nuclear-news

Thorp nuclear plant may close for years The Guardian John Vidal 19 May 09 • Faulty reprocessing facility threatens UK atomic plans• Critics call for plug to be pulled on ‘white elephant’

The company that runs the Thorp nuclear reprocessing plant admitted that it may have to close for a number of years owing to a series of technical problems.

The huge £1.8bn plant at Sellafield imports spent nuclear fuel from around the world and returns it to countries as new reactor fuel. But a series of catastrophic technical failures with associated equipment means Thorp could be mothballed at a cost of millions of pounds.

Under strict orders from the government’s safety watchdog, the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate, the plant’s operators, Sellafield Ltd, is expected to have little option but to mothball the reprocessing plant for at least four years.

Closure of Thorp for any length of time could cost the company and government hundreds of millions of pounds and embarrass the resurgent nuclear industry,

Nuclear Power: Low Cost, Small Carbon Footprint, Huge Risks OPB News
 BY KRISTIAN FODEN-VENCIL Hanford, WA May 18, 2009 6: – “………………..

But, as most everyone knows, nuclear has problems.

Because of the risks, Wall Street won’t fund it without federal loan guarantees; human errors can be disastrous; and it produces a stream of long-lived and dangerous radioactive waste.

The Trojan plant for example was built by Portland General Electric in the 1970’s and shut down less than 20 years later.

The reactor was shipped off to Hanford and buried; the cooling tower demolished in a widely publicized explosion.  All that remains is a large gravel lot…………………………………….recycling doesn’t make nuclear renewable — there’s still a dangerous waste stream and the process also produces weapons grade plutonium — an attractive target for terrorists………………………..Chuck Johnson: “We know that burning hydrocarbons is causing global warming, that doesn’t therefore logically lead us to do something else that has long-term negative consequences. Like develop nuclear energy that has radioactive waste that lasts 10s of thousands of years. I think future generations will wonder, what was so important about generating electricity back in the 20th and 21st century that we now have to deal with these wastes that these people generated 10-thousand years ago.”

World’s Largest Solar Farm Project For Australia  Energy matters 18 May 09 “………..the Australian Government has highlighted a lofty goal – to build four solar farms that generate three times as much power as the world’s current largest project based in California. The Rudd Government says it remains committed to ensuring 20 per cent of Australia’s electricity comes from renewable sources by 2020.
 
Under the Government’s $1.365 billion Solar Flagships plan, such a project would see the farms generating a combined 1 gigawatt of renewable energy generated electricity; the equivalent of an average sized coal fired power station.
  ……………………………… the Government has also announced Australia will become a member of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). 
 
Launched in January this year; Bonn, Germany based IRENA works on behalf of the renewables sector to promote the acceleration of renewable energy uptake worldwide. The organisation provides advice and support for countries, assists in the development of regulatory frameworks and the building of capacity. IRENA currently has 80 members.
 
The Rudd Government sees the membership of IRENA as a strengthening of Australia’s role as a global leader in tackling climate change and the knowledge gained from operating the Solar Flagships program will contribute to the worldwide fight against carbon pollution.
 

Clikate Change ABC TV Message Stick

17 May 2009

Climate change must be considered as one of our greatest threats to survival. Predictions of devastating weather patterns and rising sea levels are already beginning to unfold and our shared future will depend on our ability to adapt and find new ways of living in harmony with the environment.As the world’s oldest surviving culture, Indigenous Australians offer a profound depth of knowledge, but Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices often struggle to be heard in debates about water scarcity, carbon trading and the protection of our natural landscapes and wildlife. Miriam Corowa discusses these issues with three people who are on the frontline of change………………………..JOE MORRISON: Indigenous people have been taken away from their traditional estates and lands and therefore, the fire frequency in northern Australia has basically gotten out of control, where up to 70% of the nations’ fires occur in northern Australia and they’re usually in the latter part of the year. That’s not a traditional fire regime, so there’s lots of damage being done through that, not to mention more greenhouse gases going into the atmosphere. So what we’re doing is using traditional knowledge to reinstate traditional fire regimes, enabling people to get back onto their traditional states, burn earlier, engaging old people and young people and by doing that, they’re able to sell an offset, which is the difference between the late fires and the early fires. This is something Indigenous people, particularly in northern and central Australia, have got an upper hand on, given their longstanding history of fire management in that part of the world. It’s something I think that the nation should celebrate and consider as part of their overall climate change strategy………………………..JOE MORRISON: Absolutely, I think that as a nation, we do have a long way to go. The dialogue only just commenced with the international community, when the Rudd Government signed up to Kyoto. That means we’re at least a few years behind the eight ball at the international scenario, but locally, there is a long way to go. Again, bringing back to that point about the education, I think it’s a two-way thing. It’s not just Indigenous people understanding what non-Indigenous people are talking about, but it’s also about non-Indigenous people understanding that Indigenous people can actually contribute something positive to the climate change agenda.

Australian government announces military buildup as strategic dilemma intensifies World socialist Website By James Cogan18 May 2009In its new Defence White Paper, published on May 2, the Australian Labor government has committed to a major military build-up, under the aegis of the country’s postwar alliance with the United States, despite mounting concern over the decline of American hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region and the prospect of conflict with China………………………….The document defines participation in future conflicts in the Middle East and Central Asia as “not a principal task” of the Australian military, but goes on to reassure Washington that such participation, if requested, would certainly be considered. It indicates that the deployment of Australian troops in Afghanistan is effectively indefinite and that the US satellite base at Pine Gap—critical to the deployment of the US nuclear arsenal—remains a “central element” of Australia’s relationship with the US…………………………the Navy will be re-equipped with 12 new conventional submarines and several new frigates, all armed with US Tomahawk Cruise missiles capable of hitting targets 2,500 kilometres (1,800 miles) away. While the document makes no mention of it, this will be the first time that the Australian military has weapons capable of delivering nuclear warheads.