suffice to
say that he is a self-declared eccentric.
Lovelock has had much to say about
nuclear power, but he does not address, even in passing, the crucial
issue of the contribution of nuclear power to nuclear weapons
proliferation. This is by far the greatest problem with nuclear power.
Four or five countries have used their 'peaceful' nuclear programs to
develop arsenals of nuclear weapons - India, Israel, Pakistan, South
Africa and possibly North Korea. In the five 'declared' nuclear weapons
states - the US, UK, France, China and Russia - nuclear power programs
provide a large pool of nuclear expertise from which WMD programs draw.
It is no coincidence that the five declared nuclear weapons states all
have nuclear power programs and that they account for almost 60% of
global nuclear power output.
Even if we were to wish away a
problem as profound as nuclear weapons proliferation, nuclear power
could at most provide a very partial and problematic 'solution' to
climate change. To double nuclear power output by the middle of the
century would require the construction of about 1,000 reactors with a
capital cost of several trillion dollars. The reactors would produce
1.5 million tonnes of spent nuclear fuel over a 50-year lifespan, and
they would produce enough plutonium to build 1.5 million nuclear
weapons. The climate dividend? A lousy 5% reduction in greenhouse
emissions. And that assumes that the comparison is with fossil fuels;
if the comparison is with renewables and energy efficiency measures,
nuclear power results in increased greenhouse emissions in addition to
the legacy of nuclear waste and plutonium. A US study found that, per
dollar invested, energy efficiency measures yield greenhouse emission
reductions seven times greater than nuclear power.
As for Lovelock's latest book, The
Revenge of Gaia, he is almost, but not quite, so pessimistic as to have
lost interest in efforts to reduce greenhouse emissions and thereby to
reduce the impacts of climate change. We can hope that climate sceptics
such as Mark Steyn are right, pray that Lovelock's doomsday scenario is
wrong, but public policy must be guided by the weight of scientific
opinion which holds that climate change is happening and that its
adverse effects will become more apparent in the coming decades. Few if
any scientists would argue that the situation is hopeless and that
climate change abatement measures are pointless. Therefore, we should
assume that concerted efforts to reduce greenhouse emissions will be
worthwhile and must be pursued.
Stripped of its extreme pessimism and
the mystical language, Lovelock is saying this: the adverse effects of
climate change are already apparent and will only get worse, so we need
to adapt to climate change in addition to ongoing efforts to reduce
emissions. There's nothing new there. For some years, Friends of the
Earth's 'Climate Justice' campaigners have been working with Pacific
island communities already effected by climate change, lobbying for
climate refugees to be recognised and if necessary resettled. In
addition, FoE has been campaigning for serious efforts to reduce
greenhouse emissions. Abatement and adaptation.
Recently, the ALP released a policy
recognising the need to address the problem of climate refugees. The
Howard government has also put more emphasis on climate change
adaptation in recent years, but it's no more than a cynical manoeuvre
to distract attention from its failure to get serious about reducing
greenhouse emissions. The government refuses to recognise or resettle
climate refugees.
In reality, the government is doing
little to avoid climate change or to adapt to it. Last week's
Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate conference
was typical. The government promised $25 million for renewable energy -
enough to build one wind farm. The government's record on renewable
energy is disgraceful - abolishing the Energy Research and Development
Corporation in 1997-98, withdrawing funding from the Co-operative
Research Centre for Renewable Energy in 2002, refusing to extend the
Mandatory Renewable Energy Target, and so on.
(Information on FoE's Climate Justice
campaign is on the internet at <www.foe.org.au/climate>. For more
information on Lovelock's nuclear advocacy, see Appendix 2 to the
report 'Nuclear Power: No Solution to Climate Change', on the internet
at <www.melbourne.foe.org.au/documents.htm>.)
--------------------->
USA - AUSTRALIA ANZUS ALLIANCE
America: the cost of alliance
<www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/america-the-cost-of-alliance/2006/01/08/1136655083334.html>
January 9, 2006
Increasingly, the alliance with the
United States is not in Australia's strategic best interests, writes
John Langmore.
WHEN Australia was the only country
to join the United States and Britain in the invasion of Iraq, many
United Nations diplomats and staff were surprised and asked why. The
answer begins, of course, with the trauma of near-invasion by the
Japanese in 1941-42 and gratitude to America for protecting Australia.
Australians sometimes forget, though,
that this action was a by-product of America's need for a base from
which to organise its response to the Japanese. President F. D.
Roosevelt told Richard Casey in 1941 that, while the US would go to the
defence of Canada if it were attacked, Australia and New Zealand were
so far away that they should not count on American help.
The treaties signed at the start of
the Cold War are strong bonds. The ANZUS Treaty of 1951 was a formal
expression of Australia's dependence on the US for protection and has
been a central element of Australian defence and foreign policy ever
since. All Australian governments for 60 years have, as Don Watson
comments wryly, "thought it wise to be friends with them".
The view that shared values provide a
strong basis for the alliance is misleading. There are similarities —
of language, ethnicity and political institutions — but even those are
declining.
Perhaps the Howard Government's claim
of "shared values" is simply a less explicit way of noting the extent
to which it has copied the market-fundamentalist economic ideology and
complied with the neo-conservative foreign policies of the Bush
Administration.
Crucial divergences are underlying
the national purposes of the foreign policies of the two countries.
Americans maintain their sense of being God's own country with a
manifest destiny to lead the world to freedom and democracy. Australia
has no global ambitions, and those related to the region are for
stability and economic advancement rather than dominance.
Shared values are not the determining
force for an alliance. The strength of a strategic partnership must be
determined principally by strategic issues.
The central fact about the
Australian-American alliance is that it does not mean much to the
Americans. Australia's support has been of value to US administrations
seeking to legitimise their actions — in Korea, Vietnam and the Iraq
wars — but Australia's military contribution to those wars was marginal.
Has the closeness of the relationship
added to Australia's security? The explicit mention of Australia in the
US National Security Strategy is reassuring to some. Bush has been
personally grateful for Howard's support. Australia has supported the
US in five major wars, but what difference does that make?
Professors Stuart Harris and Amin
Saikal of the Australian National University emphasise that: "The US
has long made clear that the US national interest comes first in its
actions. For Australia this was made very evident over its involvement
in East Timor, where the US, while helpful, extended only limited
assistance, emphasising the priority of its own national interests,
including its relations with Indonesia."
A potential issue of greater
importance is the possibility of conflict in the Taiwan Strait, in
which Australian and American national interests could well be sharply
different.
There are practical benefits from the
American alliance. By increasing the community's sense of security, the
existence of the alliance can probably keep Australian military
expenditure lower than it might be otherwise. Kim Beazley claimed when
defence minister that the US defence association saved Australia 1 per
cent of national income.
A second benefit claimed by
supporters of the alliance, readier access to American weaponry, means
little. The US Administration is seeking to waive licensing rules for
Australia to buy certain classified types of military equipment but
Congress has opposed the proposal. Australian policies do not give
congressional leaders sufficient confidence to relax controls on
exports to Australia since this might play into the hands of terrorists.
Another benefit claimed for the
alliance, the sharing of intelligence, is looking more like an
impediment to well-judged policy. There were substantial costs from
uncritically accepting the "intelligence" provided by the United States
about Iraq.
There are major political, financial,
and military costs from Howard's closeness to the Bush Administration
and his Government's imitation of American ideology and policies. These
positions restrict Australia's capacity to express its own
international priorities, have weakened Australia's independence and
its standing with regional neighbours and at the UN.
If it has any significance, Howard's
obedience is reinforcing the aggressive, unilateral American policies.
The likelihood of pressure to participate in further expeditions is
increased.
Opportunities to act as a catalyst
and supporter for conflict resolution, peacekeeping, and development
are lost. Integration of defence force structure and procurement adds
to defence costs, as do additional military expeditions. The risk of
becoming a terrorist target increases.
The Lowy Institute poll published in
March 2005 showed that two-thirds of Australians think too much notice
is taken of the US in foreign policy. Australia will be more secure
when there is an orderly multilateral system than in a world where the
only superpower reserves the right to unilateral pre-emptive use of
military force.
The issue is not whether to retain or
renounce the US alliance. To abandon the American alliance would erode
what little scope for influence is available to Australia, would lead
to increasing defence expenditure and would probably be electorally
unacceptable. Rather, the immediate issue is about the policies adopted
and advocated by Australia within the alliance.
Australia should affirm the value of
the multilateral framework and urge US multilateral engagement and
adherence to international norms, treaties and law. Australians can
also support the majority of Americans who want their country to be an
honourable participant in the multilateral system.
Former Labor MP John Langmore was a
director at the UN from 1997 to 2003 and is a professorial fellow in
political science at Melbourne University. This is an edited extract
from his Dealing with America: the UN, the US and Australia (UNSWP).
--------------------->
AUSTRALIA'S ROLE IN US MISSILE
'DEFENCE' PROGRAM
Australia's key role in missile shield
By Brendan Nicholson
The Age
January 7, 2006
<www.theage.com.au/news/national/australias-key-role-in-missile-shield/2006/01/06/1136387625745.html>
AUSTRALIA'S secret Jindalee radar
network, capable of "seeing" over the horizon, is a key link in a new
anti-ballistic missile shield that will protect much of the globe.
The missile defence system, designed
to protect America and its allies from missiles launched by "rogue
states", will integrate defensive missile systems on land and at sea
with spy satellites and the navy's new generation air warfare
destroyers. The warships are still to be built and are scheduled to be
operating by 2013 to 2015.
US scientists who have examined the
Australian-invented Jindalee system, which operates across Australia's
northern frontier, were impressed by its range and capability and
confirmed that it could detect a missile launch far away in Asia.
Officials from US aircraft and
weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin told The Age the Australian
system, officially known as Jindalee Operational Radar Network (JORN),
would be a highly effective part of the global missile defence shield
being developed by the US.
It significantly increased the time
available for a defence system to intercept missiles.
They would not give details of the
radar's range but said Jindalee, with its giant aerials across the Top
End, would be part of an electronic network, including spy satellites
and the yet-to-be built air warfare destroyers, able to pick up the
launch of a missile and, by tracking it, work out its target. The ship
or a land-based anti-missile system would then shoot the missile down.
On the face of it, the missile shield
system is designed to protect the US and its allies from missiles fired
by "rogue states" such as North Korea.
But its opponents say the system will
trigger an arms race by encouraging countries such as China and Russia
to build enough missiles to be sure of penetrating any defence system.
In briefings in the US, Lockheed
executives were enthusiastic about Jindalee's effectiveness.
While standard radar sends a signal
along line of sight until it bounces off a target ship or aircraft,
JORN bounces signals off the ionosphere, which lies above the
stratosphere and extends about 1000 kilometres above Earth.
The signal then bounces down onto its
target. In that way it can apparently pick up even sophisticated
stealth bombers, which are virtually invisible to standard radar.
In July 2004 Australia agreed to
co-operate with the US on missile defence and early last year
Lieutenant-General Henry Obering, the US Air Force officer overseeing
development of the missile defence system, visited Australia for talks
with government and defence officials involved in the Jindalee project.
US warships fitted with the Aegis
missile control system have six times tracked and destroyed missiles
outside the Earth's atmosphere. The ship fires counter-missiles to
intercept an incoming missile. This has been compared to trying to
shoot down a rifle bullet with another rifle bullet.
The immense heat generated by the
missiles smashing into each other vapourises any chemical or biological
agent.
Lockheed will not reveal the range of
the anti-ballistic missile system, but it is known to cover hundreds of
kilometres.
Australia will spend tens of billions
of dollars over the next decade keeping up with a world of
sophisticated military technology that will see increasing numbers of
countries developing long-range missiles that can be tipped with
nuclear, chemical or biological warheads.
Australia will buy three air warfare
destroyers, to be equipped with the Aegis missile control system, and
up to 100 high-tech stealth jets to replace the RAAF's F/A-18
fighter-bomber and F-111 bomber fleets. The Government has not yet
confirmed what it will spend on the Aegis system to go into the
destroyers but Lockheed is obviously keen for Australia to buy the
version capable of knocking down intercontinental missiles.
In this fast-evolving "networked"
warfare, there will also be a major role for the new Boeing 737
Airborne Early Warning aircraft.
The multi-purpose jet that is likely
to be bought by Australia is the Lockheed F-35 — designated as a joint
strike fighter (JSF). Two years ago Australia paid $150 million towards
the cost of developing the JSF and the Government is considering
spending $12 billion to $16 billion on the new generation
fighter-bombers.
It will decide in 2008 whether to buy
the aircraft, which were originally expected to be operational in 2012.
Lockheed officials said Australia was
not likely to have its first combat squadron of 16 joint strike
fighters ready for action before 2014. That is four years after the
RAAF's F-111 bombers are due to be retired and two years after the
first of its F/A-18 Hornet fighters are scheduled to be withdrawn from
service.
Lockheed executive vice-president Tom
Burbage also confirmed that Australia was the frontrunner to set up a
regional maintenance centre for the new fighter.
The original US plan was to produce
2457 fighters, most of which would be bought by the US Air Force, US
Navy and Marine Corps. The ultimate cost of the fighter will be clear
only when the US Government decides finally how many it wants. If the
number is reduced the cost of each aircraft will rise. Indications are
that the number will be cut back, but that will not be known until the
US Government completes its quadrennial defence review, due soon.
The cost could be pushed above the
$45 million Australia originally anticipated paying for each fighter.
Mr Burbage confirmed that the
"fly-away cost" of each would be about $67 million.
Deputy Defence secretary Shane
Carmody told a parliamentary inquiry recently if the US cut the number
of fighters it bought, the price of each would increase. There was a
view within Defence that that could force Australia to cut the number
it bought from 100 to 50, he said.
Brendan Nicholson travelled to the US
as a guest of Lockheed Martin.
--------------------->
SMART MONEY TAKES LEAVE OF URANIUM
Briefcase - Smart money takes leave
of uranium
20-October-05
Written by Tim Treadgold
WA Business News
What's wrong with this equation? Mum
and dad speculators continue to play the uranium game by investing in
penny dreadful exploration stocks, while three major shareholders in
Australia's biggest pure uranium producer sell.
Fairly obvious, isn't it? One side
buying, the other side selling. Less obvious is the fact that both
events flag the end to this phase of Australia's great uranium revival.
The sellers, in this case, are Cameco
of Canada, Cogema of France, and Japan Australian Uranium Resource
Development Company. All three have decided to cash in the chips they
hold in the Rio Tinto-controlled Energy Resources of Australia (ERA).
Cameco, Cogema and JAURDC are serious
players in the uranium game. Cameco, for future reference, is the
world's biggest single uranium producer with mines in Canada, the US
and the former Soviet satellite of Kazakhstan.
These three, with respective
interests of 6.7 per cent, 7.8 per cent and 10.6 per cent in ERA, opted
to convert their unlisted B and C-class shares into conventional ERA
shares, and sell while the price is high. In fact while the price,
according to Briefcase, is ridiculously high.
In Cameco's case it meant converting
a $20.4 million investment made in 1998 into $191 million in cash, such
as been the effect of the spectacular rise in the price of ERA shares,
which have soared from a 12-month low of $4.85 to a high this year of
$17.99, but have, more recently, eased back to $14.57.
Meanwhile, as experienced uranium
players exit the game, mum and dad investors continue to ask naïve
question such as "which uranium stocks should I buy?" and "do you think
they'll continue to rise?".
The gullibility is stunning.
Yes, there has been a run among the
uranium penny dreadfuls. Why, because the mob reckons that the time of
uranium has come, that the world is re-adopting the nuclear fuel cycle
as a viable, non-greenhouse gas energy source, and Australia is loaded
with the stuff.
Everything about this is true, but
three little issues are being overlooked
* time, supply, and demand.
On the small matter of time, that is
the time it will take to convert a uranium discovery into a mine, you
can add the political factor * and ask the question of when will the
Australian Labor Party lift its ban on the development of new uranium
mines. There are signs that this is happening, but the key event, the
2007 ALP National Conference, is still two years away.
On the questions of supply and demand
it seems to Briefcase that the world's 480 (or so) nuclear power
stations are quite adequately supplied, even if the spot price of the
fuel has risen (along with every other commodity) over the past year.
The higher price is a big win for
miners in production, such as ERA, Cameco and BHP Billiton, and there
is no question that they, along with everyone else with a uranium mine
anywhere in the world will be lifting output to satisfy demand.
And, on the question of demand, ask
this time-linked question: how long does it take to get government and
environmental approvals to build a new nuclear power station, and how
long does it take to actually build? To both questions the answer is
years, and more likely decades.
This comes back to the point about
the smart money, which understands the uranium market heading for the
exit, while less clued-up people continue to buy uranium penny
dreadfuls rather than do something sensible, like bet the house (the
wife and the kids) on the horse carrying the jockey wearing pink polka
dots in the fourth at Ascot next Saturday.
--------------------->
Investors vote with feet
12 October 2005
The Australian - letters
IF there was a real chance of the
Jabiluka uranium deposit being developed, why would three pro-uranium
shareholders be pulling out of Rio Tinto-owned ERA ("Uranium
enrichment: ERA minority stake vendors are glowing", 11/10) ?
These mining companies are voting
with their feet. And fancy footwork it is too. They know there have
been more than 120 leaks, spills and operating breaches at ERA's
controversial Ranger mine since 1981. They know the company pleaded
guilty this year to breaches of Northern Territory mining laws and that
it's due back in court this Friday for alleged breaches of occupational
health and safety laws. They know Ranger has only five more years to
run. Following that comes the costly, and as-yet undisclosed, clean-up,
closure and exit. And they know there is no reason to believe the
Mirarr traditional owners will change their position on ERA's Jabiluka
deposit. Large institutional investors should think hard about the
economic risks of having large amounts of capital tied up in dead-end
projects. Taking their money down to Flemington on the first Tuesday in
November would probably be a better bet.
Dave Sweeney
Australian Conservation Foundation
--------------------->
DIRTY BOMBS LABS IN AUSTRALIA
New 'dirty bomb' labs
Simon Kearney
September 28, 2005
<www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16745760%255E601,00.html>
A NETWORK of anti-terror chemical
analysis laboratories will be set up in capital cities amid fears
Australia could be targeted by a "dirty bomb".
The laboratories will be built to
accelerate Australia's response to any chemical, biological or nuclear
terrorist attack.
They will work in conjunction with a
new $17.3million research facility in Canberra, which will study ways
of detecting and countering terrorist attacks using chemical,
biological or radioactive material.
John Howard said the centre would be
federally funded and run by the Australian Federal Police.
A government source said the new
centre would be modelled on the AFP's bomb data centre, which was
integral to the investigation of the Bali terrorist bombings in October
2002.
"It's going to be pro-active, provide
technical advice and intelligence, and it will try and raise awareness
of the threat posed," the source said.
In addition, the centre will educate
police forces around the country about the threat.
In recent years, the federal
Government has given money to state governments to purchase equipment
to respond to a chemical, biological or radiological (CBR) attack.
John Howard said the National
Counter-Terrorism Committee would start developing a strategy for
dealing with such an attack.
A spokeswoman for Attorney-General
Philip Ruddock said that while the Government did not currently have a
strategy for a CBR attack, Canberra was conscious of the issue.
"It's an area we've been building
up," she said. "It's a cumulative and progressive effect (and) has been
the subject of funding allocations in previous budgets."
Australia's main response to the
possibility of a CBR attack has so far been the army's Incident
Response Regiment, based in Sydney and designed to respond quickly to
such an attack at home or overseas.
Australian Homeland Security Research
Centre director Athol Yates said the announcement was recognition that
the capacity of the Incident Response Regiment to respond quickly
enough with analysis was limited.
The new laboratories would supplement
and expand the existing capacity of hospital laboratories in capital
cities to analyse "white powder" threats.
Mr Yates said the new funding was
recognition that the threat of a "dirty bomb" was increasingly playing
on the mind of governments.
"It's recognition that radiological,
chemical and biological weapons are a realistic threat, compared to in
the past, where they were more a fanciful threat."
--------------------->
HEALTH HAZARDS OF LOW-LEVEL RADIATION
Radiation Dangerous Even at Lowest
Doses
Science, Vol 309, Issue 5732, 233 , 8
July 2005, p. 233.
Jocelyn Kaiser
A new National Research Council (NRC)
report* finds that although the risks of low-dose radiation are small,
there is no safe level. That conclusion has grown stronger over the
past 15 years, says the NRC committee, dismissing the hypothesis that
tiny amounts of radiation are harmless or even beneficial.
The risk of low-level radiation has
huge economic implications because it affects standards for protecting
nuclear workers and for cleaning up radioactive waste. The Biological
Effects of Ionizing Radiation VII (BEIR VII) panel examined radiation
doses at or below 0.1 sieverts (Sv), which is about twice the yearly
limit for workers and 40 times the natural background amount the
average person is exposed to each year. For typical Americans, 82% of
exposure stems from natural sources such as radon gas seeping from
Earth; the rest is humanmade, coming mostly from medical procedures
such as x-rays.
In its last report on the topic in
1990, a BEIR panel calculated risks by plotting cancer cases and doses
for survivors of the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan in World War II.
Risks appeared to increase linearly with the dose. Based on evidence
that even a single "track" of radiation can damage a cell's DNA, the
panel extrapolated this relationship to very low doses to produce what
is known as the linear no-threshold model (LNT).
Some scientists have challenged this
LNT model, however, noting that some epidemiological and lab studies
suggest that a little radiation is harmless and could even stimulate
DNA repair enzymes and other processes that protect against later
insults, an idea known as hormesis (Science, 17 October 2003, p. 378).
But the 712-page BEIR VII report
finds that the LNT model still holds. The panel had the latest cancer
incidence data on the bomb survivors, as well as new dose information.
Committee members also reviewed fresh studies on nuclear workers and
people exposed to medical radiation, all of which supported the LNT
relationship. The model predicts that a single 0.1-Sv dose would cause
cancer in 1 of 100 people over a lifetime. Such risks should be taken
into account, the report cautions, when people consider full-body
computed tomography scans, a recent fad that delivers a radiation dose
of 0.012 Sv.
At the same time, notes panelist
Ethel Gilbert, an epidemiologist at the National Cancer Institute in
Bethesda, Maryland, "we can't really pinpoint" the risk at the lowest
doses.
The BEIR VII panel examined the
latest evidence for a threshold. But it found that "ecologic" studies
suggesting that people in areas with naturally high background
radiation levels do not have elevated rates of disease are of limited
use because they don't include direct measures of radiation exposures.
The panel also concluded that animal and cell studies suggesting
benefits or a threshold for harm are not "compelling," although
mechanisms for possible "hormetic effects" should be studied further.
Toxicologist Ed Calabrese of the
University of Massachusetts, Amherst, a vocal proponent of the hormesis
hypothesis, says the panel didn't examine enough studies. "It would be
better if more of the details were laid out instead of [hormesis] just
being summarily dismissed," he says. The panel's chair, Harvard
epidemiologist Richard Monson, acknowledges that the long-running
debate over the LNT model won't end with this report, noting that "some
minds will be changed; others will not."
* Health Risks from Exposure to Low
Levels of Ionizing Radiation: BEIR VII
Phase 2
<books.nap.edu/catalog/11340.html>
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