Friends of the Earth Adelaide

ICAN wins Nobel peace Prize

roman October 20, 2017

Dimity Hawkins, Tim Wright and Tilman Ruff from ICAN addressing the UTLC in Melbourne

Congratulations to ICAN, the group behind the recent treaty to ban nuclear weapons, for winning this year’s nobel peace prize.

ICAN Asia-Pacific director Tim Wright said the group was elated by the honour and hoped it would mount pressure on countries to join the movement to end the human destruction caused by nuclear weapons.

“We hope this will only boost our campaign and put pressure on countries who haven’t signed the treaty yet, including Australia,” he said.

“The Australian government, not only failed to participate in negotiations, but it actually tried very hard to stop the talks from taking place. We’re calling on Foreign Minister Julie Bishop to change Australia’s opposition to the treaty and sign just as our neighbours in south-east Asia and the Pacific have done.”

“If there is any time to prohibit the use of nuclear weapons, the time is surely now. This is a very dangerous moment in time and there is a very real risk that the situation could spiral out of control. We need to act now before these weapons are ever used again.”

— comments by Tim Wright in The Age

Nuclear, Old_Notes, Weapons proliferation

Nuclear Power’s Deepening Crisis

roman October 20, 2017

More disastrous news for the nuclear power industry. In 2017 alone:
– clear signs of a major nuclear slow-down in China – the last remaining hope for the industry.
– the US nuclear power industry is in the middle of a full-blown crisis
– a seriously anti-nuclear government has been elected in South Korea
– Taiwan has reaffirmed a nuclear phase-out by 2025
– the South African nuclear power program was ruled illegal by the High Court and probably won’t be revived
– Switzerland voted in a referendum to phase out nuclear power (while all of Germany’s reactors will be closed by the end of 2022 and all of Belgium’s will be closed by the end of 2025).
– huge problems in the UK and France
– India’s nuclear power program is going nowhere and the government has implicitly acknowledged that plans for French EPR reactors and US AP1000 reactors will likely be shelved
– Japan’s nuclear power program remains in a miserable state
– Russia’s Rosatom has acknowledged that the pipeline for new reactors is fast drying up
Meanwhile, the growth of renewables has been spectacular and will grow even faster over the coming years. Renewables will be producing 3 times as much electricity as nuclear power by 2022.

Jim Green, FoE Australia’s anti-nuclear campaigner, goes into more detail in this recent article for online opinion.

Clean Futures, Old_Notes

New Report shows Underground Coal Gasification too costly and too unreliable

roman October 20, 2017

The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) recently published a report describing how coal-to-gasification technology for electricity-generation purposes remains commercially unviable.

The report — “Using Coal Gasification to Generate Electricity: A Multibillion-Dollar Failure” —concludes that two long-running marquee American Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC), projects, Duke Energy’s Edwardsport plant in Indiana and Southern Company’s Kemper plant in Mississippi, prove the case against such investments.

Read More

Clean Futures, Old_Notes

Civil society rejects GMOs at Food and Agriculture Organization meeting

roman October 20, 2017

Civil society representatives firmly rejected genetically modified organisms (GMOs) as a means of addressing world food security at a recent Food and Agriculture Organization meeting in Malaysia. The event was funded by the pro-GM US, Canadian and Australian Governments.

Civil society representatives from the Global South rejected the premise of the event that improved access to agricultural biotechnologies are needed to help defeat hunger, malnutrition and poverty in the Asia-Pacific region.

The focus of the discussion was supposed to be on sustainable food systems for small farmers – not on increasing yields to generate more money from small pieces of land. However, the majority of the supposed ‘solutions’ presented at the meeting were GMOs – including many new GM techniques still at proof of concept stage that have not been subject to any kind of safety assessment.

SA Labor against Nuclear dump in SA

roman October 20, 2017

Motion / resolution passed unanimously by the Australian Labor Party SA Branch, State Convention 2017
13 October 2017
Motion 22. MUA
Federal Nuclear Waste Dump
SA Labor congratulates the Weatherill government for acknowledging the Citizens Jury outcome to reject the establishment of the nuclear dump, which reflected a majority of the state’s residents, some two thirds of Jury participants. The Weatherill Government is to be commended for acknowledging the community, social and environmental concerns.
Recommendation
SA Labor calls on the State Government to oppose any future proposal for a South Australian nuclear dump and storage site. lt is recognised that the Federal Government is indicating they will advocate for a nuclear waste dump in our state. The SA Labor Government and Party will publicly oppose any proposal of this nature, and take this position based on the findings, evidence and community concerns presented during the Citizens Jury.
Recommendation
SA Labor continues to acknowledge, respects and endorse the ALP National Platform on Nuclear Waste.

Contact your MP and see where they stand on this issue!

Adelaide FoE Notes, Nuclear