Weapons proliferation

Media Release: Nuclear is the wrong direction for SA

MEDIA RELEASE     13 August 2015

Three leading environmental organisations – Conservation SA, the Australian Conservation Foundation and Friends of the Earth, Australia – have submitted a detailed joint submission to the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission which forensically details an extensive series of nuclear myths and false assumptions.

“South Australia’s future lies in renewable energy, not nuclear.  It’s cheaper, safer and quicker to roll out,” said Conservation SA Chief Executive Craig Wilkins.

“This week’s axing of hundreds of jobs from Olympic Dam should raise huge questions about growth potential in the nuclear industry. With renewables, we can be in charge of our own destiny, not dependent on decisions made in corporate boardrooms on the other side of the world,” he said.

“Much of the nuclear promotion in SA is premised on the idea of a global nuclear ‘renaissance’, said lead submission author Dr Jim Green. “In fact, the nuclear renaissance is stone cold dead.

There are fewer reactors now than there were a decade ago. Nuclear fuel cycle markets for enrichment, conversion and fuel fabrication are oversupplied. And as the continuing job losses at Olympic Dam demonstrate, the uranium market is extremely weak and will remain so for years,” he said.

As well as highlighting the contested and constrained status of the current nuclear sector the 248 page report makes a compelling case that the industry’s future will be no brighter.

“So-called Generation 3 reactors projects such as the French EPR and Westinghouse AP1000 are in trouble, with multi-year delays and multi-billion dollar cost blowouts,” said Dr Green. “So-called Generation 4 reactors are decades away and, as a recent report by the French government concludes, safety claims made by Generation 4 advocates do not stand up to scrutiny.”

Many environment, public health and Aboriginal groups have expressed concern that the Royal Commission is being used by the nuclear industry as a Trojan Horse in an attempt to open national and international radioactive waste dumps in SA.… Read more >>

FoE Submissions to the Royal Commission into the Nuclear Fuel “Cycle”

Friends of the Earth Adelaide have been busy the last few months preparing submissions to the Royal Commission into the Nuclear Fuel Cycle.

The issues papers are on the Royal Commission website along with many others.

Issues Paper 1: Exploration, Extraction and Milling

FOE Issues Paper 1: Mining Expansion Submission Final July 2015

Appendix 2 Pt Augusta Statement

Issues Paper 2: Further Processing and Manufacturing

FOE Issues Paper 2: Enrich-Final

Issues Paper 3: Electricity Generation

FOE Issues Paper 3: Electricity Generation Final July 2015

Appendix 1: Nuclear Power – Still Not Viable Without Subsidies

report by the Union of Concerned Scientists

Issues Paper 4: Management, Storage and Disposal of Waste

FOE Issues Paper 4: Nuclear Waste Submission

Appendix 1 Pt Augusta Statement

CFC member Philip White’s individual submission addressing Issues Paper 3: Philip White Submission

Anti-nuclear coaliton meeting 20 August

The next antinuclear coalition meeting will be this Thursday 20th August 6pm start at Mad Mouse Alley, 58 Light Square, City (on the eastern end of the square, along the alley to the north of the People’s Choice Credit Union building).  Mad Mouse is a DIY not-for-profit social centre.

Enquiries robyn.wood@foe.org.au or 0423 219 096

Movie: Uranium: Twisting the Dragon’s Tail premieres SBS 9 August

Uranium – Twisting the Dragon’s Tail

The untold story of the most controversial rock on earth.

Premieres in Australia on SBS 8.30pm Sunday 9th, 16th & 23rd of August

Uranium Twisting the Dragon's Tail

The untold story of the most wondrous and terrifying rock on Earth.

Legends say there’s a world beneath this one where a dragon lies sleeping. They say be careful how you wake the dragon. The year 2015 marks the seventieth anniversary of the most profound change in the history of human enterprise on Earth: the unleashing of the elemental force within uranium, the explosion of an atomic bomb, the unleashing of the dragon. Come on an epic journey with physicist and YouTube phenomenon Dr Derek Muller to discover the untold story of the most wondrous and terrifying rock on Earth.

Love it or loathe it, whatever your views on uranium, this series will challenge them.

Uranium – twisting the dragon’s tail is an Australian made series, an epic journey through nine countries and over a century of stories. Part science and part history, it’s an adventure brought to life by an exciting new personality in television science: Australian-born Canadian raised, Dr Derek Muller. Creator of the hit YouTube channel Veritasium, this is his first appearance as host of an international television documentary series.

In Uranium – twisting the dragon’s tail Derek unleashes a historian’s passion for detail, a physicist’s understanding of science, and a journalist’s nose for a good story. Derek takes a fresh path through the story of uranium, the most desired and the most hated rock on Earth.

Across three fascinating episodes, Derek follows uranium from its birth, forged in an exploding star six billion years ago, through the ancient dreamtime stories of Australia’s indigenous people, and into the laboratories of the first nuclear physicists. Derek takes us down medieval mines and across the arid beauty of a New Mexico desert where the power of uranium was unleashed in the first atomic bomb.

Read more >>