Adelaide FoE Meeting Oct 29th, Online

October 21, 2020

We invite members and friends to join us for an online Zoom meeting at 6pm Thursday, October 29th.

David Noonan, Independent Environment Campaigner, joins us to talk about Nuclear mines and Waste Dumps

 

Zoom details:  FoE Adelaide meeting
Time: Oct 29, 2020 06:00 PM Adelaide
Part One: Guest Speaker David Noonan, talking about Nukes — Oct 29, 2020 6:00pm Adelaide time
<tea break: 6:40-6:50>
Part Two: Oct 29, 2020 6:50pm More discussion with David,
followed by details of the Transforming SA document,
and a discussion of FoE Adelaide activities.

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us04web.zoom.us/j/75378123953?pwd=anFIeWttU1VCSUJDSzVjaWxwTEw0dz09

Meeting ID: 753 7812 3953
Passcode: 0gBQn1

 

Adelaide FoE Notes

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.
… Read more >>

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

Excess Gas strikes Prime Minister

September 17, 2020

We knew there were problems with the National Covid Recovery Committee (NCC) suggesting gas pipelines from WA to the eastern states as part (or all?) of their covid-19 recovery plan,
but it seems the PM has suffered Gas attacks as well:

That backwards slide has continued throughout this year, primarily through Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor’s “Gas fired recovery” efforts. The crux of this project is a massive expansion of Australia’s fossil gas extraction, transport and burning within Australia, sure to result in an extremely significant increase in Australia’s domestic and exported emission footprint, both of which have grown primarily due to gas over the past years.

Let’s be blunt.

In any other universe, recovering from one public health crisis by worsening another would spark immediate backlash. An “asbestos led recovery” would be career-ending; as would a “tobacco led recovery” or a “AK-47 led recovery”. But fossil fuels have locked their harm so deeply into our lives that we have become desensitised to this incredible, radical significance of proposing to hurt humans as a pathway to helping them. What is happening here is simultaneously deadly and ludicrous.
— Ketan Joshi, renew economy, Sept 15th, “Morrison casts dark shadow over energy transition with massive gas intervention”

there is nothing accidental or haphazard about the Coalition’s latest threat to the energy industry; the attempt to force-feed more gas generation into Australia’s main grid and the massive government subsidies promised to extend its infrastructure and open up new gas basins. It may not make much sense, on any level, but that just makes it all the more sinister.

Morrison has made clear he wants the post-Covid recovery to be led by gas, and appointed gas lobbyists to direct the recovery plan. Taylor is seeking to hijack the two key renewable energy bodies to support gas and CCS, and has spent two years erecting bollards trying to slow down the clean energy transition.

… Read more >>

Adelaide FoE Notes