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NO NUKES NEWS
SEPTEMBER 2007
Clean energy - various - energy efficiency - geothermal - wind - bioenergy
Uranium sales to India and Russia
Uranium -Roxby Downs expansion
Australian Nuclear Free Alliance
Critique of so-called Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office
Nuclear power for Australia - various
Nuclear power for Australia - plebiscites, backflips
Nuclear power for Australia - local councils
Nuclear research in Australia
Nuclear dump proposed for the NT
Australia to join Global Nuclear Energy Partnership?
Nuclear weapons
Nuclear power and weapons - flaws in the safeguards system
Nuclear weapons - victims of US nuclear weapons program
Smuggling - China
Earthquakes and nuclear plants
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CLEAN ENERGY - VARIOUS
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Energy giant backs 20% renewables
Marian Wilkinson, Environment Editor
August 30, 2007
http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/energy-giant-backs-20-renewables/2007/08/29/1188067191612.html
WIND, solar and
other renewable energy should make up 20 per cent of power needs within
12 years if Australia wants to seriously cut the carbon emissions
causing climate change, the head of the energy giant AGL said.
AGL's chief
executive, Paul Anthony, is calling on the Prime Minister, John Howard,
and the Opposition Leader, Kevin Rudd, to set a renewable energy target
of 20 per cent by 2020, a far more ambitious goal than either side has
agreed to so far.
"Look at the
rest of the world," Mr Anthony told the Herald. "You can't effectively
have a carbon abatement scheme without a very, very strong national
obligation for renewable energy."
Mr Anthony's
comments come as the major parties are examining targets for renewable
energy in the lead-up to the federal election. For a decade, the Howard
Government has resisted raising the mandatory national target for
renewable energy above 2 per cent. Labor is expected to release its
target soon.
Mr Anthony has
been appointed chairman of the sustainable energy pressure group which
is about to become the Clean Energy Council. His company has one of the
largest retail energy businesses in Australia, with 3.6 million
customers.
He also
criticised the Howard Government approach to a carbon emissions trading
scheme, which is supposed to set a price on carbon from fossil fuels
that are causing pollution.
While committed
to a trading scheme by 2012, neither Mr Howard nor Mr Rudd will set
national targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions until after the
election. Without targets, the emissions trading scheme cannot operate.
Mr Anthony said business was concerned that there was still so much
confusion over how the scheme would work.
"The piecemeal disclosure of the Government's thinking worries us," he said.
"We are finding
it difficult to understand the logic." Most concerning, he said, was
the plan by the Government to auction some permits to emit greenhouse
gases but give permits or exemptions to particular industries.
Questions were
raised about AGL's commitment to renewable energy recently when it
dropped its plans to build the Dollar Wind Farm in Victoria. Mr Anthony
insisted this was simply because there were better sites elsewhere.
"We've got a strong appetite for wind," he said, pointing to plans to build a $600 million wind farm at Macarthur in Victoria.
Mr Anthony said he believed Australia could economically make deep cuts in its greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
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Matter of time until renewable energy is competitive
30 August 2007
http://canberra.yourguide.com.au/detail.asp?class=your+say&subclass=general&story_id=1045135&category=letters+to+the+editor
Contrary to the
assertions of Peter Lang (Letters, July 31, August 27), a renewable
energy future is eminently feasible and no more costly than other
low-emission technologies.
The
intermittency of some (but not all) forms of renewable energy can
already be managed at modest cost by: demand management (shifting loads
from night to day); wide geographic dispersal (to minimise the effect
of local cloud); technology diversity (photovoltaics, solar thermal,
wind and wave); dispatchability (biomass, hydro and geothermal can
generate at any time); storage (hot water, hot rocks, pumped
hydroelectric storage etc); the judicious use of natural gas.
It will be several decades before renewables dominate energy markets, allowing time to develop additional solutions.
The solar and
wind energy industries are doubling in size every two years and costs
are falling. Wind, hydro, solar heaters and biomass from waste are
already fully competitive with both nuclear energy and the predicted
future cost of zero-emission fossil fuel.
The cost of photovoltaics on building roofs will soon fall below the retail price of electricity in many countries.
The mass of
mined material and waste per unit of energy produced is 100 times
smaller for solar than for fossil and nuclear energy systems.
Widely
dispersed renewable energy generation is of low utility to terrorists.
There are minimal impacts from accidents, no energy resource wars and
no risks of nuclear weapons proliferation.
Renewable energy is a good solution.
Professor Andrew Blakers, director, ARC Centre for Solar Energy Systems Australian National University
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Matter of time until renewable energy is competitive
30 August 2007
http://canberra.yourguide.com.au/detail.asp?class=your+say&subclass=general&story_id=1045135&category=letters+to+the+editor
It is apparent
from a number of letters over the past few weeks that there is still a
lot of ignorance in the community regarding renewable energy.
I guess this is
only to be expected, given the Government's fossil fuel and nuclear
bias. Consider that nuclear has its own promoting body, ANSTO, with a
high-profile director (Dr Ziggy Switkowski) whose appointment was
announced by Minister Julie Bishop.
Where is the
solar energy equivalent of ANSTO? Which high-profile person will
receive a highly publicised appointment to the directorship?
Those who are concerned about subsidies for renewable energy technologies should have a look at the research of Dr Chris Riedy.
He identified
about $9 billion of taxpayer subsidies that go to fossil fuel
industries, every year. I'm sure if these biases were removed, we'd see
a number of renewable energy technologies rapidly become competitive.
Stephen Wootten, Bungendore, NSW
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SA's green energy credentials under fire
Article from: The Advertiser
MICHAEL OWEN, POLITICAL REPORTER
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,22180929-2682,00.html
August 03, 2007 02:15am
THE State
Government has been attacked by the nation's leading advocate for
sustainable energy over a lack of mandatory renewable energy targets in
South Australia.
The 280-member
Australian Business Council for Sustainable Energy says Premier Mike
Rann is claiming credit for renewable energy investment in SA, despite
other states and the Federal Government being responsible.
This is because
other states, notably Victoria and NSW, and the Commonwealth require
electricity retailers to buy a certain percentage of their electricity
from renewable sources, such as wind farms, and surrender certificates
they get when they buy the electricity.
SA has no such system in place, the council argues.
But Mr Rann
said mandatory targets would increase prices by about 10 per cent for
South Australians and were unnecessary because other policy initiatives
were in place.
"We are
achieving market penetrations for renewable energy that are already
better than those being aimed for in the jurisdictions with mandatory
targets," he said.
"No other state comes within cooee, which shows how hopelessly out of touch the BCSE and eastern-seaboard focus is."
However, BCSE
executive director Ric Brazzale said the structure of the renewable
energy market meant an interstate retailer could use an SA wind farm to
get its renewable energy certificate, without having to invest in more
wind farms.
If SA had mandatory targets, there would have to be more investment in renewable energy, he said.
While SA's
Climate Change and Greenhouse Emissions Reduction Act (2007) includes
renewable energy targets of 20 per cent by 2014, the council said the
targets were not mandatory.
" . . . none of
the investment in renewable power projects in SA can be attributed to
the renewable energy target of the Rann Government," Mr Brazzale said.
"The SA Government runs the risk of being seen as free-riding on the policies of other governments."
But Mr Rann said the BCSE was "taking a very narrow view of SA's achievements in this area".
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CLEAN ENERGY - ENERGY EFFICIENCY
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Energy Efficiency Seen Easiest Path to Aid Climate
AUSTRIA: August 29, 2007
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/43998/story.htm
VIENNA - Energy
efficiency for power plants, cars or homes is the easiest way to slow
global warming in a long-term investment shift that will cost hundreds
of billions of dollars, the United Nations said on Tuesday.
A UN report
about climate investments, outlined to a meeting in Vienna of 1,000
delegates from 158 nations, also said emissions of greenhouse gases
could be curbed more cheaply in developing nations than in rich states
in coming decades.
The cash needed
to return rising emissions, mainly from burning fossil fuels, to
current levels by 2030 would amount to 0.3 to 0.5 percent of projected
gross domestic product (GDP), or 1.1 to 1.7 percent of global
investment flows, in 2030, it said.
"Energy
efficiency is the most promising means to reduce greenhouse gases in
the short term," said Yvo de Boer, the head of the UN Climate Change
Secretariat, presenting the report to the Aug. 27-31 meeting.
That could mean tougher standards for cars, factories, coal-fired power plants or buildings in using fossil fuels.
And government
policies could encourage people to pick energy efficient lightbulbs,
for instance, or discourage them from wasting energy by heating empty
outdoor terraces.
The 216-page report was published online last week.
De Boer said
the study could help guide governments, meeting in Austria to discuss a
longer-term strategy against global warming beyond the UN's Kyoto
Protocol. The protocol binds 35 rich nations to cap emissions of
greenhouse gases by 2008-12.
The report
estimates that "global additional investment and financial flows of
US$200 billion-$210 billion will be necessary in 2030 to return
greenhouse gas emissions to current levels", including measures for
energy supply, forestry and transport.
The study
foresees a shift to renewable energies such as solar and hydropower,
and some nuclear power. Environmentalists say that the report lacks
ambition and that emissions need to be below current levels by 2030.
The report also
estimates that investments in helping nations adapt to the impact of
climate change would run to tens of billions of dollars in 2030, such
as treating more cases of malaria or building dykes to protect beaches
from rising seas.
It said carbon
markets would have to be "significantly expanded to address needs for
additional investments and financial flows." Companies are now
responsible for about 60 percent of global investments.
Harlan Watson,
the chief US climate negotiator, said it was unclear how governments
could mobilise such vast investments by the private sector. "That's a
key question," he said.
The report
fills in some gaps in a wider picture given by previous studies such as
one by former World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern saying it would
be cheaper to confront climate change now than wait to combat the
consequences.
UN reports this year have also projected that warming will bring more heatwaves, droughts, disease and rising seas.
De Boer said investments to developing nations should rise.
"The bulk of
cost-effective opportunities are in developing countries," he said,
adding that did not mean that rich nations should seek only to invest
abroad rather than at home.
"More than half
the energy investment needed is in developing countries," he said.
China is opening coal-fired power plants at a rate of two per week to
feed its growing economy and cleaner technology would help the climate.
Story by Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
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It makes sense to become energy efficient
Tim Colebatch
August 28, 2007
http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/it-makes-sense-to-become-energy-efficient/2007/08/27/1188067029984.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
MOST of the big
options in tackling climate change are very expensive, but some of the
smaller ones are actually quite profitable. They are what economists
call "low-hanging fruit": easy to harvest, costing us little or
nothing, yet delivering valuable benefits.
The management
consultants McKinseys a while back produced a study ranking the cost of
different measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The cheapest,
improving the efficiency of appliances, cost minus $150-$175 for every
tonne of emissions saved. (Yes, you read that right. The cost is
negative. You actually pocket $150 to $175 with every tonne of
emissions you save.)
Federal
Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull and his predecessor, Ian
Campbell, have outflanked Labor several times in the past year with
initiatives to pluck that low-hanging fruit. Last year Campbell ordered
appliance manufacturers to cut their products' electricity use in
standby mode to just 1 watt by 2012. That might seem a minor matter,
but the Australian Greenhouse Office tells us that 7 per cent of our
entire household use of electricity comes from appliances when they are
not actually being used.
That alone,
Campbell said, would cut Australia's annual emissions by 2.5 million
tonnes. They will also reduce our power bills. Emissions cuts don't
come easier than that.
Lighting uses
12 per cent of household power, mostly because, thanks to familiarity
and inertia, Australians usually buy filament bulbs — which are cheap
to buy, expensive to run, burn up the energy and then die young. Fluoro
bulbs cost more at the supermarket, but last 10 times as long and use
far less power. This is ridiculous, said Turnbull, and he ordered
filament bulbs to leave the house by 2011.
Good move, sir!
That will not only save another 4 million tonnes a year of greenhouse
gases, but over time it will also save us a small but appreciable sum
of money.
Now Labor's
minders have finally allowed Peter Garrett to strike back, and at a
bigger target: electric hot-water heaters. Last week Garrett declared
that Labor in government would ban the installation of electric
hot-water heaters, except in blocks of flats, or in areas where you
can't get reticulated natural gas.
That's a big
one, and Turnbull was clearly envious. Government figures show water
heaters are by far the biggest consumers of household energy,
accounting for 28 per cent of energy use in the home. That's largely
because half of Australia's homes still use electricity to heat their
water, even though gas is cheaper — and, in most of Australia, so are
solar water heaters.
That is
changing rapidly. Already in 2006, the authoritative BIS Shrapnel
survey found just 8 per cent of new water heaters installed in Victoria
were electric, whereas 73 per cent were gas and 19 per cent some form
of solar heaters or heat pumps. Electric heaters are still far more
popular in New South Wales and Queensland, but even there the tide is
turning.
That's not surprising.
As Prime
Minister John Howard has pointed out, you cannot tackle climate change
without making it more expensive to use electricity. Prices have soared
in wholesale markets, and even at retail level NSW prices regulator
Mike Keating has approved rises of 7 to 8 per cent for the next three
years, with a lot more of that ahead as emissions caps bite.
It makes sense
to stop using electricity where other fuels can do the job better. Even
in Melbourne, an average solar heater can provide two-thirds of a
household's hot-water needs. A recent report to the State Government by
consultants George Wickenfeld and Associates and Energy Efficient
Strategies implies that, after subsidies, a solar heater costs about
$1750 more to buy and install than an electric one, or $1500 more than
gas. Over time, the annual savings will offset that, although in
Melbourne, if cost is the issue, gas is the best answer.
The further
north you go, however, the more the odds shift in solar's favour.
Queensland and South Australia have already banned electric water
heaters in new houses, and WA will join them next week. Queensland has
already moved to extend this ban to replacement heaters in existing
homes where piped gas is available, and that is what Garrett now
proposes at a national level.
It was all too
much for the climate sceptics at The Australian. "Garrett's $6.5
billion hot water bill," they screamed, claiming that "households will
have to pay up to $6.5 billion extra to replace their electric hot
water systems" under Garrett's policy.
Last month the
same newspaper and environment writer told us: "New solar hot water
systems could become effectively free for some households courtesy of a
matrix of generous rebates and other subsidies." Now he claims those
heaters will cost us $2800 more.
The Australian
did not explain how it arrived at its "bill", which is nonsense. At
most, 4 million households have electric systems now. Many of them live
in flats or areas without gas; they would be exempt under Labor's
policy. Many others live in Queensland, where the policy already
applies. Many of those to whom it will apply will choose gas, at little
extra cost. And most of those who choose solar will get the $1000
subsidy.
The paper
failed to mention the offsetting benefits. A five-star gas heater is
cheaper to run than even off-peak electricity, and solar power is free.
Turnbull and the Greenhouse Office cite savings of up to $300 a year,
per household. That's a good return on a net investment of $1750.
Rod Sims, once
Bob Hawke's economic adviser and now managing director of Pacific
Energy Partners, has called on governments to regulate greater energy
efficiency "to ensure that people pick up the $100 notes lying on the
street". That is what banning electric systems will do.
Tim Colebatch is economics editor.
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CLEAN ENERGY - GEOTHERMAL
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Geodynamics generates hot interest
Peter Hannam
August 13, 2007
http://www.theage.com.au/news/business/geodynamics-generates-hot-interest/2007/08/12/1186857344494.html
GEODYNAMICS
will this week begin drilling Australia's first commercial-scale
geothermal well, the first step to a "proof of concept" test planned
for the end of 2007.
"No other
company has actually drilled in its resource," said Adrian Williams,
chief executive of the Brisbane-based company, referring to the slew of
miners now prospecting the potential of generating electricity from
so-called "hot rocks" located kilometres below the surface.
Once the new well, dubbed Haberno 3, is completed, it will be linked to an earlier well to create a circulation test.
"It will well
and truly demonstrate the concept," Dr Williams said. "Then Geodynamics
will be focused on commercial development."
News that its
new $32 million rig was ready to start drilling at the site near
Innamincka in South Australia lifted the company's shares by 3.2 per
cent to $1.62 on Friday, one of a few stocks to dodge the market drop.
Geodynamics
shares have almost doubled in value this year. The region's hot rocks,
which have temperatures up to 300 degrees Celsius, have the potential
to generate as much as 10,000 megawatts of power, in the order of 15
Snowy Hydro schemes, Dr Williams has said.
"There's a large number of people in North America and Europe watching us," he said.
www.geodynamics.com.au
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Energy minister recharges state green power push
Mathew Murphy
August 6, 2007
http://www.theage.com.au/news/business/energy-minister-recharges-state-green-power-push/2007/08/05/1186252543092.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
Mr Batchelor
said the Government was excited about the prospects of geothermal
energy in Victoria, which pipes water down to "hot rocks", producing
hot water and steam. It is then brought to the surface and is captured
by power turbines producing electricity.
"At the end of
the day it keeps producing electricity when the sun goes down and the
wind dies down," he said. "You have that base-load capacity, which
sometimes isn't available with other renewables."
Jim Driscoll,
from GeoScience Victoria, said a second round of drilling permits were
expected to be offered for the rest of the state within months. In
April the Government announced five drilling licences for 13 sites
around southern Victoria. "There is a process at the moment on what to
do with the remaining 19 blocks in Victoria," Mr Driscoll said.
"We are getting
interest in those blocks, which haven't been released, and as soon as
we put those out I am sure we will get some more encouraging results of
geothermal activity in northern Victoria."
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CLEAN ENERGY - WIND
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Matthew Franklin | August 23, 2007
Wind power firm runs out of puff
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22291368-30417,00.html
THE Howard
Government has defended its record of support for alternative energy
sources after the Opposition blamed it for the planned closure of a
Victorian wind turbine blade producer with the loss of 130 jobs.
Vestas
Australia Wind Technology announced yesterday it would close its
Portland turbine blade factory at the end of the year after concluding
that Australia's green energy market was unviable.
Labor
environment spokesman Peter Garrett said the Howard Government's
refusal to lift the Mandatory Renewable Energy Target beyond 2 per cent
was responsible.
The Vestas operation was the fourth to shut in the past year.
"The closure of
the Portland factory is a major blow to the local community and another
kick in the guts for our renewable energy industry," Mr Garrett said.
"While the
global renewable energy market is set to be worth $US750 billion ($935
billion) a year by 2016 and the industry has an excellent track record
in creating jobs in regional Australia, the Government's failure to
deliver a price for carbon and its continuing refusal to ratify the
Kyoto protocol means Australian jobs and investment are heading
overseas."
But Industry
Minister Ian Macfarlane said he was surprised by the announcement and
that the company had not approached the Government for assistance. "We
understand, however, that it is a commercial decision driven by
changing market demand," he said.
Mr Macfarlane
said he was disappointed about the job losses but the Government had
strongly supported Australia's renewable energy sector, stimulating
$3.5 billion in extra investment, which had seen Australia's wind
energy capacity increase by about 8000 per cent.
Vestas
Asia-Pacific senior vice-president Jorn Hammer said if the Government
was prepared to put in place "the necessary security for a long-term
market", the company might reassess its position.
"It's
definitely a fact that the current environment for the wind industry is
not big enough to encourage these kinds of investments," he said.
The Danish-based company last year closed a similar $15million factory in Wynyard, Tasmania, laying off 65 staff.
The new announcement came as Labor continued its attacks on the Government's promotion of the use of nuclear energy.
An expert report prepared for the Government last year said Australia could have 25 nuclear reactors by 2050.
But Mr
Macfarlane has stressed that the community will need to agree to the
construction of reactors and that their location will be determined by
the private sector, not the Government.
Despite this, Labor is running a seat-by-seat campaign warning of the possibility of reactors being built in populated areas.
Yesterday,
Deputy Prime Minister Mark Vaile said local communities should be able
to hold ballots over whether they wanted reactors.
Kevin Rudd said
the comment was at odds with the assurances of Mr Macfarlane and John
Howard that governments would not determine the location of reactors.
"You can't have it both ways," the Opposition Leader said.
Additional reporting: AAP
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CLEAN ENERGY - BIOENERGY
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Energy, climate fuel food concerns
The Canberra Times
15 August 2007
Joachim Von Braun
http://canberra.yourguide.com.au/detail.asp?class=your+say&subclass=general&story_id=1037325&category=opinion
WORLD
agriculture is at a turning point: energy and climate change are
redefining the global food situation. As demand for affordable energy
increases, along with greenhouse gas emissions, bioenergy is
increasingly seen as an economically and environmentally sound
solution. The growing potential of biofuels appears to create a
substantial opportunity for the world's farmers in both industrialised
and developing countries.
A modern
biofuel industry could also provide developing-country farmers with a
use for crop residues and marginal land, and generate additional
employment in rural areas. However, the extent to which farmers will be
able to realise the benefits of switching to biofuels production
depends on many conditions, including access to markets and access to
technological innovation.
Despite the
significant, positive potential of bioenergy, biofuels also pose
challenges, especially for the poor in developing countries. Increased
production of energy crops, for example, has the potential to
exacerbate socio-economic inequalities by concentrating benefits in the
hands of those who are already well-off. If not well managed, biofuel
production can also lead to deforestation, a loss of biodiversity, and
excessive use of fertilisers and pesticides, thereby degrading the land
and water that poor people depend on.
More
importantly, biofuels could increase food prices. According to analyses
by the International Food Policy Research Institute, such price
increases could range between 5-15per cent for various crops, given the
current plans for biofuel production. Aggressive growth in biofuels,
however, could lead to even greater price increases. By 2020, prices
for grain crops could increase by 20-40 per cent, over and above other
causes for price increases, including increased demand from the growing
and wealthier populations of developing countries.
Such price
increases would pose difficulties for many of the world's one billion
poor people who earn only a dollar a day and typically spend 50c-70c of
that on food. However, new technologies that increase efficiency and
productivity in crop production and biofuel processing could reduce
these price increases.
Higher
feedstock prices would benefit energy crop producers. They would,
however, adversely affect poor consumers, as well as small farmers who
buy more food than they grow. For countries with a limited natural
resource base, biofuels could divert land and water away from the
production of food and feed. Critics argue that crop production for
biofuels competes with food production, reducing access to affordable
food. But hunger is not simply due to a lack of food availability. The
primary cause of hunger is poverty. If increased production of biofuels
can raise the incomes of small farmers and rural workers in developing
countries, it may in fact improve food security. Still, risks for food
security remain, particularly if a country's biofuel sector is not well
managed and if oil prices are unstable.
Policy-makers
have recognised that the high demand for energy and the apparent
enormous potential of biofuels do not automatically guarantee a
positive impact on poor people and developing countries. Creating an
industry that helps the neediest people improve their lives and
livelihoods will require careful management by both the public and
private sectors.
In order to
make a difference in the lives of poor people, as both energy producers
and consumers, and to make strong environmental and economic
contributions, biofuel technology needs further advancement. A
comprehensive policy framework is needed that covers science and
technology, markets and trade, and insurance and social protection for
the poor. The latter could include employment programs, cash transfer
programs, and social security systems for the poorest. To develop a
pro-poor biofuels sector that is sustainable, players at the
international, national, and local levels have crucial roles to play.
International institutions must help transfer knowledge and technology
for developing an efficient and sustainable biofuel industry to poor
countries. The international community must also create a level playing
field for trade in biofuels. By subsidising domestic agriculture and
biofuel industries, the price of grains and other feedstock rises,
distorting the opportunities for biofuel production and trade.
At the national
level, policy-makers must take steps to create a well-functioning
market for biofuels, to promote investment in associated areas like
flexible-fuel vehicles and fuelling stations, and to regulate land use
in line with socio-economic and environmental goals.
Dr von Braun is the director-general of the International Food Policy Research Institute.
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URANIUM SALES TO INDIA AND RUSSIA
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EnergyScience briefing paper on uranium sales to India at
<www.energyscience.org.au>.
URANIUM, INDIA AND THE NUCLEAR NON-PROLIFERATION REGIME
EnergyScience Coalition
Briefing Paper No. 18
Jim Green and Sara Franzoni
August 2007
Table of contents:
Acknowledgements
Acronyms
1. Introduction and summary
2. The US-India deal
3. Safeguards and India's weapons program
4. India's uranium shortage
5. The precedent set by nuclear trade with India
6. Nuclear exports
7. Violation of resolutions and treaty obligations
8. Windfall profits?
9. Reactor safety
10. Climate change and energy options
11. References and further information
About the authors
1. Introduction and summary
The Australian
federal government is actively moving to facilitate uranium sales to
India – a move with important implications for Australia's uranium
safeguards regime and the credibility of the international nuclear
non-proliferation and disarmament regime.
Within days of
the conclusion of a nuclear cooperation agreement between the US and
India, foreign minister Alexander Downer said on July 31 that federal
Cabinet would discuss the potential sale of Australian uranium to India
"fairly soon". Mr Downer and Prime Minister John Howard have expressed
support for both uranium sales to India and the US-India deal.
Nuclear trade
with India undermines the fundamental principle of the global
non-proliferation regime – the principle that signatories to the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) can engage in international
nuclear trade for their civil nuclear programs while countries which
remain outside the NPT are excluded from civil nuclear trade.
For decades,
India has been invited to dismantle its nuclear weapons and join the
NPT as a non-weapons state. It would then be free to participate in
international civil nuclear trade. Now, the US and Australia propose to
engage in nuclear trade with India with no requirement for India to
dismantle its nuclear arsenal or to join the NPT. This legitimises
India's nuclear weapons program and makes it less likely that it will
disarm. The recently-concluded US-India deal does nothing to curtail
India's nuclear weapons program; indeed it will facilitate India's
weapons program.
Nuclear trade
with India will also make it less likely that other non-NPT weapons
states such as Israel and Pakistan will disarm and accede to the NPT.
Pakistan resents the selective support for India's nuclear program and
is well aware of the potential for the US-India deal and Australian
uranium exports to facilitate an expansion of India's arsenal of
nuclear weapons. Increased nuclear cooperation between Pakistan and
China is a likely outcome of nuclear trade between the US, Australia
and India.
The precedent
set by nuclear trade with India increases the risk of other countries
pulling out of the NPT, building nuclear weapons, and doing so with the
expectation that civil nuclear trade would continue given the Indian
precedent.
A key problem
with proposed uranium exports to India is that it will free up domestic
uranium in India for weapons production. Indeed, K. Subrahmanyam,
former head of the India's National Security Advisory Board, was quoted
in the Times of India on 12 December 2005, saying that: "Given India's
uranium ore crunch and the need to build up our minimum credible
nuclear deterrent arsenal as fast as possible, it is to India's
advantage to categorize as many power reactors as possible as civilian
ones to be refueled by imported uranium and conserve our native uranium
fuel for weapons grade plutonium production."
Civil nuclear
trade with India would violate the rules of the Nuclear Suppliers
Group. It cannot be reconciled with UN Security Council Resolution
1172, which calls on India and Pakistan to stop further production of
fissile material for nuclear weapons. It would arguably amount to a
violation of the NPT. Australian uranium sales to India would violate
treaty commitments under the South Pacific Nuclear Weapons Free Zone
Treaty.
The economic
benefits of uranium sales to India would be negligible. If Australia
supplied one quarter of India's current demand, annual sales revenue
would amount to $8.6 million, uranium export revenue would increase by
1.3%, and Australia's export revenue from all products would increase
by 0.005%. If India's ambitious nuclear expansion plan is realised,
Australia's uranium export revenue would increase by 6.8% over the
current figure and export revenue from all products would increase by
0.026%.
Rest of the report at: <www.energyscience.org.au>.
------------------->
Australian
uranium sales to India will be illegal
<http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007%5C08%5C30%5Cstory_30-8-2007_pg7_45>
Daily Times - Lahore,Pakistan
By Khalid Hasan
WASHINGTON:
Australia, which has announced that it will sell uranium to India, will
be violating its international legal obligations if it does so,
according to Leonard S Spector of the California-based James Martin
Centre for Non-proliferation Studies, “The question of whether
Australia can legally export uranium to India is no longer in doubt. It
cannot,” he said.
According to
him, official records show that Australian Foreign Minister Alexander
Downer told the Australian Parliament unambiguously that the 1985 South
Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty bans Australian uranium exports to
states like India.
Downer made the
statement in 1996, during consideration of uranium exports to Taiwan.
The point was repeated before Parliament in 2001 by a more junior
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade diplomat, presumably with
Downer’s authorisation, in conjunction with nuclear exports to
Argentina, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Taiwan. Australia signed
the treaty in 1985, which entered into force in December 1986.
Despite earlier
statements, on August 16, 2007, Prime Minister John Howard announced
that Australia is prepared to sell uranium to India, ending a
long-standing embargo. According to Spector, the announcement
anticipates a controversial change in international nuclear trade rules
being sought by the United States to permit peaceful nuclear
cooperation with India, pursuant to a July 18, 2005, agreement between
US President George Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Under the 1996 and 2001 determinations by the Australian Department of
Foreign Affairs and Trade, however, Australian uranium sales to India
would be a violation of Australia’s treaty obligations.
The South
Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty bans nuclear testing in the region.
But it also prohibits parties from making nuclear exports to states,
like India, that have refused to place all of their nuclear activities
under monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The
shorthand for these comprehensive inspections is “full-scope
safeguards,” Spector explained. India declared itself a nuclear power
in 1998.
But under the
1968 nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), only countries that
detonated nuclear explosions before 1967 — the United States, Russia,
the UK, France, and China — are considered legitimate nuclear weapon
states. All other countries are considered non-nuclear weapon states.
------------------->
Weapons inspector fears new arms race
Sarah Smiles
August 27, 2007
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/weapons-inspector-fears-new-arms-race/2007/08/26/1188066946419.html
FORMER top UN
weapons inspector Hans Blix has warned that Australian uranium sales to
India could help the country generate nuclear weapons.
In an interview
with The Age, the veteran Swedish diplomat cautioned that the world is
witnessing a dangerous phase of rearmament.
He said
Australian uranium sales could free up India to use its own uranium to
create weapons-grade material and heighten tensions in the region.
"It would make
it easier for them to make bomb-grade material and this may increase
tension vis-a-vis Pakistan and China," Dr Blix said.
Dr Blix, who is
addressing a UN function in Melbourne tonight, led UN weapons
inspections in Iraq in the lead-up to the 2003 war. After the invasion,
he criticised the US and Britain for exaggerating the case for war
around weapons of mass destruction.
Beyond Iraq, Dr
Blix said the world had entered a dangerous period of rearmament, from
the Russians developing new missiles to Britain's decision to extend
its nuclear weapons program. "Despite the ending of the Cold War, which
is now 17 years behind us, we are moving in the wrong direction," he
said.
Dr Blix said
Cold War thinking underpinned the United States' new nuclear deal with
India, which he says is aimed at containing China.
While Dr Blix
acknowledged the need for India to secure energy supplies, he said
stricter safeguards were needed to prevent proliferation globally.
He said Australia had a "great reputation" in taking part in disarmament initiatives and had a "past to live up to".
------------------->
Russian roulette
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
http://bulletin.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=288522
As Russia
enters a new Cold War phase former world chess champion and
pro-democracy leader Garry Kasparov warns that the regime can't be
trusted with Australian uranium. By Julie-Anne Davies.
On the eve of
APEC, one of Russia's most prominent opposition political figures,
former world chess champion Garry Kasparov, has warned the Howard
government against selling uranium to Russia. It is expected that
during the visit of President Vladimir Putin to Australia - the first
by a Russian president - he and Prime Minister John Howard will sign a
historic deal which, for the first time, will see Australian uranium
sold to the Russians for domestic use.
In an exclusive
interview with The Bulletin, Kasparov says Australia should not assume
Russia can be trusted with uranium. He says Australia will have to
accept moral responsibility if Russia then on-sells the uranium to a
rogue state or uses it for other non-civil purposes.
"Should
Australian uranium end up in the wrong hands - and it's not too
far-fetched to suggest that Russia under Putin is already in the wrong
hands - Australia will not be able to act innocent or to claim
ignorance," Kasparov says.
Rest of article at: http://bulletin.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=288522
------------------->
Australia is backing a nuclear rogue
Andy Butfoy
August 20, 2007
http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/australia-is-backing-a-nuclear-rogue/2007/08/19/1187462081031.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
THE Australian
Government will be seen around the world as pulling the rug from under
global arms control. This is an obvious consequence of its decision to
pave the way for uranium sales to India, a country that rejects
treaties aimed at stopping the nuclear arms race. The Government,
apparently led by Foreign Minister Downer, believes boosting mining
profits, and following Washington's lead on nuclear co-operation with
India, are more important than reinforcing global non-proliferation
rules.
Of course,
there is a case for selling uranium to India. It's one that tends to
reflect the views of the US neo-cons who laid much of the groundwork
for the idea. Advocates of the exports often pin their case on three
points. First, they can play the global warming card, although this
mostly looks like tactical positioning rather than a genuine motive.
Second, they say it's a moral nonsense for the rules to ban civil
nuclear sales to a democracy such as India, while simultaneously
permitting sales to an authoritarian state such as China just because
Beijing has signed arms control agreements. Third, armchair strategists
think India can be used to balance the growing power of China.
Where does the
nuclear non-proliferation treaty figure here? It doesn't, except in a
few limited regards. For a start, it's sometimes said (although not by
Downer) that the NPT has passed its use-by date. This is simplistic
rhetoric more than analysis, but it serves the purpose of making it
easier to paint India's refusal to sign as irrelevant. Unfortunately,
this approach risks turning the collapse of the NPT into a reckless
self-fulfilling prophecy.
Then we are
told Australia's hands are clean because inspections will ensure our
material won't find its way into Indian weapons. However, imports from
here can be used to free other sources of uranium for India's military.
Finally, it's
asserted India has a good record and acts in a manner consistent with
the spirit of the NPT. This last claim has been a favourite mantra of
media supporters of the deal eager to display their supposed expertise
on the subject. The Government seems to have settled on this line as
the key selling point of its policy.
This marketing
pitch should be put into perspective, an exercise that also reveals how
far Downer has been prepared to twist around on the topic. Here it's
worth stepping back a few years.
In the 1990s
Australia, more than any other country, was responsible for getting
near universal backing for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty — despite
strong opposition from India. The Labor and Liberal governments of the
time had much to be proud of as the CTBT was widely seen as the key
next step in reinforcing the NPT. In 1998 Downer said: "The pivotal
role we played in the negotiation and adoption of the CTBT is a
reflection of our commitment to the global nuclear non-proliferation …
regime. This regime is central to our national security."
As Downer
explained "One of the great achievements of the CTBT is to provide a
codified international benchmark against which the actions of
individual members of the international community … can be judged.
"Countries
which defy this code of behaviour, as India and Pakistan have done,
know that they can expect to feel the full weight of international
opprobrium."
Just two years
ago Downer was president of an international conference given the task
of bringing the CTBT into legal force, something that requires, among
other things, a reversal of Indian policy.
He spoke of his
"unwavering support" for the treaty and his determination to take it
forward, saying it would be "a decisive contribution to world peace and
stability for generations to come". He explicitly argued that a
suspension of tests was not an acceptable substitute for full treaty
ratification. Moreover, he said of those not ratifying: "We have over
the years heard many reasons why this is so. The time for excuses is
past. It is time for them to act." India ignored the appeal.
No matter.
Canberra has now sold out, and is backing a re-write of the
internationally agreed rules on nuclear trade for the sake of a country
that has repeatedly spat on the CTBT. (At least Russia, another market
just opened for business by the government, supports the treaty.) Even
today India insists deals with foreign governments will not constrain
its nuclear weapons program, including its stance on testing. And this
stance has been reckless, bloody-minded and provocative. Only signing
and ratifying the CTBT will fix the damage.
The global
rules on nuclear exports are laid down by the Nuclear Suppliers Group.
Sensibly, the NSG keeps countries that refuse to sign the NPT on the
outer. However, if the US and Australia have their way, this provision
will be blown apart.
Downer should
reflect on a key line from the NSG's webpage. It says: "The NSG was
created following the explosion in 1974 of a nuclear device by a
(previously) non-nuclear-weapon state, which demonstrated that nuclear
technology transferred for peaceful purposes could be misused." The
country in question was India; it had lied and bombed its way into the
nuclear club. Australia will now be seen as tacitly endorsing this
strategy.
Andy Butfoy is a lecturer in international relations at Monash University.
------------------->
Uranium deal with India hits hurdles
Craig Skehan and Anne Davies in Washington
August 17, 2007
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/uranium-deal-with-india-hits-hurdles/2007/08/16/1186857683428.html
PLANS to sell
Australian uranium to India for power generation are in doubt, with
controversy on three continents and an apparent unwillingness by India
to agree not to conduct future nuclear weapons tests.
The Prime
Minister, John Howard, last night announced a series of strict
conditions on any uranium sales after a telephone conversation with his
Indian counterpart, Manmohan Singh.
Mr Howard said
a nuclear agreement between India and the United States would have to
be ratified by Congress, and New Delhi would have to agree to
International Atomic Energy Agency inspections.
"We want to be satisfied that the uranium will only be used for peaceful purposes," he said.
The possibility
of uranium sales to Russia was also floated last night, but Mr Howard's
office told the Herald it was unaware of any agreement. However,
sources said there had been discussions about transferring Australian
nuclear-related technology to Russia.
Diplomatic
sensitivities over the Indian deal were underscored when the Pakistani
high commission in Canberra issued a statement yesterday criticising
the Government for seeking the uranium deal with India.
It said that in
the interests of non-proliferation and "strategic stability in South
Asia" there should instead be a "package approach" where Australia
supplied both India and Pakistan.
There were
warnings yesterday that undermining the nuclear non-proliferation
treaty, which neither country had signed, could have wider implications
for a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.
The Federal Government conceded there were hurdles to overcome before any sales to India could take place.
It was unclear
last night whether Australia would require a watertight commitment from
India that it would never conduct further nuclear weapons tests, or
merely warn that sales would be suspended if such tests occurred.
The former
foreign minister Gareth Evans, now president of the International
Crisis Group, said it was likely the Government had not imposed
suitably strict conditions on India.
With Australia
having 40 per cent of the world's known uranium reserves, Mr Evans
believes the Government should use this advantage to strike a better
deal.
"The real
leverage we have is that because of [India's] hunger to acquire these
stocks you can in fact impose some [stricter] conditions."
An
international nuclear non-proliferation research and advocacy group,
the Arms Control Association, accused Australia of "flagrantly
contradicting" its stand on nuclear non-proliferation.
"The decision
severely tarnishes Australia's otherwise good reputation as a leader in
support of nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament by all states,"
said the association's executive director, Daryl Kimball.
"Australia has had an international treaty obligation not to transfer uranium to India."
Mr Howard said India would need an additional protocol on strengthened safeguards.
Uranium exports to India would create jobs in Australia, he said.
------------------->
India nukes deal, now for Russia
Sarah Smiles, Katharine Murphy and Anne Davies
August 17, 2007
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/india-nukes-deal-now-for-russia/2007/08/16/1186857682270.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
THE Howard
Government has set the scene for a massive expansion of Australia's
uranium industry, with the sealing last night of a controversial deal
for exports to India and talks nearing completion for a new pact with
Russia.
Increasing the
focus on the nuclear issue before the federal election, Prime Minister
John Howard announced the sale of uranium to India under "strict
conditions", which he discussed in a phone conversation last night with
his Indian counterpart, Manmohan Singh.
At the same
time, Government officials confirmed that a new agreement to sell
uranium to Russia could be signed next month during the visit of
President Vladimir Putin to Australia. The deal will pave the way for
Australian uranium to fuel Russian reactors for the first time.
Announcing the
deal with India, the Government said it would include a bilateral
safeguards agreement to ensure Australia uranium was only used for
peaceful purposes.
Foreign
Minister Alexander Downer has also said Australia will sell uranium to
India if it agrees to put two-thirds of its existing nuclear power
plants, and any new facilities, under United Nations supervision.
But the
Government has been forced to fend off questions about whether there
are sufficient safeguards to sell uranium to a country outside the
international treaty on non-proliferation.
There was also
controversy over the issue yesterday in India, after a declaration by
the Bush Administration that the United States will scrap its planned
nuclear co-operation agreement with Delhi if the Singh Government
conducts a nuclear test, according to local press reports.
The Age
reported this week that India's chief scientific adviser, Dr Rajagopala
Chidambaram, said India and not the world community would decide which
reactors to open for inspections. "Whatever reactors we put under
safeguards will be decided at India's discretion."
Asked about Dr
Chidambaram's comments yesterday, Mr Howard said he would call his
Indian counterpart to allay concerns about the strength of the
safeguards. "I believe the sort of conditions we have in mind will meet
any concerns on which those points are based," he said.
But the deal
with India has drawn a strong rebuke from the leading nuclear
non-proliferation research and advocacy group, the Arms Control
Association, which has accused Australia of "flagrantly contradicting"
its international stand on nuclear non-proliferation.
Labor also
stepped up political pressure on the Government over the India deal and
its ambitions to introduce nuclear power in Australia, asking why it
was supporting plebiscites on Queensland council amalgamations but not
on the location of future reactors. Mr Howard said the location of
reactors would be determined by commercial decisions in the future.
"The Prime
Minister has now put Australians on notice that their wishes will be
ignored," Labor environment spokesman Peter Garrett said.
The planned
deal with Russia follows negotiations in Moscow in May. Under a 1990
agreement, Russia has processed Australian uranium for other countries
but not for its own use.
The new
agreement follows Russia's decision to separate its civil and military
nuclear programs last year. This includes putting its civil facilities
under the International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards agreement.
Russian ambassador Alexander Blokhin said the nuclear agreement entailed "co-operation in the field of peaceful atomic energy."
Academics have
raised concerns that Australia's exports could free up Russia to sell
its own weapons-grade uranium to rogue states. "Does that then allow
the Russians to export to other third states?" said Donald Rothwell,
Professor of International Law at the Australian National University.
But Andrew
Davies, of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said the exports
were not problematic because Russia was a signatory to the
Non-proliferation Treaty and had an existing bilateral safeguards
agreement with Australia.
------------------->
Uranium sale to fuel arms race: Imran
Katharine Murphy
August 16, 2007
http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/uranium-sale-to-fuel-arms-race-imran/2007/08/15/1186857593210.html
PAKISTANI
cricketer turned politician Imran Khan has predicted that the Howard
Government's decision to sell uranium to India will spark a new arms
race on the subcontinent.
Khan, who leads
the Movement for Justice party, told SBS Television last night that
Australia's decision to export uranium would encourage generals in his
country to spend more on weapons to counter India's access to nuclear
fuel.
Australia has
decided to sell uranium to India, but not Pakistan, because Foreign
Minister Alexander Downer argues that India has a good record on
weapons non-proliferation.
Khan said last
night that Australia should have been even-handed in its decision on
uranium exports. He said funds in Pakistan would now be diverted from
human development to arms development, "and we will have a sort of arms
race in the subcontinent which poor people in our countries cannot
afford".
Asked whether Australia should have made the decision, he replied: "Absolutely not."
In comments
that defy the upbeat assessments from Canberra that selling uranium to
Delhi will make the world safer, India's chief scientific adviser,
Rajagopala Chidambaram, said Delhi would decide which of its nuclear
plants to open to inspectors and which would remain closed off.
In an interview
with The Hindu newspaper, Mr Chidambaram said: "Whatever reactors we
put under safeguards will be decided at India's discretion."
He said India
had no intention to quarantine its military program from its civilian
program because nuclear scientists would work across both programs.
"We are not
firewalling between the civil and military programs in terms of
manpower or personnel. That's not on," Dr Chidambaram said.
His comments
followed the nuclear co-operation agreement struck between Washington
and Delhi. Dr Chidambaram was a key player in those negotiations.
That agreement
will form a template for the Howard Government, which plans to pursue
its own safeguards agreement to sell uranium to the subcontinent.
Mr Downer said
selling uranium to India would make the world safer because its nuclear
plants would be subject to international inspections for the first time.
He said there was no way the uranium could be used for military purposes.
Last night Mr Downer told the ABC that United Nations inspectors would ensure the uranium remained in the civilian program.
But the
comments of Dr Chidambaram reveal that India will retain discretion
over which plants are in the net and which remain closed to the rest of
the world.
He also said
new fast-breeder reactors should stay outside inspections. "Now,
anything which requires advanced R&D, we don't want to slow it down
by having someone looking over their shoulder," he said.
Australia's
decision is a groundbreaking shift in foreign policy, which had
prohibited the sale of uranium to countries outside the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Labor leader Kevin Rudd condemned the decision yesterday.
"It is a very
bad development indeed when we have the possibility of the Government
of Australia stepping outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and
saying it's OK to sell uranium (to a country) which isn't a signatory,"
he said.
Greens leader
Bob Brown said: "Australia is directly fuelling the production of
nuclear weapons for a country which will soon have rockets that will
reach Australia."
------------------->
Uranium cleared for India
Dennis Shanahan and Siobhain Ryan | August 15, 2007
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22247581-601,00.html
AUSTRALIA has
decided to start uranium shipments to India with the condition that
Australian inspectors be allowed to check on site that the yellowcake
is used only for peaceful purposes and electricity generation.
The Australian
nuclear safety inspectors would check the "chain of supply" of nuclear
material from Australia to India to ensure none was siphoned off into
weapons programs.
The national
security committee of federal cabinet decided last night, after more
than two hours, to allow the uranium shipments to India, despite the
subcontinental nuclear power not signing the international Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Australia has only recently decided to ship uranium to China for the first time.
The National
Security Committee discussed ways for Australia to export uranium to
India without contributing to nuclear tensions between India and
Pakistan or assisting the spread of nuclear weapons.
John Howard
will contact his Indian counterpart, Manmohan Singh, who is also
Minister for Atomic Energy, to explain the conditions before formally
announcing the agreement.
The cabinet
committee was under pressure to both allow India access to uranium -- a
process the US has offered to assist with -- and defend its record on
the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.
It is understood Mr Howard will be personally contacting Mr Singh as soon as possible.
Labor has
accused the Howard Government of being prepared to water down strict
controls on uranium exports and move away from the international
agreements limiting nuclear weapons.
Pakistan has also asked for uranium to power its domestic electricity grid if it is sold to India.
The Australian
Government wants to help India with its peaceful energy needs, but does
not want to contribute to the nuclear tensions between India and
Pakistan.
The decision comes as the ALP has committed to a scare campaign over nuclear power reactor sites in Australia.
Foreign
Minister Alexander Downer said yesterday the fact that India already
had nuclear weapons meant "there is no risk" of contributing to nuclear
proliferation by exporting uranium to the energy-hungry economy.
"I think the
reverse in fact is the case -- that the more you can get the India
civil nuclear program under UN inspections and under the UN protocols
of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the better," Mr Downer told
the ABC. "I think that creates a safer and more secure environment for
those power stations."
Labor foreign
affairs spokesman Rob McClelland said any step towards uranium exports
to India would be moving away from the NPT signed by Australia.
"We see that
the Government is prepared to further undermine the NPT by selling
uranium to India while that country remains outside the
non-proliferation regime," he told the UN Association of Australia last
night.
"The bottom
line is that the Howard Government is worse than ambivalent when it
comes to nuclear non-proliferation -- it is positively obstructive."
Even the
uranium industry has reserved judgment on the Government's support for
uranium exports to India until it hears how the NPT can be protected.
Michael Angwin,
executive director of the Australian Uranium Association, said
Australia's policy of exporting uranium only to signatories to the
treaty had been successful to date.
India now needs
to win IAEA approval of its planned safeguards, the support of an
international grouping of nuclear suppliers, and ratification of its
nuclear co-operation agreement with the US. Only then can it do a
bilateral deal with Australia to allow the uranium trade and start
negotiating with local miners.
Last week,
Pakistan's Minister for Religious Affairs, Ejaz ul-Haq, said Australia
should consider selling uranium to Pakistan. He rejected concerns
Islamabad would use the uranium in nuclear weapons. But Mr Downer ruled
out selling uranium to Pakistan.
Australian
uranium miners are bound by national legislation which allows them to
sell yellowcake (uranium oxide) only to companies in countries that are
signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as well as a
bilateral safeguards agreement with the Australian Government. Neither
India nor Pakistan is a signatory to the treaty. They also do not yet
have any bilateral agreement with Australia.
Under these
arrangements, exporters must apply for a licence from the Australian
Safeguards and Non-Proliferations Office, where it can be proved that
the uranium will be used for peaceful purposes.
Labor plans to
escalate its anti-nuclear campaign next week, with Kevin Rudd to visit
coastal seats around the nation to warn voters that a returned Howard
Government could deliver a nuclear power plant to their neighbourhoods.
A report to the
Government late last year by the Nuclear Energy Review Taskforce said
there could be up to 25 nuclear reactors in Australia by 2050.
But Resources Minister Ian Macfarlane said Mr Rudd's tour would be a scare campaign in which he would seek to mislead voters.
Mr Macfarlane
said Labor's determination to tackle climate change by setting
emissions-reduction targets would also hasten the need for the use of
nuclear power in Australia.
------------------->Return
to top
URANIUM - ROXBY DOWNS EXPANSION
------------------->
BHP out of the medals for Olympic
Barry Fitzgerald
August 25, 2007
http://www.theage.com.au/news/business/bhp-out-of-the-medals-for-olympic/2007/08/24/1187462524956.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
BHP BILLITON
remains on a collision course with the South Australian and Federal
governments over its plan to slash billions of dollars from the cost of
expanding its Olympic Dam copper/uranium/gold mine by avoiding new
investment in labor and capital-intensive smelting assets.
Incoming chief
executive Marius Kloppers has already come under fire for proposing
that an expanded Olympic Dam stop short of producing finished metal at
the remote site by adopting the lower-cost and higher-margin option of
shipping out concentrates, leaving customers in Asia and elsewhere to
do the final processing.
Last month the
South Australian Government said the option was "not on". But in
briefings this week, Mr Kloppers refused to retreat from the
no-smelting option, noting that smelting added as little as 4 per cent
to the value of the copper and that Olympic Dam was no different from
the rest of the industry in that it was facing increased capital costs.
The Olympic Dam
expansion has long been formally priced by BHP at $US6 billion ($A7.4
billion) but more recent pre-feasibility study work is believed to have
indicated the cost could increase to a staggering $US15 billion,
prompting BHP to reconsider the best way to reduce capital outlays,
with the no-smelting option at the top of the list.
Federal
Resources Minister Ian Macfarlane said yesterday he had "serious
reservations about a plan, which reduces the number of Australian jobs
created from the mine expansion, as well as removing an opportunity to
add value to the ore here in Australia".
"I am always
very keen to see as much value-adding to our resources as possible on
Australian soil, so that Australian workers and businesses can extract
the most benefit from the value chain," Mr Macfarlane said.
He said he
understood BHP had stressed it was at a very early stage of its
planning process. "As such, no formal proposal of any type has been
submitted to the Government," he said.
Meanwhile, the
SA Government reaffirmed its mid-July statement that BHP faces a
legislative backlash if it pursues the no-smelter option. It will also
insist that jobs and value-adding be the foundation of any indenture
legislation covering the expansion.
In a media
briefing in Melbourne yesterday, Mr Kloppers said BHP remained at a
"very early stage there (Olympic Dam) in terms of firming things up".
Asked if BHP
was not ruling out additional smelting investment, Mr Kloppers said BHP
had not yet "finalised how we want to develop that asset".
"But look, in
that particular project we believe that when we go ahead there we will
deliver huge value to the state and to the communities and so on. And
we are going to continue to explore what it is that those people want,"
Mr Kloppers said, without reference to SA and Federal Government
comments on the issue.
Earlier in
yesterday's briefing Mr Kloppers, in a response to a question about
development opportunities in Africa, said the "most important thing is
you do need to deliver something to the people there".
"If that is not your approach, you are not going to be successful," he said.
The Olympic Dam
expansion was originally planned to increase copper production from
220,000 tonnes a year to 500,000 tonnes a year. Uranium production
would increase from about 5000 tonnes a year to 15,000 tonnes a year.
BHP has not said so, but there is industry talk that the 500,000
tonne-a-year copper target could be just the first stage on the way to
1 million tonnes a year, with attendant increases in uranium.
Mr Kloppers
told the briefing that while BHP was being aggressive in selling
commodities to the fast-growing Indian market, that marketing effort
had not yet extended to uranium.
"We only sell
to countries or try and market our product to countries where they have
got all of the (safeguard) agreements in place. So we haven't had any
discussions at all with them," he said. Australia has an in-principle
agreement to sell uranium to the subcontinent, subject to guarantees.
The reporter owns BHP shares.
http://tinyurl.com/yyufk5
------------------->
Insight into Olympic Dam a rare treat
http://www.independentweekly.com.au/?article_id=10224618
The biggest
game in South Australia is far and away BHP Billiton's Olympic Dam. But
getting useful information is pretty hard to come by so it was a full
house at a Hilton dinner last week when BHP Billiton's Adelaide-based
Corporate Affairs Manager, Richard Yeeles was invited to give us the
latest on Olympic Dam.
BHP Billiton dropped the "quiet achiever" tag years ago but the company still likes to operate as quietly as possible.
Even though
Adelaide is BHPB's global headquarters for its base metals subsidiary-
and by far the biggest earner for the global group with $8.62 billion
in the latest year (up 28 per cent)- news is scarce.
For instance,
Dr Roger Higgins - who until quite recently was responsible for this
vital part of the empire from an office in Grenfell Street - seems to
have disappeared without trace. The announcement of a former
Pilbara iron ore miner and current aluminium chief, Graeme Hunt as
president of a newly created business division within BHPB, the Uranium
and Olympic Dam Development CSG, was made and there's been no mention
of Higgins.
The media-shy
Higgins made a rare public appearance early in the year when the
University of Adelaide beefed up its mining educative activities and
Higgins outlined how BHPB was bringing 25 mining graduates to Adelaide
for a three year training program - most of whom were from countries
like Russia, Indonesia and India - where the company was planning to
expand - and from Adelaide the graduates could work on projects in
Chile, South Africa and PNG. He declined any interviews.
Even in the
latest extensive BHPB profit report the revenue contribution of Olympic
Dam was not outlined - the only reference being that sales volumes of
base metals were lower at Olympic Dam due to a scheduled smelter
shutdown, lower head grades and lower tonnes milled.
Arts SA
And: "In
addition, the Olympic Dam Expansion pre-feasibility study expenditures
increased. The expenditure on business development was $US166 million
higher than last year mainly due to the pre-feasibility study on the
Olympic Dam expansion and other Base Metals activities."
So when Yeeles
got on his feet at a Pipelines Association of Australia dinner at the
Hilton, an inquisitive and record-breaking crowd of engineers,
contractors, logistics experts and other business suppliers keen to get
the biggest client in town on their books, were all ears.
"Although the
mine has been going 20 years and it's already the biggest mine in
Australia, this is just the start of the journey," Yeeles suggests. "We
know it's a great orebody but we have yet to convert it into a great
mine."
They still
haven't found the bottom of the orebody and it still extends who knows
how far in a couple of sideways directions too. They have 20
diamond drilling rigs going 24/7 and they're still finding new ore as
they step out. From what they do know already Olympic Dam, or OD
as they call it, is almost 20 times the size of Broken Hill.
Yeeles said the
200 staff engaged in the pre-feasibility study was the largest study of
its type ever. The team was working on a complete range of
options for every aspect of the expansion - from housing temporary and
permanent workers, beefing up the electricity supply, getting
more water, building an all weather airport, putting in a
railway, working out the economics of the smelting process and planning
for the biggest logistics exercise ever.
The
pre-feasibility study will be completed early next year and a 12-month
feasibility study will then kick off - including an environmental
impact statement and the negotiation of a new Indenture Agreement with
the SA Government. The key message from Yeeles was simply that BHP
Billiton is a specialist large-scale miner -and it was looking for
contractors to supply all of the other stuff so they can concentrate on
what they do best.
He was quick to
correct the story that emerged just after Premier Mike Rann's return
from an extensive fact-finding tour of BHPB's Escondida copper mine in
Chile, that one of the options being looked at in SA was to ship the
ore straight to China where the processing costs might be slightly more
economic.
Yeeles was
quick to point out that most of the value-adding would remain in SA and
that the base case plan was for a major increase in the smelting
capacity.
BHP Billiton is
looking for someone to build and operate the second largest
desalination plant in the world at a site near Port Bonython. Olympic
Dam is currently supplied with its water from the GreatArtesianBasin
via two pipelines -one from 100km and another from around 200km
away. Yeeles said the company's $100 million investment on water
infrastructure had also included upgrading many station owners' water
supplies from the same Basin from open channels to pipelines. This
meant the cattle stations were now saving more water now than BHPB was
using.
The waste rock
dug up during the four years stripping of the overburden of a hole 3km
long, 3km wide and 1km deep was enough to ruin the flight path of the
airport so a new all weather, 24-7 operation was needed.
Olympic Dam
currently uses 10 per cent of the state's electricity and would need
substantially more when the expansion kicked in. The SA Government
currently has renewable energy requirements as part of the state's
baseload power -which he says might be a big issue to debate with the
government.
-- Bill Nicholas
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AUSTRALIAN NUCLEAR FREE ALLIANCE
------------------->
MEDIA RELEASE
August 12th, 2007
Bush condemns Howard’s nuclear agenda
A national anti-nuclear Alliance launched this weekend at a bush
meeting in central Australia has committed to supporting
Indigenous opposition to federal government and industry plans
for uranium mining and radioactive waste dumping.
The Australian Nuclear Free Alliance is comprised of traditional
owners, Indigenous community members and environmental, public
health and community groups from every Australian State and
Territory. The group has evolved from the Alliance against
Uranium, a network of concerned people and groups that formed in
1997.
“For ten years, this group has worked to turn back the toxic
nuclear tide”, said Natalie Wasley from the Arid Lands
Environment Centre-Beyond Nuclear Initiative (ALEC-BNI). “Now
there is a new name, a new structure, a new enthusiasm and a new
commitment to continue and expand our efforts for a nuclear free
Australia.”
The meeting heard Indigenous concerns about the environmental,
social and cultural impacts of uranium mining and proposed
radioactive waste dumping and discussed strategies to highlight
these ahead of the coming Federal election.
“This is a living land - the hills, ground, trees, springs and
water tell stories. We teach the children stories from the land
which they can pass on from generation to generation. If you
destroy the land you kill our tradition, spirit and story. We
don’t want the land destroyed by mining or nuclear waste”, said
Christopher Poulson, a Traditional Owner for Pikilyi Springs who
attended the meeting.
------------------->
Australian Nuclear Free Alliance*
Meeting Statement: August 2007
The meeting took place on Werre Therre land, 40 kilometres from
Alice Springs on the weekend of August 11-12, 2007. The meeting
site is three kilometres from country threatened by the Federal
Government’s plan to impose a radioactive waste dump in the
Northern Territory.
The meeting celebrated ten years of solidarity and effective
resistance to the imposition or expansion of the nuclear industry
in Australia. Since it began in 1997, the Alliance has been part
of successful campaigns against uranium mining at Jabiluka and
nuclear waste dumping in South Australia. Alliance members
reaffirmed their commitment to continue active campaigning for a
nuclear free Australia.
The Alliance heard the continued and emphatic opposition by
Traditional Owners to the proposed federal radioactive waste dump
in the NT and will continue to work together to end this threat.
The cultural, social and environmental impacts of the toxic
uranium industry are of deep concern - particularly its
unsustainable use and contamination of precious water resources,
links with nuclear weapons and production of radioactive waste.
This most hazardous industry was recognised as no answer to
climate change.
The current aggressive nuclear push has been characterised by
extreme lack of community consultation and heavy handed laws and
policies. This is echoed on Indigenous lands around the world.
The current federal intervention in the NT undermines Indigenous
rights. Linking land access and tenure to addressing child sexual
abuse is a Trojan Horse. Removing a community’s right to control
their land will never improve that community’s ability to control
their lives.
The meeting committed to ongoing support for Indigenous people
defending country, culture and communities. Alliance members will
work collaboratively and creatively to maintain a high public
profile for nuclear issues before, during and after the federal
election.
*The Australian Nuclear Free Alliance has evolved from the
Alliance against Uranium (formed in 1997). The name change has
been adopted to better reflect the opposition of the group to the
diverse range of nuclear threats currently facing Australia.
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CRITIQUE OF SO-CALLED SAFEGUARDS OFFICE
------------------->
Who's Watching the Nuclear Watchdog?
A Critique of the Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office
EnergyScience Coalition Briefing Paper
Number 19
<www.energyscience.org.au>
August 2007
Contents
About the Authors
About the EnergyScience Coalition
Acronyms
1. Executive Summary
2. Introduction (Richard Broinowski)
3. Summaries of Sections 4-6
4 Australian Uranium Exports to China (Tilman Ruff)
5. Plutonium and Proliferation (Alan Roberts)
6. Fact or Fission (Jim Green)
1. Executive Summary
This
EnergyScience Briefing Paper raises serious concerns regarding the
competence and professionalism of the Australian Safeguards and
Non-Proliferation Office (ASNO). ASNO's mission, to prevent nuclear
proliferation dangers associated with Australia's uranium exports, is a
task vital to the long-term security of Australians and all people.
This paper details a large number of statements made by ASNO which are
false or misleading. The evidence compiled raises critical questions of
good governance, and leads inescapably to the conclusion that the
safeguards on Australian uranium which ASNO is responsible for
implementing are deeply flawed both in their design and in their
execution.
This situation requires redress.
The authors of
this paper believe there is a compelling case for major reform of ASNO
as a matter of urgency. An alternative course of action would be for
the Australian government to establish an independent public inquiry.
Such an inquiry should have a broad mandate to review all aspects of
ASNO's structure and function, should be adequately resourced, and
should have powers similar to those of a Royal Commission to access
witnesses, documents and other evidence.
Such an inquiry
should be carried out independently of ASNO. It should also be carried
out independently of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
(DFAT), given that the current relationship between ASNO and DFAT is
arguably one of the areas in need of review. DFAT has declined a
request to review a paper detailing numerous inaccurate statements made
by ASNO (letter to NGOs, 28 May 2007, available on request).
Such an inquiry
should address the competence and performance of ASNO; its scientific
and technical expertise; whether its current management, organisation,
structure and relationships best serve its mandate; any conflicts of
interest; the implications of ASNO's structural connection to DFAT
(whether it has sufficient independence or operates as a 'captured
bureaucracy'); and options for reform including consideration of
organisational models in other countries.
ASNO's previous
responses to criticism have included angry and dismissive attacks on
its critics, assertions that an entire document can be dismissed on the
basis of questionable challenges to just one or two points (see for
example ASNO, 'Reactor Grade Plutonium',
<www.asno.dfat.gov.au/infosheets/rgp_dec06.pdf>), and a
conspicuous failure to address the substance of a large majority of the
criticisms. We sincerely hope that the multiple serious concerns raised
in this paper will prompt serious consideration by government and
parliamentarians, and responses which are substantive and constructive.
The authors of
this paper intend to continue to monitor ASNO's activities and its
statements. The matters raised here go to the heart of Australia's
obligations as a major uranium exporting nation. We hope that it will
not be long before the Australian government addresses the unacceptable
and untenable situation which currently prevails regarding a matter of
such critical importance to the security of Australians and the world
as preventing further nuclear proliferation.
Richard Broinowski
Tilman Ruff
Alan Roberts
Jim Green
August, 2007.
Rest of tthe report at: <www.energyscience.org.au>
------------------->
Danger: nuke cover-up
Richard Broinowski and Tilman Ruff
Herald Sun
September 03, 2007
<www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22350333-5000117,00.html>
THE agency dealing with Australia's uranium exports is making an absurd claim.
The Australian
Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office says Australia sells uranium
only to countries with "impeccable" non-proliferation credentials.
In fact,
Australia has uranium export agreements with nuclear weapon states that
are failing to fulfil their disarmament obligations under the
Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Australia is also dealing with states with a history of covert nuclear weapons research based on their "civil" nuclear programs.
The Australian
Government permits uranium sales to countries, including the United
States, which are blocking progress on the Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty and the proposed Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty.
This is
supported by the Safeguards Office and the Government proposes allowing
uranium sales to India, which is not a signatory to the
Non-Proliferation Treaty.
This is a serious blow to the international non-proliferation regime, yet has been met with silence from the Safeguards Office.
Last year's debate on uranium sales to China showed the Safeguards Office at its worst.
The Safeguards
Office did not know the number of nuclear facilities in China, nor
which of these would process uranium and its by-products.
The Safeguards
Office was dismissive of China having the worst record of exports of
proliferation-sensitive materials and know-how of any of the nuclear
weapon states.
The Safeguards Office claims that all nuclear materials derived from Australia's uranium exports are "fully accounted for".
But that claim is false. There are frequent accounting discrepancies involving Australia's nuclear exports.
What the
Safeguards Office means when it says that nuclear material is "fully
accounted for" is that it has accepted all the explanations provided by
uranium customer countries for accounting discrepancies, however
fanciful those explanations may be.
Perhaps the
most misleading of the claims made by the Safeguards Office is its
repeated assertion that nuclear power does not present a weapons
proliferation risk.
In fact, power reactors have been used directly in weapons programs.
Some examples include India, which is reserving eight out of 22 power reactors for weapons production.
The inevitable conclusion arising from our detailed critique of the Safeguards Office is that, at best, it is ineffectual.
At worst, the
Safeguards Office serves the commercial interests of the nuclear
industry and the political interests of those who promote it.
It contributes more to the problem of nuclear weapons proliferation than to the solutions.
We call on the Federal Government to establish an independent public inquiry to review all aspects of the Safeguards Office.
The inquiry should be adequately resourced, and should have powers similar to those of a royal commission.
Prof RICHARD
BROINOWSKI is a former Australian ambassador and Assoc Prof TILMAN RUFF
is the Australian chair of the International Campaign to Abolish
Nuclear Weapons
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NUCLEAR POWER FOR AUSTRALIA - VARIOUS
------------------->
MEDIA RELEASE
Peter Garrett MP
Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Heritage
Thursday 23 August
JOHN HOWARD CANNOT BE TRUSTED
The Prime Minister has done another about-face on nuclear reactors.
Mr Howard simply cannot be trusted on nuclear reactors and waste dumps.
His vague support today for local plebiscites on nuclear reactors is his third position on the matter in as many months.
Mr Howard’s
latest position exists only for political convenience - to paper over
the gaping cracks in the Coalition on nuclear and climate change
matters.
Mr Howard has
shown many times in the past that he does not follow through on such
promises. Today’s comments are merely an attempt to take political
pressure off the Coalition and neutralise nuclear reactors as an
election issue.
First, in May
2007, Senate Estimates hearings revealed the Government had begun work
on removing legal barriers to overturning State and Local Government
bans on nuclear power. This was confirmed by Mr Howard in Parliament on
29 May.
On 4 June 2007, when asked if nuclear power was inevitable, Mr Howard said “Of course…it has to come”.
Then, on 16
August when I first raised the idea of local nuclear plebiscites in
Question Time, the Prime Minister dismissed the idea. He instead said
it would be “commercial decision-making”, rather than the people that
would determine when and where nuclear reactors would be built.
Finally, today,
Mr Howard has said he would support local communities voting on whether
they want nuclear reactors in their area, but not ahead of the election
or with AEC funding.
The Prime Minister has flip-flopped on nuclear issues. He will say and do anything to get elected.
The only way to
guarantee there will be no nuclear reactor or waste dump in your local
community is to elect a Rudd Labor Government.
The Federal Election will be a referendum on nuclear reactors.
The Australian
people face a stark choice between the solar power and clean energy
offered by a Rudd Labor Government and Mr Howard’s nuclear nation.
For further information please contact Ryan Heath 0449 141 398
----
JOHN HOWARD - NUCLEAR POWER
ZIGGY SWITKOWSKI FINAL REPORT - FORESHADOWS 25 NUCLEAR PLANTS, DECEMBER 2006
Under a
scenario in which the first reactor comes on line in 2020 and Australia
has in place a fleet of 25 reactors by 2050, it is clear that nuclear
power could enhance Australia’s ability to meet its electricity needs
from low-emission sources….
----
HOWARD VOWS TO AMEND LEGISLATION TO FACILIATE NUCLEAR POWER
JOHN HOWARD:
The Government’s next step will be to repeal Commonwealth legislation
prohibiting nuclear activities, including the relevant provisions of
the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.
This will be addressed soon.
[Source: Howard, Statement, "Uranium Mining and Nuclear Energy: A Way Forward For Australia", 28 April 07]
----
HOWARD SAYS NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS ARE 'INEVITABLE'
JOHN HOWARD: …
And inevitably part of the solution, part of the solution, must be to
admit of the use in years to come of nuclear power in this country. And
that is why I’m announcing today a strategy for the future development
of uranium mining and nuclear power in Australia…
[Source: Address to the Liberal Party - Victoria Division, State Council Meeting, 28 April 2007]
----
HOWARD WONT RULE OUT OVERRIDING STATE LAWS TO CONSTRUCT NUCLEAR REACTORS
Mr Garrett
(2.34 p.m.)— Prime Minister, have there been any discussions with the
Attorney-General’s Department or the Australian Government Solicitor on
how the Commonwealth might override state laws to enable construction
of nuclear reactors?
Mr
HOWARD—...But obviously, as Prime Minister, I would be interested in
the constitutional position and I do not run away from that. I actually
believe that this country has to embrace the option of nuclear power …
it stands to reason that, if you have a policy which leaves open the
opportunity of nuclear power and you are a Commonwealth government, of
course you would want to know at some stage whether the Commonwealth
could legislate to make it possible for nuclear power to come about...
I happen to believe that the states are wrong on nuclear power; I think
the Labor Party is wrong on nuclear power—and it follows from that that
I would be most interested to know what the legal power of the
Commonwealth actually is.
[Source: Questions Without Notice: Nuclear Energy, House of Representatives, 30 May 2007]
----
HOWARD SAYS IT IS A COMMERCIAL DECISION WHERE NUCLEAR REACTORS ARE LOCATED
JOHN HOWARD:
"Decisions as to where nuclear power plants might be located in the
future will not be decisions of the Government. It will be decisions of
commercial investors….And therefore whether they're in the magnificent
municipality of Randwick or the shire of the Shoalhaven or indeed
anywhere else, the municipality of Waverley, the city of Ryde, wherever
you might go, that will be a matter of commercial decision-making and
it won't be a decision of the Government."
[Source: John Howard, House of Representatives, 16 August 2007]
----
HOWARD NOW CLAIMS LOCAL COMMUNITIES SHOULD GET A VOTE RE: REACTORS
JOHN HOWARD:
“When the time does come for plants to be considered in particular
parts of Australia, I believe local communities should be given a vote
and I think having a plebiscite in a local community would be a good
demonstration to the rest of the nation.
[Source: John
Howard, Doorstop, 23 August 2007]
JOHN HOWARD: “There are no plans to
develop nuclear power stations in Australia. The Government will not
build nuclear power stations and does not expect to see proposals for
private nuclear power stations for 10 to 15 years. …“Power stations
would only be constructed if they were commercially viable and
satisfied strict environmental, non-proliferation, health and safety
requirements….“My Government has decided there will be binding local
plebiscites conducted in communities where power stations are proposed
to be built. This would follow extensive community consultation.
[Source: John Howard, Press Release, 23 August 2007]
------------------->
Howard dodging fallout of pro-nuclear position
August 27, 2007
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/howard-dodging-fallout-of-pronuclear-position/2007/08/26/1188066927470.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
A major tenet of the Government's climate-change policy is being cleverly exploited by Labor, Michelle Grattan writes.
Sue Page is the
Nationals' candidate in the northern NSW coastal seat of Richmond, once
the political kennel of the Anthony family, but currently in Labor
hands.
Page, a former
president of the Rural Doctors Association who knows her mind and is
not afraid to speak it, is considered a strong contender by her party.
Although it would be extraordinary if the Coalition won any Labor seats
in NSW, the Nats say their research is showing she is doing well in
Richmond.
But Page
anticipated the risk of Labor's campaign on the threat of nuclear
reactors in people's backyards. Her fears increased after the Liberals'
June federal council passed a strongly pro-nuclear motion.
Page spoke to
Deputy Prime Minister Mark Vaile at the Nationals' state conference in
June. A week ago she issued a statement declaring that "there will be
no nuclear power stations or waste storage facilities on the North
Coast or anywhere else in Australia if the Coalition government is
re-elected".
The Nationals'
position, she said, was that "there will be no nuclear power industry
... unless and until it is supported by all major political parties at
the state and federal level".
In the same
statement, NSW Nationals senator Fiona Nash said pointedly that no
legislation on any potential nuclear power industry would be passed
"without the support of the Nationals in the Senate". The Vaile office
knew the statement was coming and, when it did, Vaile backed Page.
It wasn't only
Page who was reacting on nukes. A number of Liberals had also been
chiming in with the "not in our backyard" line.
When cabinet
last Tuesday considered nuclear issues, it was clear the debate was
going pear-shaped for the Government and something needed to be done.
Ministers
agreed the Government would say that local plebiscites would be
allowed. This was despite Howard only a week before dismissing a
question about plebiscites, declaring commercial investment would
determine the plants' locations.
Precisely how
influential the Nationals were is unclear, but the seat-by-seat
feedback was obviously a big factor in the plebiscite decision.
Also, after the
Prime Minister had offered ballots to Queenslanders upset by council
mergers, it smacked of hypocrisy to reject them out of hand on nuclear
reactors.
By Wednesday, Vaile had blurted out the new line. His timing was a surprise, even to his own office.
The next day
Howard formally announced the Government had decided "there will be
binding local plebiscites conducted in communities where power stations
are proposed to be built".
It must go down
as one of the more bizarre promises of this election, especially as
Howard reiterated that "the Government will not build nuclear power
stations and does not expect to see proposals for private nuclear power
stations for 10 to 15 years".
By that time we could have seen a Rudd government come and gone. Or a Costello one.
Howard, knowing he won't be around to allow or refuse plebiscites, was talking through his hat.
But the Government needed to react in a debate that, instead of wedging the Opposition, has burnt the Coalition.
Howard had
placed domestic nuclear power on the agenda as what it hoped would be
an offensive political weapon, as well as a partial neutraliser to
criticism of the Government on climate change. But instead it has
become ammunition for Labor, with the Coalition now being the one on
the defensive.
Labor's
anti-nuke campaign is simple, based on six words: "Where do the nuclear
reactors go?" Its polling has shown the potency of the scare, which it
is not letting up on. It is currently running a TV ad in Queensland
exploiting local fears: "[Howard] refuses to talk about a list of
possible sites for reactors that includes Rockhampton, Bundaberg,
Mackay, Townsville, the Sunshine Coast, even Bribie Island."
The Government
now finds itself conflicted. On the one hand it is arguing nuclear
power must be considered in tackling climate change. On the other, it
is trying to sweep the reactors off the agenda for this election.
Howard is left
with the rather feeble proposition that he is sure public opinion will
eventually turn in favour of nuclear power. Perhaps - but not in his
political lifetime.
Labor will
continue to go on the front foot by putting the frighteners into
everyone. But Sue Page is less concerned than she was, after making
what she describes as her "pre-emptive strike".
------------------->
ALP ad blitz names Qld nuclear sites
Scott Casey and AAP | August 26, 2007
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/articles/2007/08/25/1187462565149.html?s_rid=theage:top5
The ALP has
aired the first in a series of national advertisements detailing areas
where the government is allegedly considering building nuclear power
plants.
Airing for the
first time in Queensland, the ad identifies Rockhampton, Bundaberg,
Mackay, Townsville, the Sunshine Coast and Bribie Island as prospective
nuclear reactor sites.
Federal
opposition Infrastructure and Water spokesman Anthony Albanese said
Prime Minister John Howard resembled The Simpsons Montgomery Burns in
his support for nuclear energy and " meanness of spirit".
"Australians
want their beautiful locations such as Bribie Island to continue as
they are, not to become parallels of (The Simpsons) Springfield."
However, Caboolture Shire Mayor Joy Leishman says the Labor ad blitz is "rubbish".
"This is just
rubbish, there was a report done, not by the government, about 25 years
ago that apparently identified it (Bribie Island)," she said.
"I have to say
that this is all rubbish, absolute rubbish and I can't believe they are
that desperate and would use this as an election ploy.
"They won't win
votes by being untruthful with the community. Bribie Island people are
smarter than that and they will see it for how shallow it is."
The Howard
Government has promised plebiscites for communities where nuclear
reactors are proposed. However, Labor doubts these promises believing
it would rush through legislation in a similar manner to work choices
laws.
"John Howard
was determined to push through his WorkChoices laws and he did. John
Howard is determined that Australia will have 25 nuclear reactors right
around the coast of Australia," Mr Albanese said.
Industry
Minister Ian Macfarlane hit back at the ads claiming they were part of
scare tactics by the Labor Party and that they incorrectly claimed the
government planned to build 25 reactors in Australia.
"There is absolutely no substance to this claim,'' he said in a statement.
"The government
has made it abundantly clear that it will not build nuclear power
stations, has not received any proposals to build nuclear power
stations, and does not expect nuclear power to be economic in Australia
for many years.
"Again ignoring
the facts, Mr Albanese today named five locations, located in seats
targeted by Labor, as sites where nuclear power stations 'will' be
built. He has promised to use the same scare tactics around the
country."
------------------->
US-backed nuke club 'appealing'
Siobhain Ryan | August 14, 2007
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22240860-30417,00.html#
A US-backed
proposal to set up a nuclear energy club, potentially including
Australia, holds "considerable appeal", a government advocate of
nuclear power has said.
Ziggy
Switkowski, chairman of the Australian National Science and Technology
Organisation, said the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership was a
"conceptually appealing" framework for safely expanding the industry
internationally.
The plan,
supported by the US for economic and security reasons, is expected to
encourage a select number of friendly nations supplying nuclear fuel to
reactors overseas to take back and store the waste generated by their
customers.
It is likely to
be discussed at an annual nuclear energy forum next month, where
Australia will be an observer. "As more countries go nuclear ... they
will find it very appealing to be able to source enriched uranium and
fuel rods from a supplier which will also be responsible for the
management and storage of spent fuel," Dr Switkowski said.
The former
nuclear physicist and Telstra chief executive, who chaired a recent
government taskforce into options for developing a nuclear power
industry for Australia, considers it the country's "only real option"
in curbing its energy emissions without stalling the economy.
Australia is
one of the world's biggest uranium miners and the Howard Government has
shown interest in moving the country up the global nuclear energy
supply chain.
But it has ruled out accepting nuclear waste from other countries as part of any new arrangement.
Dr Switkowski
said the group's charter and membership might take a year or more to
decide, given the challenges in one nation accepting another's nuclear
waste.
"But we'll know more in September," he said.
------------------->
Labor homes in on nuclear fears
Sid Marris | August 14, 2007
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22242921-11949,00.html
LABOR will
begin a scare campaign about nuclear reactors on the eastern seaboard,
targeting marginal seats about the risk of power generators in their
local area if the Coalition is re-elected.
Opposition
leader Kevin Rudd told his party room this morning that the government
still had no real plan for dealing with climate change and the
Environment minister Malcolm Turnbull was distracted in the contest for
his eastern Sydney suburb of Wentworth.
Mr Turnbull's
office immediately dismissed the attack saying "it's obviously complete
nonsense but flattering for the Minister I suppose that Mr Rudd's
dwelling on him so much’’.
Mr Rudd said
the Government’s own report, conducted by nuclear scientist Ziggy
Switkowski, had spoken about the potential for 25 reactors on the east
coast by 2050.
Labor says that
with power stations needing to be near the coast, near fresh water and
near population centres it was justified in warning voters about the
implications of returning the Government.
A trial run of
the campaign was running in deputy Julia Gillard’s seat of Lalor in
western Melbourne last week, with a petition circulated demanding the
Howard Government rule out.
Asked about the petition last week John Howard dismissed it as a scare campaign and there were no plans for a nuclear industry.
"All that we
have said is that this country should consider the option of having
nuclear power as a source of power generation in order to effectively
fight greenhouse gas emissions because nuclear power is clean and
green,’’ he told Melbourne radio.
"It's just dishonest of the Labor Party to run that kind of fear campaign."
In his address
Mr Rudd said that Labor would not be “reckless’’ in its campaign
promises and would not be adding any further pressure on inflation and
interest rates.
He told his
colleagues, “this is a government that has stopped governing, they had
abandoned the advantage of incumbency’’, a party spokesman said.
Mr Rudd said
they no longer used question time to put forward its plan, rather
Coalition backbenchers asked questions designed to allow ministers to
make negative attacks on Labor.
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NUCLEAR POWER FOR AUSTRALIA - PLEBISCITES, BACKFLIPS
------------------->
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=287531
Coalition split over nuclear future
Sunday Aug 19 17:56 AEST
An apparent split has opened in the coalition over plans to create a nuclear industry in Australia.
Nationals
leader Mark Vaile backed a federal candidate who said the party would
prevent the Liberals building nuclear power stations or waste storage
facilities anywhere in Australia.
Dr Sue Page,
who will contest the federal seat of Richmond in northern NSW in the
coming election, said the Nationals were committed to opposing nuclear
development.
"There will be
no nuclear power stations or waste storage facilities on the north
coast or anywhere else in Australia if the coalition government is
re-elected this year," Dr Page said in a press release.
"Any such developments would require the approval of the state and federal governments.
"The state
government has already said no and the Nationals in federal government,
without whom the coalition cannot enact legislation, are also committed
to opposing this."
Dr Page said
she was making the statement to head off an expected Labor "scare
campaign" about nuclear facilities on the north coast.
Deputy Prime
Minister Mr Vaile stood by Dr Page and indicated the Nationals did not
support the development of a nuclear industry.
"Dr Page is an
excellent candidate and is one of many new-generation Nationals
contesting this election for the party," Mr Vaile's spokesman said.
The spokesman
said the Nationals leader agreed with the prime minister that Australia
should not rule out a nuclear power industry in future decades if and
when it becomes economical.
"But there
should also be bipartisan support at state and federal level, and the
current debate is about building that support," he said.
"There are no
plans to build nuclear power plants at present and nor is it envisaged
that the federal government would play any role in building such
plants."
Prime Minister
John Howard announced in April that the federal government would
develop a regulatory regime to govern an expanded nuclear industry and
any future nuclear plants.
The legislation would also remove "unnecessary restrictions" on mining, processing and exporting uranium.
The relevant
ministers and departments were ordered to start work immediately and
report to cabinet by September, ahead of the federal election.
"The government
will implement this strategy to increase uranium exports and to prepare
for a possible expansion of the nuclear industry in Australia," Mr
Howard said at the time.
Mr Howard has
since admitted the federal government had sought informal legal advice
on whether it could use its constitutional powers to force nuclear
reactors on the states.
And last week he told parliament that commercial investors, not politicians, would determine the location of nuclear reactors.
Labor's environment spokesman Peter Garrett said Dr Page's view put the Liberals and the Nationals at odds.
"The coalition is now completely fractured on the nuclear issue," Mr Garrett said.
"Coalition
members continue to engage in the most arrogant hypocrisy by refusing
to support nuclear facilities in their own electorate, yet supporting
John Howard's pro-nuclear policies in parliament."
©AAP 2007
------------------->
Letter in AFR and Advertiser:
A core promise?
Prime Minister
John Howard says that local communities would have the right to a
binding plebiscite on the construction of nuclear power reactors. But
is this a core promise, Mr Howard?
The government
has been authoritarian and undemocratic in relation to its plans to
dump Lucas Heights nuclear waste in the Northern Territory. The federal
government has ignored NT legislation banning the imposition of nuclear
dumps.
In 2005, Mr
Howard rail-roaded legislation through parliament to by-pass normal
decision-making and consulatation processes in relation to the proposed
dump. This legislation - the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management
Act 2005 - undermines environmental, public safety and Aboriginal
heritage protections.
Then in 2006,
Mr Howard rail-roaded legislation through parliament which states that
a nuclear dump site nomination is legally valid even without
consultation with, or consent from, Traditional Owners. This
legislation - the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Legislation
Amendment Act - also removes the right to appeal under the
Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act 1977 and it removals all
legal rights to "procedural fairness".
Jim Green
Friends of the Earth
------------------->
NT wants vote on proposed nuclear dump
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/08/23/2013405.htm
23/8/07
Northern
Territory Chief Minister Claire Martin says the Federal Government
should hold a vote on whether a nuclear waste dump should be built in
the Territory.
Prime Minister
John Howard has announced there will be binding local plebiscites in
communities where nuclear power stations are proposed.
But Ms Martin
says she wants Territorians to have a say on whether a proposed low and
intermediate level nuclear waste facility goes ahead.
"Before the last election John Howard said 'No, we won't have a nuclear waste facility in the Territory'," she said.
"Go past the
election, he's said 'Got you on that one, we're going to do it and
we're going to do it regardless of how Territorians feel'.
"So I say to
John Howard, if you're talking about nuclear, you have a plebiscite
here in the Territory about a nuclear waste facility."
Anti-nuclear
campaigners say they agree Mr Howard is hypocritical for supporting
plebiscites on whether communities want nuclear power plants in their
area but not nuclear waste dumps.
Coordinator for the Alice Springs-based Beyond Nuclear Campaign, Natalie Wasley, says Mr Howard is employing double standards.
"John Howard's
stepping up and saying communities should be given the opportunity to
have a say on nuclear development and facilities in their area," she
said.
"Given that the
nuclear waste dump in the Northern Territory - or the proposal for one
- has been imposed on the communities that are living nearby, it's been
imposed on the Northern Territory community as a whole and also
overriding the wishes of the Northern Territory Government."
------------------->
TWS MEDIA RELEASE
August 23 2007
Local Nuclear Plebiscites Laughable
Local
plebiscites on nuclear power are a complete joke according to the
Wilderness Society, which today called on the National Party to reject
the Prime Minister’s push for Australia to join the Global Nuclear
Energy Partnership and turn Australia into the world’s nuclear waste
dump.
“Local
plebiscites are a ridiculous concept when fallout from a nuclear power
accident can endanger people living thousands of kilometres away,” said
nuclear spokesperson, Imogen Zethoven.
“We already
know that the majority of Australians don’t want a nuclear future. A
Newspoll in March 2007 found that two thirds of the population were
opposed to a nuclear power plants near them. A plebiscite would be a
complete waste of taxpayers money and a diversion from the real issue.
The real threat
faced by Australians is this: the Prime Minister is keen to sign up to
President George W. Bush’s Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP).
Full membership of GNEP would commit Australia to an international
nuclear waste dump, something the Liberal Party has already unanimously
endorsed this year.
“It is
encouraging that Dr Sue Page, National Party candidate for the seat of
Richmond, has rejected the Liberal Party’s nuclear agenda. We now look
to the National’s Leader, Mark Vaile, to fully support his candidate
and stand up to the Prime Minister on this matter of huge importance to
Australia’s future.
Mr Vaile should
immediately demand that the Liberal-led Government withdraw from secret
negotiations to join GNEP – the global nuclear club. “The price of full
admission is an international nuclear waste dump in Australia” Ms
Zethoven said.
The Wilderness
Society accused the Government of having one approach for people living
in marginal seats in eastern and southern Australia, and another for
people living in the Northern Territory, where people’s basic
democratic rights have been removed by draconian federal legislation to
impose a national nuclear waste dump.
“The Government
has stripped Territorians of their democratic rights, yet says that in
10 years time people living in the states can have a plebiscite. The
Government is turning Territorians into second class citizens: if you
live in the east of south you get a plebiscite and power plant, and if
you live in the Territory you get nothing and a dump.”
------------------->
Too far, too fast: Howard's plans have gone critical
Katharine Murphy
August 24, 2007
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/too-far-too-fast-howards-plans-have-gone-critical/2007/08/23/1187462438806.html
IF YOU are
going to do a base jump, first check your parachute. Any time in the
past year or so, John Howard could have yanked back his nuclear agenda.
Instead he's gone forward. Way forward. In the end, too far forward.
Government
figures will say that rational policy debate has been clubbed by a
Labor scare campaign. That's true, of course, but it's also true that
Howard pressed the throttle too hard. Some in the Government always
believed nuclear was too hard a political sell, and the key to success
was hasten slowly. Keep it a "debate" and not a distinct possibility
that people were actually able to visualise.
Selling uranium to India — a country outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty — has proved a tipping point of sorts.
Coalition MPs,
sitting in their electorates with a hurricane Kevin outside, sensed
that this was all getting too much. Some of the Government's closest
advisers sensed it. It was hard enough holding the line against Labor's
electorate-by-electorate reminder that Howard's nuclear vision would
bring 25 reactors around the country.
Deputy Prime
Minister Mark Vaile knew it. His candidates were getting restive. He
improvised on Wednesday when he made an off-the-cuff remark about
communities getting binding plebiscites before they got nuclear power
plants.
In doing that,
he locked Howard in. After Vaile's intervention, Howard had two
options: cut down Vaile and risk a rebellion among Coalition
candidates, or back Vaile and put nuclear on ice until after the
election.
Howard opted to neutralise nuclear power. The question now is, will voters believe him?
Labor is
gearing up for phase two of the scare campaign. Phase one was scary
power plants. Phase two is that Howard is lying when he says you'll get
a say before you get the scary power plants.
Whom do you trust? Monty Burns or that lovely Kevin and that nice rock star person, Peter Garrett?
The fact is
that Howard has only iced nuclear, not killed it. If he wins, it will
be back, and for all the reasons we began this wild ride in the first
place.
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NUCLEAR POWER FOR AUSTRALIA - LOCAL COUNCILS
------------------->
Council asks PM to approve nuke plebiscite
Posted Tue Aug 21, 2007 7:40am AEST
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/08/21/2010424.htm
Lake Macquarie
Council will write to Prime Minister John Howard seeking approval to
run a plebiscite to ask people if they would support a nuclear power
station in the New South Wales Hunter region.
The council
last night adopted a motion from councillor John Jenkins calling for a
plebiscite, funded by the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC).
Support will also be sought from neighbouring Hunter councils.
Councillor
Jenkins says the idea came from Mr Howard's decision to pay the costs
of Queensland councils who want to hold plebiscites to gauge public
reaction to Queensland Premier Peter Beattie's forced council
amalgamations.
"I thought it would be a good idea for us to have the same opportunity as those folk in Queensland," he said.
"If the Prime
Minister is offering an AEC-funded plebiscite [for Queensland
councils], for us to have the issue of nuclear power generation
considered here, and ask the community for their advice as to what may
or may not take place in this area."
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NUCLEAR RESEARCH IN AUSTRALIA
------------------->
Australian Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering INC
Call for Expressions of Interest
Nuclear Research Funding - a new Government initiative for Universities
A New Government Initiative
AINSE is
pleased to be part of this new initiative to implement and facilitate
the development of Australia's core nuclear skills base. AINSE seeks
expressions of interest from Universities to progress this exciting
initiative.
Background
The $12.5
million nuclear research funding announcement made by The Prime
Minister, on 18 July will help develop a core nuclear skills base by
funding university staff and post-graduate students to work in
collaboration with ANSTO in specific nuclear power related areas.
Overall the
program is part of a nuclear capability building exercise that will
introduce research programs into universities and facilitate the
training of graduate engineers, chemists, and materials scientists
whose skills could support nuclear power industry.
The program
will also encourage the introduction of nuclear components into science
and engineering programs in Australian universities.
The Australian
University research activities will augment ANSTO's core activities as
a participant in the international Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems
Initiative (Gen IV), a major international project which aims to
further examine and develop six next generation nuclear power
technologies. The Prime Minister recently announced that Australia is
seeking to participate in the Gen IV International Forum.
The Program
Of the $12.5
million, $5 million is earmarked for establishing infrastructure at
ANSTO to support collaborative research with universities in this area.
This would include facilities to enable irradiation, testing, and
characterisation of materials that may be used in the next generation
of nuclear reactors.
The remaining
$7.5 million will be used to create University consortia to work with
ANSTO to support Australian Generation IV research and to build nuclear
relevant educational resources in Australian Higher Education. It is
envisaged that a consortium will comprise a number of academic groups
working in partnership with ANSTO to design and deliver a collaborative
program of world-class research and nuclear relevant education.
It is expected that the consortium will deliver higher quality outputs
than groups working in isolation. To support these activities
the funding may be used for new academic positions, targeted
research grants, post doctoral fellowships, post graduate studentships
and undergraduate scholarships.
The targeted areas are:
* Fuel development
- Gen IV fuels + partitioning
* Reactor performance
- Reactor performance modelling, Computational Fluid Dynamics
* Nuclear materials science and engineering
- High temperature materials, testing, radiation damage, modelling
* Waste
- Partitioning, wasteform behaviour, wasteform modelling
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NUCLEAR DUMP PROPOSED FOR THE NT
------------------->
MEDIA RELEASE
August 29, 2007
PM’s half truths about half lives
The Arid Lands
Environment Centre (ALEC) has criticised Prime Minister Howard’s
support for a federal radioactive dump in the NT, claiming the project
and process has never been accepted or endorsed by Territory residents
or the Territory government.
“Territorians
have never been given the opportunity to have a say on the dump plan,
the federal government simply rammed through legislation to over ride
NT laws and impose it here,” said ALEC campaigner Natalie Wasley.
Ms Wasley
expressed concern that the Prime Minister has not spoken directly to
affected people and urged him to visit the communities – some only
kilometers – from the proposed dump sites.
“If Mr Howard
visited these places he would hear that people are living and running
successful business ventures extremely close to the proposed dump and
are strongly opposed to hosting federal radioactive waste.”
“In the case of
Muckaty, where some traditional owners agreed to nominate their land
through the Northern Land Council, they will receive the first
installment of their $12 million payment when the nomination is
accepted by Science Minister Julie Bishop, regardless of whether this
is chosen as the preferred site. Cheque book politics is not a
responsible way to manage radioactive waste.”
“It is also
misleading for Mr Howard to say that ‘we're talking here about the
disposal of waste largely as a result of hospital and other uses,’ (ABC
online August 29, 2007). The long-lived radioactive spent fuel rods
from the Lucas Heights reactor, Australia’s most radioactive material,
are also earmarked for the dump. These are highly toxic and remain
radioactive for a quarter of a million years”.
“It is cute
politics for Mr Howard to announce that in ten years a Liberal
Government might allow people a vote on nuclear reactor locations, but
right now the Howard government is imposing a radioactive waste dump on
the Territory against the wishes of traditional owners, targeted
communities and the Northern Territory Government and against the
advice of all peak national environmental groups”.
“The government
has continually told communities near the proposed sites that the waste
is ‘safe’ and ‘innocuous’. Why then are they hurrying to move it out of
Sydney? The Government should acknowledge the growing international
consensus that community consultation and acceptance of nuclear
facilities is an essential part of any siting study,” Ms Wasley
concluded.
------------------->
PM backs off nuke waste dump referendum
August 29, 2007 - 8:09PM
http://www.theage.com.au/news/National/PM-backs-off-nuke-waste-dump-referendum/2007/08/29/1188067184789.html
Prime Minister John Howard has refused to hold a referendum on a nuclear waste dump in the Northern Territory.
Last week, Mr
Howard promised that nuclear power stations would not be imposed on any
community in Australia unless residents agree to it in a binding
referendum.
Territory
parliament on Tuesday passed a motion calling on the commonwealth to
offer Territorians the same chance to vote on a nuclear dump.
"We will not
allow the federal government to dump its political problems on the
territory without a fight," said Environment Minister Delia Lawrie.
But Mr Howard
ruled out holding a plebiscite on whether low and intermediate level
waste should be transported and stored in the territory, calling the NT
government's request for a vote "hypocritical".
"We're negotiating with the traditional owners of the land and let's see how those negotiations proceed," he told ABC radio.
"I know the
territory government is adopting this incredible attitude and that is
that the waste has to go somewhere but it has not got to go in the
Northern Territory."
Following a meeting with the prime minister, NT Chief Minister Clare Martin said they remained at loggerheads.
"If the prime
minister has committed to the rest of Australia that they can have
plebiscites about where nuclear reactors should be placed, the same
should apply for a nuclear waste repository for all of this country's
nuclear waste," she said.
"I argued hard, the prime minister disagreed."
Mr Howard said the "best thing to do" was to let discussions between the commonwealth and traditional owners continue.
Muckaty
Station, about 120km north of Tennant Creek, has been nominated by the
Northern Land Council for consideration by the federal government for
the national facility.
The proposed
1.5sq km site is expected to be considered along with three
commonwealth defence sites, including Harts Range and Mount Everard
near Alice Springs and Fishers Ridge near Katherine.
But a nuclear waste site in the territory has been opposed by environmentalists, the NT government and some traditional owners.
The Arid Lands Environment Centre (ALEC)criticised the prime minister for overlooking the wishes of territory people.
"Territorians
have never been given the opportunity to have a say on the dump plan,
the federal government simply rammed through legislation to over-ride
NT laws and impose it here," said ALEC campaigner Natalie Wasley.
"If Mr Howard
visited these places he would hear that people are living and running
successful business ventures extremely close to the proposed dump and
are strongly opposed to hosting federal radioactive waste...
"Cheque book politics is not a responsible way to manage radioactive waste."
Labor member for Lingiari Warren Snowdon said Territorians were "entitled to ask at least a couple of questions".
He also called on the federal government to provide more information about the proposed sites and who had been consulted.
"Which community and which site is he referring to and did people reach this conclusion after a full local plebiscite?" he said.
"If so, will
the Australian Electoral Commission publish the results so
Territorians, and indeed the rest of the nation, can see this example
of democracy in action?"
© 2007 AAP
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AUSTRALIA TO JOIN GLOBAL NUCLEAR ENERGY PARTNERSHIP?
------------------->
Australia may join nuclear group: Downer
August 27, 2007 - 10:10PM
http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Australia-may-join-nuclear-group-Downer/2007/08/27/1188067031210.html
The Australian
government would be inclined to accept a US invitation to join the
Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer
says.
Fairfax
newspapers reported US President George W Bush would invite Australia
to join the partnership, which is made up of many of some of the main
world nuclear powers.
Mr Downer said the Australian government would look favourably upon Mr Bush's offer to joint the partnership.
"Well we would be inclined to," he told ABC TV.
"I mean we
would certainly be inclined to go to the meeting in Vienna to discuss
the shape of a Global Nuclear Energy Partnership.
"We, like
(former international weapons inspector) Hans Blix, believe that the
future of .... global energy has got to include nuclear in the mix.
"If we're going
to do something about C02 emissions and climate change, it's just not
realistic to leave nuclear out; and in many case many countries won't
and we export uranium."
Mr Downer said
the Australian government would not (not) automatically agree to
proposals made by countries which jointed the partnership.
"What we'd sign up to, what we'd agree to? Let's see what's actually put on the table," he said.
© 2007 AAP
------------------->
http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/news/stories/s2016966.htm
Last Updated 28/08/2007, 02:47:41
Australia's
Foreign Minister says accepting an invitation to join a Global Nuclear
Energy Partnership will not lead to Australia being used as a nuclear
waste dump site.
The United
States is expected to ask Australia to join the group which is set up
to regulate the production of nuclear resources.
Alexander Downer says the Government will consider the idea closely.
But he says it won't result in Australia accepting nuclear waste.
"What we sign
up, what we'd agree to, let's see what actually's put on the table.
Nobody can make us do anything and no matter what the scare mongering
of the labor party and their friends on left may be we've made it clear
we won't be taking it back and that's the beginning and that's the end
of it," he said.
------------------->
Nuclear, ethanol on Bush-Howard agenda
Anne Davies and Sarah Smiles
August 27, 2007
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/nuclear-ethanol-on-bushhoward-agenda/2007/08/26/1188066946410.html
US PRESIDENT
George Bush will invite Australia to be part of two initiatives aimed
at guaranteeing future energy supplies: his global nuclear partnership
and an initiative to produce ethanol from wild grasses.
Both issues will be raised by Mr Bush at bilateral talks ahead of the APEC meeting next week, senior officials said.
Prime Minister
John Howard will today outline his objectives for APEC in an address to
the Lowy Institute. The timing of the September 8-9 meeting is
politically important — the election could be announced as early as a
week or fortnight later.
The US, through
the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, is already driving a major
research effort to develop a new generation of fast-cycle reactors that
would produce far less hazardous waste than conventional nuclear
reactors. The group includes many countries involved in the nuclear
fuel cycle, including Russia, China and France.
Its broader aim
is to eventually secure the entire fuel cycle and confine production
and reprocessing to members of the group, thus reducing the threat of
nuclear proliferation.
Australia and
Canada, the world's largest uranium producers, have so far stalled on
joining because of domestic concerns about obligations to take back
nuclear waste and store it.
They have also
been concerned about being locked out of a core group inside the
partnership that is allowed to process uranium, say diplomatic sources.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mr Howard are likely to compare notes in a bilateral meeting around APEC.
A senior official said last week that the US would not pressure Australia to take back nuclear waste if it joined the group.
"We want
Australia to be part of the research effort. It doesn't mean Australia
would have to take back nuclear waste," the official said. Documents
reveal that the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Department of
Energy have worked on a bilateral nuclear partnership with the US,
which would see closer research ties and more involvement by Australia.
Hans Blix, the
head of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission who is visiting
Melbourne, said there were "attractive features" in the partnership
initiative, which aims to reduce proliferation by confining uranium
production to a small group of countries.
Yet he said it remains a "hypothetical" plan and noted that the US has been averse to taking back fuel.
"GNEP is pretty
much far in the future, there are many things that need to be clarified
and worked out before they can get to such a scheme. It presupposes new
types of reactors … the type of reactors we don't have yet," Dr Blix
told The Age.
Ethanol will
also be a major area of discussion. The US has announced a program to
boost ethanol production to 35 billion gallons by 2017, in a bid to
reduce its dependence on foreign oil by 20 per cent.
With MICHELLE GRATTAN
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NUCLEAR WEAPONS
------------------->
Is peace that difficult?
Hans Blix
August 28, 2007
http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/is-peace-that-difficult/2007/08/27/1188067029813.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
AT THE end of
the Cold War there was an opportunity for the world to create a new
collective security order. In 1991, after decades of blockages in the
Security Council, it authorised armed intervention to stop the Iraqi
aggression against Kuwait. In the same period, Russia and the United
States took steps to reduce the number of deployed non-strategic
nuclear weapons: the Chemical Weapons Convention was adopted in 1993,
the Non-Proliferation Treaty was prolonged indefinitely after renewed
commitments by nuclear weapon states to take get serious about
disarmament; a Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty was negotiated and adopted
in 1996; and at the review conference of the NPT in 2000, countries
agreed on 13 practical steps to disarmament.
But the window
of opportunity soon closed. The US embarked on unilateralism. In 2003,
the UN Security Council was said to be irrelevant if it did not agree
with the US and its coalition of the willing.
By the middle
of the first decade of the 21st century, US confidence and trust in
international negotiations, particularly in dealing with disarmament
issues, was at a record low. And tensions continue to grow. Instead of
negotiations towards disarmament, nuclear weapon states are renewing
and modernising their nuclear arsenals.
In 2006, North
Korea tested a nuclear device. After a US decision to place components
of its missile defence system in Poland and the Czech Republic, Russia
declared its withdrawal from the Treaty on Conventional Forces in
Europe. China has demonstrated its space war capabilities by shooting
down one of its own weather satellites.
These
developments are worrying and somewhat paradoxical. At a time when
there are no longer any ideological differences between the main
powers, when the economic and political interdependence between states
and regions reaches new heights, and when the revolution in information
technology brings the world into the living rooms of billions of
people, we ought to be able to agree on steps to restrain our capacity
for war and destruction.
So, where do we go from here?
There is some
movement indicating that key actors may be moving back to multilateral
approaches and diplomacy. The failure and vast human cost of the
military adventures in Iraq and Lebanon may have demonstrated the
limitations of military strategies to achieve foreign policy
objectives. The shift in strategy towards North Korea in negotiations
over its nuclear program and the resumption of the six-party talks is
encouraging. Waving a big stick may be counterproductive. An
alternative path, containing suitable carrots, needs to be offered. It
remains to be seen if this approach will be taken also in the case of
Iran.
For the past
few years, I have chaired the independent international Weapons of Mass
Destruction Commission, with 14 experts from different parts of the
world. In June 2006, I presented our report, Weapons of Terror: Freeing
the World of Nuclear Biological and Chemical Arms. We made 60
recommendations on how to revive disarmament and restore the confidence
in the international disarmament and non-proliferation regime.
The commission
urged all states to return to the fundamental undertakings made under
the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The treaty is based on a double bargain:
the non-nuclear weapons states committed themselves not to develop
nuclear weapons and the nuclear weapon states committed themselves to
negotiate towards disarmament.
So long as the
nuclear weapon states maintain that they need nuclear weapons for their
national security, why shouldn't others? The commission concluded that
one of the most important ways to curb weapons' proliferation is
working to avoid states feeling a need to obtain nuclear weapons.
The
co-operative approach needs to be complemented by the enforcement of
the test-ban treaty, a cut-off treaty on the production of fissile
material for weapons, and effective safeguards and international
verification to prevent states as well as non-state actors from
acquiring nuclear weapons.
I hope the
window of opportunity is not yet shut. There may still be time to wake
up and turn back to co-operative solutions to contemporary security
challenges.
The new
generation of political leaders has an unprecedented opportunity to
achieve peace through co-operation. We do not have the threat of war
between the military powers hanging over our heads. Admittedly, there
are flashpoints that need to be dealt with constructively — such as
Kashmir, the Middle East, Taiwan and so on. But the numbers of armed
conflicts and victims of armed conflicts have decreased. Never before
have nations been so interdependent and never before have peoples of
the world cared so much for the wellbeing of each other. Prospects are
great for a functioning world organisation devoted to establishing
peace, promoting respect for universal human rights and securing our
environment for future generations.
If all can
agree that we need international co-operation and multilateral
solutions to protect the earth against climate change and the
destruction of our environment, to keep the world economy in balance
and moving, and to prevent terrorism and organised crime, then should
it be so difficult to conclude that we also need to co-operate to stop
shooting at each other?
Dr Hans Blix is
president of the World Federation of United Nations Association and was
director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency from 1981 to
1997. This is an edited extract from a speech he gave in Melbourne last
night.
------------------->
Maintaining anti-nuclear rage
Gareth Evans
The Canberra Times
17 August 2007
http://canberra.yourguide.com.au/detail.asp?class=your+say&subclass=general&story_id=1038715&category=opinion
IN JANUARY this
year the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists Doomsday Clock, for six decades
now the best-known symbolic indicator of the threat posed by nuclear
proliferation, moved two minutes closer to midnight at 11.55pm, the
closest to doomsday it has been since the Cold War. At the start of the
nuclear arms race in 1953 its hands were set at two minutes to
midnight. Under United States president Bush Sr, with the end of the
Cold War and after the US and Soviet Union signed the Strategic Arms
Reduction Treaty in 1991, the clock moved the farthest from doomsday it
has ever been, to 11.43pm.
Now, under his
son's watch, the hands have been pushed back almost as close to
midnight as they have ever been with the renewed value being attached
to the possession of nuclear weapons by so many countries; with the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in limbo and the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty being steadily eroded; with North Korea's bomb
test and Iran's nuclear plans; with the deal with India unaccompanied
by any serious discipline on fissile material production or anything
else; with continuing talk about the development of new generation
weapons; with the emergence of talk almost unthinkable in the Cold War
years of nuclear weapons being an acceptable means of war-fighting,
even to the extent of their use in pre-emptive strikes; and with the
new anxiety felt about non-state actors, combined with old fears about
poor safeguards of nuclear materials.
In case anyone
feels that I am over-emphasising the contributions to this alarming new
nuclear insecurity environment of the current President Bush and I
acknowledge that is always a temptation it is worth pondering whether
anything would be any better under his likely Democrat successor.
When the
increasingly struggling Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama
recently said that he would rule out, as a profound mistake, the use of
nuclear weapons in Afghanistan or Pakistan to target al-Qaeda, the
increasingly confident Hillary Clinton pounced on him, saying that it
was unwise to be so specific: "I don't believe any President should
make blanket statements with respect to the use or non-use of nuclear
weapons."
It's easy to
quickly lose one's bearings in the arcane world of nuclear policy with,
if you let it get you down its extraordinary technical complexity,
jargon all its own, and multiplicity of closely interrelated issues,
substantive and procedural. Let me try to cut through that a little and
focus on just two big things for the world's policymakers to do: get
serious about disarmament, about eliminating nuclear weapons once and
for all; and get serious about overcoming the many and obvious
weaknesses of the present non-proliferation regime.
There is no
doubt that the current non-proliferation regime is under great and
increasing stress. This is particularly so when one thinks of it, as
one should, as comprising not just the treaty itself, and the
International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards system which supports it,
but as a whole constellation of mutually reinforcing elements,
including the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty which has yet to enter into
force because a number of designated states have failed to ratify
(including China, North Korea, India, Iran, Israel, Pakistan, and,
indefensibly, the US) and the long-hoped for Fissile Material Cut-Off
Treaty designed to ban any further production of weapons-usable highly
enriched uranium and plutonium, but negotiations on which have been
stalled for years.
The biggest
single nuclear proliferation issue global policymakers now face is
Iran. The situation with North Korea is at least partly back on track
as a result of the Bush Administration learning the hard way, at the
cost of up to another 10 weapons-worth of fissile material being added
to North Korea's nuclear stock that negotiation can be a better option
than confrontation. But for the moment Iran remains a paid-up member of
the axis of evil, so far as the US is concerned, and tensions continue
to mount as it becomes more and more obviously technically capable of
enriching uranium up to weapons grade.
The most
attractive solution, given Iran's less than honest and open record of
reporting to the IAEA over a number of years, was to persuade it, by a
mixture of incentives and disincentives, to forgo the acquisition of
fissile-material making capacity or full fuel-cycle capability, as the
jargon has it in return for guaranteed external supply of fuel to run
its energy reactors.
But it does not
appear that Iran is in any kind of mood to accept a guaranteed supply
from offshore, either an international fuel bank if one existed, or
from Russia, as Russia has proposed, or anyone else, in return for
forgoing its fuel-cycle ambitions and agreeing to indefinitely
relinquish whatever right as it has under the non-proliferation treaty
to enrich uranium even in the context of all the sanctions and
threatened sanctions that are now on the table, and incentives
(including restored relations with the US) that could be put back on
the table.
Some are
confident that sanctions, particularly the back-door variety that the
US, and Europeans under American pressure, are capable of applying
through the banking system, to choke off both trade and investment
finance, will ultimately force the Iranians to cave in. My reading is
that, while the potential impact of these kinds of measures can never
be understated (and was probably decisive, for example in South Africa
against the apartheid regime), in Iran too many factors are pulling the
other way, including:Iran's sense of national pride, consciousness of
its history, and deeply rooted ideology of independence, which cuts
across other internal political and cultural divisions, and makes it
reluctant to be seen to be pushed around. Associated with this the
sense that Iran is a major, not minor, league player, not least in its
own region, and entitled to have the kind of capability that goes with
that. The widespread sense that the West is trying to prevent Iran from
having access to scientific progress, patronising it, to keep it in
dependence and tutelage. The sense that the international community's
heart is not really in a full-scale sanctions squeeze that Russia
(although it has gone along with the security council so far), China
and the great majority of non-proliferation treaty countries don't
really believe that they are at present acting outside the letter or
even spirit of the treaty in rushing to acquire full fuel-cycle
capability.
Add to all that
the Iranians' current perception that military strike action is a
non-starter in the present environment with, except for a few fringe
dwellers, the clear thinking in both the US and Israel that the
negatives would far outweigh the positives and you have all the makings
of a full-scale impasse.
The downside
from the West's point of view which will be repeated over and over as
this debate continues is that, although stretching out the process,
delayed limited enrichment would permit Iran to eventually achieve full
fuel-cycle capability, with the risk in turn of weapons acquisition
when that happens.
But the reality
of Iran having that choice, sooner rather than later, and with minimal
inspection and supervision along the way, now stares us in the face.
Nobody wants to
see the present diplomatic impasse slide into the kind of situation
where the West's unwillingness to compromise strengthens its opponents'
extremists to the point that their country walks away from the treaty,
shrugs off any kind of international monitoring, produces a large stock
of weapons-grade material and ultimately takes the risk of building its
own bomb.
We have been
there and done that with North Korea. Although there has at last been a
breakthrough in the six-party talks, it is still going to be
nightmarishly difficult to wholly recover the ground which has been
lost to North Korea through earlier Western obduracy.
If the present
diplomatic strategy is going nowhere, the only rational response is a
new one which may be ideal for no one but has attractions for everyone.
If all diplomacy fails, the alternative course of military action is
simply too horrible to contemplate.
It is important
to remember just how indiscriminately destructive these weapons are; to
remain passionate about them being outlawed; and to be unyieldingly
intolerant about arguments for their retention or use. We are right to
be enraged about them, and to maintain that passion and commitment as
long as we live.
Gareth Evans is
chief executive of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group and a
former foreign minister and deputy Labor leader. This is an edited
extract of the first Dr John Gee Memorial Lecture delivered at the
Australian National University last night.
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Russian bomb flights spark 'grave' fears
Luke Harding and Ewen Macaskill
August 19, 2007
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2007/08/18/1186857831963.html
RUSSIA has
resumed long-range flights of strategic bombers capable of striking
targets deep inside the United States with nuclear weapons.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said he had restarted the Soviet-era practice
of sending bomber aircraft on regular patrols beyond its borders.
Speaking after Russian and Chinese forces completed a day of war games in
Russia's Urals, Mr Putin said 14 Russian bombers had taken off simultaneously
yesterday on long-range missions.
"We have decided to restore flights by Russian strategic bombers on a permanent basis," he said.
"Russia stopped this practice in 1992. Unfortunately not everybody followed
suit. This creates a strategic risk for Russia … we hope our partners show
understanding towards the resumption of Russian air patrols."
Analysts
described Russia's move as a "grave development". They said Mr Putin
appeared to have unilaterally abrogated an agreement with the US and
Britain
signed in 1991 not to engage in long-range nuclear bomber flights.
Russia's then president, Boris Yeltsin, and the former Soviet leader, Mikhail
Gorbachev, signed the agreement with the then US president, George Bush snr.
All sides agreed to reduce their strategic rocket forces and to stop long-range
bomber flights.
"This is a very grave development that threatens the US with nuclear weapons.
It means that Russian bombers will be ready to attack the US at a moment's
notice, just like in the Cold War," said Pavel Felgenhauer, a leading
Moscow-based defence analyst.
Mr Felgenhauer
said the bombers would be deployed in positions north of Britain over
the North Pole, from where they would be able to fly across the Pacific
or Atlantic to attack US targets. He said there was a real risk that
bombers equipped with nuclear warheads might crash.
"These flights are very dangerous. The planes are old and the maintenance is
patchy. Crews are not always as best prepared as in the Cold War. A crash with nuclear weapons is very possible," he said.
During the Cold War, Russian long-range bombers regularly played elaborate
games of cat-and-mouse with Western air forces.
Earlier this month Russian air force generals said bomber crews had flown near
the Pacific island of Guam, where the US military has a base, and "exchanged
smiles" with US pilots scrambled to track them. The Pentagon said Russian
aircraft had not come close enough to US ships for US planes to react.
Last month the Royal Air Force scrambled fighter jets to intercept two Tupolev
Tu-95 "Bear" bombers spotted heading towards British air space. Russia's air
force said it was a routine flight.
Mr Putin has been incensed by the Bush Administration's plans to site parts of
its controversial missile defence system in central Europe, close to the
Russian border.
As well as denouncing US unilateralism, he recently announced that
Russia was withdrawing from a series of key arms agreements struck in
the aftermath of the Cold War.
Last month Mr Putin said Moscow was suspending its obligations under the
conventional
arms forces in Europe treaty, which limits the deployment of NATO and
Russian troops. He said the real target of the Pentagon's controversial
missile shield was Russia. Moscow has also claimed a large chunk of the
Arctic, planting a Russian flag on a deep-sea shelf.
All this has taken place against a backdrop of rapidly worsening relations with
the West — and with Britain in particular.
The White House
yesterday played down concerns about the Russian move, saying it was a
matter for Moscow what it did with its planes. The US has had a
consistent policy over the past month or so of conciliatory responses
in an
attempt to reduce tensions over European missile defence.
GUARDIAN
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NUCLEAR POWER AND WEAPONS - FLAWS IN THE SAFEGUARDS SYSTEM
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In pursuit of the undoable
Troubling flaws in the world's nuclear safeguards
Aug 23rd 2007
From The Economist print edition
http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9687869
IF THE
predictions of the nuclear industry prove correct, and concerns about
carbon emissions and climate change drive more governments to start
investing in nuclear power to keep the lights on, how will the world
protect itself from the technology's inherent dangers? It is not just
the risk of accidents that keeps people awake at night. Some materials
and technologies used to generate electricity can, without a lot of
extra effort, be abused for bomb-making. And with more and more nuclear
material being processed and reprocessed—as mostly uranium-laden
reactor fuel-rods turn into mostly plutonium-laden spent fuel—the
possibilities for theft or diversion can only grow. A crude nuclear
device, or a dirty bomb that spews radioactive debris about, is
everyone's nightmare.
The scale of
the potential problem is getting clearer: 31 countries already operate
large nuclear-power reactors, and some of those will be adding more.
Since 2005 at least 15 more governments have said they want one too.
A whole clutch
of these—Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Libya, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia,
Turkey and Yemen—are in the fissile Middle East. Their plans seem to
have been prompted in part by the discovery in 2003 of Iran's
extensive, covert and hence suspicious nuclear activities. At one time
or another in recent years officials from Egypt, Saudi Arabia and even
Turkey, a member of NATO, have mused aloud about the possibility of a
nuclear or “strategic” option. For some Muslim states, the spur to
proliferate might be Israel, for others Iran. Algeria, for its part,
has always been worryingly secretive about a nuclear research reactor
discovered in 1991 and that it surrounds with air defences.
Not all the
supposedly “civilian” nuclear plans now being laid will come to
fruition. But some will. Meanwhile a detailed two-year study by the
Nonproliferation Policy Education Centre (NPEC), a Washington-based
think-tank, has uncovered troubling flaws in the internationally
approved verification and monitoring procedures for safeguarding
nuclear materials against diversion or theft.
In a new
report, NPEC's director, Henry Sokolski, argues that UN nuclear
inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency have too little
money for the job they are asked to do. Not only that, but the
yardsticks by which the IAEA measures its own safeguarding success are
woefully out of date. Indeed, some of its supposed safeguarding, Mr
Sokolski argues, is inherently undoable.
The money
problem is easier to remedy. As the chart shows, the amount of
potentially weapons-usable nuclear material—either highly enriched
uranium or separated plutonium—under inspection has increased far
faster than the funds available for safeguarding it. New methods and
technologies have increased the efficiency of inspections, but the
IAEA's director-general, Mohamed ElBaradei, has long complained that
his regular budget does not even cover all costs; it has to be topped
up by less certain voluntary contributions, mostly from America. Among
the few things America and Russia agree on now is that the IAEA needs
more cash.
Without more
money, Mr ElBaradei told his agency's 35-country board in June,
safeguarding capacity will diminish. Last month he said he would ask a
panel of experts to look at an internal review of safeguards-spending
requirements—and then come up with some ideas about ways to meet them.
One
improvement, suggests Mr Sokolski, would be to install more real-time
remote-monitoring cameras, so inspectors can check more reliably that
materials and equipment are not being diverted to covert use. According
to the NPEC study, over the past six years the IAEA has learned of
camera “blackouts” that lasted for more than 30 hours on 12 separate
occasions. It found the gaps only after inspectors visited the sites
and downloaded the camera recordings, as they do every 90 days.
That is more
than enough time to divert nuclear material and make mischief with it.
The IAEA assesses these things using a measure of militarily
“significant quantity”: the amount of highly enriched uranium (25kg) or
separated plutonium (8kg) it would take to make a weapon. But these
quantities were arrived at 30 years ago. The NPEC study finds them too
high by between 25% and 800%, depending on the type of weapon and yield
required. What is more, in each case what the IAEA considers timely
detection of such diverted quantities exceeds the time needed to
process the materials for weapons use.
The search for MUF
All the more
important, then, to keep a close eye on plants that produce quantities
of such dangerous materials—especially where uranium is enriched and
plutonium is extracted from spent fuel. But NPEC's conclusion is that
proper verification here is impossible. At best, the report says, the
IAEA can improve its monitoring techniques (those more capable cameras
would help).
That is because
of the volume of material involved and the way the plants work.
Material unaccounted for (called MUF) is often stuck in piping.
Discrepancies, even at the best-run plants, can amount to many bombs'
worth. And it can take months for inspectors to be confident they have
it all more or less accounted for. Imagine the problems if the IAEA is
attempting to monitor such plants in a country like Iran, with its past
record of lying to inspectors.
Mr ElBaradei
and others have suggested multinational fuel centres as a way to avoid
dangerous technologies being abused by individual governments. But
safeguarding those would be no easier. Better that such fuel-making
technology isn't spread around at all.
---
To get the full report:
Falling Behind: International Scrutiny of the Peaceful Atom
A Report of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center
On the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Nuclear Safeguards System
http://www.npec-web.org
or direct download: <www.npec-web.org/Reports/20070731-NPEC-ReportOnIaeaSafeguardsSystem.pdf>
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NUCLEAR WEAPONS - VICTIMS OF US NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAM
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Rocky: U.S. nuke work afflicted 36,500 Americans
Radiation sickened 36,500 and killed at least 4,000 of those who built bombs, mined uranium, breathed test fallout
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5686694,00.html
By Ann Imse, Rocky Mountain News
August 31, 2007
The U.S.
nuclear weapons program has sickened 36,500 Americans and killed more
than 4,000, the Rocky Mountain News has determined from government
figures.
Those numbers
reflect only people who have been approved for government compensation.
They include people who mined uranium, built bombs and breathed dust
from bomb tests.
Full article at:
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5686694,00.html
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SMUGGLING - CHINA
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Dubious tale of a nuclear bandit
John Garnaut
August 27, 2007
http://www.smh.com.au/news/business/dubious-tale-of-a-nuclear-bandit/2007/08/26/1188066946731.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
Last week a
gang of white-haired, radiation-riddled peasants gave a demonstration
of how the international nuclear safeguard regime applies to their
small corner of China's uranium market.
International
safeguards, of course, underpin the Australia-China nuclear transfer
agreements that were ratified four months ago. The agreements mean
Australia will soon join Russia, Kazakhstan and Namibia as primary
members of China's nuclear suppliers' club. With any luck, Australia
will be supplying $250 million of uranium to China each year,
equivalent to about a half its current total uranium exports.
The nuclear
transfer agreement is Australia's guarantee that its uranium will never
find its way from China to North Korea, Iran, Pakistan or al-Qaeda, let
alone China's own nuclear weapons arsenal.
Meanwhile, three sorry peasants and a mine worker spent last Tuesday in a Guangzhou courtroom charged with uranium trafficking.
According to
Chinese journalists, who relayed to the Herald what they could not
publish, all four appeared pale and lethargic and had ghost-white hair.
Unfortunately, two other accused uranium traffickers could not attend
court because they were suffering from a variety of diseases.
So, how do you
establish a uranium smuggling racket in China? First, according to the
defendants' courtroom testimony, you become friendly with someone high
up in a "military-controlled" mine in the mountainous southern province
of Yunnan. That person - Old Zhou as he was known in court - gives you
eight kilograms of uranium-235 and uranium-238 on a "no-money-down"
basis.
Zhou was to
receive 200,000 yuan ($32,000) a kilogram and the defendants would keep
any additional profit. Zhou is apparently being tried separately.
Second,
according to one of the defendants, Yang Guoliang, you carefully pack
the uranium in plastic bags, wrap the bags in an old cloth and then
package it all in carbon duplicate paper. Apparently, the carbon paper
is meant to be a nuclear-proof safety feature, as recommended by one of
Old Zhou's former professors.
You then have
your uranium sampled at the Chenzhou uranium mine in central China's
Hunan province. And if you are not happy with the 46.7 per cent purity
reading, you can purify it yourself. "I loaded the samples and Zhang
and I used a sieve, a sieve screen," explained one of the smugglers,
Yang Guoliang.
His
collaborator, Zhang Sangang, now has tuberculosis. It seems the
smugglers were dealing with yellowcake, or uranium oxide, rather than
the refined product. The uranium sample, now 56.7 per cent pure,
according to a colleague in Hunan, is packed into a small plastic
bottle and the bottle is carefully placed in a shirt pocket. One of the
smugglers, Li Zi'an, catches an overnight bus from Hunan to meet a
middleman at, of all places, Guangzhou's Golden Goose Hotel. The
middleman, Peng Shuangjin, agrees to buy the uranium at 260,000 yuan
per kilo. But he gets cold feet, phones the police, and undercover cops
confiscate the sample and arrest the trafficker in the foyer of the
Golden Goose.
The middleman,
Peng, says Li Zi'an told him he had stashed the uranium in a cave in
Hunan province which no one else could ever find. But Li Zi'an told the
court he had only been "blowing bull" to make a quick sale. In fact, he
told the court, he had sent so many samples to so many different
potential buyers that they now had no idea where all the uranium had
gone.
According to
one version of events, eight kilograms of uranium is sitting in a cave
somewhere in Hunan. In the other version, it has been split into
countless samples in countless briefcases and could now be anywhere in
or out of the country. While some of the above is in dispute, it seems
clear China has a nuclear safeguards problem. Western intelligence
agencies have long been concerned with top-level nuclear technology
transfers between China and North Korea, Pakistan and, more recently,
Iran.
Abdul Qadeer
Khan, the disgraced "father" of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, spent much of
his time in Beijing, although it was not clear whether his
interlocutors were representing the People's Liberation Army, Chinese
intelligence or just themselves. A Chinese nuclear warhead design was
once found in Khan's luggage. Later, the same design was found in
another suitcase in Libya. But these days, the greater proliferation
concern is further down the food chain.
In May 2005,
nine months after a senior Chinese official first told Alexander Downer
he wanted to discuss a "sensitive" issue, China's Commission of
Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence circulated a
national warning about unauthorised uranium mining, smelting and
trafficking throughout southern China.
In July last
year, after Australia and China had signed a draft nuclear transfer
treaty, the defence commission was forced to issue another similar
warning, this time targeted at Hunan province and co-signed by police,
environmental and mining authorities.
Further, in
Mongolia a fortnight ago, I heard unconfirmed reports that a North
Korean delegation had just been in town asking about uranium
exploration rights with joint venture Chinese companies.
Australia's
Department of Foreign Affairs assures us China has committed to meet
the requirements of the Convention on the Physical Protection of
Nuclear Material.
A Carnegie
Institute paper, Deadly Arsenals, says the China National Nuclear
Corporation "produces, stores and controls all fissile material for
civilian as well as military use".
But as is so
often (and so paradoxically) the case in China, it is the authoritarian
regime's lack of control in the nation's lower rungs that creates the
greatest problems.
Chinese
authorities know the country is home to a raging underground uranium
production system. In all probability, only the dopiest smugglers with
the most obviously radioactive hair have so far been caught.
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Chinese police track missing uranium
http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/chinese-police-track-missing-uranium/2007/08/24/1187462521949.html
Mary-anne Toy
August 25, 2007
CHINESE police are attempting to trace eight kilograms of radioactive uranium ore that has gone missing.
The police arrested four men trying to sell the highly dangerous substance on the black market, state media have reported.
The men from
Hunan province are on trial in Guangzhou, capital of the southern
province of Guangdong, after they were arrested attempting to sell the
the ore — comprising U-235 and U-238 uranium — for 1.6 million yuan
($A260,000) per kilogram.
A fifth accomplice, who allegedly has the bulk of the ore, has not been found.
Health
authorities warned that the ore was highly dangerous. "The radioactive
substance uranium does not explode when it is in its raw state, but it
is very harmful to people's health," Jiang Chaoqiang, director of the
Guangzhou No. 12 People's Hospital, told China Daily.
Mr Jiang said close contact with uranium for long periods could lead to leukaemia or other cancers.
Two of the
defendants were arrested in Guangzhou in January trying to sell the
uranium to Peng Shuang Jin. He offered to buy apparently on behalf of a
customer in Hong Kong, but then informed police of the illegal
activity, the New Express Daily newspaper reported.
Another two accomplices were arrested in Hunan six days later.
Police have
recovered only 35 grams of uranium from the four men. They claimed a
fifth partner, Zhang Xinfang, had disappeared with the bulk of the
uranium and had since become seriously ill, presumably from exposure to
the radioactivity.
"The men claimed it had been lost because it had been moved around so much between potential buyers," the paper said.
A verdict had yet to be reached as the court said the trial would continue until authorities tracked down the uranium.
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EARTHQUAKES AND NUCLEAR PLANTS
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For Immediate Release
July 18,
2007
Contact: Linda Gunter, Beyond Nuclear
301.455.5655
[email protected]
Concerns rise
over vulnerability of U.S. atomic facilities to earthquakes after
world’s largest nuclear plant damaged by Japanese quake
TAKOMA PARK, MD
– The extensive damage at a seven-reactor nuclear power plant in Japan
after an earthquake this week is stoking concern that U.S. reactors and
other nuclear facilities may also be vulnerable to releases of deadly
radioactivity into the environment due to earthquakes.
Tokyo Electric
Power Company’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa atomic power plant, the largest in
the world in terms of electricity output, suffered 50 cases of
“malfunctioning and trouble” after a 6.7 tremor struck nearby two days
ago. Radioactively contaminated water, now calculated at more than 600
gallons, leaked into the Pacific Ocean and an estimated 400 barrels
containing radioactive waste tipped over, with 10% of the lids falling
off. Hazardous radioactive isotopes, cobalt-60 and chromium-51, were
emitted into the atmosphere from an exhaust stack.
Concerns that a
similar event could happen here are confirmed by an incident in August
2004, when an earthquake in Illinois broke an underground pipe attached
to one of the Dresden nuclear power plant’s radioactive waste
condensate storage tanks. The broken pipe was leaking tritium (a
harmful, radioactive form of hydrogen) into groundwater, creating an
expanding underground plume of hazardous radioactive contamination.
Several U.S.
atomic reactors may be especially vulnerable to earthquakes. The twin
reactor Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant near San Luis Obispo,
California was already built before it was discovered that an
earthquake fault line associated with the infamous San Andreas Fault
lay just offshore in the Pacific Ocean.
Fires, such as the one that broke out in Japan, are also a legitimate U.S. concern.
“Earthquakes
are notorious for sparking fires, which could spell disaster at U.S.
nuclear power plants given that many are not in compliance with safety
regulations for fire protection and reactor shutdown systems,” said
Paul Gunter, the nuclear industry watchdog at Beyond Nuclear, and an
expert on nuclear plant fire protection. “An earthquake-sparked
inferno, or failure to safely shut down a reactor, could lead to a
meltdown, catastrophic release of radioactivity, and deadly fallout
hundreds of miles downwind and downstream,” Gunter added.
A 1982 U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) report, known as CRAC-2, shows that
a major accident at a U.S. atomic reactor could cause tens to hundreds
of thousands of radiation-related deaths and injuries, as well as
hundreds of billions of dollars of property damage.
Risks extend to
the radioactive wastes stored on-site at U.S. reactors as well.
Environmental groups filed a federal lawsuit last month against the NRC
for failing to enforce its earthquake safety regulations for outdoor
storage of high-level radioactive wastes at the Palisades atomic
reactor on the shores of Lake Michigan. The lake supplies drinking
water for Chicago and millions downstream.
“An earthquake
could bury the containers under sand causing the nuclear fuel rods to
overheat, or could even submerge them under the waters of Lake
Michigan,” said Kevin Kamps, Radioactive Waste Watchdog at Beyond
Nuclear. “This could initiate a nuclear chain reaction in the wastes
making emergency response a suicide mission. In either case, it would
amount to a radiological disaster for Lake Michigan and the millions
who depend on it for drinking water.”
Earthquake
risks also plague the proposed Yucca Mountain, Nevada dumpsite for
commercial and military high-level radioactive wastes. Nearly three
dozen earthquake fault lines are in the vicinity, and two faults
actually intersect the proposed burial spot. Many hundreds of tremors
larger than 2.5 on the Richter scale have struck within 50 miles of
Yucca Mountain since 1975. One jolt, measuring 5.4 on the Richter
scale, struck just ten miles from Yucca Mountain in 1992, doing
extensive damage to the U.S. Department of Energy’s field office at the
site. Critics fear that a major earthquake at the dump site could cause
a radiological catastrophe by damaging waste handling surface
facilities planned for the site, or could cause tunnel collapses that
would breach waste burial containers, spilling their deadly contents
into the drinking water aquifer below.
“The risks of
earthquakes alone are reason enough to stop the Yucca Mountain dump
proposal dead in its tracks right now,” said Kamps.
###
The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Quake Chronology
Tokyo Electric
Power Company’s seven reactor Kashiwazaki-Kariwa atomic power plant,
the largest in the world in terms of electricity output, suffered 50
cases of “malfunctioning and trouble” after a 6.7 tremor struck nearby
two days ago. Radioactively contaminated water, at first estimated to
be around 315 gallons but later raised by 50%, leaked into the Pacific
Ocean. Barrels containing radioactive waste tipped over, and 10% of
their lids fell off; the number of barrels was first estimated at 100,
but later increased to 400. Hazardous radioactive isotopes cobalt-60
and chromium-51 were emitted into the atmosphere from an exhaust stack.
The first sign of trouble was not an alert issued by the company, but
rather a column of black smoke pouring off a transformer fire that took
two hours to bring under control. The quake, epi-centered on a
previously unknown fault line just over five miles from the nuclear
plant, created forces 2.5 times stronger than the plant was designed to
withstand. Based upon data from the quake’s aftershocks, Japanese
authorities now fear an extension of the fault line may pass very near
to, or even directly under, the atomic complex itself. The twelve hour
delay before the company announced the radioactive leak into the ocean,
the day-long delay in discovering the tipped over barrels, and the
increasing magnitude of the spills and other problems has caused
consternation among environmental groups, local residents and
politicians, even with the Japanese Prime Minister himself.
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