Australian Parliament votes in favour of bringing Assange home
By John Jiggens | 15 February 2024, https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/parliament-votes-in-favour-of-bringing-assange-home,18333—
In a historic vote, parliamentarians have shown unprecedented support for the return home of imprisoned journalist Julian Assange. Dr John Jiggens reports.
WEDNESDAY 14 FEBRUARY turned out to be an unanticipated Happy Valentine’s Day for Julian Assange supporters. The Australian House of Representatives passed a motion introduced by Tasmanian Independent Andrew Wilkie, on behalf of the Parliamentary Friends of Julian Assange, urging the U.S. and the UK to bring their prosecution of the WikiLeaks founder to a close and allow him to return to his family and home in Australia.
The vote was 86 for Yes (ALP, Greens and Independents) and 42 for No (mostly Liberal and National).
In an unprecedented show of parliamentary support for Assange, two-thirds of the lower house voted for the motion. It was not unanimous because Coalition members overwhelmingly chose to support the U.S. and UK in what the former UN Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer, described as the torture of an Australian journalist.
Greens leader Adam Bandt appealed to the Coalition to support the motion. Assange has become symbolic of journalists around the world who face attacks on press freedom, he argued, ranging from political prosecutions through to murder.
Assange’s prosecution set a chilling precedent for journalists about their ability to hold governments to account and to tell the truth without facing imprisonment and without facing a risk to their own lives.
Bandt said:
“If governments think that participation in the AUKUS agreement and alliance is so critical, surely part of that should be the insistence on human rights and the proper treatment of our citizens — of Australian citizens. If we are sitting around a table with these governments, we should be able to insist that Julian Assange is brought home.”
His appeal fell on deaf ears — it remained AUKUS regardless of any cost.
For Assange, the situation is still perilous. He remains incarcerated in HM Prison Belmarsh in the UK, where he has spent the last five years, locked down for 23 hours each day in a three-metre by two-metre cell, unconvicted of any charges, an innocent man in a living hell, like Dylan’s ‘Hurricane’. Like Nelson Mandela, he walks his long walk to freedom around that tiny cell every day.
In one week, the UK High Court will decide whether he has exhausted all his legal appeals to prevent being extradited to the USA where he would face charges that could see him imprisoned for 175 years under their notorious 1917 Espionage Act for publishing material, which revealed shocking evidence of misconduct by U.S. forces.
As Senator David Shoebridge tweeted on the day of the vote:
‘There are real concerns that if Julian loses next week he will be immediately extradited.’
In this epic David versus Goliath mismatch, one lone Australian journalist pitted against the world’s greatest empire, it was rare good news. Members and supporters of the Parliamentary Friends of Julian Assange tweeted happily.
Andrew Wilkie, Convenor of the Parliamentary Friends of Assange:
‘I successfully moved a motion to recognise the importance of bringing Julian Assange’s extradition to an end. The Govt voted for it in an unprecedented show of political support for Julian. The US must heed these calls & drop the extradition. #FreeAssangeNOW #auspol #politas.’
Adam Bandt, Leader of the Greens:
‘Today – for the first time – the House voted to call on the UK & the USA to bring Julian Assange home. His family, the people and this Parliament want him home.
PM — it’s time we make this a reality.’
Dr Monique Ryan, Independent member, Kooyong:
‘A powerful moment. Today the Government and crossbench called on the United States and the United Kingdom to stop prosecuting Julian Assange so he can come home. This is the ultimate test of our nations’ friendship and I sincerely hope it is heard.’
David Shoebridge, Greens Senator:
‘Today the House of Representatives has voted in favour of a motion from my Parliamentary Friends of Assange colleague @WilkieMP on the need to bring Julian home. This is a genuinely historic moment and a testament to the work of so many for so many years. 86-42 vote.’
Worst places in Australia to be if World War Three hits
For Australia, the question isn’t where to hide in the event of a nuclear war. It’s where not to be — and this is the top of the list.
news.com.au Jamie Seidel Jamie Seidel is a freelance writer | @JamieSeidel 12 Feb 24
For Australia, the question isn’t where to hide in the event of a nuclear war. It’s where not to be. And how to cope afterwards.
………………………………………the bomb is back.
And international analysts fear there’s a growing will to use them…………………………………………………………………………….
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists chose to keep their “Doomsday Clock” at 90 seconds to midnight late last month – the closest it has ever been to an apocalypse.
They cited the danger of the Russia-Ukraine war, the slaughter in Gaza, and the worldwide diplomatic, economic and environmental toll associated with 2023 being the hottest year in recorded history.
All it takes is one “incident”. Then the domino effect of “Mutually Assured Destruction” kicks into play.
Those with the largest arsenals – China, Russia and the United States – are still likely to hit strategic targets. At least in the first wave of a nuclear exchange.
Australia in the firing line
……………………………………………………“Once we enter the slippery slope of even limited nuclear exchanges, the end result will be escalation to mutual annihilation — something about which both Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping may need reminding,” says ANU emeritus strategic studies professor Paul Dibb.
PINE GAP has long been known to top the list. This highly secret US military installation exists to detect and track nuclear missiles. Removing it early in any war would degrade the ability of the US to defend its own soil.
“In the late 1970s, it was made quite clear to me during talks in Moscow that Pine Gap was a priority Soviet nuclear target,” Professor Dibb said in a recent ASPI critique.
“And in 2016, I was warned: ‘In the event of nuclear war between Russia and America, you Australians will find that nuclear missiles fly in every direction.
HAROLD E HOLT Naval Communications Station at Northwest Cape, near Exmouth, Western Australia, is in a similar category. This enormous communications facility has been built to communicate with submarines at depths of up to 30 metres. Eliminating it would sow confusion among US attack and ballistic missile submarine commanders.
From here, the list gets more controversial.
RAAF TINDAL near Katherine in the Northern Territory has recently been adapted to host nuclear-capable US B-52 bombers. Any nuclear-capable delivery system is a likely nuclear target…………………….
HMAS STIRLING, the naval base in Perth’s southern suburbs, is slated to become a regular pitstop call for US and UK nuclear-powered submarines. Eventually, it is hoped to also house Australia’s own. But such submarines are incredibly high-value targets because they combine immense firepower, globe-circling range and virtual invisibility.
OSBORNE NAVAL SHIPYARD in Port Adelaide could potentially join its US and UK cousins on a nuclear warhead list. The nuclear-powered submarines it is expected to begin assembling are among the most lethal ships in the sea. But also the hardest to build, maintain and repair.
“Armed with nuclear submarines, Australia itself will be a target for possible nuclear attacks in the future,” Communist Party mouthpiece Victor Gao threatened shortly after then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull dropped the AUKUS nuclear submarine pact bombshell in 2021.
“Do you really want to be a target in a possible nuclear war, or do you want to be free from nuclear menace,” he menaced. [ Ed note – “menaced” – I thought it was a fair question]
MARINE ROTATIONAL FORCE – DARWIN is a rotating force of 2500 US Marine troops, aircrew and sailors based in and around Darwin and at RAAF Base Darwin. While small, it does represent the core upon which a much larger force can be built. And it’s a high-profile US presence far from home shores.
RAAF BASE WILLIAMTOWN, 40km north of Newcastle, NSW, is home base to Australia’s small fleet of F-35 Lightning II stealth fighters. But the one thing these aircraft were explicitly designed to do – be invisible to radar – makes attacking their undefended airfields an obvious shortcut.
GARDEN ISLAND NAVAL BASE, Sydney, is already home to a disproportionately large number of Australia’s otherwise limited number of major surface (and subsurface) combat vessels. And while there are no plans for US or UK nuclear attack submarines to visit, Australia’s own will likely operate from this centralised hub. https://www.news.com.au/national/worst-places-in-australia-to-be-if-world-war-three-hits/news-story/1c0180b0a5f8652b024bfc1fe9444313
Australia’s State governments fight each other to avoid having to store nuclear wastes
Expect weapons-grade NIMBYism as leaders fight over where to store AUKUS nuclear waste
Given that proposals for even low-level nuclear waste sites have been rejected by communities, who is going to take on the radioactive waste created by our new military pact?
ANTON NILSSON, FEB 01, 2024, Crikey,
here should Australia store the waste created by its investment in nuclear-driven submarines? It’s a question no-one knows the answer to yet — although we do know a couple of places where the radioactive waste won’t be stored. As the search for a solution continues, expect politicians to try to kick the radioactive can further down the road — and expect some weapons-grade NIMBYism from state and territory leaders if they’re asked to help out.
In August last year, plans to build a new nuclear waste storage facility in Kimba in South Australia were scrapped. As Griffith University emeritus professor and nuclear expert Ian Lowe put it in a Conversation piece, “the plan was doomed from the start” — because the government didn’t do adequate community consultation before deciding on the spot.
Resources Minister Madeleine King acknowledged as much when she told Parliament the government wouldn’t challenge a court decision that sided with traditional owners in Kimba, who opposed the dump: “We have said all along that a National Radioactive Waste Facility requires broad community support … which includes the whole community, including the traditional owners of the land. This is not the case at Kimba.”
Kimba wasn’t even supposed to store the high-level waste that will be created by AUKUS submarines — it was meant to store low-level and intermediate-level waste, the kind generated from nuclear medicine, scientific research, and industrial technologies. As King told Parliament, Australia already has enough low-level waste to fill five Olympic swimming pools, and enough intermediate-level waste for two more pools.
Where the waste from AUKUS will go is a question without answer. Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles said in March last year the first reactor from a nuclear-powered submarine won’t have to be disposed of until the 2050s. He added the government will set out its process for finding dump sites within a year — which means Marles has until March this year to spill the details.
“The final storage site of high-level waste resulting from AUKUS remains a mystery,” ANU environmental historian Jessica Urwin told Crikey. “Considering the historical controversies wrought by low- and intermediate-level waste disposal in Australia over many decades, it is hard to see how any Australian government, current or future, will get a high-level waste disposal facility off the ground.”
In his comments last year, Marles gave a hint as to the government’s intentions: he said it would search for sites “on the current or future Defence estate”.
One such Defence estate site that’s been the focus of some speculation is Woomera in South Australia. “A federal government decision to scrap plans for a nuclear waste dump outside the South Australian town of Kimba has increased speculation it will instead build a bigger facility on Defence land at Woomera that could also accommodate high-level waste from the AUKUS submarines,” the Australian Financial Review reported last year.
Urwin said such a proposal could trigger local opposition as well.
Due to Woomera’s proximity to the former Maralinga and Emu Field nuclear testing sites, and therefore its connections to some of the darkest episodes in Australia’s nuclear history, communities impacted by the tests and other nuclear impositions (such as uranium mining) have historically pushed back against the siting of nuclear waste at Woomera,” she said.
Australian Submarine Agency documents released under freedom of information laws in December last year show there is little appetite among state leaders to help solve the conundrum.
A briefing note to Defence secretary Greg Moriarty informed him that “state premiers (Victoria, Western Australia, Queensland, and South Australia) [have sought] to distance their states from being considered as potential locations”. ………………………………………………….. more https://www.crikey.com.au/2024/02/01/aukus-nuclear-waste-storage-australia/
Cost of UK’s flagship nuclear project blows out to more than $A92 billion
But it also has implications for Australia, because one its main political groupings, the right-wing Liberal and National Party coalition, has decided that Australia should abandon its current plan to dump coal for renewables and storage, and wait for nuclear instead.
Australia currently has a target of 82 per cent renewables by 2030, and AEMO’s latest Integrated System Plan suggests it could be close to 100 per cent renewables within half a decade after that.
Giles Parkinson, Jan 29, 2024, https://reneweconomy.com.au/cost-of-uks-flagship-nuclear-project-blows-out-to-more-than-a92-billion/
The cost of the flagship nuclear project in the United Kingdom has blown out again, this time to a potential $A92.6 billion as a result of yet more problems and delays at the Hinkley C project.
The latest cost blowout was revealed last week by the French-government owned EdF, whose former CEO had originally promised in 2007 that the Hinkley project would be “cooking Christmas turkeys” in England by 2017, at a cost of just £9 billion.
But like virtually every major nuclear project built in western economies, that ambitious deadline was never going to be met. The new start-up date is now for 2030, but more likely 2031 – and that is only for one of the two units.
The budget has leaped from the original promise of £9 billion, to £18 billion, and has since blown out multiple times to now reach £31 billion and £34 billion, and it could be more than £35 billion “in 2015 values,” according to EdF. This translates into current day prices, according to Michael Liebreich, the former head of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, of £48 billion, or $A92.6 billion.
“The cost of civil engineering and the longer duration of the electromechanical phase (and its impact on other work) are the two main reasons for this cost revision,” EdF said in its statement. It has also experienced massive cost over-runs and delays at other similar projects in Flammanville in Fance and Olkiluoto in Finland.
It is yet another crippling blow to the UK plans to make nuclear a centrepiece of its green energy transition. EdF has already had to be bailed out by its own government, and ultimately nationalised, because of the cost blowouts and the huge costs of buying replacement power when half its French nuclear fleet went offline in 2023.
China’s CGN had to be brought in to fund one third of the Hinckley project, but is refusing to contribute more funds because China has been frozen out of other UK projects.
Alison Downes of Stop Sizewell C, a campaign group opposed to the planned Suffolk nuclear plant, told the Financial Times that EDF and the Hinkley project was an “unmitigated disaster”.
She added the UK government should cancel Sizewell C, saying state funding for the project could be better spent on “renewables, energy efficiency or, in this election year, schools and hospitals”.
But it also has implications for Australia, because one its main political groupings, the right-wing Liberal and National Party coalition, has decided that Australia should abandon its current plan to dump coal for renewables and storage, and wait for nuclear instead.
The Coalition had been pushing so-called small modular reactors, but after the failure of the leading technology developer in the US last year, and confirmation by the CSIRO and the Australian Energy Market Operator that SMR costs would be three times more expensive than renewables, several key Coalition members pointed to large scale nuclear such as Hinckley.
Australia currently has a target of 82 per cent renewables by 2030, and AEMO’s latest Integrated System Plan suggests it could be close to 100 per cent renewables within half a decade after that.
This switch to low carbon electricity is critical for Australia’s emissions targets, and for emission cuts in other parts of the economy. Any delay in the roll-out of renewables, in the expectation that nuclear would fill its place, will push that timeline out by at least another decade, if not, and blow out the costs of the energy transition.
“It is not like cost over-runs in nuclear projects are a big secret,” Liebreich writes on his Sub-stack blog.
He cites the world’s leading academic expert on project management, Danish Professor Bent Flyvbjerg, author of How Big Things Get Done, who shows that nuclear plants are worse only than Olympic Games in terms of cost over-runs.
“On average they go 120% over the budget, with 58% of them going a whopping 204% over budget,” Liebreich writes.
The Coalition energy spokesman Ted O’Brien complained in December that the CSIRO/AEMO report focused only on the “investment” cost, and not the “consumer cost.”
It’s not clear what he means by that. But as Liebreich notes, while Hinkley’s construction costs are in the £42 to £48 billion range, its first 35 years of electricity at £87.50 or £92.50/MW in 2012 money, adjusted for inflation, will cost UK energy users a gargantuan £111 or £116 billion, or up to $A223 billion.
Nuclear goes backwards, again, as wind and solar enjoy another year of record growth.
Jim Green 21 January 2024, https://reneweconomy.com.au/nuclear-goes-backwards-again-as-wind-and-solar-enjoy-another-year-of-record-growth/
The nuclear renaissance of the late-2000s was a bust due to the Fukushima disaster and catastrophic cost overruns with reactor projects. The latest renaissance is heading the same way, i.e. nowhere. Nuclear power went backwards last year.
There were five reactor start-ups and five permanent closures in 2023 with a net loss of 1.7 gigawatts (GW) of capacity. There were just six reactor construction starts in 2023, five of them in China.
Due to the ageing of the reactor fleet, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) anticipates the closure of 10 reactors (10 GW) per year from 2018 to 2050.
Thus the industry needs an annual average of 10 reactor construction starts, and 10 reactor startups (grid connections), just to maintain its current output. Over the past decade (2014-23), construction starts have averaged 6.1 and reactor startups have averaged 6.7.
The number of operable power reactors is 407 to 413 depending on the definition of operability, well down from the 2002 peak of 438.
Nuclear power’s share of global electricity generation has fallen to 9.2 percent, its lowest share in four decades and little more than half of its peak of 17.5 percent in 1996.
Over the two decades 2004-2023, there were 102 power reactor startups and 104 closures worldwide: 49 startups in China with no closures; and a net decline of 51 reactors in the rest of the world.
In China, there were five reactor construction starts in 2023 and just one reactor startup. Put another way, there was just one reactor construction start outside China in 2023. So much for the hype about a new nuclear renaissance.
Small modular reactors and ‘advanced’ nuclear power
Small modular reactors (SMRs) are the subject of endless hype but there were no SMR construction starts or startups last year. The biggest SMR news in 2023 was NuScale Power’s decision to abandon its flagship project in Idaho despite securing astronomical subsidies amounting to around US$4 billion (A$6.1 billion) from the US government.
The pro-nuclear Breakthrough Institute noted in a November 2023 article that efforts to commercialise a new generation of ‘advanced’ nuclear reactors “are simply not on track” and it warned nuclear advocates not to “whistle past this graveyard”:
It wrote:
“The NuScale announcement follows several other setbacks for advanced reactors. Last month, X-Energy, another promising SMR company, announced that it was canceling plans to go public. This week, it was forced to lay off about 100 staff.
“In early 2022, Oklo’s first license application was summarily rejected by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission before the agency had even commenced a technical review of Oklo’s Aurora reactor.
The nuclear renaissance of the late-2000s was a bust due to the Fukushima disaster and catastrophic cost overruns with reactor projects. The latest renaissance is heading the same way, i.e. nowhere. Nuclear power went backwards last year.
There were five reactor start-ups and five permanent closures in 2023 with a net loss of 1.7 gigawatts (GW) of capacity. There were just six reactor construction starts in 2023, five of them in China.
Due to the ageing of the reactor fleet, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) anticipates the closure of 10 reactors (10 GW) per year from 2018 to 2050.
Thus the industry needs an annual average of 10 reactor construction starts, and 10 reactor startups (grid connections), just to maintain its current output. Over the past decade (2014-23), construction starts have averaged 6.1 and reactor startups have averaged 6.7.
The number of operable power reactors is 407 to 413 depending on the definition of operability, well down from the 2002 peak of 438.
Nuclear power’s share of global electricity generation has fallen to 9.2 percent, its lowest share in four decades and little more than half of its peak of 17.5 percent in 1996.
Over the two decades 2004-2023, there were 102 power reactor startups and 104 closures worldwide: 49 startups in China with no closures; and a net decline of 51 reactors in the rest of the world.
In China, there were five reactor construction starts in 2023 and just one reactor startup. Put another way, there was just one reactor construction start outside China in 2023. So much for the hype about a new nuclear renaissance.
Nuclear decline vs. record renewables growth
The International Energy Agency (IEA) has just released its ‘Renewables 2023’ report and it makes for a striking contrast with the nuclear industry’s malaise.
Nuclear power suffered a net loss of 1.7 GW capacity in 2023, whereas renewable capacity additions amounted to a record 507 GW, almost 50 percent higher than 2022. This is the 22nd year in a row that renewable capacity additions set a new record, the IEA states. Solar PV alone accounted for three-quarters of renewable capacity additions worldwide in 2023.
Nuclear power accounts for a declining share of share of global electricity generation (currently 9.2 percent) whereas renewables have grown to 30.2 percent. The IEA expects renewables to reach 42 percent by 2028 thanks to a projected 3,700 GW of new capacity over the next five years in the IEA’s ‘main case’.
The IEA states that the world is on course to add more renewable capacity in the next five years than has been installed since the first commercial renewable energy power plant was built more than 100 years ago.
Solar and wind combined have already surpassed nuclear power generation and the IEA notes that over the next five years, several other milestones will likely be achieved:
— In 2025, renewables surpass coal-fired electricity generation to become the largest source of electricity generation
— In 2025, wind surpasses nuclear electricity generation
— In 2026, solar PV surpasses nuclear electricity generation
— In 2028, renewable energy sources account for over 42 percent of global electricity generation, with the share of wind and solar PV doubling to 25 percent
Tripling renewables
The IEA states in its ‘Renewables 2023’ report that:
“Prior to the COP28 climate change conference in Dubai, the International Energy Agency (IEA) urged governments to support five pillars for action by 2030, among them the goal of tripling global renewable power capacity. Several of the IEA priorities were reflected in the Global Stocktake text agreed by the 198 governments at COP28, including the goals of tripling renewables and doubling the annual rate of energy efficiency improvements every year to 2030. Tripling global renewable capacity in the power sector from 2022 levels by 2030 would take it above 11 000 GW, in line with IEA’s Net Zero Emissions by 2050 (NZE) Scenario.
“Under existing policies and market conditions, global renewable capacity is forecast to reach 7300 GW by 2028. This growth trajectory would see global capacity increase to 2.5 times its current level by 2030, falling short of the tripling goal.”
In the IEA’s ‘accelerated case’, 4,500 GW of new renewable capacity will be added over the next five years (compared to 3,700 GW in the ‘main case’), nearing the tripling goal.
Tripling nuclear?
The goal of tripling renewables by 2030 is a stretch but it is not impossible. Conversely, the ‘pledge’ signed by just 22 nations at COP28 to triple nuclear power by 2050 appears absurd.
The Labor federal government signed Australia up to the renewables pledge but not the nuclear pledge. The Coalition wants to do the opposite, and also opposes the Labor government’s target of 82 per cent renewable power supply by 2030.
One of the lies being peddled by the Coalition is that nuclear power capacity could increase by 80 percent over the next 30 years. That is based on a ‘high case’ scenario from the IAEA. However the IAEA’s ‘low case’ scenario — ignored by the Coalition — is for another 30 years of stagnation.
So should we go with the IAEA’s high or low scenarios, or split the difference perhaps?
According to a report by the IAEA itself, the Agency’s ‘high’ forecasts have consistently proven to be ridiculous and even its ‘low’ forecasts are too high — by 13 percent on average.
Nuclear power won’t increase by 80 percent by 2050 and it certainly won’t triple; indeed it will struggle to maintain current output given the ageing of the reactor fleet and recent experience with construction projects.
Comparing nuclear and renewables in China
China’s nuclear program added only 1.2 GW capacity in 2023 while wind and solar combined added 278 GW. Michael Barnard noted in CleanTechnica that allowing for capacity factors, the nuclear additions amount to about 7 terrawatt-hours (TWh) of new low carbon generation per year, while wind and solar between them will contribute about 427 TWh annually, over 60 times more than nuclear.
Barnard commented:
“One of the things that western nuclear proponents claim is that governments have over-regulated nuclear compared to wind and solar, and China’s regulatory regime for nuclear is clearly not the USA’s or the UK’s. They claim that fears of radiation have created massive and unfair headwinds, and China has a very different balancing act on public health and public health perceptions than the west. They claim that environmentalists have stopped nuclear development in the west, and while there are vastly more protests in China than most westerners realize, governmental strategic programs are much less susceptible to public hostility.
“And finally, western nuclear proponents complain that NIMBYs block nuclear expansion, and public sentiment and NIMBYism is much less powerful in China with its Confucian, much more top down governance system.
“China’s central government has a 30 year track record of building massive infrastructure programs, so it’s not like it is missing any skills there. China has a nuclear weapons program, so the alignment of commercial nuclear generation with military strategic aims is in hand too. China has a strong willingness to finance strategic infrastructure with long-running state debt, so there are no headwinds there either.
“Yet China can’t scale its nuclear program at all. It peaked in 2018 with 7 reactors with a capacity of 8.2 GW. For the five years since then then it’s been averaging 2.3 GW of new nuclear capacity, and last year only added 1.2 GW …”
Dr. Jim Green is the national nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth Australia and a member of the Nuclear Consulting Group.
The Politics of Nuclear Waste Disposal: Lessons from Australia
22 Jan 2024 | Jim Green and Dimity Hawkins, https://www.apln.network/projects/voices-from-pacific-island-countries/the-politics-of-nuclear-waste-disposal-lessons-from-australia
Click here to download the full report.
In this report, Jim Green and Dimity Hawkins explore Australia’s long and complex engagement with nuclear waste issues. With the failure to remediate atomic bomb test sites, and repeated failures to establish a national nuclear waste repository, the approaches of successive Australian governments to radioactive waste management deserve close scrutiny.
A recurring theme is the violation of the rights of Aboriginal First Nations Peoples and their successful efforts to resist the imposition of nuclear waste facilities on their traditional lands through effective community campaigning and legal challenges. Green and Hawkins argue for the incorporation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples into Australian law, and amendments to the National Radioactive Waste Management Act to remove clauses which weaken or override Indigenous cultural heritage protections and land rights.
In addition, they highlight the need for studies, clean-up and monitoring of all British nuclear weapons test sites in Australia in line with the positive obligations in the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). In light of the failure to manage existing radioactive waste management challenges, it must be questioned whether the Australian government can successfully manage the challenges of high-level nuclear waste management posed by the AUKUS defence pact and the plan to purchase and build nuclear-powered submarines.
This report was produced as part of a project on Nuclear Disarmament and the Anthropocene: Voices from Pacific Island Countries, sponsored by Ploughshares Fund.
Cancelling the Journalist: The Australian ABC’s Coverage of the Israel-Gaza War
- January 18, 2024, by: Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.com/cancelling-the-journalist-the-abcs-coverage-of-the-israel-gaza-war/#
What a cowardly act it was. A national broadcaster, dedicated to what should be fearless reporting, cowed by the intemperate bellyaching of a lobby concerned about coverage of the Israel-Gaza war. The investigation by The Age newspaper was revealing in showing that the dismissal of broadcaster Antoinette Lattouf last December 20 was the nasty fruit of a campaign waged against the corporation’s management. This included its chair, Ita Buttrose, and managing director David Anderson.
The official reason for that dismissal was disturbingly ordinary. Lattouf had not, for instance, decided to become a flag-swathed bomb thrower for the Palestinian cause. She had engaged in no hostage taking campaign, nor intimidated any Israeli figure. The sacking had purportedly been made over sharing a post by Human Rights Watch about Israel that mentioned “using starvation of civilians as a weapon of war in Gaza”, calling it “a war crime”. It also noted the express intention by Israeli officials to pursue this strategy. Actions are also documented: the deliberate blocking of the delivery of food, water and fuel “while wilfully obstructing the entry of aid.” The sharing by Lattouf took place following a direction not to post on “matters of controversy”.
Human Rights Watch might be accused of many things: the dolled up corporate face of human rights activism; the activist transformed into fundraising agent and boardroom gaming strategist. But to share material from the organisation on alleged abuses is hardly a daredevil act of dangerous hair-raising radicalism.
Prior to the revelations in The Age, much had been made of Lattouf’s fill-in role as a radio presenter, a stint that was to last for five shows. The Australian, true to form, had its own issue with Lattouf’s statements made on various online platforms. In December, the paper found it strange that she was appointed “despite her very public anti-Israel stance” (paywalled). She was also accused of denying the lurid interpretations put upon footage from protests outside Sydney Opera House, some of which called for gassing Jews. And she dared accused the Israeli forces of committing rape.
It was also considered odd that she discuss such matters as food and water shortages in Gaza and “an advertising campaign showing corpses reminiscent of being wrapped in Muslim burial cloths.” That “left ‘a lot of people really upset’.” If war is hell, then Lattouf was evidently not allowed to go into quite so much detail about it – at least when concerning the fate of Palestinians at the hands of the Israeli war machine.
What also transpires is that the ABC managers were not merely targeting Lattouf on their own, sadistic initiative. Pressure of some measure had been exercised from outside the organisation. According to The Age, WhatsApp messages had been sent to the ABC as part of a coordinated campaign by a group called Lawyers for Israel.
The day Lattouf was sacked, Sydney property lawyer Nicky Stein buzzingly began proceedings by telling members of the group to contact the federal minister for communication asking “how Antoinette is hosting the morning ABC Sydney show.” Employing Lattouff apparently breached Clause 4 of the ABC code of practice on impartiality.
Stein cockily went on to insist that, “It’s important ABC hears from not just individuals in the community but specifically from lawyers so they feel there is an actual legal threat.” She goes on to read that a “proper” rather than “generic” response was expected “by COB [close of business] today or I would look to engage senior counsel.”
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Did such windy threats have any basis? No, according to Stein. “I know there is probably no actionable offence against the ABC but I didn’t say I would be taking one – just investigating one. I have said that they should be terminating her employment immediately.” Utterly charming, and sufficiently so to attract attention from the ABC chairperson herself, who asked for further venting of concerns.
Indeed, another member of the haranguing clique, Robert Goot, also deputy president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, could boast of information he had received that Lattouf would be “gone from morning radio from Friday” because of her anti-Israeli stance.
There has been something of a journalistic exodus from the ABC of late. Nour Haydar, an Australian journalist also of Lebanese descent, resigned expressing her concerns about the coverage of the Israel-Gaza conflict at the broadcaster. There had been, for instance, the creation of a “Gaza advisory panel” at the behest of ABC News director Justin Stevens, ostensibly to improve the coverage of the conflict. “Accuracy and impartiality are core to the service we offer audiences,” Stevens explained to staff. “We must stay independent and not ‘take sides’.”
This pointless assertion can only ever be a threat because it acts as an injunction on staff and a judgment against sources that do not favour the accepted line, however credible they might be. What proves acceptable, a condition that seems to have paralysed the ABC, is to never say that Israel massacres, commits war crimes, and brings about conditions approximating to genocide. Little wonder that coverage on South Africa’s genocide case against Israel in the International Court of Justice does not get top billing on in the ABC news headlines.
Palestinians and Palestinian militias, on the other hand, can always be written about as brute savages, rapists and baby slayers. Throw in fanaticism and Islam, and you have the complete package ready for transmission. Coverage in the mainstays of most Western liberal democracies of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as the late Robert Fisk pointed out with pungency, repeatedly asserts these divisions.
After her signation Haydar told the Sydney Morning Herald that, “Commitment to diversity in the media cannot be skin deep. Culturally diverse staff should be respected and supported even when they challenge the status quo.” But Haydar’s argument about cultural diversity should not obscure the broader problem facing the ABC: policing the way opinions and material on war and any other divisive topic is shared. The issue goes less to cultural diversity than permitted intellectual breadth, which is distinctly narrowing at the national broadcaster.
Lattouf, for her part, is pursuing remedies through the Fair Work Commission, and seeking funding through a GoFundMe page, steered by Lauren Dubois. “We stand with Antoinette and support the rights of workers to be able to share news that expresses an opinion or reinforces a fact, without fear of retribution.”
Kenneth Roth, former head of Human Rights Watch, expressed his displeasure at the treatment of Lattouf for sharing HRW material, suggesting the ABC had erred. ABC’s senior management, through a statement from managing director David Anderson, preferred the route of craven denial, rejecting “any claim that it has been influenced by any external pressure, whether it be an advocacy group or lobby group, a political party, or commercial entity.” They would, wouldn’t they?
Do or die’: MPs launch urgent bid to spare Assange from US extradition.
By Matthew Knott, January 15, 2024 — https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/do-or-die-mps-launch-urgent-bid-to-spare-assange-from-us-extradition-20240114-p5ex2h.html
Australian politicians across the political divide have launched a last-ditch bid to prevent Julian Assange from being extradited to the United States to face espionage charges as the WikiLeaks founder faces a crucial final legal challenge in Britain next month.
The four co-convenors of the cross-party Bring Julian Assange Home Parliamentary Group wrote to British Home Secretary James Cleverly arguing for an urgent review of Assange’s case. This was in light of a judgment in the Supreme Court of the UK in November, striking down Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s controversial plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda.
On February 20 and 21, two British High Court judges will review an earlier ruling that refused Assange permission to appeal his extradition order. This is expected to be his final bid to prevent being sent to the US.
Assange faces decades in prison over his role in the publication of US classified files and diplomatic cables relating to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
“If he loses in the UK courts next month he could be extradited to the USA within 24 hours,” Assange’s brother Gabriel Shipton said of the High Court review.
“This is literally a do-or-die scenario for Julian.”
Assange’s lawyer Jennifer Robinson has argued he was at high risk of suicide if the High Court rejects his final appeal, saying Assange was so mentally unwell that he would be unlikely to survive extradition.
Liberal MP Bridget Archer, Labor MP Josh Wilson, independent MP Andrew Wilkie and Greens Senator David Shoebridge wrote in their letter to Cleverly: “We are deeply concerned that the legal proceedings involving Mr Assange will now continue, first in the United Kingdom and then in the United States, if extradition is ordered and consented to by you.
“This would add yet more years to Mr Assange’s detention and further imperil his health.
“To this end, we are requesting that you undertake an urgent, thorough and independent assessment of the risks to Mr Assange’s health and welfare in the event he is extradited to the United States.”
As Home Secretary, Cleverly is one of the government’s most powerful ministers, presiding over law enforcement, national security and immigration and with oversight of the domestic counter-intelligence agency MI5.
The MPs argued in their letter that the judges’ reasoning in the Rwanda Supreme Court case – which found it was illegal for Britain to send asylum seekers to Rwanda – “clearly has direct relevance to the extradition proceedings involving Julian Assange”.
“The decision found that courts in the United Kingdom cannot just rely on third-party assurances by foreign governments but rather are required to make independent assessments of the risk of persecution to individuals before any order is made removing them from the UK,” they wrote.
The MPs said that the justices in Assange’s key extradition hearing had “expressly relied on the ‘assurances’ of the United States as to Mr Assange’s safety and welfare should he be extradited to the United States for imprisonment and trial.
“These assurances were not tested, nor was there any evidence of independent assessment as to the basis on which they could be given and relied upon.”
The MPs wrote that they were deeply worried about Assange being sent to a high-security American prison because he “has significant health issues, exacerbated to a dangerous degree by his prolonged incarceration, that are of very real concern to us as his elected representatives”.
In 2021, District Judge Vanessa Baraitser blocked the attempt to extradite Assange on the basis that the harsh conditions of US solitary confinement would create a substantial suicide risk. Her ruling was overturned on appeal.
Peace Pod: an aural adventure in anti-militarist activism. With teacher resources
Get Your Armies Off Our Bodies is the inaugural series of Peace Pod.
Wage Peace is beyond proud to present our latest creation: a podcast featuring the stories, passions and insights of some of our most treasured collaborators. Tune in, subscribe and immerse yourself in the journeys of artists, activists and academics campaigning for peace on the stolen lands of this continent and further afield.
Peace Pod features some of the foremost academics, journalists and activists for peace on this continent, such as Michelle Fahey, Mujib Abid, Izzy Brown, Ned Hargreaves and Aunty Sue Coleman Haseldine, along with international luminaries such as Anthony Feinstein and Matthew Hoh.
Dr Miriam Torzillo has put together high quality teaching resources for students in years 10-12. Dr Torzillo has included a guide to curriculum placement:
- Curriculum Areas
- General Capabilities
- Australian Cross Curriculum Priorities and
- Key Concepts
The Teachers Resource sits with the Podcast here, in one easily accessible page
There is a huge resurgence in interest in the role of the weapons companies because of the genocide in Palestine. Young people are trying to make sense of militarism and peace. The podcast introduces militarism against First Nations people in both Australia and West Papua and the way STEM is being used by weapons corporations to reproduce militarism in the classroom.
Funding the imperium: Australia subsidises U.S. nuclear submarines
The gem in this whole venture, at least from the perspective of the U.S. military-industrial complex, is the roping in of the Australian taxpayer as the funder of its own nuclear weapons program.
By Binoy Kampmark | 6 January 2024. https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/funding-the-imperium-australia-subsidises-us-nuclear-submarines,18217
AUKUS, the trilateral pact between the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia, was a steal for all except one of the partners.
Australia, given the illusion of protection even as its aggressive stance (acquiring nuclear-powered submarines, becoming a forward base for the U.S. military) aggravated other countries; the feeling of superiority, even as it was surrendering itself to a foreign power as never before, was the loser in the bargain.
Last month, Australians woke up to the sad reminder that their government’s capitulation to Washington has been so total as to render any further talk about independence an embarrassment. Defence Minister Richard Marles, along with his deputy, Minister for Defence Industry Pat Conroy, preferred a different story.
Canberra had gotten what it wanted: approval by the U.S. Congress through its 2024 National Defense Authorisation Act (NDAA) authorising the transfer of three Virginia class nuclear-powered submarines to the Royal Australian Navy, with one off the production line, and two in-service boats. Australia may also seek congressional approval for two further Virginia class boats.
The measures also authorised Australian contractors to train in U.S. shipyards to aid the development of Australia’s own non-existent nuclear-submarine base, and exemptions from U.S. export control licensing requirements permitting the ‘transfer of controlled goods and technology between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States without the need for an export license’.
For the simpleminded Marles, Congress had “provided unprecedented support to Australia in passing the National Defense Authorisation Act which will see the transfer of submarines and streamlined export control provisions, symbolising the strength of our Alliance, and our shared commitment to the AUKUS partnership”.
Either through ignorance or wilful blindness, the Australian Defence Minister chose to avoid elaborating on the less impressive aspects of the authorising statute. The exemption under the U.S. export licensing requirements, for instance, vests Washington with control and authority over Australian goods and technology while controlling the sharing of any U.S. equivalent with Australia. The exemption is nothing less than appropriation, even as it preserves the role of Washington as the drip feeder of nuclear technology.
An individual with more than a passing acquaintance with this is Bill Greenwalt, one of the drafters of the U.S. export control regime.
As he told the ABC last November:
“After years of U.S. State Department prodding, it appears that Australia signed up to the principles and specifics of the failed U.S. export control system.”
In cooperating with the U.S. on this point, Australia would “surrender any sovereign capability it develops to the United States control and bureaucracy”.
The gem in this whole venture, at least from the perspective of the U.S. military-industrial complex, is the roping in of the Australian taxpayer as the funder of its own nuclear weapons program. Whatever its non-proliferation credentials, Canberra finds itself a funder of the U.S. naval arm in an exercise of modernised nuclear proliferation.
Even the Marles-Conroy media release admits that the NDAA helped ‘establish a mechanism for the U.S. to accept funds from Australia to lift the capacity of the submarine industrial base’. Airily, the release goes on to mention that this “investment” (would “gift” not be a better word?) to the U.S. Navy would also ‘complement Australia’s significant investment in our domestic submarine industrial base’.
A few days after the farcical spectacle of surrender by Australian officials, the Congressional Research Service provided another one of its invaluable reports that shed further light on Australia’s contribution to the U.S. nuclear submarine program. Australian media outlets, as is their form on covering AUKUS, remained silent about it. One forum, Michael West Media, showed that its contributors – Rex Patrick and Philip Dorling – were wide awake.
The report is specific to the Navy Columbia (SSBN-826) Class Ballistic Missile Submarine Program, one that involves designing and building 12 new SSBNs to replace the current, aging fleet of 14 Ohio class SSBNs. The cost of the program, in terms of 2024 budget submission estimates for the 2024 financial year, is US$112.7 billion (AU$168.2 billion).
As is customary in these reports, the risks are neatly summarised. They include the usual delays in designing and building the lead boat, thereby threatening readiness for timely deployment; burgeoning costs; the risks posed by funding the Columbia class program to other Navy programs; and ‘potential industrial-base challenges of building both Columbia-class boats and Virginia-class attack submarines (SSNs) at the same time’.
Australian funding becomes important in the last concern. Because of AUKUS, the U.S. Navy “has testified” that it would require, not only an increase in the production rate of the Virginia class to 2.33 boats per year, but ‘a combined Columbia-plus-Virginia procurement rate’ of 1+2.33. Australian mandarins and lawmakers, accomplished in their ignorance, have mentioned little about this addition.
But U.S. lawmakers and military planners are more than aware that this increased procurement rate:
‘…will require investing several billion dollars for capital plant expansion and improvements and workforce development at both the two submarine-construction shipyards (GD/EB [General Dynamics’ Electric Boat in Groton, Connecticut] and HII/NSS [Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Newport News Shipbuilding]) and submarine supplier firms.’
The report acknowledges that funding towards the 1+2.33 goal is being drawn from several allocations over a few financial years, but expressly mentions Australian funding ‘under the AUKUS proposed Pillar 1 pathway’, which entails the transfer component of nuclear-powered submarines to Canberra.
The report helpfully reproduces the 25 October 2023 testimony from the Navy before the Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee of the House of Armed Services Committee. Officials are positively salivating at the prospect of nourishing the domestic industrial base through, for instance, ‘joining with an Australian company to mature and scale metallic additive manufacturing across the SIB [Submarine Industrial Base]’.
The testimony goes on to note that:
‘Australia’s investment into the U.S. SIB builds upon ongoing efforts to improve industrial base capability and capacity, create jobs, and utilise new technologies. This contribution is necessary to augment VACL [Virginia class] production from 2.0 to 2.33 submarines per year to support both U.S. Navy and AUKUS requirements.’
The implications from the perspective of the Australian taxpayer are significant.
‘Australian AUKUS funding will support construction of a key delivery component of the U.S. nuclear strike force, keeping that program on track while overall submarine production accelerates.’
The funding also aids the advancement of another country’s nuclear weapons capabilities, a breach, one would have thought, of Australia’s obligations under the Treaty of Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
Defence spokesman for the Australian Greens, Senator David Shoebridge, makes that very point to Patrick and Dorling:
“Australia has clear international legal obligations to not support the nuclear weapons industry, yet this is precisely what these billions of dollars of AUKUS funding will do.”
The Senator also asks:
“When will the Albanese Government start telling the whole truth about AUKUS and how Australians will be paying to help build the next class of U.S. ballistic missile submarines?”
For an appropriate answer, Shoebridge would do well to consult the masterful, deathless British series Yes Minister, authored by Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn.
In one episode, the relevant minister, Jim Hacker, offers this response to a query by the ever-suspicious civil service overlord Sir Humphrey Appleby on when he might receive a draft proposal:
“At the appropriate juncture. In the fullness of time. When the moment is ripe. When the necessary procedures have been completed. Nothing precipitate, of course.”
In one word: never.
US officials monitored pro-Assange protests in Australia for ‘anti-US sentiment’, documents reveal
Previously classified papers detail how the US embassy in Canberra responded to WikiLeaks’ release of embassy cables in 2010 and ‘sensationalist’ local media
Guardian Christopher Knaus, 20 Dec 23
American officials monitored pro-Assange protests in Australia for “anti-US sentiment”, warned of “increasing sympathy, particularly on the left” for the WikiLeaks founder in his home country and derided local media’s “sensationalist” reporting of the explosive 2010 cable leaks, previously classified records show.
Documents released by the US state department via freedom of information laws give new insight into how the US embassy in Canberra and its security team reacted to WikiLeaks’ release of 250,000 embassy cables in late 2010.
They show the embassy’s regional security office (RSO) monitoring and reporting on pro-WikiLeaks rallies held across Australian capital cities, feeding information to Washington via the embassy……………………………………………………………………………….
The embassy was particularly critical of Australian media’s reporting of cables that showed the US government was closely watching the rise of the then deputy prime minister, Julia Gillard……………………………………………………………………………………
The cable is the result of a lengthy, expensive FoI battle by Maurizi, supported by the Logan Foundation and her lawyers, Lauren Russell and Alia Smith. She said it provided “indisputable evidence that the U.S. diplomacy’s Regional Security Office (RSO) in Canberra was monitoring the peaceful protests in support of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks in December 2010, as WikiLeaks had just started publishing the most important cables on Australia”.
“We know that the Regional Security Office protects U.S. diplomatic facilities, personnel and information, which is a legitimate activity, at the same time, one wonders what kind of monitoring activities were devised against peaceful protesters: were they identified? Were they intercepted? Were their donations to WikiLeaks tracked?” she said. “These are important questions, considering that we now know that later on, in 2017, Julian Assange, his wife, Stella … the WikiLeaks journalists, lawyers, doctors, and even we media partners were subjected to unprecedented spying activities inside the Ecuadorian embassy.”
The Italian journalist first filed an FoI request in February 2018, but it was ignored for two years, prompting her to sue the US state department.
She has filed similar FoI requests across the world, including in Australia, which she described as “the worst jurisdiction on earth when it comes to FOIA [Freedom of Information Act]”………………………………………..
Assange’s lawyers are suing the Central Intelligence Agency over the alleged espionage at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, saying it violated their US constitutional protections for confidential discussions with Assange.
The US embassy in Australia was approached for comment. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/dec/20/us-officials-monitored-pro-assange-protests-in-australia-for-anti-us-sentiment-documents-reveal
CSIRO says wind and solar much cheaper than nuclear, even with added integration costs
The big mover – and one that is significant in the context of the Australian debate on the energy transition, and the federal Coalition’s insistence that nuclear is the answer to most questions – is the cost of nuclear and small modular reactors.
Giles Parkinson 21 December 2023 ReNewEconomy
The CSIRO has published the latest edition of its important GenCost report, and responded to critics by dialling in near term integration costs for wind, solar and storage. But the result is just the same – renewables are clearly Australia’s cheapest energy option, and the story for nuclear just got a whole ot worse.
The annual GenCost report, prepared in collaboration with the Australian Energy Market Operator since 2018, is an important guide to where Australia’s energy transition is at and where it should be heading, but over the past has become the target of attack from conservative naysayers and the pro-nuclear lobby.
CSIRO has defended its methodology, but to satisfy the critics has added in pre-2030 integration costs – including the new transmission lines being built to connect new generation – and finds that the story is much the same.
“While this change leads to higher cost estimates, variable renewables (wind and solar) were still found to have the lowest cost range of any new-build technology,” the CSIRO says, noting that this includes all integration costs up to and including 90 per cent renewables.
In the past year, cost of solar and offshore wind has fallen, the cost of battery storage has remained steady, but the cost of other technologies such as onshore wind and pumped hydro has increased.
The big mover – and one that is significant in the context of the Australian debate on the energy transition, and the federal Coalition’s insistence that nuclear is the answer to most questions – is the cost of nuclear and small modular reactors.
The CSIRO has been attacked by the pro-nuclear lobby, including conservative media and right wing think tanks, for what the lobby claims are inflated cost estimates, but the CSIRO says recent events have backed its numbers. In fact, they make clear that nuclear SMR costs are worse than thought.
CSIRO economist Paul Graham points to the collapse of a major deal this year involving the most advanced SMR projects in the US, the NucScale projects in Utah, which were withdrawn because of soaring costs.
Graham says it is significant because, as NuScale was listed and had to abide by strict regulatory disclosure rules, it had to be “honest” about the anticipated costs of SMRs.
And these were nearly double what was previously thought. In fact they ended up at the equivalent of $A31,000/MW, according to NuScale filings, and much higher than the $A19,000/MW estimated by the CSIRO in its previous report, and for which it was accused of inflating.
“The UAMPS (Utah utility) estimate implies nuclear SMR has been hit by a 70 per cent cost increase which is much larger than the average 20% observed in other technologies,” the CSIRO writes.
“The cancellation of this project is significant because it was the only SMR project in the US that had received design certification from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission which is an essential step before construction can commence.” Graham says that all other claims on nuclear SMR costs are just marketing and sales talk.
The reality, however, is that talk of nuclear SMRs as a solution for Australia’s energy transition and near term emissions targets are a distraction, given that the SMR technology is simply not available, and unlikely to be so for two decades.
The CSIRO report says some interesting things about the costs of wind and solar, technologies which are available and which do work. It says the costs of these technologies will continue to fall in coming years after the various price shocks that have affected the technologies over the last couple of years.
By including the costs of transmission and storage that is underway now and committed out to 2030 adds 40 to 60 per cent to the 2023 cost of deploying high shares of wind and solar, although that also ignores the technologies cost falls that will occur over time……………………………………………………………………………………….more https://reneweconomy.com.au/csiro-says-wind-and-solar-much-cheaper-than-nuclear-even-with-added-integration-costs/
Cost update blasts nuclear out of energy mix
Canberra Times, By Marion Rae, December 21 2023
A surge in the cost of small nuclear reactors has forced the national science agency to change its calculations for Australia.
The latest modelling of all energy sources, released by CSIRO on Thursday, includes data from a recently scrapped project in the United States that was showcasing nuclear small modular reactors (SMRs) as a way to fight climate change.
The draft GenCost 2023-24 report, out for consultation over summer, shows that while inflation pressures are easing there has been a recalculation on SMRs that puts them out of reach.
Real data on a high-profile six-reactor power plant in the United States has confirmed that the contentious technology costs more than any energy consumer wants to pay.
Project costs for the Utah project were estimated at $18,200 per kilowatt, but the company has since disclosed a whopping capital cost of $31,100/kW, prompting its cancellation in November.
In contrast, under existing policies the cost of new offshore wind in Australia in 2023 would be $5545/kW (fixed) and $6856/kW (floating), while rooftop solar panels are calculated at a modest $1505/kW………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
A small but vocal group of industry backers have been calling for nuclear SMRs for some years, citing the emerging low-emission technology as being suitable for Australia’s vast and geologically stable landmass.
The coalition recently pledged to reopen the nuclear debate in Australia, where laws ban any research or use of nuclear energy despite the country having the world’s largest uranium reserves.
Regulators estimate it would be around 15 years to first production from a decision to build nuclear SMR in Australia, given the scale of legislative change required.
But even if a decision to pursue a nuclear SMR project in Australia were taken today, with political backing for new laws, it is “very unlikely” a project would be up and running as quickly as 2038, CSIRO said.
Further, CSIRO warned nuclear electricity costs put forward by proponents may be for technology that is not appropriate for Australia, or calculated from Russian and Chinese government-backed projects that don’t operate commercially. https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8467236/cost-update-blasts-nuclear-out-of-energy-mix/
Let’s Talk About Why Nuclear Won’t Work in Australia
Zachariah Kelly 21 Dec 23, Gizmodo
The CSIRO has just put out the latest draft of its GenCost report, a report that delves into the cost of electricity in Australia and what energy types would work in the Australian market. Over the past years, CSIRO has gotten behind onshore wind and solar as the cheapest energy generation methods, and stresses that these energy sources will be instrumental to the future of Australia’s grid, but nuclear energy is something that the science body has shunned for some time now, and this latest report draft seems pretty definite on why.
In tandem with the release of the draft report, the CSIRO has released a blog post directly addressing why nuclear won’t work down under. Put simply, the CSIRO references the collapse of a Small Modular Reactor (SMR) program in the U.S. in November, the Coal Free Power Project, where project costs were estimated at 70 per cent above what was initially projected. It’s a pretty good example of why we can’t just simply introduce nuclear in Australia.
“We don’t disagree with the principle of SMRs.They are an attempt to speed up the building process of nuclear plants using standardised components in a modular system, and it may well be possible to achieve cost reductions over time. However, for now, the technology is yet to be deployed commercially,” GenCost author Paul Graham said.
Put simply, it’s far too expensive and takes too long to set up, according to the CSIRO. With the timeline of projects shown above, the CSIRO is confident that nuclear just won’t work as well for Australia right now, or at least it won’t work as well as onshore wind or solar………………………………………………………………………………….
economist Professor John Quiggin told Gizmodo Australia in September that it’s a very hyped thing, like crypto or AI, and that arguments around nuclear in Australia have been formed from a political place.
“I think the obvious point that people are making is ‘why is Dutton talking about this now? the government was in office for nine years’, because if they started doing something about it in 2013, for example, repealed the ban on nuclear and started establishing an authority, by the time they went out 10 years later, nine years later, then the thing would have been an obvious goal,” Quiggin said.
“It always has to be kept at this stage of ‘why don’t we have the vote?’ because it is just a debating point.”
You can view the GenCost consultation draft here. https://gizmodo.com.au/2023/12/csiro-nuclear-australia/
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