By Christina Macpherson
AUSTRALIA
Legal case; Traditional owners; led by Dianne Stokes, in Melbourne for their federal case opposing the Muckaty nuclear waste dump. Next hearing in August.
Climate Institute did a survey. Surprise surprise – they found that older mean favour nuclear power, and women (of all ages) favour solar power.
The good news – New South Wales students taking their zero emissions house to China’s Solar Decathlon. Mildura’s concentrated solar power plant officially launched. Victorian and New South Wales wind farms kick-started by Clean Energy Finance Corporation. New South Wales to get advanced wind power turbines with energy storage. Central Victorian Greenhouse Alliance keen to keep energy efficiency and renewable energy investment
Politics. Kevin Rudd’s Emissions Trading Scheme is far from satisfactory. Still, it looks good compared to Abbott’s love affair with climate denialists. Greens launch an energy efficiency/renewable energy program directed towards helping farmers.
Nuclear issues in Australia would seem to be forgotten, with all the election – Rudd- Abbott – stuff,
And yet – and yet – Pro nuclear propaganda is rife. Australia’s new Energy Minister, Gary Gray, showed us again how he is as big an enthusiast for nuclear power, as Martin Ferguson was before him. A pity, in this new age of renewable energy, that the Labor government saw fit to appoint a mining man to the role. Gary Gray spoke in Perth at a uranium conference. He gave a rose-tinted view of the current disastrous state of the uranium industry, brushed off that minor “incident” at Fukushima, and displayed his ignorance of the world nuclear industry’s decline, and of climate change action.
Meanwhile, in South Australia, Family First Senate candidate Bob Day urges that Australia manufacture nuclear submarines – a good job provider, he reckons. Also from South Australia, nuclear lobby front groupers – Barry Brook, Ben Heard etc, gear up for a conference to be held in Sydney July 25-26 – to promote nuclear power for Australia.
The Age published a sloppily written article promoting nuclear power Want to kill fewer people? Go nuclear. I am hoping that The Age will publish a response to this article. (I’m adding my own comment below)
Australia’s uranium industry - in the doldrums, as even The Australian admits. Retiring soon, Paladin Energy boss John Borshoff admits that the industry is “in crisis” and faces years of uncertainty
INTERNATIONAL.
This month I’ve been focussing on “small scale renewable energy”. And what a pleasure this has been. So many good things going on. Peru is giving free solar panels tothe poorest 2 million poor households. In Fiji, a team of grandmothers, having received training in India, are now the solar power educators for communities. UK launches new solar feed-in tariff that will pay back homeowners as they use their solar energy. Many new developments in more efficient solar panels, and in solar and wind energy storage.
World Nuclear Status Report 2013 details the declining state of the industry
UK. Angst continues about how to pay for new nuclear power – with hidden subsidy to the French supplier, and bribes offered to Somerset towns and villages near planned nuclear plant . Sounds a bit like Japan’s “Nuclear Village” doesn’t it – in which local areas became dependent on government money, for hosting nuclear plants?
USA. They’ve got a nuclear enthusiast too, for Energy Secretary – Ernest Moniz – who’s just announced new funding for nuclear companies General Atomics, GE Hitachi, Gen4 Energy and Westinghouse . However, it’s not well known, but the Dept of Energy has decided on deep burial as the solution for nuclear wastes, not nuclear reprocessing and new nuclear plants.
Financial disaster of U.S.Uranium Enrichment Corporation (USEC) threatens viability of USA nuclear industry
Legal case continues, with US navy personnel suing TEPCO for their radiatio-related illnesses.
France. 30 anti nuclear activists arrested. They broke into France’s oh so secure Tricastin nuclear power plant.
Japan. the Abe government forges on, with drive to restart nuclear reactors. But this is not popular. And – Fukushima continues to leak radioactive water, and measure high levels of radioactivity.
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COMMENT
John Watson’s article “Want to kill fewer people/ Go nuclear” (The Age) 11/07/13 is full of incorrect generalisations. I would like to challenge just one part of this. Watson refers to “findings by a United Nations panel and the World Health Organisation”. He means the unofficial press release (31/05/13) by United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) , and the World Health Organisation’s comprehensive report ((February 2013 http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2013/fukushima_report_20130228/en/ ).
The former is a not an extensive official report ― but an unofficial brief preliminary report on Fukushima radiation and health ― the full report will be presented at the United Nations in October this year.
The World Health Organisation’s comprehensive report concluded that an increased rate of breast cancer is to be expected in future years amongst women who were children when exposed to low-level Fukushima radiation. It also predicted increased leukaemia amongst Fukushima cleanup workers.
Both UNSCEAR and WHO are quite conservative, and are tied by legal clauses to the pro nuclear International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) – meaning that they are required to not report in ways that would damage the nuclear industry.
Even so, the World Health organisation was quite clear on the predicted increase in cancer as a result of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. We will have to wait until October for the UNSCEAR report. However, even their press release did not contradict WHO’s findings.
Similarly, the most recent BEIR Report – Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation – from the USA National Academy of Sciences (http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=030909156X) continues to uphold predictions of cancer resulting from exposure to low levels of nuclear radiation.
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Christina Macpherson
Antinuclear Australia
www.antinuclear.net
www.nuclear-news.net
