Clean Futures

Friends of the Earth Adelaide > Clean Futures

Premier Marshall should stand up for our State

July 5, 2021

David Noonan, a Voice of the No Dump Alliance writes:

Premier Marshall should stand up for our State:

Reject the federal Liberal’s unlawful, unfair, unsafe and unnecessary nuclear waste dump plan for SA

Premier Stephen Marshall must stand up for South Australia’s interests and push back on federal Liberal government imposition of an unlawful nuclear waste dump in our State.

The Premier has a duty to respect and uphold the law in SA that prohibits the import, transport, storage and disposal of nuclear waste in our State. 

The NUCLEAR WASTE STORAGE FACILITY (PROHIBITION) ACT 2000 was passed by the SA Parliament under the leadership of Liberal Premier John Olsen and strengthened by Labor Premier Mike Rann:

The objects of this Act are to protect the health, safety and welfare of the people of South Australia and to protect the environment in which they live by prohibiting the establishment of certain nuclear waste storage facilities in this State.

As Premier you should give all South Australian’s a Say and take action to instigate a required public inquiry into the impacts of a nuclear waste storage facility on the environmental and socio-economic wellbeing of this State. 

The NUCLEAR WASTE STORAGE FACILITY (PROHIBITION) ACT 2000, Section 14 states:

If a licence, exemption or other authority to construct or operate a nuclear waste storage facility in this State is granted under a law of the Commonwealth, the Environment, Resources and Development Committee of Parliament must inquire into, consider and report on the likely impact of that facility on the environment and socio-economic wellbeing of this State.

The Port of Whyalla is targeted for shipments of ANSTO nuclear fuel waste and communities along proposed nuclear waste transport routes across our State all have a right to have a Say.

Nuclear waste dumping is a Human Rights issue for our fellow Indigenous South Australian’s. As Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Stephen Marshall should support the Barngarla People’s right to say No to nuclear waste storage on their country:

  • The “United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People” (2007) Article 29 calls on States “to ensure that no storage or disposal of hazardous material shall take place in the lands or territories of indigenous peoples without their free prior and informed consent.”

The federal Liberal government proposes to ship and truck nuclear waste across SA into indefinite above ground storage in a fancy shed at Napandee on Eyre Peninsula – without any capacity or even a plan for its eventual permanent disposal.

SA’s clean green reputation, and our prime agricultural lands and farming communities, deserve better than untenable imposition of toxic nuclear wastes in a shoddy reckless federal plan to park and dump wastes that require isolation from the environment for 10,000 years.

95 per cent of Intermediate Level Waste (ILW) in Australia are owned by Commonwealth government agencies, the vast majority is produced and held at ANSTO’s Lucas Heights reactor facility in Sydney – where it should stay in secure extended storage.

  • The federal Budget provided $60 million for further decades of extended storage capacity for ILW at ANSTO Lucas Heights, building onto the operation of existing stores to 2026.
  • In 2015 a separate Interim Waste Store for ANSTO nuclear fuel waste was built at Lucas Heights with a design capacity for 40 years. This store received a shipment of reprocessed nuclear fuel waste from France in 2015 and is intended to now receive a shipment from the UK in 2022, and is safety rated to 2055.
  • The CEO of the federal nuclear regulator ARPANSA stated in evidence to a Senate Inquiry in 2020: “Waste can be safely stored at Lucas Heights for decades to come.”

The federal Liberal government proposes to bring all these nuclear wastes to SA, along with decades of ANSTO’s further proposed nuclear waste production and future shipments of ANSTO reprocessed nuclear waste from France.

Premier – Stand up for our State!

 

Clean Futures, Nuclear

Australia needs to deal with the “facts and the reality” of the changing energy system — Audrey Zibelman, AEMO

October 21, 2020

The outgoing head of the Australian Energy Market Operator, Audrey Zibelman, says Australia needs to deal with the “facts and the reality” of the changing energy system, and not get bogged down by the politics of energy that questions whether the grid should be transitioning or not.

In her first interview since announcing her end-of-year departure from AEMO … Zibelman tells RenewEconomy’s Energy Insiders podcast that technology change is unavoidable, not political.

Zibelman also reveals AEMO’s key role in a new global partnership – the Global Power System Transformation Consortium – that brings together six leading energy system operators from Australia, the US and  Europe with the aim of “fomenting a rapid clean energy transition at unprecedented scope and scale.”

Zibelman says the sharing of knowledge and experience was the key goal of the new consortium that includes independent system operators (ISOs) from Australia, California, Texas, Ireland, Denmark, and the UK, all of whom are at the leading edge of the clean energy transition.

It also involves key global financial institutions such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, as well as research groups such as Australia’s CSIRO, Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute, Imperial College London, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in the US. It intends to share its information with grid operators in developing countries in Asia, Latin America and Africa.

“It’s actually a collaborative that’s made up of five of the six of the power system operators around the world to have more than 50 percent renewables in their mix,” Zibelman tells the Energy Insiders podcast.

“We’re looking at these issues around how do we integrate these resources better …. so that we can work together and solve these problems.”

Zibelman did not say much more about the Global PST Consortium, before its official launch next week, but its website shows that it appears to be more than just a collaboration and sharing of information. It describes its “visionary goal” as:
“Dramatically accelerate the transition to low emission and low cost, secure, and reliable power systems, contributing to >50% emission reductions over the next 10 years, with $2 billion of government and donor support for technical, market, and workforce solutions that unlock $10 trillion+ of private sector investment.”

— from “AEMO takes lead role in global consortium seeking rapid energy transition”, Gules Parkinson, Renew Economy

Clean Futures

Smart Energy Summit 2020 worth watching

October 21, 2020

Global Smart Energy Summit 2020 Event Summary

On Tuesday 29 and Wednesday 30 September 2020 the Smart Energy Council and partners the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation and Zoom delivered an amazing lineup of international and local industry and political leaders in exploring ways to tackle the economic and climate crises simultaneously.

some of the stand out speeches from both days include:

More details at https://www.smartenergy.org.au/global-smart-energy-summit-2020-event-summary

 

Adelaide FoE Notes, Clean Futures, Climate

Critical mass in Canberra puts nuclear dump in doubt

September 17, 2020

Kimba radioactive waste plans faces challenge in parliament following release of Senate inquiry report
Plans for a nuclear waste dump in the South Australian outback could still be derailed as opposition against laws clearing its path run into opposition from multiple political players.  Michelle Etheridge, Regional Editor, The Advertiser, September 14, 2020
https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/business/kimba-radioactive-waste-plans-faces-challenge-in-parliament-following-release-of-senate-inquiry-report/news-story/5f0c57845cb063a6eed2003673350f78
The Federal Government faces a challenge to pass its radioactive waste bill through Parliament, amid dissent from a Labor Senator, the Greens and Independent Senator Rex Patrick.
A Senate committee probe into the draft legislation paving way for a radioactive waste site at Napandee farm, near Kimba, has recommended it be passed. However, dissenting reports from Labor’s Jenny McAllister, Greens Senator Sarah-Hanson Young and Mr Patrick have raised a raft of concerns, including it preventing the community from seeking a judicial review of the site selection process.

 

Under the plans, the Government will store low-level waste at Napandee permanently, and intermediate level waste for several decades.
Senator McAllister said the traditional landowners, the Barngarla people, were worried the new legislation specifying the site would override their right to a judicial review that would normally apply if Resources Minister Keith Pitt declared the location.   She said the Government had given “no compelling reason” for the change.
Senator Patrick said the bill emerged because “the Government botched its own site selection process to such a degree that it would almost certainly have seen a site selected through a ministerial decision overturned on judicial review”. The Government wanted the Senate to “fix up its mistake”, he said, but it could not do that “without serving up the majority of the stakeholders … with a plate of Government-cooked injustice”.
A Kimba Council-run ballot found 62 per cent of respondents supported the waste facility in their region. The Barngarla people lost a court battle to be included, later holding their own vote, which rejected the plans.
Resources Minister Keith Pitt says the nuclear proposal will bring more than 40 jobs to the Kimba area. While many in the community have welcomed nuclear storage as a new industry, providing more than 40 jobs and a $31 million community funding package, others are staunchly opposed. They have cited worries including the impact on agricultural land, and double-handling of intermediate level waste.
Senator Hanson-Young’s report said most of the 105 submissions the committee received opposed the bill and the broader SA community deserved a say in the project.
Mr Pitt said the committee’s report put the Government “one step closer” to a storage site for nuclear waste – “a process which has been ongoing for four decades”.  “The individual dissenting report by Senator McAllister aside, I would like to acknowledge the largely bipartisan approach to the location and construction of this facility,” he said.
Conservation SA chief executive Craig Wilkins and Australian Conservation Foundation campaigner Dave Sweeney said the Senate split over the issue reflected broader community division. “This is completely at odds with Federal Government rhetoric of only proceeding with facility if there is clear majority community support,” Mr Wilkins said.
Senator Hanson-Young said the Senate inquiry showed the draft legislation was “a highly flawed bill”. “There are deep concerns that this bill blatantly seeks to prevent any right to judicial review of this process and sets in stone Kimba as the dump site against strong community opposition,” she said.

Adelaide FoE Notes, Clean Futures, Nuclear

One Million Jobs suggested by BZE under Govt Consideration

September 17, 2020

the Expenditure Review Committee is considering a pre-budget submission on “The Million Jobs Plan” for a green recovery from climate think tank Beyond Zero Emissions, a consortium backed by heavyweight investors including tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes, former Origin Energy and Macquarie Bank chair Kevin McCann and First State Super chief executive Deanne Stewart. Independent modelling by economist Chris Murphy suggests that the plan would boost private investment by an average of $25 billion annually over the next three years, generate 124,000 jobs next year, add 1–2 per cent to GDP, and lift real wages by one per cent in 2022–23. Launched in June, the Beyond Zero Emissions plan is a cracker – it’s the culmination of a decade’s work – and the pre-budget submission proposes that the government fast-track 15 priority projects, including transmission lines to link renewable energy zones to the grid, the massive Star of the South offshore wind-farm proposal off the Gippsland coast, the Walcha solar and storage project in NSW, and the Central Queensland Power Project in Gladstone.

—  Paddy Manning, The Monthly Today, Sept 17th “A million jobs “

Adelaide FoE Notes, Clean Futures