Author Archive: robyn

Friends of the Earth Adelaide > Articles by: robyn

Media Release: THE APPEARANCE OF BIAS – NOT A GOOD LOOK

November 6, 2015

MEDIA RELEASE

Thursday 5th November, 2015

THE ROYAL COMMISSION INTO THE NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE:

THE APPEARANCE OF BIAS – NOT A GOOD LOOK

Today the Royal Commission into the Nuclear Fuel Cycle will be hearing oral evidence from London based insurance company Nuclear Risk Insurers, on the subject of insuring against a nuclear accident.  On 1st October 2015, Dr Timothy Stone, member of the Royal Commission’s Executive Advisory Committee, was appointed director of this company.

“How critically will evidence given by this company be treated, when a member of the Executive Advisory Committee is also one of its directors?” asked Nectaria Calan of Friends of the Earth Adelaide.

On Friday 30th October GE Hitachi gave oral evidence to the Royal Commission on their new PRISM reactor design.  GE Hitachi is a global nuclear alliance between General Electric (US) and Hitachi (Japan).  Hitachi is the parent company of Horizon Nuclear Power, a UK energy company developing new nuclear power stations, of which Dr Stone is also a director.

“Dr Stone’s connections with these companies highlights the broader issue here, which is his direct involvement in the nuclear industry, regardless of whether companies he’s employed by are giving evidence. He also owns Alpha-n Infrastructure, an elusive company with a partially built website which promotes nuclear power. This interest has not been disclosed by the Royal Commission on its website,” said Ms Calan.

Dr Stone is not the only Royal Commission member directly involved in the nuclear industry. Julian Kelly, its Technical Research Team Leader, is currently the Chief Technology Officer of Thor Energy, a Norwegian company focusing on the use of Thorium in nuclear reactors.

“If you’re directly involved in the very industry the Royal Commission is considering expanding, you potentially stand to gain something if a recommendation is made that this industry expand. … Read more >>

Clean Futures, Media releases, Nuclear, Old_Notes

,

‘Containment’ film about nuclear waste storage 19 November

November 3, 2015

Containment film maker and Harvard Professor Robb Moss will present at the screening and be involved in a Q & A after the screening. Please spread the word and come along to this one-off and timely film screening.

Where: Uni SA – City West HH408

Cost: $5 un-waged / $10 waged

Reserve your tickets online at conservationsa.org.au and pay cash at the door.

About Containment:

Can we contain some of the deadliest, most long-lasting substances ever produced? Left over from the Cold War are a hundred million gallons of radioactive sludge, covering vast radioactive lands. Governments around the world, desperate to protect future generations, have begun imagining society 10,000 years from now in order to create monuments that will speak across the time.

Part observational essay filmed in weapons plants, Fukushima and deep underground ? and part graphic novel ? Containment weaves between an uneasy present and an imaginative, troubled far future, exploring the idea that over millennia, nothing stays put.

Facebook event page

Containment invitation

FoE, Nuclear, Old_Notes

SA LABOR ON NUCLEAR: WRONG WAY, GO BACK

November 3, 2015

Members of the SA antinuclear coalition gathered outside the ALP state conference on 24 October to ask Labor to maintain the ban on any expansion of the nuclear industry.  Friends of the Earth campaigner Nectaria Calan gave interviews to the ABC, Channel 9 and 10.

MEDIA RELEASE

Friday 23rd October 2015

SA LABOR ON NUCLEAR: WRONG WAY, GO BACK

Members of South Australia’s anti-nuclear coalition will gather outside the South Australian Labor Party’s State Conference at Adelaide’s Festival Theatre tomorrow morning at 8am, calling on the SA Labor Party to keep legislation in place banning nuclear waste dumps in South Australia, and to keep the state on its path to becoming a global leader in renewable energy.

The State Government’s formation of a Royal Commission into the expansion of the nuclear industry in SA has led to concerns that a national or international nuclear waste dump is back on the cards for SA, a little over a decade after the last proposal for a waste dump near Woomera was defeated.  This followed an extended campaign opposing the project, spearheaded by senior Aboriginal women – the Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta.

In 2000, in response to growing public opposition to the proposal, the then Liberal Government passed legislation banning the disposal of certain types of nuclear waste in the state.  This legislation was extended by the incoming Labor Government in 2003 to include all nuclear waste. The stated objective of the legislation is “to protect the health, safety and welfare of the people of South Australia and to protect the environment in which they live…”

“We are calling on the Labor Party to honour this commitment to protecting the health, safety and environment of South Australia,” said Nectaria Calan of the anti-nuclear coalition and Friends of the Earth Adelaide.  ”Nuclear waste is not a business opportunity, it’s an intractable problem.”… Read more >>

Actions, Clean Futures, Nuclear

, , ,

Irati Wanti nuclear waste free SA exhibition 15 October

October 8, 2015

Dear Friend of the Irati Wanti campaign,

Emily Munyungka Austin, Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta, and Karina Lester, granddaughter of Eileen Kampakuta Brown, invite you to attend a special event:

Talking Straight Out: Images and insights from the campaign that stopped South Australia from becoming a nuclear waste dump.

The Lyrics Room, Adelaide Festival Centre, Adelaide, Kaurna Land

Thursday 15 October, 2015

Doors open at 5pm, Inma, stories and speakers from 6pm

irati wanti

October 15, 2015 marks 62 years since the first atomic bomb test at Emu Junction, South Australia.  The Kungka Tjuta remember, “All of us were living when the Government used the country for the bomb.  Everybody got sick… They thought they knew what they were doing then…

In February 1998 the federal government announced its plan to build a national radioactive waste dump in the South Australian desert. In March a council of senior Aboriginal women from Coober Pedy, the Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta, made an announcement of their own. “We say no radioactive waste dump in our ngura—in our country.”

For six years the women travelled the country, talking straight out.  They called their campaign Irati Wanti. “We all say enough is enough. Irati wanti—the poison leave it.”

They explained, they demanded, they marched and sang.  They told of extraordinary personal histories.  They worked with greenies and wrote passionate letters to politicians.

They won.

They published a book to share these stories with you. Now we are sharing them again.

There is talk again about radioactive waste dumps in South Australia. When word got to Coober Pedy, women again got together to talk, “We know the stories from the bomb. We know the history. We know the country. And it is crying for us. We will talk over and over and we won’t stop.… Read more >>

Clean Futures, Old_Notes

, , ,