Australia

Civil society groups have condemned the Australian federal government's recent completion of contested uranium supply deals with both the United Arab Emirates and India.

The deal is in direct conflict with a finding in September by a government-controlled Parliamentary review that "Australian uranium not be sold to India" until unresolved safety, security, legal and nuclear weapons issues were addressed.

The Joint Standing Committee on Treaties (JSCOT) recommended that no uranium sales take place at this time or under the current terms of the Australia-India Nuclear Co-operation Agreement.

It further argued that uranium must not be sold to India until key checks and balances including evidence of improved safety, monitoring and regulatory standards, the establishment of an independent Indian nuclear regulator and full separation of the military and civil dimensions of India's nuclear sector were put in place.

Despite this clear call for caution only two months later in late November the federal government issued a response that "the Government does not accept the Committee's recommendation that exports of uranium to India should be deferred" and further announced that all formalities had been completed so that 'uranium exports can begin immediately'.

The development, which was only briefly in the mainstream Australian media, drew anger from environment, faith, public health and peace groups who described the fast-tracking of uranium sales as a derelict and dangerous move that puts nuclear interests ahead of the national interest.

In the shadow of the Australian uranium-fuelled Fukushima nuclear disaster the countries under-performing but politically favoured uranium sector is under increased scrutiny and pressure with production rates, employment and share value all declining.

With both the industry and federal government now seeking to fast track new sales Australia increasingly risks being globally regarded as an irresponsible supplier of one of the riskiest substances on the planet, providing the source material for nuclear power, weapons and waste without proper scrutiny and against the recommendations of its own review processes.

Critics of the new sales deal have highlighted that India is actively expanding its nuclear arsenal and weapons capabilities through missile tests, increased uranium enrichment capacity and work around multiple weapons launch platforms, including advancing improved submarine launch capabilities.

The newly approved uranium sales treaty places no practical, political or perception barrier to any of these activities. Instead it effectively gives a green light to India's nuclear weapons ambitions.

This cavalier approach is not in the best interests of Australia or the region and undermines both collective safety and Australia's domestic legal and existing international treaty obligations, particularly under the provisions of the 1985 South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty (the Treaty of Rarotonga).

Australia clearly has a role to play in providing clean energy solutions to assist in meeting India's energy aspirations, especially given the large number of rural poor remain living in energy poverty.

Using Australian expertise to facilitate India's renewable sector would allow the country to leapfrog the dangerous and dirty old energy sources that threaten public health and regional stability and provide fast, flexible and secure power that keeps village lights on and global Geiger counters off.

In fast-tracking poorly considered uranium sales and ignoring the non-partisan advice of its own expert parliamentary committee the government of new Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has failed its first nuclear test and set itself up for escalated community contest on nuclear issues.

Reference:

1. www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Treaties/28_Octob...

The smoke has finally started to settle over Australia's largest national park. For a week in mid-October, World Heritage-listed Kakadu National Park burnt following the escape of a 'controlled' fire lit by the uranium mining company Energy Resources of Australia (majority owned by Rio Tinto) against the advice of the Northern Territory fire service. This was the second year in a row a 'controlled' burn lit by ERA turned into an uncontrolled wildfire.

In a case of good luck rather than good management, no one was seriously injured but, as the flames die down and the damage assessment and questions start up, more of ERA's shrinking credibility has literally gone up in smoke.

While the full extent of the damage is not yet known, the fire burned over 200 square kilometres, causing significant environmental damage and threatening ancient and important Aboriginal art and cultural sites.

The Kakadu environment is a living landscape − dynamic, peopled and inter-connected as was seen in the comments of the Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation which represents the regions Traditional Owners, the Mirarr people. ERA's failure to contain this fire demonstrates that nature does not discriminate between a uranium mining lease and a world heritage-listed national park. This is one continuous landscape and this situation has huge implications for the future rehabilitation of the mine site.

Rehabilitation is increasingly the main game at ERA's embattled Ranger mine. The mine has a finite operational window, with mining and mineral processing required to end in January 2021 to be followed by a mandated rehabilitation period during which the site needs to be repaired to a standard suitable for inclusion in the surrounding national park.

Following the fire the Mirarr Traditional Owners formally conveyed their continuing opposition to ERA's attempts to extend operations at Ranger past the 2021 date.

Recent years have seen ERA focussed on plans for a new underground mining operation at Ranger, the so-called Ranger 3 Deeps (R3D) project. For many stakeholders and industry observers ERA's pursuit of the project in the context of a depressed commodity price, an under-performing operation and a narrowing window for operations made scant sense.

In June, ERA's parent company Rio Tinto agreed, pulling the plug on R3D plans and instead offering to fund ERA's extensive, outstanding and soon to be called in rehabilitation costs on the proviso that ERA undertake no further mining at Ranger. In the words of a senior Rio Tinto source Ranger's future lies not in mining but rather in "remediation, remediation, remediation."

And the remediation challenge is profound. The impact of 30 years of mining has seen massive impact and the creation of multiple long term contamination plumes and pathways.

There have been over 200 hundred leaks, spills and incidents at the Ranger mine and there are severe and unresolved problems with the management of contaminated water and mine wastes. The mine plant is at the end of its design life and equipment and infrastructure is aging and failing.

This was starkly highlighted in December 2013 when a major leach tank failed spilling over one million litres of radioactive and acidic slurry. A subsequent site review commissioned by ERA confirmed the long held concerns of many stakeholders that the aging and failing plant is at full stretch. The review also raised serious questions about the adequacy of both infrastructure and management systems at Ranger, finding that the mine had 35 other failed or at risk pieces of critical plant infrastructure or equipment with the potential for major human safety or environmental impacts in operation at the time of the tank collapse.

Whether the threat is from wildfire, leaking tailings dams or toxic mud, in too many ways and over too many years ERA's operations have damaged and threatened Kakadu.

The freefall in the price of uranium since the Fukushima nuclear disaster − a continuing crisis directly fuelled by Australian uranium − has seen the uranium sector losing market share, share value and money. Since Fukushima ERA has posted years of consecutive losses that now total more than A$1 billion. The company is cutting costs and corners and posing an increasing danger to Kakadu.

The history of uranium mining in Kakadu has been one of broken pipes and broken promises. Sustained Aboriginal, environmental and wider community opposition and resistance has seen the development of Jabiluka halted and the threat of mining at nearby Koongarra averted. Kakadu's remaining radioactive running sore is the under-performing Ranger mine and it is time the wound is dressed. ERA has failed and it is now time for Rio Tinto to give effect to its corporate responsibility rhetoric and to commence a considered and comprehensive Ranger exit strategy.

Federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt has committed to an inquiry into the fire. This is welcome but any inquiry needs to be open and transparent, not simply another yellowcake whitewash.

Also welcome is the Northern Land Council's call that the federal government reinstate traditional Indigenous fire management practises across Kakadu. This would reduce the chances of damaging late dry season burns and massive greenhouse gas emissions and potentially open the door to future post mining income streams through measured carbon farming and abatement.

Kakadu has been burnt but it is ERA who should be in the firing line. The company lacks the commitment, capacity and competence to conduct such a dangerous trade in such a special place and the recent fire is further proof that it is time to close the chapter on uranium mining in Kakadu.

Plans to export uranium from Australia to India may have hit their most significant hurdle so far in the form of Report 151 of the federal Parliament's influential Joint Standing Committee on Treaties (JSCOT). After much deliberation and expert testimony, the Committee has put forward a number of recommendations that India has to abide by before Australian uranium is sold to India. The history of India's nuclear programme and the country's stand in various diplomatic fora suggest that there is little chance of India agreeing to these conditions.

The first three recommendations laid out in the JSCOT report are particularly important. The first and second recommendations pertain to India acceding to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and negotiating a fissile material cut-off treaty as well as a nuclear arms limitation treaty for the Indian subcontinent region. The third recommendation is focused on the safety and efficacy of the safeguards and standards of nuclear facilities in India arguing that a series of key checks and balances must be put into practice and proven to work before any uranium sales. If taken seriously, these recommendations will make it all but impossible for the Australian government to sell any uranium to India.

Diplomatically, for nearly two decades successive Indian governments have opposed India signing the CTBT, offering only a unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing. By definition such an arrangement can also be unilaterally reversed. As noted in the JSCOT report, the Indian government is unlikely to change this position. There has been a long-standing demand from several quarters – strategists, former defense personnel and even some retired chairmen of the Atomic Energy Commission – to conduct one or more nuclear weapon tests. In 2009 a senior member of India's Defense Research and Development Organization revealed that the yield of the thermonuclear device tested in 1998 was "much lower than what was claimed" and argued that this meant, "India should not rush into signing the CTBT".

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1172 calls "upon India and Pakistan immediately to stop their nuclear weapon development programmes, to refrain from weaponisation or from the deployment of nuclear weapons, to cease development of ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons and any further production of fissile material for nuclear weapons". Nevertheless, both countries continue to pursue all of these activities and have resisted calls for limiting their nuclear and missile programs.

Of particular relevance to the question of uranium exports is the continued production of fissile material for nuclear weapons by both India and Pakistan; cessation of these activities in the near term seems politically infeasible. In India, an important source of demand for fissile material is the expanding naval wing of India's nuclear triad. India is in the process of deploying its first nuclear submarine, Arihant; a second nuclear submarine is reportedly ready and a third vessel under construction. These submarines are said to be designed to carry up to 12 ballistic missiles, with a range of 700 to 750 kilometers, each armed with one nuclear warhead. Naval planners have called for ballistic missiles of at least intermediate range (3,000 - 5,500 km). The first test of a 3000 km range submarine-launched ballistic missile was carried out last year. This February, the government approved the construction of six nuclear powered attack submarines. To fuel all these submarines, India is setting up a new uranium centrifuge plant (expelling villagers who live in the area in the process) in order to significantly expand its enrichment capacity. Implementing these plans will require substantial quantities of plutonium and enriched uranium; it is hard to imagine the Indian government negotiating-in good faith-a treaty to ban their production.

There are also good reasons to be worried about the risk of severe accidents at Indian nuclear facilities. Most nuclear facilities in the country have experienced small or large accidents. Fortunately none of these has been catastrophic. Many were caused by inattention to recurring problems or other warnings and, to the extent that those responsible for safety have tried to fix them, they have not always been successful. Disturbingly, the latest reactor to be commissioned, Koodankulam-I, a Russian designed light water reactor, has had a spotty operating record since it became critical. Safety concerns have been at the heart of intense local opposition in various parts of India to nuclear power plants.

An added concern, highlighted by the JSCOT report, is the absence of an independent regulator. In the last few years, two government bodies in India, the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee and the Auditor General, have recommended that the government effect a true separation, but to date this has not been done. The lack of separation between the regulator and the regulated industry is not an accident, but a choice made and preserved by the nuclear establishment over decades. The attempt to restructure the regulatory system in response to widespread concern following the Fukushima accident has been marred by various weaknesses, including that the planned process calls upon the head of the nuclear establishment to play a part in appointing members.

Given the catastrophic consequences of a nuclear accident in India, let alone the use of nuclear weapons, the need to end nuclear fissile material production and significantly improve the safety and regulation of nuclear facilities is urgent. JSCOT's recommendations are the minimum precautions required before any Australian uranium is exported. The question now is will the Australian government meet its responsibilities?

The Joint Standing Committee on Treaties report is posted at: www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Treaties/28_Octob...

[Reprinted from Online Opinion, www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=17665]

Former IAEA Chair takes aim at Australia-India nuclear deal

Ron Walker, a former Australian diplomat and former Chairman of the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, writes:

Besides its collateral damage to Australia's security, commercial and diplomatic interests, the soon-to-be ratified Australia-India nuclear cooperation agreement notably fails to meet its objectives.

The aim was to give a green light to Australian uranium exports to India. Two objectives were to be served, one commercial, the other diplomatic. A vast new market was to be opened for Australian uranium exporters and India was to be convinced Australia was a reliable partner, worthy of a closer relationship.

Instead, as has been exposed in the Joint Parliamentary Committee, the Australian side gave away so much in the course of the negotiations on safeguards against nuclear proliferation and left open such loopholes for Australian uranium to end up in bombs or otherwise help their manufacture, that this proposed treaty does not do what Australia's 23 existing nuclear safeguards treaties do.

Unlike them, it does not give Australian exporters legally watertight guarantees that the trade will be subject to effective controls against misuse of the uranium in ways Australian companies neither want nor could afford. So many deficiencies in the proposed treaty have been exposed it amounts at best, not to a greenlight but to a blinking yellow one. Not 'all is guaranteed safe' but 'proceed carefully at your own peril'. And JSCOT's main recommendation is a red light: no uranium exports to be permitted for the foreseeable future.

How Australian companies will respond and what risks they will be prepared to take remains to be seen, but no responsible government would have placed them in this situation.

The Indian Government has every reason to feel it too has been dudded. Instead of a reliable supply, there is a big element of precariousness. As for a demonstration of the Australian Government's trustworthiness as a close partner, the contrary impression is conveyed of a bumbling inability to manage our own end of the deal.

[Reprinted from www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/2015/09/14/Reader-riposte-Australia-India-n...

In February, the Labor Party government of the state of South Australia (SA) established a Royal Commission¹ to consider options for an expanded role in the nuclear fuel cycle. Currently, the state has two operating uranium mines (Olympic Dam and Beverley Four Mile) but no other nuclear facilities. As the debate has progressed, it has become clear that the main interest is in the possibility of making billions of dollars by accepting spent fuel / high level waste from overseas.

There is a precedent to current discussions. Pangea Resources was an international consortium that was planning a high level waste repository in Australia.² Pangea set up an office in Australia in the late 1990s but gave up in 2002 in the face of overwhelming public opposition.

The existence of Pangea Resources was a closely-guarded secret until a corporate video was leaked to Friends of the Earth. Pangea chief Jim Voss denied meeting with federal government ministers when he had in fact met at least one minister. A Pangea spokesperson said: "We would not like to be lying ... we very much regret getting off on the wrong foot." Ironically, the Association for Regional and International Underground Storage (ARIUS), the successor to Pangea, said in its submission to the Royal Commission that an "essential element of any approach is the open and complete flow of information."³

How much money might be made by taking nuclear waste from other countries? There is no precedent to base an estimate on. There may be countries that would be willing to send nuclear waste to Australia for storage and/or disposal but there are many reasons why countries may choose other options:

• About ~160 of the world's 194 countries have never operated power reactors and thus have no spent fuel or high level waste from nuclear power programs (although some have small quantities from the operation of research reactors).
• Some countries are advancing domestic or regional waste disposal plans.
• Some countries (and companies/utilities) would consider it irresponsible to entrust nuclear waste to a country that has very little or no experience or demonstrated competence − and a proven track record of incompetence (discussed below).
• Some countries (and companies/utilities) would consider it unethical to send nuclear waste to Australia given the pattern of Aboriginal land rights and heritage protections being sacrificed in order to advance radioactive waste repository projects (discussed below).
• Some countries are pursuing spent fuel reprocessing programs and would be unlikely candidates to send spent fuel to Australia (although they might pay to rid themselves of the high level waste stream from reprocessing).
• Some countries would be unwilling to rid themselves of spent fuel as they see it as a military asset (as it contains weapons-useable plutonium).

While proponents make absurd claims about the potential income − including claims that the income would allow the provision of free electricity to all South Australians and the abolition of all state taxes − they have had little to say about the costs. Since the volume of waste would presumably be relatively large (as a commercial venture), the cost of deep underground repository would likely be in the tens of billions of dollars. Plans for a high level waste repository in Japan may be comparable: the estimated cost is ¥3,500 billion (€25.2b; US$28.1b).⁴

Many other significant costs would be incurred. ARIUS proposes transport by purpose-built ships; a dedicated sea port; a dedicated rail system; and support and maintenance facilities for ships, rail locomotives, rolling stock and transport packages.³

Some nuclear proponents believe that spent nuclear fuel is a "multi-trillion dollar asset"⁵ − because it can be processed for reuse as reactor fuel − and they also believe that countries will pay "tens of billions of dollars"⁶ to rid themselves of this multi-trillion dollar asset. However, to the extent that countries regard spent fuel as an asset, they will:

• not be willing to send it to Australia;
• offer to sell spent fuel to Australia rather than paying Australia to take it; or
• they may pay Australia to take spent fuel but they will pay less to the extent that spent fuel is considered an asset.

Advocates of the waste-to-fuel plan are particularly keen on the idea of processing spent fuel for use as fuel in 'integral fast reactors' (IFRs). That proposal is unlikely to win support since no country operates IFRs. The UK and the US are considering building IFRs to manage stockpiles of separated plutonium − but both countries are likely to choose other options.

Hazards

Professor John Veevers from Macquarie University wrote in Australian Geologist about the serious public health and environmental risks associated with a high-level nuclear waste repository: "Tonnes of enormously dangerous radioactive waste in the northern hemisphere, 20,000 kms from its destined dump in Australia where it must remain intact for at least 10,000 years. These magnitudes − of tonnage, lethality, distance of transport, and time − entail great inherent risk."⁷

Proponents of Australia becoming the world's waste dump claim that Australia has uniquely suitable geology. However Dr Mike Sandiford from the School of Earth Sciences at University of Melbourne writes: "Australia is relatively stable but not tectonically inert, and appears to be less stable than a number of other continental regions. Some places in Australia are surprisingly geologically active. We occasionally get big earthquakes in Australia (up to about magnitude 7) and the big ones have tended to occur in somewhat unexpected places like Tennant Creek. ... Australia is not the most stable of continental regions, although the levels of earthquake risk are low by global standards. To the extent that past earthquake activity provides a guide to future tectonic activity, Australia would not appear to provide the most tectonically stable environments for long-term waste facilities."⁸

Australia's track record

There are social as well as technical dimensions to risk assessments. Australia has a history of mismanaging nuclear waste. Nuclear engineer Alan Parkinson states: "The disposal of radioactive waste in Australia is ill-considered and irresponsible. Whether it is short-lived waste from Commonwealth facilities, long-lived plutonium waste from an atomic bomb test site on Aboriginal land, or reactor waste from Lucas Heights. The government applies double standards to suit its own agenda; there is no consistency, and little evidence of logic."⁹

In the late-1990s, the Australian government carried out a 'clean up' of Maralinga, the site in SA where the British government tested nuclear weapons in the 1950s. The 'clean up' was done on the cheap and many tonnes of plutonium-contaminated debris remain buried in shallow, unlined pits in totally unsuitable geology − a breach of Australian guidelines for the management of long-lived nuclear waste.⁹

A number of scientists with inside knowledge of the Maralinga project complained about deficiencies:¹⁰

• Alan Parkinson said of the 'clean up': "What was done at Maralinga was a cheap and nasty solution that wouldn't be adopted on white-fellas land."
• US scientist Dale Timmons said the government's technical report was littered with "gross misinformation".
• Geoff Williams, an officer with the Commonwealth nuclear regulator ARPANSA, said the 'clean up' was beset by a "host of indiscretions, short-cuts and cover-ups".
• Nuclear physicist Prof. Peter Johnston said there were "very large expenditures and significant hazards resulting from the deficient management of the project by DEST [the Department of Education, Science and Training]."

Barely a decade after the Maralinga 'clean up', a survey revealed that 19 of the 85 contaminated waste pits have been subject to erosion or subsidence.¹¹

Radioactive racism

Former Prime Minister Bob Hawke said Australia could end the disadvantage endured by Aboriginal people by opening up traditional lands as dumping sites for nuclear waste. But there are simpler and safer methods to close the gap. For example, the federal government could reverse planned cuts of $500 million from Aboriginal spending over the next five years.

Attempts to establish a national radioactive waste repository in Australia have involved crude racism. From 1998−2004, the federal government attempted to impose a dump on Aboriginal land in SA. The project came unstuck when the Federal Court ruled that the government had illegally used the Lands Acquisition Act 1989 to seize land for the dump and to annul Aboriginal Native Title rights and interests.¹⁰

From 2005−2014, the federal government tried to impose a dump on Aboriginal land in the Northern Territory, and the racism was even cruder. The government passed legislation overriding the Aboriginal Heritage Act and the Aboriginal Land Rights Act, and allowing the imposition of a radioactive waste dump without any consultation with or consent from Aboriginal people. Muckaty Traditional Owners launched a legal challenge against the nomination of the dump site, and the government abandoned the waste dump proposal during the court case.¹⁰

Aboriginal people are deeply concerned about the Royal Commission and in particular renewed proposals for nuclear waste dumps on their land. A meeting held in May in SA released the following statement:

South Australian Traditional Owners say NO!
We oppose plans for uranium mining, nuclear reactors and nuclear waste dumps on our land.
We call on the SA Royal Commission to recommend against any uranium mining and nuclear projects on our lands.
We call on the Australian population to support us in our campaign to prevent dirty and dangerous nuclear projects being imposed on our lands and our lives and future generations.
Endorsed by members from the following groups, present at the Port Augusta meeting: Kokatha, Kokatha-Mirning, Arabunna, Adnyamathanha, Yankunytjatjara-Pitjanjatjara, Antikirinya-Yunkunytjatjara, Kuyani, Aranda, Western Aranda, Dieri, Larrakia, Wiradjuri.

References:

1. http://nuclearrc.sa.gov.au/

2. www.foe.org.au/anti-nuclear/issues/oz/import-waste

3. http://nuclearrc.sa.gov.au/app/uploads/2015/08/Arius-Association-13-07-2...

4. www.world-nuclear.org/info/Country-Profiles/Countries-G-N/Japan--Nuclear...

5. http://decarbonisesa.com/2012/02/22/a-matter-of-waste-latest-in-the-saco...

6. http://theconversation.com/royal-commission-into-nuclear-will-open-a-wor...

7. J.J. Veevers, 'Disposal of British RADwaste at home and in antipodean Australia', http://web.archive.org/web/20120410062832/http:/eps.mq.edu.au/media/veev...

8. ABC, 'Ask an Expert', www.abc.net.au/science/expert/realexpert/nuclearpower/08.htm

9. Alan Parkinson, 2002, 'Double standards with radioactive waste', Australasian Science, www.foe.org.au/anti-nuclear/issues/oz/britbombs/clean-up

10. See section 1.9 in joint environment groups' submission to Royal Commission: www.foe.org.au/sites/default/files/NFCRC%20submission%20FoEA%20ACF%20CCS...

11. www.theage.com.au/national/maralinga-sites-need-more-repair-work-files-s...

In the last issue of Nuclear Monitor, we noted that some nuclear insiders and lobbyists are starting to confront the reality that the global pattern of nuclear power stagnation is likely to continue. With the number of 'operable' power reactors declining from 443 to 437 from January 2005 to January 2015, the rhetoric about a nuclear renaissance is becoming increasingly implausible.

Former World Nuclear Association executive Steve Kidd, for example, states that the "picture of the current reactors gradually shutting down with numbers of new reactors failing to replace them has more than an element of truth given the recent trends."¹

Likewise, in a January 28 article for Nuclear Engineering International, nuclear economics consultant Edward D. Kee is downbeat about prospects in the US: "The US nuclear power industry geared up a decade ago for a nuclear renaissance that did not happen and is not likely to happen. ... Today, only five reactors are under construction in the US. ... Aside from these projects, no new US nuclear projects are expected to start construction in the next decade or longer. ... The US nuclear power industry will likely face unfavourable electricity industry conditions for another 20 years or longer."²

Similar opinions about the uranium industry are becoming increasingly common. Uranium and energy consultants Julian Steyn and Thomas Meade wrote in Nuclear Engineering International last October: "The uranium market is characterised by oversupply, which is forecast to continue through most the current decade. The oversupply situation has been exacerbated by the greater-than-initially-expected decline in demand following Fukushima as well as the increase in primary supply during the same period. Existing production capacity and output from mines under development could cause total supply to exceed demand through the year 2020."³

And in November, investment strategist Christopher Ecclestone from Hallgarten & Company wrote: "There has indeed been a nuclear winter verging on an Ice Age over the last few years with bad news heaped upon bad news within the context of a pretty dismal financing situation for mining all around. ... The yellow mineral had made fools and liars of many in recent years, including ourselves."⁴

Still, there is some hype around uranium, some of it based on implausible projections of nuclear growth. The Seeking Alpha website, for example, claims that uranium demand "is set to soar over the next 15 years as the number of reactors worldwide more than doubles from today's 437, with 557 more reactors already in the works."⁵

But even those prone to hype are mostly arguing that the uranium industry has to pick up because it couldn't get any worse. Thus uranium mining executive Jim Paterson wrote in December: "I believe it is an absolutely stunning time to be an investor in our business. But not stunning like how you feel after being punched in the nose repeatedly for almost four years, as participants in our industry have been. Rather, the valuations of the companies in the uranium sector are so deeply discounted, while the decade's long runway to demand growth is so clearly marked in front of us, that the opportunity for future gains is stunning."⁶

Massive stockpiles

Jim Paterson emphasises China's "staggering" nuclear power growth plans. He forgets that China has a history of failing to meet nuclear power projections and no hope of meeting the current target of 58 gigawatts (GW) by 2020.⁷ And he ignores the fact that China has amassed a huge uranium inventory.

According to Australian investment bank Macquarie, there are "serious question marks" about China's uranium requirements: "China is clearly the most positive story globally when it comes to nuclear-power-capacity expansion. The concern, however, is that China has already procured a substantial amount of uranium well in excess of what it has consumed and that this advance purchasing might limit its need to enter the market to source material over the next few years."⁸

Macquarie believes that China has enough uranium stockpiled to meet domestic demand for about seven years at forecast 2020 consumption rates − which is around three times greater than the current consumption rate.⁸

China is not the only country with large stockpiles. Raymond James analyst David Sadowski said in March 2014 that "many utilities are sitting on near-record piles" of uranium.⁹ Japan is estimated to have stockpiles of around 100 million pounds (or 45,000 tonnes) of uranium oxide.¹⁰ To put that in perspective, world uranium requirements for power reactors last year amounted to around 171 million pounds (78,000 tonnes). It will likely take a decade or more before Japan's stockpile is consumed given the protracted nature of the reactor restart process.

RBC Capital Markets analysts said in June 2014 that worldwide supply currently exceeds demand, and that it does not expect the uranium industry's situation to improve until at least 2021 because of accumulated inventories.¹¹

With stagnant demand and large stockpiles, uranium miners are left clutching at straws. Some hope that supply from Russia might be curbed in response to Western sanctions, thus breathing some life into the uranium industry elsewhere. Some hope that dwindling secondary supply sources − in particular, the end of the US−Russia Megatons to Megawatts uranium downblending program − will breathe life into the uranium industry. But the Megatons to Megawatts program ended a year ago and has had little or no impact.

David Sadowski noted in August 2014: "[T]he end of the Megatons to Megawatts high-enriched uranium (HEU) deal was long anticipated to usher in a new period of higher uranium prices. But the same plants that were used to down-blend those warheads can now be used for underfeeding and tails re-enrichment. In this way, the Russian HEU-derived source of supply that provided about 24 million pounds (24 Mlb) to the market did not disappear completely; the supply level was just cut roughly in half."¹²

And if there was a shortfall, surplus weapons material is just one of the secondary sources that can reduce demand for primary mine production. Other secondary sources are underfeeding at enrichment plants (getting more uranium-235 from a given volume of uranium ore), re-enrichment of tails material, government and commercial inventories, and uranium recycle from reprocessing plants.

Rio Tinto

Rio Tinto has established itself as one of the uranium industry's underperformers. The company used to be one of the world's top five uranium producers, along with Kazatomprom, Cameco, AREVA and ARMZ/Uranium One.³ No more, due to problems at the Ranger mine (Northern Territory, Australia) and the Rossing mine (Namibia), including leach tank failures at both mines in December 2013.

Energy Resources of Australia (ERA), 68% owned by Rio Tinto, operates the Ranger mine. ERA recorded a loss of A$188 million (€130m; US$147m) in 2014¹³, with losses over the past five years totally A$500 million (€345m; US$390m).¹⁴ ERA had to buy uranium on the spot market last year to cover contract shortfalls in the aftermath of the leach tank failure.¹⁵

The open pit mine at Ranger has been exhausted and ERA is milling ore stockpiles and also hoping to develop the Ranger 3 Deeps underground mine project. The company − notorious for its defeated attempt to mine uranium at Jabiluka in the late 1990s despite the unanimous opposition of Mirarr Aboriginal Traditional Owners − will decide this year whether to proceed with Ranger 3 Deeps. If ERA cancels the project, processing of stockpiles will be complete in two years, after which there will be no uranium mining or milling in the Northern Territory.

References:

1. Steve Kidd, 21 Jan 2015, 'Is climate change the worst argument for nuclear?', www.neimagazine.com/opinion/opinionis-climate-change-the-worst-argument-...
2. Edward D. Kee, 28 Jan 2015, 'US nuclear industry in decline', www.neimagazine.com/features/featureus-nuclear-industry-in-decline-4498254/
3. Julian Steyn and Thomas Meade, 1 Oct 2014, 'Uranium market doldrums continue', www.neimagazine.com/features/featureuranium-market-doldrums-continue-439...
4. Christopher Ecclestone, 10 Nov 2014, 'Ecclestone on NexGen Energy – A Survivor of the Nuclear Winter', http://investorintel.com/nuclear-energy-intel/nexgen-energy-nxe-v-surviv...
5. 4 Dec 2014, 'Spot U3O8 And Uranium Miners Rebound And Retrace As Japan Readies Nuclear Reactor Restarts', http://seekingalpha.com/article/2729395-spot-u3o8-and-uranium-miners-reb...
6. Jim Paterson, 21 Dec 2014, 'Stunning Uranium Industry Growth Ahead', http://resourceinvestingnews.com/80036-uranium-price-nuclear-energy-chin...
7. 19 Dec 2014, 'China's nuclear power plans: safety and security challenges', Nuclear Monitor #796, www.wiseinternational.org/nuclear-monitors
8. Rhiannon Hoyle, 17 Jan 2015, 'Uranium Rally Running Low on Juice', http://online.barrons.com/articles/uranium-rally-running-low-on-juice-14...
9. 29 March 2014, 'Conjuring Profits from Uranium's Resurgence: Interview with David Sadowski', http://theenergycollective.com/streetwiser/360291/conjuring-profits-uran...
10. 15 Jan 2015, 'Charting Uranium's Gain, Brent Cook Looks For Sweet Spots In The Athabasca Basin', http://seekingalpha.com/article/2822326-charting-uraniums-gain-brent-coo...
11. Vicky Validakis, 6 June, 2014, 'Price collapse sees junior miner ditch uranium to focus on property development', www.miningaustralia.com.au/news/price-collapse-sees-junior-miner-ditch-u...
12. Peter Byrne, 5 Aug 2014, 'Why predictions of uranium price boom flopped', www.mineweb.com/mineweb/content/en/mineweb-uranium?oid=249357&sn=Detail
13. WNN, 6 Feb 2015, http://us1.campaign-archive2.com/?u=140c559a3b34d23ff7c6b48b9&id=0658a5e...
14. ECNT and ACF, 9 Feb 2015, 'Rio's investment delay adds difficulty to Ranger 3 Deeps mine proposal', media release.
15. 7 Feb 2015, 'Rio uranium unit ERA's loss widens to $188m', www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/rio-uranium-unit-eras-lo...

Spain: We are all the Cofrentes 17

Celia Ojeda from Greenpeace Spain writes:

Seventeen people face trial in Spain on charges of public disorder, damage and injury. The punishment being demanded is nearly three years in prison. In addition, Greenpeace may have to pay a fine of 360,000 euros. Why? Because on February 15, 2011, 16 Greenpeace activists and a freelance photojournalist entered Spain's Cofrentes nuclear power plant, climbed one of the cooling towers and painted "Nuclear Danger" on it. Greenpeace's protests are peaceful actions. Is punishing the painting of a cooling tower with jail fair and proportionate? Defending the environment should not carry a cost that is higher than for destroying it.

In a time when peaceful protest is being questioned, Greenpeace points to Article 45 of Spain's constitution that establishes the right of everyone to "enjoy an environment suitable for the development of the individual as well as the duty to preserve it ". That is what Greenpeace does and it is a right our people exercised on February 15, 2011. So we have launched a campaign: COFRENTES MISSION: ARTICLE 45. Because when you have exhausted all other avenues, all you have left is peaceful protest. Three years ago we expected this trial to be held on 4 December, 2014. Today [November 19] we begin a campaign that will last 17 days. During these days we will be proposing 17 missions to make bring attention to the injustice the Cofrentes 17 are facing.

Abridged from www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/nuclear-reaction/we-are-a...

In a separate post, Raquel Montón, nuclear and energy campaigner for Greenpeace Spain, lists 17 nuclear power plants that ought to be shut down immediately − one for each of the 17 Cofrentes activists. Most of the plants are ageing: Fessenheim (France), Doel 3 (Belgium), Borssele (Netherlands), Gundremmingen B and C (Germany), Tarapur 1 and 2 (India), Dukovany (Czech Republic), Paks 2 (Hungary), Krsko (Slovenia), Forsmark 1 (Sweden), Cofrentes (Spain), Rivne 1 and 2 (Ukraine), Fukushima (Japan), Santa María de Garoña (Spain).

www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/nuclear-reaction/17-nucle...

Australia: Kakadu Traditional Owner just wants a house on his country

Kirsten Blair, Community and International Liaison officer with the Gundjehmi Aboriginal Corporation, writes:

Jeffrey Lee spoke powerfully about his work to protect Koongarra from mining at the closing plenary of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) World Parks Congress in Sydney, Australia on November 18. Kakadu, in the tropical Top End of the Northern Territory, is Australia's largest National Park and is dual World Heritage listed for both its natural and cultural values. Encompassing tropical wetlands, extensive savannah and soaring sandstone escarpments and waterfalls this region has been sculptured and shaped by people and nature for many tens of thousands of years. Jeffrey Lee, the Senior Traditional Owner of the Djok clan in Kakadu fought for many years to see his country at Koongarra protected from the threat of uranium mining. In 2011 he made the long journey from Kakadu to Paris to see the World Heritage Committee include Koongarra in the World Heritage estate and in 2013 the area was formally included within Kakadu National Park and permanently protected from uranium mining. [Areva is understood to be planning legal action against the Australian government over its 2013 decision to veto mining at Koongarra.]

For decades Jeffrey was pressured to allow uranium mining on his land at Koongarra and for decades he resisted – refusing millions of dollars in promised mining payments. Now he is seeking something. After generously allowing his land to be included in Kakadu National Park Jeffrey has a modest ask of the Australian Government in return: please build a house on his country. Jeffrey spoke to thousands of delegates at the closing plenary of the World Parks Congress in Sydney and told the story of his long fight to protect Koongarra. He concluded by calling on the Australian Government to come good on their promise to build him a house on his country. "I have said no to uranium mining at Koongarra because I believe that the land and my cultural beliefs are more important than mining and money. Money comes and goes, but the land is always here, it always stays if we look after it and it will look after us," he said. "While I'm down here at this Congress, I want to tell people about Koongarra and remind the Government that I did all that work to protect that country. All I'm asking is for a place to live on my country. I don't want to wait until I've passed away, I want to live on my county now. "I don't want the Government to forget me, they came to visit me, they congratulated me on my hard work and said they will support me in this. The Government knows how hard I worked, they gave me an Order of Australia and I'm happy for that. Now I just want a commitment from them for a house so I can live on that country that I fought for."

www.mirarr.net

Environmental Justice Organisations, Liabilities and Trade reports

Environmental Justice Organisations, Liabilities and Trade (EJOLT), a collaboration between 23 universities and civil society organisations, published two significant reports on nuclear and uranium issues in November.

'Expanded nuclear power capacity in Europe, impact of uranium mining and alternatives' tackles the myths that nuclear energy is clean, reliable, cheap and climate friendly. In reality, nuclear energy capacity in Eastern Europe is characterised by hidden externalised costs, technical problems and covered-up dangers. At the same time, alternative options for energy production and measures for managing energy demand already exist. The report focuses on Bulgaria and Slovenia, where the full range of issues with nuclear energy are exposed: from zombie mines to badly managed radioactive waste. Slovenia plans one new nuclear power plant and prolongs one other, while Bulgaria is planning two new nuclear power plants. The report concludes that projected Bulgarian and Slovenian energy demand is deliberately exaggerated by competent authorities, while nuclear costs are underestimated. This is despite the existence of an economically justifiable potential for renewable energy solutions, at lower cost per kWh.

Raeva, D., et al., 2014, Expanded nuclear power capacity in Europe, impact of uranium mining and alternatives. EJOLT Report No. 12, 129p., www.ejolt.org/2014/10/expanded-nuclear-power-capacity-in-europe-impact-o...

'Uranium mining. Unveiling the impacts of the nuclear industry' argues that the EU should improve legislation and practices to limit the environmental and health impacts of uranium mining. Lead author Bruno Chareyron states: "Uranium mining is increasing the amount of radioactive substances in the biosphere and produces hundreds of millions of tonnes of long lived radioactive waste. The companies have no solutions for the confinement of this waste and for the appropriate management of contaminated water flowing from the mine sites, even decades after mine closure." The cost of remediation should be properly estimated and paid by the mining companies. Field studies done for this report reveal how zombie mines keep affecting the lives of thousands, even decades after the mines are closed.

The report draws from on-site studies performed in Bulgaria, Brazil, Namibia and Malawi in the course of the EJOLT project and from previous studies in France and Africa over the past 20 years. It gives examples of the various impacts of uranium mining and milling activities on the environment (air, soil, water) and provides recommendations to limit these impacts.

Chareyron, B., et al., 2014, Uranium mining. Unveiling the impacts of the nuclear industry. EJOLT Report No. 15, 116p., www.ejolt.org/2014/11/uranium-mining-unveiling-impacts-nuclear-industry/

UK reactor plans face obstacles

Paul Brown writes:

Plans to build two giant nuclear reactors in south-west England are being reviewed as French energy companies now seek financial backing from China and Saudi Arabia − while the British government considers whether it has offered vast subsidies for a white elephant. A long-delayed final decision on whether the French electricity utility company EDF will build two 1.6 gigawatt European Pressurised water Reactors at Hinkley Point in Somerset − in what would be the biggest construction project in Europe − was due in the new year, but is likely to drift again. Construction estimates have already escalated to £25 billion (US$39.3b, €31.5b), which is £9 billion more than a year ago, and four times the cost of putting on the London Olympics last year. Two prototypes being built in Olikuoto, Finland, and Flamanville, France, were long ago expected to be finished and operational, but are years late and costs continue to escalate. Until at least one of these is shown to work as designed, it would seem a gamble to start building more, but neither of them is expected to produce power until 2017.

British experts, politicians and businessmen have begun to doubt that the new nuclear stations are a viable proposition. Steve Thomas, professor of energy policy at the University of Greenwich, London, said: "The project is at very serious risk of collapse at the moment. Only four of those reactors have ever been ordered. Two of them are in Europe, and both of those are about three times over budget. One is about five or six years late and the other is nine years late. Two more are in China and are doing a bit better, but are also running late." Tom Greatrex, the British Labour party opposition's energy spokesman, called on the National Audit Office to investigate whether the nuclear reactors were value for money for British consumers. Peter Atherton, of financial experts Liberum Capital, believes the enormous cost and appalling track record in the nuclear industry of doing things on time mean that ministers should scrap the Hinkley plans. Billionaire businessman Jim Ratcliffe, who wants to invest £640 million in shale gas extraction in the UK, said that the subsidy that the British government would pay for nuclear electricity is "outrageous". Finding the vast sums of capital needed to finance the project is proving a problem. Both EDF and its French partner company, Areva, which designed the European Pressurised water Reactor (EPR), have money troubles. In November, Areva suspended future profit predictions and shares fell by 20%.

Chinese power companies have offered to back the project, but want many of the jobs to go to supply companies back home − something the French are alarmed about because they need to support their own ailing nuclear industry. Saudi Arabia is offering to help too, but this may not go down well in Britain. On the surface, all is well. Preparation of the site is already under way on the south-west coast of England, with millions being spent on earthworks and new roads. ... But leaks from civil servants in Whitehall suggest that the government may be getting cold feet about its open-ended guarantees. ... The Treasury is having a review because of fears that, once this project begins, so much money will have been invested that the government will have to bail it out with billions more of taxpayers' money to finish it − or write off huge sums.

− Abridged from Climate News Network, www.climatenewsnetwork.net/europes-nuclear-giants-are-close-to-collapse

Belgium: Fire takes another reactor offline

Electrabel closed the Tihange 3 power reactor on November 30 after an electrical fire, leaving only three of the Belgian firm's seven nuclear plants in action. Several electrical cables outside the reactor caught fire. Electrabel operates seven nuclear reactors − four in Doel and three in Tihange − producing about half of Belgium's electricity demand.¹ Doel 3 and Tihange 2 were off-line for almost a year in 2012−13, due to the discovery of thousands of cracks in the reactors' steel containment vessels, and they were shut down again in March 2014. Sabotage on August 5 by an unidentified staff member damaged the steam turbine of Doel 4, causing its automatic shut down.²

1. www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/30/belgium-nuclear-idUSL6N0TK0LV20141130
2. www.wiseinternational.org/node/4202

Uranium mine sludge discharge permit threatens Lake Malawi

Paladin Africa Ltd, which mines uranium ore in Malawi's northern district of Karonga, has come under fire from a coalition of Malawian civil society groups and chiefs over its proposal to discharge mining sludge into the Sere and North Rukuru rivers. The toxic substances that would flow from the tailings pond at the Kayelekera Uranium Mine into Lake Malawi 50 kms downstream include waste uranium rock, acids, arsenic and other chemicals used in processing the uranium ore, the coalition fears. A statement issued by the Natural Resources Justice Network (NRJN), a coalition of 33 civil society organisations active in the extractive industry sector, expressed grave concerns about a recommendation by the National Water Development and Management Technical Committee in the Ministry of Agriculture that the minister issue a discharge permit to Paladin Africa.

Officials from Paladin Africa at a November 4 meeting told participants, according to NRJN members present, "Paladin fears that if the water from the tailings dam is not released into Rukuru River then there is a high risk that the contaminated water from the dam would overflow as a result of the impending rains." The NRJN says it is "shocking and inhumane" for Paladin to put the lives of millions of Malawians at risk as a result of the company's failure to plan properly. "We therefore ask Paladin to build a second tailings dam as was the initial plan and consequently refrain from this malicious practice of discharging radioactive effluents into the river systems, which would subject lives of innocent Malawians to a series of acute and chronic health effects," the NRJN said in its statement. The coalition is calling for an independent team of chemists to conduct studies of the lake to ascertain whether effluents proposed for discharge from the mine are indeed safe. Paladin Africa issued a statement in February that due to the sustained low uranium price, processing would cease at Kayelekera and that the site would be placed on care and maintenance. Following a period of reagent run-down, processing was completed in early May.

Abridged from Environmental News Service, http://ens-newswire.com/2014/11/25/uranium-mine-sludge-discharge-permit-...

USA: Mismanagement at nuclear weapons bases

Problems at nuclear weapons bases continue to attract widespread media commentary. Typical of this is a BloombergView editorial which states: "The shenanigans that have been going on at U.S. nuclear bases are almost too clownish to believe: officers running a drug ring across six facilities, widespread cheating on monthly proficiency tests, blast doors on missile silos too rusty to properly seal, six nuclear-armed missiles accidentally loaded onto a plane that then flew across the country, and a curious story of crews at three bases FedExing one another an apparently magical wrench used to connect warheads to intercontinental ballistic missiles."

www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-11-24/the-pentagons-nuclear-disaster

See also:

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/atomic-anxieties-tough-choices-ahead...
www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/old-nukes-and-old-thinkin...
www.nytimes.com/2014/11/14/us/politics/pentagon-studies-reveal-major-nuc...

Behind the flag-waving and cheers surrounding Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's recent visit to Australia are serious questions about the safety and security implications of Australia's agreement to supply uranium to New Delhi.¹

When he inked the uranium deal in India in September, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott praised India's "absolutely impeccable non-proliferation record".² He refused to answer questions about alleged serious deficiencies in India's civil nuclear sector and was reduced to cliché, declaring that Australia and India trust each other on issues like uranium safeguards because of "the fundamentally ethical principle that every cricketer is supposed to assimilate – play by the rules and accept the umpire's decision".³

Yet despite the assurances of peaceful purposes, this deal has serious nuclear security implications. After all, India has form. It used Canadian peaceful nuclear technology to develop weapons, provoking Pakistan to follow suit. Even if all goes well – and in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster that is a big assumption – Australian sales could potentially free up India's domestic uranium stocks for military use.

Whatever happens, the new deal certainly won't reduce the continuing tension with nuclear rival Pakistan, or promote nuclear non-proliferation.

Checks and balances

India is a nuclear-armed nation that has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and as such is not subject to the (admittedly fragile) checks and balances provided by full international nuclear safeguards. It is engaged in an active nuclear weapons program, has an estimated 80-100 nuclear warheads, and explicitly refuses to renounce nuclear testing.

Contrary to Abbott's statement, India is neither playing by the rules nor recognising the authority of the international umpire. Add these facts together and the plan to sell Australian uranium to India is in clear and direct conflict with Australia's international obligations under the South Pacific Nuclear Weapons Free Zone Treaty,⁴ which says: "States Parties are obliged not to manufacture or otherwise acquire, possess, or have control over any nuclear explosive device anywhere inside or outside the Treaty zone; not to seek or receive any assistance in this; not to take any action to assist or encourage the manufacture or acquisition of any nuclear explosive device by any State; and not to provide sources or special fissionable materials or equipment to any non-nuclear weapon State (NNWS), or any nuclear weapon State (NWS) unless it is subject to safeguards agreements with the International Atomic Energy Agency."

Prime Minister Modi is intent on expanding India's civil and military nuclear ambitions but there are big question marks around the safety and security arrangements for India's nuclear sector. In 2012 a scathing report by India's then Auditor-General Vinod Rai warned of a "Fukushima or Chernobyl-like disaster if the nuclear safety issue is not addressed".⁵

The issues identified in this frank assessment from one of India's own senior officials have not been addressed, and there is no guarantee that they ever will be. The safety of India's nuclear reactors remains shaky, because the sector's regulation and governance is deficient. As we have seen with Fukushima and Chernobyl, the cost of errors or accidents can be catastrophic.

Australian uranium's role

Fukushima is a continuing nuclear crisis that has been directly fuelled by Australian uranium, so its lessons are significant. If Japan, the world's third-largest economy and a nation steeped in technological expertise, could not control the atomic genie, it bodes poorly for the application of this technology in other countries. In the aftermath of Fukushima, instead of opening up uranium exports to insecure and conflict-prone regions, we should tread more carefully.

With Australia's renewable energy expertise and resources, we are perfectly placed to turn on the lights in Indian villages while ensuring that the Geiger counter stays off.

The deal has even prompted doubts among pro-nuclear commentators. For two decades until 2010, John Carlson⁶ was director general of the Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office⁷ and charged with overseeing Australian uranium sales. Now he has raised serious concerns, including his worry that Australia may be unable to keep track of what happens to uranium once it's sold to India.⁸

As Carlson makes clear, without proper reporting Australia has no way of knowing whether India is really meeting its obligations to identify and account for all the material that is subject to the agreement, and to apply Australia's safeguard standards. It is not good enough simply to take India on trust as a fellow cricket-mad nation, or to appeal to an "impeccable" non-proliferation record that it doesn't actually have.

Carlson's assessment is that the planned deal is short-sighted, self-defeating, and compromises Australia's standards. That warning should ring loud alarms in Canberra. The deal has yet to be examined by the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties.⁹ The rigour that the committee brings to this issue will be a test of whether radioactive rhetoric or real-world responsibility is in the ascendency in Canberra.

Uranium is not just another mineral. It fuels nuclear reactors and devastating weapons. Whether used for electricity or bombs, it inevitably produces radioactive waste that must be stored for geological timescales.

As home to around a third of the world's uranium supply, Australia's decisions on this issue matter. It is important that those flagging concerns are listened to just as much as those waving flags.

• Reprinted from The Conversation: http://theconversation.com/a-cricketing-ally-but-will-india-play-a-strai...

References:

1. http://www5.austlii.edu.au/au/other/dfat/treaties/ATNIF/2014/26.html
2. www.pm.gov.au/media/2014-09-04/doorstop-interview-mumbai-india
3. www.pm.gov.au/media/2014-09-05/address-indian-chambers-commerce-lunch-ne...
4. www.armscontrol.org/documents/rarotonga
5. http://saiindia.gov.in/english/home/our_products/audit_report/government...
6. www.lowyinstitute.org/people/john-carlson
7. www.dfat.gov.au/asno
8. www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/2014/10/01/Is-the-Abbott-Government-abandon...
9. www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Treaties

Indian government cautious about nuclear power

India's Power, Coal and Renewable Energy Minister Piyush Goyal said on November 6 that the government remains "cautious" about developing nuclear power. He pointed to waning interest in the US and Europe: "This government would like to be cautious so that we are not saddled with something only under the garb of clean energy or alternate energy; something which the West has discarded and is sought to be brought to India."¹

Goyal noted that India's Nuclear Liability Law remains an obstacle to nuclear vendor countries and companies. That law does not fully absolve vendors of liability in the event of an accident. Asked if a breakthrough on the liability dispute was possible ahead of President Obama's January 2015 visit to India, US Assistant Secretary of State Nisha Biswal recently said: "I see there is a lot of hard work ahead and I would not be sanguine about announcing any early breakthrough. What is required right now is not a lot of unrealistic expectations."²

The Hindustan Times reported on November 30 that the Indian government is working on a plan to weaken the liability law. Options include setting up an insurance pool, fixing a limit on reactor components for the purpose of determining liability, and the PM providing a personal assurance that vendors won't be harassed unnecessarily in the event of an accident.⁵

An article in The Hindu newspaper notes that three factors have put a break on India's reactor-import plans: "the exorbitant price of French- and U.S.-origin reactors, the accident-liability issue, and grass-roots opposition to the planned multi-reactor complexes."³

Meanwhile, The Times of India reports that US investment in nuclear power in India remains far off. In addition to unresolved liability issues, India and the US are yet to complete administrative arrangements concerning safeguards and non-proliferation assurances. The US is reportedly is demanding fresh bilateral safeguards in the nature of non-proliferation assurances, and the two countries have yet to agree on matters regarding the tracking of nuclear fuel through the entire cycle.⁴

1. 6 Nov 2014, 'Govt cautious about tapping nuclear energy for power generation', www.thehindu.com/news/national/govt-cautious-on-westdiscarded-nuclear-te...
2. 28 Nov 2014, 'U.S. plays hardball with India on nuclear deal', www.thehindu.com/news/national/us-plays-hardball-with-india-on-nuclear-d...
3. Brahma Chellaney, 19 Nov 2014, 'False promise of nuclear power', www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/false-promise-of-nuclear-power/article6612...
4. Indrani Bagchi, 19 Nov 2014, 'American officials put up hurdles, try to scuttle India-US nuclear deal', http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/American-officials-put-up-hurdl...
5. 30 Nov 2014, ''Govt plans N-revival, focuses on investor concerns', www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/govt-plans-n-revival-looks-for-answers...

The Australian government's plan to permit uranium sales to India has been subjected to a strong critique by the former Director-General of the Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office (ASNO), John Carlson.¹

Others to have raised concerns include former Defence Department Secretary Paul Barratt, and Ron Walker, former Chair of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors. But Carlson's critique carries particular weight given his 21 years experience as the head of Australia's safeguards office. Moreover, Carlson is a strident nuclear advocate who oversaw the weakening of Australia's uranium export safeguards requirements and occasionally indulged in offensive and arguably defamatory attacks on nuclear critics. He's the last person you'd expect to be criticising the India−Australia nuclear cooperation agreement.

Carlson notes that agreement signed by Australia and India in September contains "substantial departures from Australia's current safeguards conditions" which suggest "that Australia may be unable to keep track of what happens to uranium supplied to India."

Carlson writes: "Disturbingly, it is reported that Indian officials will not provide Australia with reports accounting for material under the agreement, and that the Abbott Government seems prepared to waive this requirement for India. ... The reporting procedures are not optional; they are fundamental to Australia's ability to confirm that our safeguards conditions are being met. ... There is absolutely no case to waive them for India."

Carlson notes that the 'administrative arrangement' which will append the nuclear cooperation agreement may be "even more consequential than the agreement itself" as it sets out the working procedures for the agreement. But the public will never get to see the administrative arrangement. And the public will never be able to find out any information about the separation and stockpiling of weapons-useable plutonium in India; or nuclear accounting discrepancies ('Material Unaccounted For'); or even the quantity of Australian uranium (and its by-products) held in India.

The debate has international ramifications. Carlson writes: "Disturbingly, it is reported that Indian officials will not provide Australia with reports accounting for material under the agreement, and that the Abbott Government seems prepared to waive this requirement for India. The same issue has arisen under India's arrangements with the US and Canada. In response, Washington has held firm: the US-India administrative arrangement has been outstanding for several years; reportedly the US is insisting on receiving tracking information and India is refusing. In the case of Canada, the Harper Government gave in to India, an outcome described as the 'meltdown of Canadian non-proliferation policy'. The Canadian Government refuses to reveal the details of its arrangement. If Australia follows Canada down this path, it will put the wrong kind of pressure on the US, the EU and Japan in their own dealings with India."

He further states: "If India succeeds in delinking foreign-obligated nuclear material from individual bilateral agreements, making it impossible to identify which batch of material is covered by which agreement, then India could work a 'pea and thimble' trick in which no supplier could tell whether their material was being used contrary to bilateral conditions. The mere possibility of this is sufficient to call into question India's commitment to observing bilateral agreements."

There are many concerns other than those noted by Carlson. For example, nuclear material could be diverted and reports falsified with little likelihood that the falsification would be detected.

It seems reasonable that the public should be able to find out how often IAEA safeguards inspections are carried out in India, which facilities have been inspected, and whether any accounting discrepancies were detected. But national governments refuse to supply that information.²

The IAEA used to release aggregate information on the number of inspections carried out across three countries − India, Pakistan and Israel. From 2005-09, 44–50 safeguards inspections were carried out each year in those three countries, and in 2010 the figure was 67 inspections. But the 2011, 2012 and 2013 IAEA Safeguards Statements are silent about the number of inspections carried out.³

Arms Control Today thoroughly dissected the IAEA-India safeguards agreement and noted that: "Reporting provisions ... not contained in India's agreement cover information such as nuclear fuel-cycle-related research and development, nuclear-related imports, and uranium mining. The Indian additional protocol also does not include any complementary access provisions, which provide the IAEA with the potential authority to inspect undeclared facilities."⁴

Even if strict safeguards were in place, uranium sales to India would create an intractable problem: uranium exports freeing up India's domestic reserves for weapons production. K. Subrahmanyam, former head of the India's National Security Advisory Board, has said that: "Given India's uranium ore crunch and the need to build up our minimum credible nuclear deterrent arsenal as fast as possible, it is to India's advantage to categorise as many power reactors as possible as civilian ones to be refuelled by imported uranium and conserve our native uranium fuel for weapons-grade plutonium production."

References:
1. www.foe.org.au/carlson
2. www.energyscience.org.au/BP18India.pdf
3. IAEA Yearly Safeguards Statement, www.iaea.org/safeguards/publications_news/es/index.html
4. www.armscontrol.org/act/2009_04/IndiaProtocol
 

More information:
Tsukasa Yamamura, 28 Nov 2012, 'Status of nuclear cooperation with India', www.jaea.go.jp/04/np/nnp_pletter/0002_en.html
Friends of the Earth: www.foe.org.au/anti-nuclear/issues/oz/u/cc

Namibia: Leach tank failure

All milling operations at the Rossing uranium mine in Namibia ground to a halt after a structural failure at one of twelve leach tanks in the processing plant on December 3. A statement from Rossing said that a leak was detected and it was decided to pump out the tank for fixing, and during that process the leach tank experienced a "catastrophic structural failure". Rossing said the slurry was "channeled in trenches and contained in a holding tank". The area was evacuated.

Ben De Vries, General Manager of Operations, said: "This is obviously a very serious incident which is currently under investigation. I can assure you that we are applying a rigorous and structured approach to determine the cause of this failure and ensure that we safely return the plant to normal operations as soon as possible. At the moment the milling operation had been stopped, but is expected to restart once the failed tank has been isolated from the production process. Production in the other areas of the mine has not been affected and continues as usual."

www.namibtimes.net/forum/topics/rossing-shuts-operations-after-catastrop...

---

Australia: major spill at Ranger

A tank in the processing area of the Ranger uranium mine in the Northern Territory failed on December 7, spilling around 1.4 million litres of radioactive and acidic slurry. It is understood the radioactive liquid then flowed outside the ''bunded area'', or nearby containment banks, onto grassed areas and into the mine's stormwater and drainage system.

Workers were evacuated. All processing operations have been suspended (mining has already ceased as the open-pit ore body has been depleted). The federal environment minister has ordered an immediate clean-up and investigation − but still plans to devolve federal uranium mine approval and assessment powers to states and territories despite their demonstrated incompetence.

More than A$80 million (US$73 million ) was wiped off the value of Rio Tinto subsidiary Energy Resources of Australia (ERA) as a result of the spill, with shares down nearly 13%.

The Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation (GAC), which represents the Mirarr Traditional Owners, has called for an audit of the site's facilities. "People living just a few kilometres downstream from the mine don't feel safe," GAC chief executive Justin O'Brien said. "How can we trust the assurances of a company which has repeatedly failed to safely manage this highly toxic material? It's a catastrophic failure on the part of not only the operator but also the government regulators in the Northern Territory and Canberra. ... This is nothing but a hillbilly operation, run by a hillbilly miner with hillbilly regulators."

About 60 Mirarr people live at Mudginberri, on Magela Creek, just 7 kms downstream from the mine. ''It's the wet now; it rains every day,'' O'Brien said. ''That creek is flowing right past the mine and into the community, where they fish and hunt, get barramundi, catfish, mussels. They drink the water. They play in it. People are worried sick.''

Monash University academic Dr Gavin Mudd said: ''ERA has form with this. The company has a history of delaying infrastructure maintenance in order to maximise profits.''

The Australian Conservation Foundation and the Environment Centre NT are calling for a halt to operations and an independent safety audit of the site and infrastructure; a review of the cumulative impacts of the Ranger operation and the adequacy of the regulatory regime; an independent assessment of the costs and consequences of the wider Australian uranium trade; a halt to any approvals or advance on the planned Ranger 3 Deeps underground uranium mining operation; and no devolving of federal powers to assess/approve uranium mining projects to state or territory governments

The Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union is calling for all operations to be suspended until a full audit and inquiry into the infrastructure on the site has been conducted. AMWU Regional Organiser Bryan Wilkins said: "This mine site has a history of not dealing with safety issues – this was an accident waiting to happen. This incident occurred after parent company Rio Tinto boasted they cut costs by $2 billion this year. They may be saving money but they are putting people's lives at risk in the process. This tank was about 20 years old and it was an accident waiting to happen – they are lucky no one was hurt this time."

www.abc.net.au/news/2013-12-07/spill-at-nt-uranium-mine-near-kakadu/5142148
www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2013/12/09/3907874.htm?site=darwin
www.theage.com.au/comment/another-million-reasons-to-probe-uranium-minin...
http://scott-ludlam.greensmps.org.au/content/speeches-parliament/taking-...
www.theage.com.au/environment/radioactive-spill-in-kakadu-stirs-rage-201...

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British bomb factory "played down" seriousness of fire

AWE, the private consortium that runs nuclear weapons plants at Aldermaston and Burghfield in Berkshire for the Ministry of Defence, "played down" a fire that could have caused "numerous fatalities" according to an internal investigation by the government's Health and Safety Executive (HSE). AWE was guilty of a "disturbing" catalogue of safety blunders in the handling of explosives, the HSE said, and its actions "fell far below the standard expected in an explosives manufacturing company." HSE released the report of its 10-month investigation into the fire at Aldermaston under freedom of information laws.

www.robedwards.com/2013/12/nuclear-bomb-factory-played-down-fire-says-sa...

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World Bank says no money for nukes, Goldman Sachs to sell uranium unit

The World Bank and United Nations have appealed for billions of dollars to provide electricity for the poorest nations. Announcing the 'Sustainable Energy for All' initiative, World Bank president Jim Yong Kim said US$600−800 billion a year will be needed to meet the campaign target of universal access to electricity, doubling energy efficiency and doubling the share of renewable energy by 2030.[1,2,3]

"We don't do nuclear energy," Kim said as he and UN leader Ban Ki-moon outlined efforts to make sure all people have access to electricity by 2030. Kim said: "Nuclear power from country to country is an extremely political issue. The World Bank Group does not engage in providing support for nuclear power. We think that this is an extremely difficult conversation that every country is continuing to have. And because we are really not in that business our focus is on finding ways of working in hydro electric power in geo-thermal, in solar, in wind. We are really focusing on increasing investment in those modalities and we don't do nuclear energy."[1]

Kim added that it had been difficult to find long term capital for poorer countries but insisted: "We will show investors that sustainable energy is an opportunity they cannot afford to miss."[1]

In July, the World Bank adopted a policy of providing "financial support for greenfield coal power generation projects only in rare circumstances," such as where there are "no feasible alternatives to coal."[4]

Meanwhile, US bank Goldman Sachs Group has reportedly put its uranium trading business up for sale. Goldman's two-person uranium desk was inherited with the purchase of US utility Constellation Energy's London-based trading operation in 2009.[5]

[1] AFP, 27 Nov 2013, 'World Bank says no money for nuclear power', www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/131127/world-bank-says-no-money-nuc...
[2] World Bank media release, 27 Nov 2013, http://tinyurl.com/wb-no-nukes
[3] Sustainable Energy for All: www.se4all.org
[4] John Upton, 18 July 2013, 'World Bank joins war on coal', http://grist.org/news/world-bank-joins-war-on-coal/
[5] Scott Disavino and David Sheppard, 25 Nov 2013, 'Goldman Sachs to sell uranium unit', www.bdlive.co.za/world/americas/2013/11/25/goldman-sachs-to-sell-uranium...

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Nuclear decline in OECD

The amount of nuclear-generated electricity in the OECD area declined by 5.2% between 2011 and 2012, according to the Brown Book of nuclear energy data published by the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency. Total OECD nuclear generation amounted to 1884 TWh in 2012, a 5.2% fall from 1988 TWh in 2011. Total electricity generation fell 0.1% over the same period. There were 331 operational reactors in the OECD as of 31 December 2012 − 133 in Europe, 125 in the Americas (US, Canada and Mexico) and 73 in the Pacific region (South Korea and Japan).

The Brown Book states: "The share of electricity production from nuclear power plants also decreased from 19.9% in 2011 to 18.9% in 2012. This decline reflects the permanent shutdown of three reactors that had reached the end of their operational lifetime (two in the United Kingdom and one in Canada), operational issues at some facilities and suspended operation at all but two reactors in Japan. Record electricity production at nuclear power plants in the Czech Republic and Hungary, combined with increased production in Canada, France, Spain and Sweden balanced, to some extent, declining production in Belgium, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States."

www.oecd-nea.org/ndd/pubs/2013/7162-bb-2013.pdf
www.modernpowersystems.com/news/newsnuclear-generation-fell-5-in-2012-41...
www.nucnet.org/all-the-news/2013/12/03/shutdowns-hit-nuclear-generation-...

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Brazil cools on nuclear power plans; favours wind

Brazil will probably scale down its plans for new nuclear plants due to safety concerns following the Fukushima disaster and pick up some of the slack with a "revolution" in wind power, the head of the government's energy planning agency said. Mauricio Tolmasquim, chief of the Energy Research Company, told Reuters it was "unlikely" the government would stick to its plans to build four new nuclear plants by 2030. He declined to specify how many might be built instead.[1]

"After Japan, things got put on standby," Tolmasquim told Reuters. "We haven't abandoned (the plans) ... but they haven't been resumed yet either. It's not a priority for us right now."

Tolmasquim added: "This is wind power's moment. There's been a revolution in terms of cost."

Nevertheless, Brazil is proceeding with the Angra 3 nuclear power project. In November, Areva signed a contract worth 1.25 billion euros (US$1.67 billion) with the Brazilian utility Eletrobras Eletronuclear for the completion of the Angra 3 reactor, located in the state of Rio de Janeiro. The Angra 3 project has a long history. Construction started in 1984 but faltered two years later. A return to construction was approved in 2007.[2]

[1] www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/15/us-brazil-nuclear-idUSBRE98E06U20130915
[2] http://online.wsj.com/article/PR-CO-20131107-914400.html

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Switzerland can reach 98% renewable electricity

Switzerland already gets more than half of its electricity from renewable sources. Now, German researchers say that the country could have 98% renewable power by 2050, up from the current 57%. Germany's GLR has published the country edition of its Energy evolution study for Switzerland (currently only available in German). Written on behalf of Greenpeace, the study finds that Switzerland can increase the share of renewables by quickly expanding photovoltaics, while the growth of biomass, wind power, hydropower, and geothermal would be more moderate. The Swiss plan to shut down their last nuclear plant in 2025.

Renewables International, 4 Dec 2013, www.renewablesinternational.net/swiss-energiewende-investigated/150/537/...
Energy[R]evolution Schweiz, www.greenpeace.org/switzerland/de/Themen/Stromzukunft-Schweiz/EnergyRevo...

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South Africa puts nuclear on hold ... again

The South African Department of Energy has reported that new nuclear power will not be required until after 2025 or even later. The country is likely to take on other power sources, according to the updated version of the Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) for electricity, such as hydro and shale gas. The IRP is a 20-year plan that models demand and supply of electricity and plans for generation needs. Nuclear was seen as highly expensive compared to other available resources, however less-than-expected power demand is also playing a role in the latest projections. The National Planning Commission had cautioned against committing to an "expensive and irreversible" nuclear program, particularly when electricity demand has not grown in line with expectations.[1]

Earlier plans to build up to 20 GW of nuclear capacity were shelved in 2008, and more recent plans to build up to 10 GW by 2023 have now been dealt a blow. In addition, the devepment of Pebble Bed Modular Reactor technology consumed a great deal of R&D funding in South Africa before being abandoned in 2010.[2]

Two power reactors are in operation at the Koeberg Power Station near Cape Town, in the south-west of the country − the only power reactors in Africa.

[1] K. Steiner-Dicks, 4 Dec 2013, 'South Africa puts nuclear on hold', http://analysis.nuclearenergyinsider.com/new-build/south-africa-puts-nuc...
[2] Steve Kidd, 4 Dec 2013, 'South Africa: can it go further in nuclear?', www.neimagazine.com/opinion/opinionsouth-africa-can-it-go-further-in-nuc...

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Germany's 'Grand Coalition' committed to nuclear phase-out

The new German 'grand coalition' between Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union party, the Christian Social Union and the Social Democratic Party will remain committed to the nuclear phase-out and the energy transition, the coalition contract between the three parties says. "No later than 2022, the last nuclear power plant in Germany will be shut down," says the coalition contract.

The coalition government will continue the implementation of a law, adopted in July 2013, for choosing a site for deep geological long-term storage of high-level nuclear waste.

The coalition contract is available online (in German only): www.cdu.de/sites/default/files/media/dokumente/koalitionsvertrag.pdf

NucNet, 28 Nov 2013, 'Germany's 'Grand Coalition' Remains Committed To Energy Transition', www.nucnet.org/all-the-news/2013/11/28/germany-s-grand-coalition-remains...

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Nuclear power to stay in France

The French government won't shut any more nuclear reactors after the country's oldest plant at Fessenheim is shut down, industry minister Arnaud Montebourg said. "My answer is no, my answer is clear," Montebourg said in an interview in Paris. Nuclear power will always provide at least half of France's electricity, he said. Montebourg's comments undercut President Francois Hollande's promise, made in last year's election campaign, to cut France's atomic output from 75% to 50% of electricity production by about 2025.[1,2]

Meanwhile, Thomas Houdre from the regulator Autorite de Surete Nucleaire said that "significant safety improvements have to be made" at spent fuel pools at French nuclear power plants. "There is no way of managing an accident in a spent-fuel pool. We want the possibility of this happening to be practically eliminated," he said. Last year, EDF declared a "major safety event" after it was discovered that fuel storage pools at the Cattenom plant were vulnerable to leaks.[3]

[1] Tara Patel, 12 Nov 2013, 'France Won't Shut Any More Atomic Reactors, Minister Says', www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-12/france-won-t-shut-down-any-more-nuclea...
[2] 8 Dec 2013, 'French nuclear power here to stay, says industry minister', http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/12/08/uk-france-nuclear-share-idUKBRE...
[3] Tara Patel, 4 Dec 2013, 'France's 58 Nuclear Pools Must Be Safer, Watchdog Says', www.businessweek.com/news/2013-12-03/france-s-58-nuclear-pools-must-be-s...

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South Korea: Nuclear power policy

Nuclear power should account for up to 29% of South Korean generation capacity by 2035, according to draft long-term energy plans submitted to the government. Previous plans called for 41% nuclear by 2035. The draft plan has been submitted to the parliament by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy prior to a public hearing. In it, the government "recognises" the role of nuclear power but also says it plans to reduce power demand over the period to 2035. Korea's 23 nuclear reactors currently account for 22% of the country's generation capacity, and 29% of its electricity output. The South Korean nuclear power industry is in crisis because of a corruption and forgery scandal (see Nuclear Monitor #771 and #765).

WNN, 10 Dec 2013, 'Nuclear to remain Korean mainstay', www.world-nuclear-news.org/NP-Nuclear-to-remain-Korean-mainstay-1012137....

The Aboriginal-led Australian Nuclear Free Alliance held its annual meeting in October. Meeting participants issued the following statement:

The 2013 meeting of the Australian Nuclear Free Alliance (ANFA) was held on the weekend of October 25-27 on the land of the Peramangk (Perrimak) people in the Adelaide Hills, South Australia. The Alliance brings together Aboriginal people, environment and health groups and trade union representatives concerned about uranium and nuclear projects.

The ANFA gathering was attended by representatives of the following Aboriginal nations, organisations and affiliated groups:

Alyawarr, Anmatjere, Arabana, Arrernte, Bailai (Buyelee), Gurindji, Iwaidja, Katyede, Koara, Kokatha/Anterkirinya, Kokatha/Mirning, Kokatha/Narrangar, Larrakia, Martu, Meriam, Mir, Eastern Torres Strait Islands, Ngalia, Nyoongar, Kunarakun, Ngarninjarra/ Pitjantjatjarra/ Yankunytjatjara, Tanganekald/Meintangk, Tjupan, Walpiri, Wajarri Yamatji, Warlmanpa, Warumungu, Wulgurukaba.

Arid Lands Environment Centre, Australian Conservation Foundation, Beyond Nuclear Initiative, Conservation Council of Western Australia, Environment Centre of the Northern Territory, Friends of the Earth, Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation, Hands Around the World, International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, Maritime Union of Australia (NSW and NT), Medical Association for Prevention of War, South Coast Trades and Labour Council (NSW), Public Health Association Australia (NT), National Tertiary Education Union (NSW), Uranium Free NSW, Western Australia Nuclear Free Alliance.

Issues and concerns discussed at the meeting included:

Land Rights, Sovereignty and Native Title: Self-determination and access to country are at the heart of the struggle for Aboriginal rights. Many delegates know first hand that pressure from companies and government to say yes to mining is strong and divisive. In the face of seemingly unstoppable projects people often feel their only option is to participate in negotiations and try to get the best deal they can. Legal structures are set up to assist mining companies and divide communities but if people stay strong and united, unwanted mines can be stopped.

Uranium exploration and mining: Pressure for uranium mining and exploration across almost all states and territories continues to increase. The nuclear industry puts a lot of effort into talking up its prospects but sustained low uranium prices have caused multiple mining proposals to be shelved or abandoned. Uranium mining and exploration put finite groundwater supplies at risk, particularly in desert regions where maintaining clean water is critical for life and culture. In the past twelve months the newly elected Queensland government reversed a long-standing state ban and declared Queensland open for uranium mining. Many people came from Queensland to attend the meeting, link in with and resist this new push. New South Wales also had good representation as the government there recently reversed a 26 year ban on uranium exploration.

Women's Session: The women's group heard and talked about the health impacts of radiation. ANFA members know that there is no safe dose of radiation and that being informed about risk is powerful. The importance of clean safe drinking water was spoken about strongly and the group resolved to work with desert communities where bore water is contaminated with uranium to ensure a safe water supply.

Men's Session: The men heard about the direct and inter-generational threats of uranium mining and exposure to radioactive materials. The group shared experiences and concerns over the lack of available and credible information about the health and environmental impacts of radiation exposures and highlighted the need for improved monitoring. There was discussion around options for increased formal cooperation with trade unions about advancing ways to improve the monitoring deficit and it was agreed that environment and public health NGO's would further communicate with unions about this. The men also discussed alternatives to nuclear medicine and that nuclear medicine does not require uranium mining or waste dumps.

Transport: Thousands of tonnes of nuclear materials travel across Australia every year to be shipped out of Darwin and Adelaide. Trucks carrying radioactive cargo travel through many towns and food production areas. ANFA supports the right of all communities to refuse the transport of nuclear materials through the places they live and work. The meeting welcomed a strong commitment from MUA representatives that no nuclear materials would be shipped out of ports along the NSW coast.

Radioactive Waste Management: ANFA acknowledges the long struggle of the Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta against a proposed radioactive waste dump on their land. The current campaign to stop the waste dump at Muckaty in the NT is the same struggle and we all stand together. Muckaty Traditional Owners have travelled tirelessly to gather support from around the country. A federal court challenge is underway and there is a commitment from key health groups, environmental organisations and trade unions to support the community struggle. ANFA supports the call for an independent and public commission into radioactive waste management in Australia.

International Connections: ANFA has links to the anti-nuclear struggle in many countries. In recent months representatives of ANFA have travelled to Japan, France and Tanzania to share and hear stories of resistance to uranium mining, nuclear power and radioactive waste dumps. The meeting received messages of support for ANFA from the French and African nuclear-free movements and heard a campaign update from the Japanese anti-nuclear campaign. Our struggles are deeply connected: uranium from Australia is causing contamination in Japan and creating radioactive waste in Europe and Australian mining companies are attempting to mine uranium in Africa. ANFA opposes Japanese plans to extract Australian-obligated plutonium from spent nuclear at the Rokkasho reprocessing plant. ANFA stands with and supports all communities resisting the nuclear industry here in Australia and across the world.

Nigeria signs agreement with Rosatom. Last issue we made a funny remark about Nigeria’s announcement that it selected two sites for the construction of nuclear power reactors, but only a few days later the country signed a cooperation accord with Russia’s Rosatom towards the construction of its first nuclear power plant. Rosatom chief Sergei Kiriyenko signed a memorandum of understanding with the chairman of the Nigerian Atomic Energy Commission, Franklin Erepamo Osaisai. Its terms will see the two countries "prepare a comprehensive program of building nuclear power plants in Nigeria," including the development of infrastructure and a framework and system of regulation for nuclear and radiation safety.

Sergei Kiriyenko is quoted in Leadership newspaper to have said that  the contract would cover the building of nuclear power plant (1200MW) worth about US$4.5 billion (about N697 billion). In 2010 Nigeria said it aimed to have 1000 MW of nuclear generation in place by 2019 with another 4000 MW online by 2030. Although not all contracts Rosatom signed have materialized in the past, however, Nigeria is, one of the very few African countries pursuing a nuclear energy program.
World Nuclear News, 4 June 2012 / Leadership Newspapers (Nigeria), 13 June 2012

Fear nuclear safety is in stake in harsh competition for sales.
Nuclear-reactor makers are offering prices too low to cover costs to win orders abroad in a strategy that puts earnings at risk, according to Andre-Claude Lacoste, head of the French Autorite de Surete Nucleaire regulator. “Export contracts for nuclear plants are being obtained at pure dumping-level prices,” Lacoste fears that nuclear safety could be compromised in trying to win tenders. “Prices accepted by vendors and obtained by buyers are unsustainable,” he said. “There aren’t many tenders, which is why competitors are ripping each other off. It’s already a serious matter, and we need to make sure that there’s no dumping on safety on top of that.”
Bloomberg, 6 June 2012

Academic study on IAEA.
Just published: a new research report Unleashing the Nuclear Watchdog: Strengthening and Reform of the IAEA, by Trevor Findlay. The report is the outcome of the two-and-a-half year research project on “Strengthening and Reform of the IAEA” conducted by the CCTC and CIGI. The project aimed to carry out a “root and branch” study of the Agency to examine its current strengths and weaknesses and make recommendations for bolstering and, if necessary, reforming it. According to the preface this academic study of the Agency “is needed not just in the light of accumulating challenges to the IAEA’s future and the increasing demands made on it by its member states, but because the Agency itself is demanding more support and resources. At a time of financial stringencies, many of the countries that traditionally have offered such support seek proper justification for any increases.” Findlay concludes that the IAEA is irreplaceable: “like the United Nations itself, if it did not exist it would have to be invented”.

However, this report is a good source for general information about the Agency that was founded to “accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health and prosperity throughout the world,” while ensuring, “so far as it is able,” that this does not “further any military purpose”.
Unleashing the nuclear watchdog is available at: href="http://www.cigionline.org/iaea"www.cigionline.org/iaea

China: nuclear safety plan but no approval for new projects yet.
China has approved a nuclear safety plan and says its nuclear power plants meet the latest international safety standards, though some plants need to improve their ability to cope with flooding and earthquakes, state media said on May 31. But the government has not made any decision on when to start approving new nuclear plant projects.

China suspended approvals of new nuclear power plants in the wake of Japan's nuclear crisis in March 2011 following a devastating tsunami, and ordered nationwide safety checks on existing plants and construction sites. It also pledged to review its nuclear power development plan. The State Council, China's Cabinet, now approved a nuclear safety plan for 2011-2015 in a meeting chaired by Premier Wen Jiabao. China also aims to enhance nuclear safety standards and lower the risks of nuclear radiation by 2020, the report said.

A nine-month safety inspection of China's 41 nuclear power plants, which are either operating or under construction, showed that most of China's nuclear power stations meet both Chinese and International Atomic Energy Agency standards, according to the report. However, some individual power plants need to improve their ability to prevent damage from serious accidents such as earthquakes, flooding or tsunami, it said.
Reuters, 31 May 2012

Switzerland: court rejects Mühleberg extension.
BKW, the operator of the Mühleberg nuclear power plant, must submit a full maintenance plan, or shut down the plant in June 2013. The Federal Supreme Court has rejected BKW’s request for an injunction, after earlier this year the Federal Administrative Court pulled Mühleberg’s right to an unlimited permit. Federal environment officials had reasoned BKW could have an indefinite operating permit so long as the Federal Nuclear Safety Inspectorate was monitoring site maintenance and safety issues. The court ruled BKW needed to submit maintenance and safety plans, especially with known concerns over the site’s cooling system, and cracks in the core shroud.
World Radio Switzerland, 29 May 2012

Lithuania opposes construction of N-plants close to its borders.
On May 28, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Audronius Azubalis blasted plans by Russia and Belarus to build nuclear power plants close to its borders, accusing both of lax safety and environmental standards and "bypassing international safety and environmental standards." "This is not just an issue for Lithuania... it should be a matter of concern to all countries in this region. We should do everything possible to make these two projects develop according to international standards. It is vital," Azubalis said, following talks in Riga with Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics. Rinkevics offered a cautious endorsement of Azubalis' concerns.  Asked by AFP what proof Lithuania had concerning the safety of the Russian and Belarusian projects, Azubalis said he had yet to receive satisfactory responses to written requests for information through official channels including the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Espoo Convention Committee. The Lithuanian foreign ministry provided AFP with a document dated May 4 expressing "deep concern" over an alleged recent accident at Russia's Leningrad NPP-2 nuclear facility, which is still under construction. "The incident in Leningrad NPP-2 raises a number of serious questions about the safety of this and two other planned (plants) near Lithuanian borders and the capital Vilnius which are projected to be based on the same technology and possibly the same means of construction," the document states.

Lithuania and Latvia, together with Estonia and Japanese company Hitachi, have putative plans of their own to construct a joint nuclear power plant at Visaginas in northern Lithuania to replace the Soviet-era Ignalina facility which was shut down in 2009.
AFP, 28 may 2012

Flying into trouble at Sellafield. 
Unusual pathways by which radioactivity routinely escapes the confines of nuclear sites are well documented with one recent example to hit the headlines being the 6000 mile transportation of radioactive contamination by bluefin tuna from the polluted waters around the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant to the coasts of North America. An even more recent case has however turned up very much closer to home – at Sellafield.
No stranger to unusual pathways for radioactivity - as 2000 Cumbrian feral pigeons and a host of seagulls will know to their cost - the site’s latest victims have been identified as a number of swallows which, gorging on the mosquitos that flit over the waters of Sellafield’s radioactive storage ponds, have taken up residence in Sellafield’s transport section.  As confirmed by the Environment Agency last week to a meeting of the Environmental Health Sub-Committee of the West Cumbria Sites Stakeholder Group, the birds’ droppings from around their roost/nesting sites have been found to be radioactively contaminated. Whilst neither the contamination levels nor the number of swallows involved was provided, the Environment Agency told the Committee that measures were being taken by Sellafield Ltd to tackle the mosquito problem.
CORE’s spokesman Martin Forwood commented; “These much-loved and now radioactive birds and their offspring will unwittingly be carrying a highly toxic message from Sellafield when they migrate back to Southern Africa at the end of the summer - a distance at least equivalent to that recently undertaken by the bluefin tuna.”
CORE press release, 6 June 2012

U.K.: Chernobyl restrictions sheep lifted after 26 years.
Twenty-six years after the April 26, 1986, explosion at Chernobyl reactor 4, restrictions remained on 334 farms in North Wales, and eight in Cumbria. But as of June 1, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) regulations on these farms were lifted. In the aftermath of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, when radioactive rain swept the UK, farmers saw their livelihoods and even their families threatened. Some 9,700 farms and four million sheep were placed under restriction as radioactive cesium- 137 seeped into the upland soils of England, Scotland and Wales.

Before June 1, any livestock for breeding or sale had to be assessed with gamma monitors by officials from Defra or the Welsh government. Sheep found to exceed the legal radiation dose (1,000 Becquerel per kilo) were moved to the lowlands before sale, and had the farmers wanted to move their flock, they had to seek permission.

The FSA said the restrictions had been lifted because “the current controls are no longer proportionate to the very low risk”. No sheep in Cumbria have failed the monitoring criteria for several years, and less than 0.5 per cent of the 75,000 sheep monitored annually in North Wales fail.  But not everyone agrees with lifting the restrictions. An anonymous farmer with a flock of 1,000 ewes, was quoted in the Independent saying: “The feeling I have is that it should still be in place. The food should be kept safe.”
Independent (UK), 1 June 2012

Australia: at last: Kakadu Koongarra victory.
The Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory is set to be expanded, with the inclusion of land previously earmarked land for uranium mining known as Koongarra. The Northern Land Council (NLC) has agreed for a 1,200 hectare parcel of land containing rich reserves of uranium to be incorporated in to the park. This looks like the final step in a long battle that Aboriginal traditional owner Jeffrey Lee has waged to protect his land from mining. The uranium-rich mining lease Koongarra was excised from Kakadu when the conservation area was established in the late 1970s. The lease is held by French company Areva, which wanted to mine the area for uranium. Two years ago, Mr Lee, the sole traditional owner of the land, called on the Federal Government to incorporate it in to Kakadu. The Government accepted the offer and referred the matter to the NLC. The NLC conducted consultations and its full council has agreed to endorse Mr Lee's wishes. The council and land trust will now move to enter an agreement with national parks to incorporate Koongarra into Kakadu. The Koongarra area includes the much-visited Nourlangie Rock (Burrunggui/Anbangbang) and is important in the Rainbow Serpent and Lightning Man stories.

In June 2011, the Koongarra site was added to the World Heritage List during a meeting of the Unesco World Heritage Committee in Paris. The French nuclear energy company Areva, had unsuccessfully asked the committee to remove Koongarra from its agenda.

It is not known if Areva will attempt to take any action over the decision to include Koongarra in the Kakadu national park
Nuclear Monitor, 1 July 2012 / ABC, 1 June 2012

Japan: Smartphone capable of measuring radiation.
On May 29, the Japanese company Softbank Mobile unveiled a smartphone capable of measuring radiation levels in a bid to respond to growing demand for dosimeters in the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Users can measure radiation levels by pressing and holding a button on the phone, and the device can be set to a constant measurement mode or plot readings on a map, according to Softbank.

The Pantone 5 107SH, manufactured by Sharp Corp., is equipped with a sensor that can measure between 0.05 and 9.99 microsieverts per hour of gamma ray in the atmosphere. The product is aimed at ''alleviating as much as possible the concerns of mothers with children,'' the mobile operator said in a statement, adding it will go on sale sometime in mid-July or later.
Mainichi (Japan), 29 May 2012

Public acceptance – what holds back the nuclear industry?
“Multiple structural barriers inside the nuclear industry tend to prevent it from producing a united pro-nuclear front to the general public. Efforts to change public opinion worldwide must deal with these real-world constraints.” In an article called: Public acceptance – what holds back the nuclear industry? Steve Kidd (deputy director-general of the World Nuclear Association) is asking if “we have probably begun to reach some limits in employing a fact-based strategy to improve public acceptance of nuclear. Huge efforts have been made to inform people about nuclear by freely providing a lot of good information. But the message doesn’t seem to hit home with many.” He is explaining why and how to overcome this in an article in the May issue of Nuclear Engineering International.

In the next episode he will look at the possibilities of increasing public acceptance in more detail. 
The article is available at: www.neimagazine.com/story.asp?sectioncode=147&storyCode=2062367

The nuclear industry has been responsible for some of the crudest racism in Australia's history. This racism dates from the British nuclear bomb tests in the 1950s but it can still be seen today.

The British government conducted 12 nuclear bomb tests in Australia in the 1950s, most of them at Maralinga in South Australia. Permission was not sought from affected Aboriginal groups such as the Pitjantjatjara, Yankunytjatjara, Tjarutja and Kokatha. Thousands of people were adversely affected and the impact on Aboriginal people was particularly profound.

Many Aboriginal people suffered from radiological poisoning. There are tragic accounts of families sleeping in the bomb craters. So-called 'Native Patrol Officers' patrolled thousands of square kilometers to try to ensure that Aboriginal people were removed before nuclear tests took place. Signs were erected in some places − written in English, which few in the affected Indigenous communities could understand. The 1985 Royal Commission found that regard for Aboriginal safety was characterized by "ignorance, incompetence and cynicism". Many Aboriginal people were forcibly removed from their homelands and taken to places such as the Yalata mission in South Australia, which was effectively a prison camp.

In the late-1990s, the Australian government carried out a clean-up of the Maralinga nuclear test site. It was done on the cheap and many tons of debris contaminated with kilograms of plutonium remain buried in shallow, unlined pits in totally unsuitable geology. As nuclear engineer and whistleblower Alan Parkinson said of the 'clean-up' on ABC radio in August 2002: "What was done at Maralinga was a cheap and nasty solution that wouldn't be adopted on white-fellas land."

Despite the residual contamination, the Federal Government has off-loaded responsibility for the land onto the Maralinga Tjarutja Traditional Owners. The Government portrays this land transfer as an act of reconciliation, but the real agenda was spelt out in a 1996 government document which states that the clean-up was "aimed at reducing Commonwealth liability arising from residual contamination."

A win for the Kungkas
In 1998, the federal government announced its intention to build a national radioactive waste dump near Woomera in South Australia. Leading the battle against the dump were the Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta, a council of senior Aboriginal women from northern South Australia. Many of the Kungkas personally suffered the impacts of the British nuclear bomb tests at Maralinga in the 1950s.

The Kungkas were sceptical about the government's claim that radioactive waste destined for the Woomera dump was 'safe' − after all, the waste would be kept at the Lucas Heights reactor site south of Sydney if it was perfectly safe, or simply dumped in landfill.

The proposed dump generated such controversy in South Australia that the federal government secured the services of a public relations company. Correspondence between the company and the government was released under Freedom of Information laws. In one exchange, a government official asks the PR company to remove sand-dunes from a photo selected to adorn a brochure. The explanation provided by the government official was that: "Dunes are a sensitive area with respect to Aboriginal Heritage". The sand-dunes were removed from the photo, only for the government official to ask if the horizon could be straightened up as well.

In July 2003, the federal government used the Lands Acquisition Act 1989 to seize land for the dump. Native Title rights and interests were extinguished at the stroke of a pen. This took place with no forewarning and no consultation with Aboriginal people.

The Kungkas continued to implore the federal government to 'get their ears out of their pockets', and after six long years the government did just that. In the lead-up to the 2004 federal election, with the dump issue biting politically, the government decided to cut its losses and abandon its plans for a dump in SA.

The Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta wrote in an open letter: "People said that you can't win against the Government. Just a few women. We just kept talking and telling them to get their ears out of their pockets and listen. We never said we were going to give up. Government has big money to buy their way out but we never gave up."

Toxic trade-off
The ears went straight back in the pockets the following year with the announcement that the government planned to establish a radioactive waste dump in the Northern Territory.

A toxic trade-off of basic services for a radioactive waste dump has been part of this story from the start. Governments have systematically stripped back resources for remote Aboriginal communities, placing increased pressure on them to accept projects like the radioactive waste dump.

The nomination of the Muckaty site in the Northern Territory was originally made with the promise of $12 million compensation for a small group identified as the exclusive Traditional Owners. While a small group of Traditional Owners support the dump in return for financial compensation, a larger group have been ignored and they have initiated legal action in the Federal Court challenging the nomination of the Muckaty site.

Even though the court case is unresolved, the Government has passed legislation targeting Muckaty as the only site under active consideration for a radioactive waste dump. The National Radioactive Waste Management Act 2012 is draconian, overriding the Aboriginal Heritage Act and bypassing the Aboriginal Land Rights Act. It allows for the imposition of a dump on Aboriginal land with no consultation with or consent from Traditional Owners. Nuclear racism in Australia is bipartisan - both the Labor Government and the Liberal/National Opposition voted in support of the legislation.

Muckaty Traditional Owner Penny Phillips said: "The Government should wait for the court case before passing this law. Traditional Owners say no to the waste dump. We have been fighting against this for years and we will keep fighting. We don't want it in Muckaty or anywhere in the Northern Territory."

The Central Land Council expressed "profound disappointment" at the passage of the National Radioactive Waste Management Act. David Ross, Director of the Land Council, said: "This legislation is shameful, it subverts processes under the [Aboriginal] Land Rights Act and is clearly designed to reach the outcome of a dump being located on Aboriginal land in the Northern Territory, whether that's the best place for it or not. This legislation preserves the Muckaty nomination without acknowledging the dissent and conflict amongst the broader traditional owner group about the process and the so-called agreement. The passage of this legislation will further inflame the tensions and divisions amongst families in Tennant Creek, and cause great stress to many people in that region."

Federal Resources Minister Martin Ferguson has refused countless requests to meet with Traditional Owners opposed to the dump. Muckaty Traditional Owner Dianne Stokes says: "All along we have said we don't want this dump on our land but we have been ignored. Martin Ferguson has avoided us and ignored our letters but he knows very well how we feel. He has been arrogant and secretive and he thinks he has gotten away with his plan but in fact he has a big fight on his hands."

Dianne Stokes is not alone. Many Traditional Owners are determined to stop the dump and they are supported by the Northern Territory Government, key trade unions including the Australia Council of Trade Unions, church groups, medical and health organizations, and environmental groups. If push comes to shove, there will be a blockade at the site to prevent construction of the dump.

Uranium mining
The patterns of nuclear racism are also evident in Australia's uranium mining industry. Racism in the mining industry typically involves some or all of the following tactics: ignoring the concerns of Traditional Owners insofar as the legal and political circumstances permit; divide-and-rule tactics; bribery; 'humbugging' Traditional Owners (exerting persistent, unwanted pressure); providing Traditional Owners with false or misleading information; and threats, most commonly legal threats.

To give one example, the 1982 South Australian Roxby Downs Indenture Act, which sets the legal framework for the operation of the Olympic Dam copper-uranium mine in South Australia, was amended in 2011 but it retains exemptions from the SA Aboriginal Heritage Act. Traditional Owners were not even consulted. The SA government's spokesperson in Parliament said: "BHP were satisfied with the current arrangements and insisted on the continuation of these arrangements, and the government did not consult further than that."

That disgraceful performance illustrates a broader pattern. Aboriginal land rights and heritage protections are feeble at the best of times. But the legal rights and protections are repeatedly stripped away whenever they get in the way of nuclear or mining interests. Thus the Olympic Dam mine is largely exempt from the SA Aboriginal Heritage Act. Sub-section 40(6) of the Commonwealth's Aboriginal Land Rights Act exempts the Ranger uranium mine in the NT from the Act and thus removed the right of veto that Mirarr Traditional Owners would otherwise have enjoyed. NSW legislation exempts any uranium mines in that state from provisions of the NSW Aboriginal Land Rights Act. Native Title rights were extinguished with the stroke of a pen to seize land for a radioactive waste dump in South Australia. And Aboriginal heritage laws and Aboriginal land rights are being trashed with the current push to dump in the Northern Territory.

The situation is scarcely any better than it was in the 1950s when the British were exploding nuclear bombs on Aboriginal land.

Dr Jim Green is the national nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth, Australia and a former national committee member of the Australian Nuclear Free Alliance.

Source and contact: Jim Green. FOE Australia, PO Box 222, Fitzroy, Victoria, 3065, Australia.
Tel: +61 417 318 368
Email: jim.green@foe.org.au
Web: www.foe.org.au/anti-nuclear

The National Radioactive Waste Management Bill passed the Australian Senate on March 13, and the amended legislation finally passed through the House of Representatives the next day. The legislation preserves the highly contested Muckaty nomination, which is currently the subject of a federal court challenge by senior Traditional Owners opposed to the plan. The dump would house a range of radioactive waste including spent nuclear fuel rods form the Lucas Heights research reactor and decommissioned reactor parts.

The National Radioactive Waste Management Bill now passed in the Senate, was introduced two years ago and is strongly opposed by the Northern Territory government, Traditional Owners and a growing number of trade unions and civil society groups. Anti-nuclear protesters have tried to stop debate in Federal Parliament by disrupting th eproceedings.

The Government has consistently stated the National Radioactive Waste Management Bill did not specify a site for the dump, but it has offered to give the Northern Territory Aus$10 million if it accepts the waste dump. The Greens managed to get included an important amendment against international wastes being included. Greens spokesman on nuclear issues Scott Ludlam says he is confident the community will continue to fight any plan to use the Northern Territory site. The Greens will continue to fight the project: "The site is in an earthquake zone, it floods regularly, there are very long transport corridors, there are no jobs being applied and it's opposed from people on the ground, on the front line from Tennant all the way up to the NT Government and people around the country," he said. Donna Jackson, from the Australian Nuclear Free Alliance, says she is shocked the legislation has been passed while there is still a legal challenge before the courts about the ownership of the Muckaty site.

The Beyond Nuclear Initiative  says radioactive waste management legislation passed this afternoon in the Senate is deeply flawed and will not slow down the campaign against the proposed Muckaty radioactive waste dump in the Northern Territory. The dump is earmarked for low and long-lived intermediate level waste, including spent fuel rods and decommissioned reactor parts from the Lucas Heights nuclear facility in Sydney.

Minister Ferguson’s legislation repeals three Department of Defence site nominations made by the Howard government- Harts Range, Mt Everard and Fisher’s Ridge- but preserves the highly contested Muckaty nomination. Mitch, a spokesperson for Harts Range and Mt Everard said “It is almost seven years since the NT dump plan was announced. We are happy that Harts Range is now off the list but we support the Muckaty people to say no. This proposal is based on politics not science. This is a very sad day”.

Muckaty Traditional Owners have launched a federal court case against both the federal government and the Northern Land Council, which nominated the Muckaty site in 2007. Muckaty Traditional Owner Penny Phillips said, “At the start Senator Nigel Scullion said ‘not on my watch’ will the waste dump happen. He should be fighting against it and look after people in the Territory. Its very confusing for us- the Senators are meant to represent us. Do they care about Traditional Owners, do they care about people in the Barkly, the cattlemen? The government should come and see this country. We have been inviting them many times and they have ignored us”.

Beyond Nuclear coordinator Natalie Wasley concluded “Beyond Nuclear Initiave welcomes the passing of Senator Scott Ludlam’s amendment that international waste cannot be stored at the facility, however, the rest of the legislation is neither new nor good. It builds on the mistakes of the Howard era and lacks credibility and consent. There are still many hurdles for the government before a dump is up and running, and this proposal will be challenged every step of the way.”

At its most basic, advancing the Muckaty site is a case of politicians in capital Canberra dumping the most dangerous and poisonous radioactive waste we produce on one of Australia's poorest and least resourced Indigenous communities. It has happened without transparent or democratic processes and in clear contravention of international obligations, including under the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. If Muckaty were to become home to Australia's radioactive waste it, would be a body-blow to the reconciliation process set in motion with the apology to the stolen generations.

It is crucial to realise that what is being proposed is Australia's new 'greenfield' approach to radioactive waste management. However, instead of developing a credible process the government has been obsessed with identifying a vulnerable postcode. To place Australia's worst radioactive waste on the lands of some of its poorest people - without broad community understanding or consent - is not cutting edge scientific thinking, robust policy or best practice.

Sources: Beyond Nuclear Initiative, Media Alert, 13 & 15 March 2012, Green Left Weekly, 13 March 2012 / Dave Sweeney, Australian Conservation Foundation, 28 March 2012
Contact: Dave Sweeney, Australian Conservation Foundation, First Floor, 60 Leicester Street, Carlton VIC, 3053, Australia.
Tel: +61 3 9345 1111
Email: D.Sweeney[at]acfonline.org.au
Web: www.acfonline.org.au

For Australia especially, global warming means water shortage -drought over wide areas, more evaporation. Uranium mining is water intensive. Already outback communities in Australia are being hit by water shortage, as water is being extracted from the Great Arterial Basin faster than it is being replenished.

Water use in a typical uranium mine is approximately 200 to 300 gallons per minute. In water-short Australia, BHP Billiton’s Olympic Dam uranium mine has been for years taking 35 million litres of water each day from the underground aquifer, at no cost whatever. When BHP digs its new biggest hole in the world, it will pay a small fixed price for removing even greater amounts, exceeding 42 million litres.

BHP Billiton Olympic Dam mine expansion in South Australia has received a go ahead on 10 October 2011. This will create the world's largest open pit mine, over 1km deep, 4.5km long and 3km wide. Olympic Dam already consumes an inordinate amount of ground water extracted from the Great Artesian Basin every day - for free. The mine expansion will entail BHP Billiton expanding groundwater extraction and building a desalination plant at Point Lowly which will impact the only known breeding ground of the giant Australian cuttlefish, prawn fisheries and the sensitive marine environment.

BHP Billiton proposes to increase its water consumption by an additional 200 million litres per day. Water intake from the Great Artesian Basin will increase from 35 million litres per day to up to  42 million litres per day, with the remainder to come from the proposed coastal desalination plant at Point Lowly. That’s over 100,000 litres every minute – in the driest state on the driest continent on earth. The water intake from the Great Artesian Basin has already had adverse impacts on the unique Mound Springs found near Lake Eyre, which are fed by the underlying Artesian Basin, and are sacred to the Arabunna people, the traditional owners of the area. Under the Indenture Act, BHP Billiton pays nothing for its massive water intake for the Olympic Dam mine, despite recording a total net profit of US$23. 95 billion in 2011, nearly double its 2010 figure of US$13.01 billion.

Out of sight, out of mind
Groundwater is a major resource, but one that has been taken for granted for decades. In the past, groundwater supplies were treated as an infinite resource, and subject to an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ attitude. But that’s changing. There’s now an enormous interest in the way our groundwater resources are measured, managed and utilised. There are also concerns over issues such as over-extraction of water, pollution, wastage, allocation and licensing issues, water pricing and groundwater salinisation.

The most well-known and important groundwater source in Australia is the Great Artesian Basin, or GAB. This is a vast groundwater source that underlies 22 per cent of Australia – extending beneath the arid and semi-arid regions of Queensland, the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales. It covers about 1.7 million square kilometres, and contains an estimated 8700 million megalitres (1 megaliter = 1 million liters) of water. Not surprisingly, it’s one of the largest artesian water basins in the world……

The sustainable yield of a groundwater source depends on balancing the use or discharge against recharge rates. Normally discharge of groundwater occurs through vegetation, into streams and lakes, or through evaporation into the atmosphere. Sustainable yield cannot simply be determined by a measure of the recharge rate. If water is extracted for human use at the recharge rate, discharge to other areas can be affected…..

Extraction of groundwater can also lead to salinity problems and have a negative impact on native vegetation with roots that tap into groundwater, as well as wetlands, rivers and streams. The full impact of using these aquifers as planned is not known, but is likely to reduce the rate of water flowing to support rivers and wetlands and other groundwater dependent ecosystems.

Water from the Great Artesian Basin in Central Australia is being depleted to keep residual radioactive dust from uranium mining wet in order to keep it from blowing across the continent. Seven million gallons of water is being extracted from the basin per day to keep the radioactive dust in place, according to Kerrieann Garlick, a member of Footprints for Peace from Perth, Australia.

Despite its profits more than tripling in the last three years, BHP has never paid a cent for the vast amounts of water used by the Olympic Dam copper and uranium mine near Roxby Downs. Under the Roxby Downs Indenture Act BHP is not required to pay for this water usage. The Indenture Act applies specifically to the Olympic Dam mine, and provides for wide-ranging legal exemptions and overrides from environmental and Aboriginal heritage protection laws that apply elsewhere in the state, including the Environmental Protection Act and the Natural Resources Act (which incorporates water management issues).

“The Indenture Act means that the Olympic Dam mine is not subject to the same environmental regulatory framework as other industrial projects in the state,’ explained Nectaria Calan of Friends of the Earth Adelaide. “Additionally, by allowing BHP to take water from the Great Artesian Basin for free, the South Australian government is essentially providing BHP with a massive subsidy,” she continued.

The water intake from the Great Artesian Basin has already had adverse impacts on the unique Mound Springs found near Lake Eyre, which are fed by the underlying Artesian Basin, and are sacred to the Arabunna people, the traditional owners of the area.

As time goes by,  it is growing harder for the nuclear industry to hide the toxic effects and legacy of uranium mining. But, uranium mining still disproportionately affects people who can be marginalized in some way by governments. The case against uranium mining is not only a public health and environmental issue, it is also a human rights issue.

Sources: Indymedia Australia, 12 October 2011 / www.antinuclear.net
Contact: Australian Conservation Foundation, First Floor 60 Leicester St Carlton VIC 3053, Australia
Tel:  +61 3 9345 1111
Email: afc[at]afconline.org.au
Web: www.afconline.org.au

Germany exporting electricity to France.
Germany has shut down many nuclear power plants after Fukushima. France, in contrast, has still a very large nuclear capacity. So one might expect (and that was highlighted by nuclear proponents in Germany and elsewhere many times) that Germany needs "to pull some power from the reliable French nuclear plants" to make up for the fact that German solar power is not contributing anything in this season. But that's not exactly what happened during the cold winter days in western-Europe early February. Though the day is short, PV power production is still peaking at an impressive level during the current cold spell in Germany.

Because France has so much nuclear power, the country has an inordinate number of electric heating systems (but what is cause and effect?). And because France has not added on enough additional capacity over the past decade, the country's current nuclear plants are starting to have trouble meeting demand, especially when it gets very cold in the winter. With each drop of 1 degree in the temperature, the demand for electricity rises with 2,300 MW. In the French Brittany, citizens were asked by EDF to reduce their consumption.

As a result, power exports from Germany to France reached 4 to 5 gigawatts – the equivalent of around four nuclear power plants – early February according to German journalist Bernward Janzing in a Taz article. And it was not exactly a time of low consumption in Germany either at 70 gigawatts around noon on February 3, but Janzing nonetheless reports that the grid operators said everything was under control, and the country's emergency reserves were not being tapped. On the contrary, he reports that a spokesperson for transit grid operator Amprion told him that "photovoltaics in southern Germany is currently helping us a lot."
die tageszeitung, 3 February 2012

UK: the powers that be.
Newly appointed Energy Secretary Ed Davey performed a spectacular U-turn on nuclear power, February 5, as he declared he would not block plans for a new generation of nuclear reactors. Liberal Democrat Davey was appointed to the Cabinet post on February 3,  after Chris Huhne resigned to fight criminal charges. In the past, Davey has condemned nuclear power as dangerous and expensive. As Lib Dem trade and industry spokesman in 2006 Mr Davey was the architect of the party's anti-nuclear policy. He launched the policy with a press release entitled "Say no to nuclear", which warned a new generation of nuclear power stations would cost taxpayers tens of billions of pounds. What's that with being in power and changing positions?

Ed Davey used his first day as Energy Secretary to send a warning to more than 100 Conservative MPs that he is not prepared to back down over the issue of onshore wind farms. He insisted he was a 'lifelong supporter' of wind power.
Daily Mail, 6 February 2012 / The Times, 7 February 2012

Australia: Ferguson's Dumping Ground Fights Back.
The Gillard Government is pushing ahead with plans to host a nuclear waste dump at Muckaty in the Northern Territory (NT), despite local opposition. Traditional Owners have vowed to fight on, according to Natalie Wasley. In February 2010, Resources Minister Martin Ferguson introduced the National Radioactive Waste Management Bill into the House of Representatives, saying it represented "a responsible and long overdue approach for an issue that impacts on all Australian communities". The legislation names Muckaty, 120 kilometers north of Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory, as the only site to remain under active consideration for a national nuclear waste dump. The proposal is highly contested by the NT Government and is also being challenged in the Federal Court by Traditional Owners. Despite this, the Bill is currently being debated in the Senate — and will likely pass.

Ferguson’s law is a crude cut and paste of the Howard government’s Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Act that it purports to replace. It limits the application of federal environmental protection legislation and it curtails appeal rights. The draft legislation overrides the Aboriginal Heritage Protection Act and it sidesteps the Aboriginal Land Rights Act. It allows for the imposition of a dump on Aboriginal land with no consultation with or consent from Traditional Owners. In fact, the Minister can now override any state or territory law that gets in the way of the dump plan.

Before it won government, Labor promised to address radioactive waste management issues in a manner that would "ensure full community consultation in radioactive waste decision-making processes", and to adopt a "consensual process of site selection". Yet despite many invitations, Martin Ferguson refuses to meet with Traditional Owners opposed the dump.

Medical professionals have called for federal politicians to stop using nuclear medicine as justification for the Muckaty proposal. Nuclear radiologist Dr Peter Karamoskos wrote in the NT News:

"…the contention that is most in error is that the radioactive waste to be disposed of there is largely nuclear medicine waste. Nearly all such waste is actually short-lived and decays in local storage and is subsequently disposed of safely in the normal waste systems without need for a repository. The vast bulk of the waste… is Lucas Heights nuclear reactor operational waste, and contaminated soil (10 thousand drums) from CSIRO research on ore processing in the 1950s and 1960s."
Natalie Wasley in NewMatilda.com,  13 February 2012

US: Watts Bar 2 schedule pushed back.
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) has said that it is ‘experiencing challenges’ with the cost and schedule for completion of its Watts Bar 2 nuclear power plant. The revised completion date for the plant may extend beyond 2013 and the costs are expected to ‘significantly exceed’ TVA’s previous estimate of US$2.5 billion. TVA, which operates three nuclear power plants: Browns Ferry, Sequoyah and Watts Bar, decided to restart construction at Watts Bar 2 in 2007. It originally planned to finish the plant, which was 55% complete, within a five year window. Now, the completion date has been put back to 2013 and TVA says it is performing a root cause analysis to better understand the factors contributing to the project's extended schedule and cost. According to TVA the delays to the completion of Watts Bar unit 2 may also affect the timing of the Bellefonte 1 completion. Construction is set to resume at Bellefonte 1 after initial fuel loading at Watts Bar 2. (More in Nuclear Monitor 732, 9 September 2011).
Nuclear Engineering International, 7 February 2012

Russia: Fire at nuclear sub at Murmansk
Russia’s deputy prime minister in charge of the defense industry Dmitry Rogozin has indirectly admitted that the Yekaterinburg – one of the Northern Fleet’s strategic nuclear submarines – which caught fire on December 29 while in dry dock for repairs near Murmansk had “armaments” on board when the 20-hour-long blaze broke out, injuring 9. The deputy prime minister had previously vociferously denied this in both Russian and international media – even though evidence discovered by Bellona at the time suggested otherwise. Evidence that has emerged since the fire, however, suggests that the burning vessel was loaded not only with nuclear missiles but torpedoes as well.

The Yekaterinburg Delta IV class submarine – capable of carrying 16 intercontinental ballistic missiles with up to ten nuclear warheads apiece and 12 torpedoes – caught fire in Roslyakovo when welding works reportedly went awry, though the real cause of the fire remains unknown. The fire was concentrated in the bow area of the vessel.

Had Russia’s Emergency Services Ministry –which was primarily responsible for handling the crisis– not extinguished the flames in time, the torpedoes in the front chamber of the submarine would have detonated first. Many Russian fire and resuce workers would have been killed and the blaze’s intesity would have increased. The fire would have spread to the missile compartment, which also would have detonated as a result of the high temperatures. An explosion would have then damaged the Yekaterinburg’s two nuclear reactors, resulting in a release of radiation into the atmosphere.

Murmansk (300,000-strong population, just 6 kilometers away) should have been evacuated along with other towns in the surrounding area. The fire occurred just prior to Russia’s New Year’s holidays, and an evacuation would have causes panic and chaos. Yet had things gone as they very possibly could have, even more explosions releasing more radioactivity could have resulted, making – as shown in Fukushima – efforts to extinguish the fire even more arduous, as radioactivity continued to spread.
Bellona, Charles Digges, 14 February 2012

No More 'hot' waste in WIPP.
On January 31, the New Mexico Environment Department denied a federal Department of Energy's  request for permission to use new lead-lined drums for some of the more highly radioactive waste being shipped to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) (see Nuclear Monitor 739, 23 December 2011). DOE applied to the New Mexico Environment Department for a modification of the hazardous waste permit in order to dispose of "shielded containers" of remote-handled (RH) waste. The shielded containers, which have never been used before, are lead-lined in order to contain the high gamma emissions from the RH waste. DOE was proposing to bring more "remote-handled" plutonium-contaminated waste to WIPP than will fit in the remaining designated space. It is another attempt by DOE to expand the mission of WIPP beyond its original purpose.

But the NMED denied the request. The denial does not close the door on the possibility, but the Environment Department said a more detailed review, likely including the possibility of public hearings, would be required before any change is permitted.
ABQ Journal, 31 January 2012, / Nuclear Monitor 739, 23 December 2011

UK report: "A corruption of Governance?".
Parliament was kept in the dark and fed false information that boosted the case for nuclear power, campaigners claimed in a newly released report "A Corruption of Governance?" on February 3, 2012. MPs were handed a dossier which suggests that evidence given to ministers and Parliament promoting the use of nuclear power was "a false summary" of the analysis carried out by governmental departments. Specifically the report claims that on the basis of the government's own evidence there is no need for the controversial new generation of nuclear power stations if Britain is to achieve 80 per cent reductions in carbon dioxide by 2050. The report also alleges that government statements claiming that electricity supply will need to double or even triple in order to achieve a low-carbon economy are disproved by its own evidence. Katy Attwater, Stop Hinkley Point's spokesperson, said: "This scrupulously researched report shows that two of the National Policy Statements, EN-1 and EN-62, approved by Parliament, are based on false information and the public has no alternative but to deem them invalid. MPs have, likewise, no alternative but to consider them fraudulent, re-open the debate and bring those responsible for this corruption to account."
Press release Stop Hinkley Point, 6 February 2012

The EPR nuclear reactor: A dangerous waste of time and money.
The French EPR (European Pressurised Reactor, sometimes marketed as an ‘Evolutionary Power Reactor’) is a nuclear reactor design that is aggressively marketed by the French companies Areva and EDF. Despite the companies’ marketing spin, not only is the reactor hazardous, it is also more costly and takes longer to build than renewable-energy alternatives. While no EPR is currently operating anywhere in the world, four reactors are under construction in Finland (Olkiluoto 3, construction started in 2005), France (Flamanville 3, 2007) and China  (Taishan 1 and 2, 2009-10). The projects have failed to meet nuclear safety standards in design and  construction, with recurring construction defects and subsequent cover-ups, as well as ballooning costs and timelines that have already slipped significantly.

'The EPR nuclear reactor: A dangerous waste of time and money' is an update of the 2008 Greenpeace International briefing on this reactor. Added are some of the many new design and construction errors and the economic setbacks the EPR has run into. Greenpeace included more information on the tremendous gains in the cost performance of renewable energy and the increase level of investment.

The report is available at: www.laka.org/temp/2012gp-epr-report.pdf

Austrian NGOs: Ban on import nuclear electricty!
At a February 3, meeting with German, Czech and Austrian anti-nuclear activists in Passau, Germany, including members of The Left Party (Die Linke) faction in the German Bundestag and from the Ecological Democratic Party (ÖDP), support for an Austrian import ban on nuclear electricity was clearly signalled. Spokeswoman for the Left Party Eva Bulling-Schröter: "It is absurd that Austria, which for very good reasons abandoned nuclear energy, is exporting clean hydropower to Germany for instance and then imports nuclear power for its own use. The planned and very controversial new Czech Temelin reactors would loose important custumors if Austria and Germany woud ban the import and not buy its electricity. The campaign of the Austrian antinuclear groups is welcome and could be a model for a similar campaign in Germany."

"It is a ridiculous idea of the federal government when it says that Austria could not do without nuclear power before 2015", says Roland Egger of  Atomstopp upper-Austria.
Press release atomstopp_oberoesterreich, (stop nuclear, upper-austria), 9 December 2011 & 3 February 2012