AUSTRALIA - NUCLEAR + CLIMATE + ENERGY DEBATES

New Information Resources
Climate Change
Clean Energy Solutions for Climate Change
Climate Change and Nuclear Power
Maralinga
Nuclear Dump Proposed for the NT
Australia as the World's Nuclear Waste Dump
Enrichment of Uranium for Australia?
Push for Asian Nuclear Energy Body Like Euratom

Nuclear Power for Australia - Government's Nuclear Inquiry (Ziggy Switkowski)
Nuclear Power for Australia - Responses to Switkowski Draft Report
Nuclear Power for Australia - EnergyScience Coalition info
Nuclear Power for Australia - Various
Nuclear Power for Australia - Economics
Nuclear Power for Australia - Locations
Nuclear  Power For Australia - Workforce Issues
Nuclear Power - Summary Of Impacts

Uranium - Various
Uranium - Ranger Extension in NT
Uranium Industry Framework
Uranium - Safeguards are a Joke
Uranium - SA Government
Honeymoon Approved
Uranium Mining - Roxby Downs
Uranium Mining In WA ... Not
Uranium Sales To Russia
Uranium Sales To China
Uranium Sales To India + USA Reactor Supply

GLOBAL NUCLEAR ISSUES

Uranium Reserves
Indonesia - Nuclear Power
THORP UK Reprocessing Accident
Fusion
Nuclear Smuggling

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NEW INFORMATION RESOURCES

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Energyscience - coalition of nuclear experts, briefing papers at <energyscience.org.au>

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Greenpeace-convened expert international panel on nuclear power:
http://www.greenpeace.org/australia/resources/reports/nuclear-power/more-nuclear-what-internation
or direct download:
http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/content/australia/resources/reports/nuclear-power/more-nuclear-what-internation.pdf

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Hi everyone, 

The 'Living Country' DVD, produced by CAAMA (Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association) about the waste dump, is finally available for purchase!

 The 22 minute film is an excellent introduction to the NT waste dump issue, with interviews expressing the concerns of communities living closest to the sites (as close as 3km away) and beautiful shots of country targeted for the dump.

It has so far been screened in Darwin, Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne and of course Alice Springs, each time with fantastic feedback.

I have bought copies directly from CAAMA for $38.50 each and am selling these on for $45 to cover packaging, postage and a small change donation to round it out! 

Any extra donation on top of the suggested $45 will go toward the vibrant but extremely underfunded community campaign against the dump.

There have only been 50 copies of the DVD made, and while there could be another run in the future, it has been a long time and a lot of persistance in hassling CAAMA to get these out for sale, so I recommend you grab one while you can!

Please contact me with any questions. 
Any cheques please make out to 'Arid Lands Environment Centre' (and address the envelope to me).

Thanks, 
Nat
------
Beyond Nuclear Initiative
Arid Lands Environment Centre (ALEC)
Cummins Plaza, 67 Todd Mall / PO box 2796, 
Alice Springs, NT
Australia 0871

ph: 08 8952 2011
mobile : 0429 900 774
email: natwasley@alec.org.au


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Heaps of info on uranium mine in Oz and globally ...
http://www.infomine.com/commodities/uranium.asp

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Great new report on flawed safeguards at: <www.mapw.org.au/Illusion%20of%20Protection%20index.html>

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Anna Rose (ASEN) on JJJ Hack re climate change, the Australian Youth Climate CHange Coalition and a youth response to the Shitkowski report, particularly around the chapter on the role universities are gonna be pushed to play to expand the nuclear industry
http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/hack/podcast/tuesday.htm

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UNSW (anti-)nuclear power conference papers at <www.ies.unsw.edu.au/events/events.htm>

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Lots of excellent info re nukes:
www.waltpatterson.org

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FoE Adelaide's 'Call the Honeymoon Off' action http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mk1AmSVXbvA

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CLIMATE CHANGE

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Is Howard burnt out?
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,20705462-5000117,00.html
November 06, 2006
JILL Singer writes: John Howard wants a new Kyoto because he reckons the old one is useless.
I want a new PM for much the same reason.
The evidence is irrefutable that he is stubbornly refusing to take the threat of climate change seriously and is prepared to engage in media stunts and window dressing only in the hope he can fool us into thinking all is well.
Just listen to his use of language. It's all designed to soothe Australia into thinking the problem isn't necessarily all that bad and that he is absolutely on top of it.
Consider the release of Britain's devastating report by Sir Nicholas Stern, which warns that poor old parched Australia is at particular risk of devastating environmental and economic disaster.
First, Mr Howard advises Coalition MPs not to get mesmerised by one report, never mind that it echoes last year's dire predictions by Australia's CSIRO scientists.
Then he tells the public it is very important we don't overreact to Stern.
No one, he says, can assert with any confidence that Sir Nicholas's doomsday scenarios are right or wrong.
It's almost as if you can hear Joh Bjelke-Petersen's voice from the grave saying, "Don't you worry about that".
Then, last Thursday, a Newspoll revealed that 79 per cent of Australians wanted the Government to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and commit itself to greenhouse-gas emission targets.
And 91 per cent wanted the Government to shift from fossil fuels, such as coal, to renewable sources. Surely, such public concern cannot be dismissed lightly?
Think again. Mr Howard's response to the poll was to question its veracity but he later had to correct himself in Parliament and admit it was legitimate.
Furthermore, he says it's not surprising people say we've got to do more because of all the focus of the last few days on climate change.
The last few days . . . Who is he kidding?
Obviously, Mr Howard is bargaining on the public having the collective attention span of a gnat.
You know, today we're worried about climate change, tomorrow we'll all be so preoccupied with a horse race that we will forget about it.
He could be right. For now we have Channel 7's Mel and Kochie plugging events, such as the Walk Against Warming and asking irritating questions, such as why the Howard Government is spending twice as much taxpayer money on advertising the Government as it spends on climate change.
But such programs are not noted for keeping the heat on, if you'll pardon the pun.
Tomorrow, I'm sure, it will all be jolly old hats and feathers and next week it could well be some other worthy cause that shocks their socks off.
The fact is that today marks the start of the United Nations Climate Change conference in Kenya, Nairobi.
Over the next two weeks, the 165 countries that have ratified the Kyoto Protocol will discuss the way forward for global co-operation in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
India and China, the two countries that John Howard highlights as not doing enough to combat climate change, will be there and exercising their right to vote.
And Australia, the greatest per capita producer of greenhouse gases in the world, will be sitting on the sidelines, along with the world's single greatest polluter, the US, plotting how to form a splinter group that will advantage their coal and oil industries.
Yes, it's true Australia is in the Asia Pacific Clean Development and Climate Partnership (the AP6).
It's also true the Howard Government announced last week $60 million for initiatives to reduce carbon emissions. But let's get this in perspective. It's akin to putting a Band-Aid on a bloke shot at point-blank range.
Not only is Australia the nation most reliant on dirty fossil fuels for energy, we also export a staggering $61 billion worth of pollution a year in the form of coal, according to economic modelling based on the Stern report.
What's more, the Australian Conservation Foundation estimates the Government is spending $1 billion on subsidising company cars.
And here is the PM expecting us to get all excited because he is contributing a mingy $57 million to a $319 million solar power project in Victoria.
For another comparison, Howard's much vaunted national chaplains in schools are going to cost $90 million.
Why, oh why, are we still being encouraged to think we shouldn't overreact or get hysterical about our future?
Listen again to the PM's language.
In a prime bit of Biblespeak, John Howard reckons he won't destroy the natural advantage that Providence has given the working men and women of Australia: apparently the retired, the unemployed and children are exempt from any natural advantage.
Ah, Divine Providence.
God has delivered unto us plenty of coal and it would be economically sinful not to capitalise on it.
God also happened to bury lots of uranium deep under our land, so we'd better use that up too.
One might point out that Providence has also given us lots of wind and sunshine.
No doubt, come election time, Mr Howard will post everyone a cheque for some reason or other, have his photo taken alongside some token windmill or solar panel and reckon it will be enough to get him over the line, yet again.
It might even work for him, but the risks he is taking now are not personally large for him. He has already had a long, happy and successful life.
The risks he is taking threaten the future of the country he professes to love.
They also threaten the rest of the world, from which he is increasingly alienating us.
I am beginning to understand why Mr Howard says we need chaplains in school. They are particularly good at bereavement counselling in times of crisis and loss.
The only option left us may well be prayer.
jsinger@bigblue.net.au

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PM's windy rhetoric denounced as a scare tactic
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/pms-windy-rhetoric-denounced-as-a-scare-tactic/2006/11/12/1163266413050.html
Richard Macey
November 13, 2006
A SCIENTIST has accused the Prime Minister of frightening the public to undermine wind power's potential.
Responding last week to a Herald/ACNielsen poll showing 91 per cent of people regarded climate change as serious, John Howard warned that wind power could become a key source of energy only if the coast was festooned with windmills.
"Unless you want to have a windmill every few hundred feet starting at South Head and going down to Malabar," he said, "you simply won't be able to generate enough power from something like wind in order to take the load of the power that is generated by the use of coal and gas and, in time, I believe, nuclear."
Looking "years ahead", the only means of generating the required energy were fossil fuels and nuclear power.
However, Mark Diesendorf, an expert in renewable energy at the Institute of Environmental Studies, University of NSW, dismissed Mr Howard's comments as "just not true".
He said the depiction of a coastline of windmills was "a straw man … designed to frighten people … It's the same old misleading stuff."
The truth, Dr Diesendorf said, was that wind farms could supply 20 per cent of Australia's energy needs by 2040, using less land than required today for generating coal-fired power.
And no one was proposing dotting the coast with wind farms. In NSW, the most likely sites would be inland, "in high country on the Southern Tablelands".
Only "1 or 2 per cent" of a wind farm would be covered with turbines and associated works, such as access roads. The rest would remain available for agriculture, including grazing.
Dr Diesendorf said the turbines and roads for a wind farm that could replace a 1000-megawatt coal-fired station would occupy between five and 19 square kilometres. An open-cut coalmine to support a station producing the same amount of power could take up 50 to 100 square kilometres.
Dr Diesendorf said Mr Howard's comments followed equally misleading claims by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Alexander Downer, in May. "It has been estimated," Mr Downer told Parliament, "that you would need a wind farm occupying 3200 square kilometres to produce the equivalent energy of a medium-sized power station."
A 2004 study, Clean Energy Future for Australia, found carbon dioxide emissions from stationary sources could be halved by 2040 with existing technology. Natural gas, the cleanest fossil fuel, could supply 30 per cent of power, said Dr Diesendorf, who worked on the study.
Small "bioenergy" power stations burning crop leftovers could supply 28 to 30 per cent, and wind power another 20 per cent.

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(Unpublished)
Howard and the greenhouse mafia

On Saturday, tens of thousands of Australians participated in the 'Walk Against Warming' to express concern about climate change and show support for clean energy solutions. That morning, the leading news item was a leak from the government's nuclear inquiry to the effect that nuclear power might be economical in 15 years if the government puts a price on carbon (which it insists it will not do).

The leak was attributed to an unidentified 'source'. No doubt the 'source' was part of the nuclear inquiry secretariat located in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. No doubt the leak was timed to coincide with the Walk Against Warming.

Howard's strategy is clear: muddy the push for clean energy - renewables and energy efficiency - by tossing the 'N' word into the debate at every opportunity.

That strategy distracts attention from the government's disgraceful record: closing the Energy Research and Development Corporation in 1997; shutting down most renewable energy research within the CSIRO; withdrawing funding from the Co-operative Research Centre for Renewable Energy in 2002; allowing fossil fuel interests to buy their way on to the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics climate change modeling team; refusing to extend the Mandatory Renewable Energy Target, which was set at a paltry 2%; blocking wind farm projects and promoting a "national code" which would have the effect of blocking more wind farms; establishing a self-described "greenhouse mafia" of fossil fuel interests, the Lower Emissions Technical Advisory Group, to formulate energy and climate change policy; and persisting with its relentless efforts to kill, weaken, and marginalise the Kyoto Protocol.

No wonder the contribution of renewable energy has fallen from 10% in 1999 to its current level of 8%. Howard and his greenhouse mafia should be held to account.

Jim Green
Friends of the Earth

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PM's stance on climate change immoral
By Robyn Eckersley
November 8, 2006
http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/pms-stance-on-climate-change-immoral/2006/11/07/1162661678871.html
Prime Minister John Howard has long maintained the Kyoto Protocol is flawed because it excludes major carbon emitters in the developing world. In Parliament last week, in defiance of the British Stern report, he declared that it would be foolish for Australia to embark on a carbon trading scheme, because developing countries would enjoy a free ride at our expense.
Yet the Prime Minister's stance directly contravenes Australia's obligations under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change 1992. The fundamental environmental justice principle running through this convention, which Australia has signed and ratified, is that parties should take steps to protect the climate "on the basis of equity and in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capacities" (article 3(1)). The convention provides that developed countries must "take the lead in combating climate change". Developed countries have benefited from a long history of exploiting fossil fuels and are responsible for the bulk of past emissions. They also have a greater economic capacity to absorb emission reductions and develop technological alternatives.
These environmental justice principles also served as the cornerstone of the Berlin mandate, which framed the negotiations for the Kyoto Protocol. Developing countries, including growing aggregate emitters such as China, are not expected to undertake mandatory emissions reduction until developed countries have shown the way. For the Prime Minister to maintain that the protocol is flawed because it allows free riders, flies in the face of the principles of the Kyoto Protocol's parent convention. The main reason the Kyoto Protocol is suboptimal, in both environmental and political terms, is because the world's biggest aggregate carbon polluter (the US) and the world's second biggest per capita carbon polluter (Australia) have defected.
The idea that a rich country such as Australia should not reduce its oversized per capita carbon footprint unless poorer countries also take measures to reduce their tiny per capita footprint is to kick the ladder down. It denies poorer countries the opportunity to improve the livelihoods of their peoples and avoids Australia's obligations under the convention. Such a stance is morally and politically unjustifiable.
Robyn Eckersley teaches global politics at the University of Melbourn

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CLEAN ENERGY SOLUTIONS & CLIMATE CHANGE

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It's clean and it's green, but Howard isn't interested in it
Suzy Freeman-Greene
September 26, 2006
http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/its-clean-and-its-green-but-howard-isnt-interested-in-it/2006/09/25/1159036469469.html

IN MAY, John Howard called for a "full-blooded debate" on nuclear power. When the Prime Minister asks for debate, we oblige, and the issue has attracted headlines since. But while nuclear, wind power and even carbon geosequestration are the subject of spirited discussion as we grapple with global warming, there's a clean, green power source that barely seems to rate a mention. It's solar power.
Australia is one of the world's sunniest countries and an innovator in solar research. "We used to be a world leader in solar power," says the Australian Conservation Foundation's Erwin Jackson. "Now we're falling abysmally behind countries like Japan."
For more than a decade, according to the New Internationalist, the Japanese Government has paid subsidies to householders who install photovoltaic panels on their roofs. The subsidies are being phased out but capacity is still expected to grow by 20 per cent a year.
Germany, meanwhile, has installed more than 100 times Australia's grid-connected solar capacity. "Yet if you put the same panel on a roof in Australia (where it's sunnier) it would produce twice as much capacity," says Jackson.
But in Australia, the Federal Government is quietly phasing out the rebates available to homeowners who install panels. The rebate has been replaced by the $75 million Solar Cities project, in which four locations will be used to demonstrate and trial solar technology. In North Adelaide, the first "solar city", panels and "smart meters" will be installed in 1700 homes.
The project will run until 2012-13. While worthy, it will be limited to just a few locations and seems small fry compared with what's going on elsewhere. In Spain, the Government has legislated to require solar panels in all new and renovated shopping centres, offices, hotels or warehouses. Jackson says about 70 per cent of the panels made at BP Solar's Sydney manufacturing plant are sold overseas.
It costs about $10,000 to $15,000 to put panels on your roof. We have the technology. We just need to make it cheaper. Says Haydn Fletcher from Melbourne firm Going Solar: "We already know how to become solar cities … What we need is policy change." He says the past 10 months have been the quietest he's seen.
No single power source can replace our reliance on coal; we need diversity. Solar is not the panacea. But there's so much more we could do to foster an affordable, large-scale industry. Far from a fringe affair, the foundation says solar PV is the fastest-growing energy technology in the world, with growth rates of 60 per cent annually over the past five years.
One effective way to encourage investment in solar power is to reward panel owners for the unused power they can feed into the electricity grid. Many in the local solar industry are calling for the introduction of a "feed-in tariff", where a small levy is added to all power bills. The money is then used to pay households or businesses for their excess solar power at a higher rate than that paid to dirtier sources.
Governments in Germany, Italy, China, Indonesia, Spain, South Korea and Switzerland have kick-started their industry with such a tariff. A draft proposal prepared by BP Solar and Conergy, says a feed-in tariff would cost the typical power consumer the equivalent of one cup of coffee a year (presumably about $3).
Things are happening slowly here. Melbourne firm Solar Systems has proposed a $420 million solar power station in north-western Victoria that could power 40,000 homes. Solar Systems and Boeing have developed the project using PV technology designed for satellites. They have applied for federal funding from the low emission technologies fund.
The State Government has legislated to require electricity retailers to meet 10 per cent of their energy needs through renewable sources by 2016. But the Victorian Opposition has pledged to scrap the scheme.
When the Prime Minister spoke in May, he described nuclear power, which produces radioactive waste, as "cleaner and greener than other forms of power".
Whose debate do we want to have? The one framed by politicians in thrall to the mining lobby or a discussion about genuinely clean forms of power? Clearly the Government wants to boost our coal and uranium industries, but in 100 years' time will there even be an economy around to protect?
Suzy Freeman-Greene is a staff writer.

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Here's the plan for fast and effective action on climate change
By George  Monbiot
Published in the Guardian 31st October 2006

It is a testament to the power of money that Nicholas Stern's report should have swung the argument for drastic action, even before anyone has finished reading it. He appears to have demonstrated what many of us suspected: that it would cost much less to prevent runaway climate change than to seek to live with it. Useful as this finding is, I hope it doesn't mean that the debate will now concentrate on money. The principal costs of climate change will be measured in lives, not pounds. As Stern reminded us yesterday, there would be a moral imperative to seek to prevent mass death even if the economic case did not stack up.

But at least almost everyone now agrees that we must act, if not at the necessary speed. If we're to have a high chance of preventing global temperatures from rising by 2 °C above pre-industrial levels, we need, in the rich nations, a 90% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030(1). The greater part of the cut has to be made at the beginning of this period. To see why, picture two graphs with time on the horizontal axis and the rate of emissions plotted vertically. One falls like a ski jump: a steep drop followed by a shallow tail. The other falls like the trajectory of a bullet. To the left of each line is the total volume of greenhouse gases produced in that period. They fall to the same point by the same date, but far more gases have been produced in the second case, making runaway climate change more likely.

So how do we do it without bringing civilisation crashing down? Here is a plan for drastic but affordable action the government could take. It goes much further than the proposals discussed by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown yesterday, for the reason that this is what the science demands.

1. Set a target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions based on the latest science. The government is using outdated figures - restated by Blair and Brown yesterday - aiming for a 60% reduction by 2050. Even the annual 3% cut proposed in the early day motion calling for a new climate change bill does not go far enough. Timescale: immediately.

2. Use that target to set an annual carbon cap, which falls on the ski jump trajectory. Then use the cap to set a personal carbon ration. Every citizen is given a free annual quota of carbon dioxide. He spends it by buying gas and electricity, petrol and train and plane tickets. If he runs out, he must buy the rest from someone who has has used less than his quota(2). This accounts for about 40% of the carbon dioxide we produce. The rest is auctioned off to companies. It's a simpler and fairer approach than either green taxation or the Emissions Trading Scheme, and it also provides people with a powerful incentive to demand low-carbon technologies. Timescale: a full scheme in place by January 2009.

3. Introduce a new set of building regulations, with three objectives.
A. Imposing strict energy efficiency requirements on all major refurbishments (costing £3000 or more). Timescale: comes into force by June 2007.
B. Obliging landlords to bring their houses up to high energy efficiency standards before they can rent them out. Timescale: to cover all new rentals from January 2008.
C. Ensuring that all new homes in the UK are built to the German passivhaus standard (which requires no heating system). Timescale: comes into force by 2012.

4. Ban the sale of incandescent lightbulbs, patio heaters, garden floodlights and several other wasteful and unnecessary technologies. Introduce a stiff "feebate" system for all electronic goods sold in this country. The least efficient are taxed heavily while the most efficient receive tax discounts. Every year the standards in each category rise. Timescale: fully implemented by November 2007.

5. Redeploy the money now earmarked for new nuclear missiles towards a massive investment in energy generation and distribution. Two schemes in particular require government support to make them commercially viable: very large wind farms, many miles offshore, connected to the grid with high voltage direct current cables; and a hydrogen pipeline network to take over from the natural gas grid as the primary means of delivering fuel for home heating. Timescale: both programmes commence at the end of 2007 and are completed by 2018.

6. Promote the development of a new national coach network. City centre coach stations are shut down and moved to the junctions of the motorways. Urban public transport networks are extended to meet them. The coaches travel on dedicated lanes and never leave the motorways(3). Journeys by public transport then become as fast as journeys by car, while saving 90% of emissions. It is self-financing, through the sale of the land now used for coach stations. Timescale: commences in 2008; completed by 2020.

7. Oblige all chains of filling stations to supply leasable electric car batteries. This provides electric cars with unlimited mileage: as the battery runs down, you pull into a forecourt. A crane lifts it out and drops in a fresh one. The batteries are charged overnight with surplus electricity from offshore windfarms. Timescale: fully operational by 2011.

8. Abandon the road-building and road-widening programme, and spend the money on tackling climate change. The government has earmarked £11.4 billion for new roads(4). It claims to be allocating just £545 million a year to "spending policies that tackle climate change"(5). Timescale: immediately.

9. Freeze and then reduce UK airport capacity. While capacity remains high there will be constant upward pressure on any scheme the government introduces to limit flights. We need a freeze on all new airport construction and the introduction of a national quota for landing slots, to be reduced by 90% by 2030. Timescale: immediately.

10. Legislate for the closure of all out-of-town superstores, and their replacement with a warehouse and delivery system. Shops use a staggering amount of energy (six times as much electricity per square metre as factories, for example), and major reductions are hard to achieve: Tesco's "state of the art" energy-saving store at Diss has managed to cut its energy use by only 20%(6). Warehouses containing the same quantity of goods use roughly 5% of the energy(7). Out-of-town shops are also hard-wired to the car - delivery vehicles use 70% less fuel(8). Timescale: fully implemented by 2012.

These timescales might seem extraordinarily ambitious. They are, by contrast to the current glacial pace of change. But when the US entered the second world war, it turned the economy around on a sixpence. Carmakers began producing aircraft and missiles within a year, and amphibious vehicles in 90 days, from a standing start(9). And that was 65 years ago. If we want this to happen, we can make it happen. It will require more economic intervention than we're used to and some pretty brutal emergency planning policies (with little time or scope for objections). But if you believe these are worse than mass death, there is something wrong with your value system.

Climate change is not just a moral question: it is the moral question of the 21st century. There is one position even more morally culpable than denial. That is to accept that it's happening and that its results will be catastrophic; but to fail to take the measures needed to prevent it.
 
George Monbiot's book Heat: how to stop the planet burning is published by Penguin.

References:

1. This is explained, with references, in Heat: how to stop the planet burning.

2. The idea was first proposed by Mayer Hillamn in 1990, and has been championed and refined by David Fleming. See David Fleming, no date given. Energy and the Common Purpose: descending the energy staircase with tradeable energy quotas (TEQs). http://www.teqs.net/book/teqs.pdf

3. This plan was proposed by Alan Storkey, 2005. A Motorway-Based National Coach System. Available from alan@storkey.com . I summarise his paper in Heat.

4. Department for Transport statistics, December 2005, collated by Road Block. http://www.roadblock.org.uk/press_releases/info/TPI%20and%20local%20schemes%20Dec05.xls

5. Lord McKenzie of Luton, 10th October 2005. Parliamentary answer HL 1508. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200405/ldhansrd/pdvn/lds05/text/51010w04.htm

6. http://www.tescocorporate.com/crreport06/pdf/Tesco_CRR_2006_Full.pdf

7. See the figures and discussion in Heat.

8. S. Cairns et al, 2004. Home shopping. Chapter in Transport for Quality of Life, p. 324. Report to the Department for Transport. The Robert Gordon University and Eco-Logica London, UK. http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/dft_susttravel/documents/page/dft_susttravel_029756.pdf

9. Jack Doyle, 2000. Taken for a Ride: Detroit's big three and the politics of pollution, pp.1-2. Four Walls, Eight Windows, New York.

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The choice is not nuclear energy v coal
Ric Brazzale
November 24, 2006
http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/the-choice-is-not-nuclear-energy-v-coal/2006/11/23/1163871546318.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
THE findings of the Government's nuclear taskforce should come as little surprise, as the focus was narrowly on nuclear power and excluded consideration of clean energy sources, such as renewable energy, gas-fired generation and energy efficiency.
In essence, the review posits a false choice — between nuclear energy and coal — as if no other large-capacity power options were available. This is a false choice.
What conclusions might have been drawn if it had been a wide-ranging inquiry that compared solar power, wind power, bioenergy, geothermal "hot rocks", energy efficiency, solar water heating and natural gas, as well as nuclear power?
We can only wonder, because it wasn't that sort of inquiry.
So, what has the review contributed?
First, it was encouraging to see it conclude that a carbon price signal is essential for greenhouse gas reduction and for investment in the development and deployment of zero and low-emission technologies.
This is a critical step towards a clean economy. Per capita, Australians are the most polluting people in the world. Greenhouse gas emissions from coal-dominated electricity generation in Australia are soaring and forecast to rise rapidly. ABARE predicts our energy emissions will be more than 60 per cent higher over the next 25 years if we continue with "business as usual".
The most effective way to begin reining in these galloping emissions is to put a price on pollution. Putting a price on carbon pollution would, as former World Bank chief economist Sir Nicholas Stern says, simply "correct the greatest market failure the world has ever seen". A carbon trading scheme can be designed in a way that protects trade-exposed industries. But a carbon trading scheme needs to start soon, not in five or 10 years.
And this matter — of time — is of critical importance.
We don't need to wait 15 to 20 years to build nuclear power stations.
More importantly, we don't have 15 to 20 years to wait to build them.
As Stern observed in his recent report: "There is a high price to delay. Weak action in the next 10 to 20 years would put stabilisation even at 550 ppm (parts per million) carbon dioxide beyond reach — and this level is already associated with significant risks."
Time is a precious commodity we don't have much of in relation to global warming.
Every tonne of carbon dioxide we release into the atmosphere is up there for the next 100 years. Every year we wait is a 100-year legacy that makes our job that much harder and requires much steeper cuts later.
If Stern is right, making nuclear power the vanguard of an energy revolution pitches Australia head first into risky territory — economically and otherwise — simply because of the delay it demands.
Australia already has an abundance of zero-emission renewable and low-emission energy technologies. They could be deployed en masse tomorrow and begin to cut our greenhouse gas emissions. This would be instead of our waiting 15 or 20 years for a nuclear power station to be built.
Australia does have lots of coal and uranium. But it also has almost unlimited quantities of clean renewable energy from the sun, wind, biomass, geothermal "hot rocks" and other sources, which can be used far more. We also have vast reserves of natural gas, which produce about one-third of the carbon dioxide emissions of coal.
Some of these clean energies are being put to good use. Their contribution needs to be expanded and others can — and should — be added to the energy mix now. This can take place while we consider and debate the merits of nuclear power.
Biomass, geothermal energy and gas are all storable forms of energy that can be turned up or down as needed, exploding the myth that coal or nuclear energy are our only base-load (24-hour) power options.
Renewable energies are proven and affordable. They work well now and they produce zero emissions.
By next year, South Australia will have 15 per cent of its power needs met from wind when only a few years ago it was zero. The same could be done for the whole of Australia.
Another 20 per cent saving could be met by conserving the coal-fired electricity we already waste; another 20 per cent from converting from coal to natural gas; and another 20 per cent from bioenergy. The list goes on.
The decisions we will soon make about energy sources will go down in history as among the most defining ever — economically, socially and environmentally.
Generations to come will judge us on the paths we now take. Did we look at all the options and make use of all the clean energy sources at our disposal? Did we map out a responsible, strategic path to lower greenhouse gas emissions while maintaining a healthy economy and forging dynamic new markets in clean renewable energies?
Ric Brazzale is executive director of the Business Council for Sustainable Energy.

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Carpenter warms to geothermal energy
Amanda O'Brien, West Australian political reporter
November 18, 2006
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20777815-30417,00.html
"HOT rocks" 7km below the earth's surface could soon be used to produce power for Western Australia.
Premier Alan Carpenter said vast amounts of clean, green energy could be drawn from the hot granite rocks, which have temperatures of up to 300C.
He said geothermal energy was created by passing water over the hot, dry rocks and using the heated water to generate power.
Mr Carpenter said the Government would legislate next year to provide a clear legal framework for companies to pursue large-scale geothermal energy projects and called for expressions of interest from companies wanting to harness the hot-rock power.
The call was answered immediately by local company HGR Energy, which confirmed it would apply for a geothermal exploration licence.
HGR director Tony Veitch said its desktop analysis showed prospective areas in Western Australia for geothermal production and the company wanted to move to the exploration and drilling phase as soon as possible.
While hot-rocks technology is still to be commercially proven, considerable activity has already begun in South Australia and NSW to prove it is possible.
Mr Carpenter claimed Western Australia had an edge over the other states because its hot-rock deposits were near populated areas all over the state.
He said exploration elsewhere was mainly in remote areas.
As well, Western Australia was at the forefront in deep-drilling technology from its oil and gas industry.
"We are the masters," Mr Carpenter said.

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The rise of solar: why the sun is shining on main street
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/the-rise-of-solar-why-the-sun-is-shining-on-main-street/2006/11/11/1162661949377.html
Brod Street on the roof of his house in Smart Street, Hawthorn, which is almost completely powered by the energy captured from the sun by these solar panels.
Photo: Justin McManus
Paul Heinrichs
November 12, 2006
BROD Street is quietly reaping satisfaction — and huge savings — from a decision four years ago to go solar.
As well as cutting his power bill to just $190 a year, he's doing his bit to limit greenhouse gas emissions.
Brod, wife Vivienne and son Alexander live in their own smart house in Smart Street, Hawthorn — one smart enough to reduce emissions from about 12,000 kilograms to just 700 kilograms a year.
"We're not far off zero greenhouse," he said. "Let's be honest — if people followed in our footsteps, we'd probably have a different debate, a different world."
By choosing to add $40,000 worth of environmental efficiency to a $250,000 renovation four years ago, they have shown what can be done, and now see others joining the solar movement.
Under the impact of what one industry figure calls an environmental "perfect storm" — a unique convergence of influential factors — solar energy is shifting rapidly from the fringe to the mainstream of Australian life.
As well as solar water heaters, there is suddenly a big market developing among wealthier people — environmentally conscious doctors, lawyers and retirees — for the expensive photovoltaic (PV) solar power systems.
Until now, Victoria has lagged behind the nation in installations of this equipment, with only about 2000 out of a national total of about 25,000 homes carrying the panels on their roofs, many in the outback off the electricity grids.
But conversely, Victoria has been installing solar hot water services at about twice the rate of the rest of the country.
Executive director of the Business Council for Sustainable Energy, Ric Brazzale, says there has been a huge spike of interest in both solar hot water and power systems.
Mr Brazzale attributes new levels of climate-change awareness to a "perfect storm" which included the hottest October since 1950, including bushfires, the arrival of the Al Gore film An Inconvenient Truth, the ongoing drought and the Stern Review, which argues that the cost of inaction will be significantly greater than that of action.
His observations have been confirmed by industry sources such as solar power installer Going Solar and the Alternative Technologies Association.
Across Australia, the most significant move is the shift to solar hot-water heating, a move the environmentalist David Suzuki calls the best single step a household could make to reduce greenhouse gases.
Electric water heaters account for 30 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions of the total energy consumed in a typical home. Solar water heaters can reduce those emissions by 85 to 90 per cent.
Solar water heater sales in Australia have doubled since 2000-2001, and were estimated to be 42,700 units in 2004-5, up from 36,000 units sold in each of the previous two years.
According to Australian Bureau of Statistics data, nearly 350,000 homes in Australia have had a solar hot water system installed — about 5 per cent of homes. The systems can pay for themselves in savings over about 10 years.
Sales of solar hot water services in Victoria are running at about 4000 a year, four times that of 2000, and there have been about 14,000 units installed since mid-2000.
Sustainability Victoria offers householders a rebate of up to $1500 to replace a gas water heater with a gas-boosted solar water heating unit, which can cost up to $4000.
Sales are now being driven by regulations that require either a solar hot water service or a water tank to be installed in all new homes built since July 1.
Mr Brazzale said the industry was hoping that up to half of new-home builders opted for the solar unit — or went for both options.
"We are arguing that given the heightened water crisis and energy and climate crisis, there's no reason why you shouldn't go for both. It's not an either/or situation — you should do both," he said.
The big new market opening up in Victoria for PV solar systems includes people such as St Kilda architect Marcus O'Reilly, who has recently ordered a system for his new house. As well, he is designing a four-storey commercial office block for the Nepean Highway, Brighton, which will have a huge system of 140 square metres of photovoltaic panels on its roof.
Mr O'Reilly said the owner was initially reluctant to use solar because it would add significantly to the cost, but changed his mind.
The agent had indicated that this would be an attractive feature in selling or leasing the building, especially as it would not hit the market for a couple of years.
Another commercial development using solar as a selling point is the Bluemountrise development at Trentham, where covenants on the land being subdivided require econologically sustainable houses.
Australian householders are eligible for a federally funded rebate of up to $4000, based on $4 per watt of electricity for a solar PV system of up to one kilowatt.
The Bracks Government is also promising a significant new incentive for PV system buyers if it is re-elected on November 25.
Victoria's Energy Minister, Theo Theophanous, told The Sunday Age that a Bracks Government would legislate to make power companies pay solar power households the retail price of power (about 14 cents a kilowatt hour) for electricity their systems put back into the grid.
Currently, many power retailers pay only the wholesale rate or less, about four cents a kilowatt hour, to those households whose PV systems produce more than the household uses.
Mr Theophanous flagged a time after the end of next year when the big roll-out of so-called "smart meters" begins, when households might even get better than the retail rate for power fed into the system during peak periods.
Brod Street's system, with 18 panels on his roof producing up to 1.35 kilowatts, actually contributed a net 1245 kilowatt hours to the grid in the past year. He's on a good wicket — Origin Energy is already paying him its full retail rate of 12.54 cents a kilowatt hour.
Climate change possibly represented by October's heat meant Mr Street's system produced a record 212 kilowatt hours, twice as much power as he used for the month.
All the same, he wishes the world would return to its old pattern.

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Renewable energy has power to generate opportunities
Evan Thornley
November 8, 2006
http://www.theage.com.au/news/business/renewable-energy-has-power-to-generate-opportunities/2006/11/07/1162661685349.html
THOMAS Watson, the founder of IBM, said in 1943: "I think the world market for computers is maybe five." Visionary as he was, Watson turns out to have been a little conservative. But he certainly did better than The Australian Financial Review, which in 1997 announced with world-weary scepticism that "the internet is the CB radio of the '90s". It was just wrong.
And so it is for conservative politicians who are having a devil of a time getting their head around the possibilities for renewable energy. Prime Minister John Howard says we'll never get there without nuclear power. Victorian Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu promises to tear up the Victorian Renewable Energy Target scheme because he claims it is "too expensive". In stark contrast, the Stern review, led by Sir Nicholas Stern, a former chief economist of the World Bank, reviewed the literature and came to the opposite conclusion. We can't afford not to move to more renewables — and fast.
Why? Firstly, when you look at the full cost of energy sources, some renewables are already cheaper. Secondly, the costs of doing nothing are horrendous. And thirdly, we might actually reignite our manufacturing sector by leading the world in smart renewables technology.
When you look at the full cost of any energy source, there are three elements — the capital cost of the equipment, the operating costs of fuel and staff, and the cost of cleaning up the mess once you've finished. Those who argue that renewable sources are "too expensive" base their entire argument on today's capital costs for the equipment, since both the fuel costs and the clean-up costs are close to zero.
But the history of technology and manufacturing tells us capital costs in any new technology decline dramatically once mass adoption occurs. Why? Firstly, economies of scale mean unit costs reduce once design and tooling costs are spread over large volumes. Secondly, anyone making anything learns as they go about it. With each new version we simplify, make it more efficiently, solve production bottlenecks, find cheaper materials, our suppliers learn more, and so it goes. That's how cars went from a luxury for the few to commonplace. It was the same with computers. It can be the same with wind turbines and solar cells.
Stern makes the same observation: "Experience shows that the costs of technologies fall with scale and experience." That is why he argues that "particularly in electricity generation … policies to support the market for early-stage technologies will be crucial". That's why the Bracks Government's VRET is an essential building block for change and why the Liberals' "promise" to tear it up looks reckless. The closer you look at fossil fuels and nuclear, the more expensive they become. As Stern is now showing, the cost of cleaning up the mess you make turns out to be large indeed. In rough terms it is somewhere between five and 20 times cheaper to take action now to reduce emissions than to cope later with the cost of not doing so.
Similarly, I don't know if Howard asked his accountants to look at the net present value (the cost in today's dollars of things that happen in the future) of guarding plutonium waste from terrorists for the next 500,000 years or more, but I suspect it's a big number.
Finally, this debate is not just about minimising the economic and social downsides of climate change, it's also about capturing the opportunities. When Stern talks of the world investing $US500 billion ($A647 billion) now or having to spend 20 times that later, that $US500 billion is a massive business opportunity. And, as is often the case, "first movers" will have greatest opportunity to capture that opportunity.
There's no reason why Silicon Valley had to be in Silicon Valley and not New York, London or Frankfurt. But it did start there and, having done so, it's hard for anyone to catch up.
And so it is with renewable energy technology at the early stage of its development. Victorians can not only become large customers for this technology and save ourselves a bundle in the medium term, if we become large suppliers, we might even make a bundle. Given the high design and technology-intensive nature of the renewable energy business, it presents a bright opportunity for us to make a virtue of necessity and see if we can build a new high-value, manufacturing export industry.
The targets are expected to produce $2 billion of investment and 2200 jobs. By creating a strong market, the VRET allows companies to compete, and for those who succeed, the potential to open up global markets.
There are always risks in doing something new. But sometimes the risks of doing nothing are bigger. In 1962, Decca Records rejected four Liverpool musicians — "we don't like their sound … and guitar music is on the way out anyway". The cost
of not taking the risk was the Beatles going elsewhere.
Baillieu thinks we "can't afford" to pursue the renewable energy target. He's got it wrong, but fortunately voters have a clear choice — the Bracks Government knows we can't afford not to.
Evan Thornley was co-founder of technology company LookSmart and is a Labor candidate for the Southern Metropolitan Region.

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Households may reap dollars in energy plan
Jason Dowling
November 5, 2006
http://www.theage.com.au/news/victoria-votes/households-may-reap-dollars-in-energy-plan/2006/11/04/1162340095859.html
VICTORIAN households would receive hundreds of dollars in rebates to help save energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions under a Labor Government, Steve Bracks announced yesterday.
Mr Bracks said a Labor Government would provide up to $100 in rebates to households for installing insulation, replacing energy inefficient washing machines and fridges, and upgrading heating. There would be no cap on the number of rebates per house.
In a carrot-and-stick approach, Labor also said the new Victorian Energy Efficiency Target scheme would increase household energy bills by about $12 a year, if no energy savings measures were made.
The Premier also recommitted Victoria to a nuclear-free state under Labor. "Nuclear energy is the wrong way to go. We have legislation prohibiting nuclear energy in this state. That will be reinforced in the future," he said.
Mr Bracks, who launched Labor's $14 million policy at an energy efficient house in the Dandenongs, also announced that energy retailers would be forced to assist in the aim of a 10 per cent reduction in household energy emissions by 2010.
He also announced that households and small business that generated their own power through solar or other methods would be able to sell excess power back into the state's power grid. Energy Minister Theo Theophanous could not say how much money households with solar panels would make from this.
Environment Victoria's Marcus Godinho welcomed the energy saving initiatives. "They are good for families and good for the environment," he said.
Liberal environment spokesman David Davis said it was too little too late from Labor.

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Opposition to Wind Farms Hot Air
www.tai.org.au
26 October 2006
Media release
A detailed critique of concerns raised by anti-wind farm groups reveals the opposition is based largely on fallacies according to the deputy director of the Australia Institute Andrew Macintosh.
The critique is contained in a new report published today by the Institute. Mr Macintosh has co-authored the report entitled Wind Farms: The facts and the fallacies.
"A lot of hot air has been expended trying to undermine the economic and environmental credentials of wind farms," Mr Macintosh said. "Our analysis of the best available national and international evidence shows convincingly that wind farms are an efficient and environmentally-friendly way of reducing greenhouse emissions while meeting Australia's growing energy needs."
He said the analysis showed that wind energy is cost-competitive with other forms of renewable energy, effectively displaces greenhouse gases and has only minor adverse environmental impacts.
Mr Macintosh said claims that wind farms negatively affect birds, bats and landscape values, are noisy and a fire risk are greatly exaggerated. All available evidence indicates that these risks have been overstated and that in practice the negative environmental impacts of wind farms are insignificant.
"The Coalition's attempts to obstruct the wind industry are flying in the face of these facts," he said.
Mr Macintosh and his co-author Christian Downie said the suggestion by the Federal Government and opposition parties in Victoria that local communities should have a veto power over wind developments is absurd. "Wind farms should be subject to the normal planning procedures and not be treated any better or worse than any other major energy development," Mr Downie said.
The Federal Environment Minister is due to decide whether the proposed Bald Hills wind farm in Victoria will be allowed to proceed in the next two weeks.
"The Minister's previous decision to block the proposal illustrates the extent of the politicisation of federal approval processes," Mr Macintosh said. "The Coalition should help allay community concerns about wind farms rather than manipulating the situation for political purposes".

The report can be found under 'What's New' on the Institute's website: www.tai.org.au.

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AP6 Going Nowhere Fast
1 November 2006
Media alert
www.tai.org.au
The Asia-Pacific Partnership is in danger of collapse after the US Congress twice rejected appropriations to fund Bush administration commitments to the pact, according to the Australia Institute.
In late May a Republican-led House Appropriations sub-committee blocked a White House request for US $46 million to fund commitments to AP6. Legislators had rejected another request in early May.
"The lack of support for AP6 in the US Congress is mirrored in other AP6 countries. There has been no political engagement and the process has been left to the bureaucracies", said Dr Clive Hamilton, executive director of The Australia Institute.
US Senator John McCain, the front-runner to be the next Republican Presidential candidate, has dismissed the Asia-Pacific Partnership declaring that it "amounts to nothing more than a nice little public-relations ploy … It has almost no meaning. They aren't even committing money to the effort, much less enacting rules to reduce greenhouse gas emissions".
"The Australian Government is desperate to bolster its climate change credentials by presenting AP6 as a serious alternative to Kyoto, but it is a Clayton's climate pact", said Dr Hamilton.
More than 150 nations have ratified the Kyoto Protocol and are acting on its obligations. The treaty received a new lease of life at last November's Montreal conference where it was agreed to begin negotiations for its second commitment period covering 2013-2018.
Four of the six members of the Asia-Pacific Partnership - China, India, Japan and South Korea - have ratified the Protocol and have a number of legally binding obligations under it. While the Government makes much of the fact that AP6 includes countries responsible for nearly half of global greenhouse gas emissions, the Kyoto Protocol accounts for 75% of global emissions - and
mandates action.
"Significantly, none of the delegates from China, India, Japan or South Korea mentioned the Asia-Pacific Partnership in their high-level addresses at Montreal, and all four strongly affirmed their continued commitment to the UN process", said Dr Hamilton.
The Chinese Ministry for Foreign Affairs was unambiguous; "This pact has no power for legal restrictions. It is a compliment to the Kyoto Treaty, not a replacement".
"Australia is alone in putting money into AP6. The projects being announced today by the Government are vague in construction and likely outcomes. It looks like $100 million of tax payer's money will be wasted trying to provide cover for the Howard Government's embarrassing refusal to participate in the Kyoto Protocol", said Dr Hamilton.

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Government Still Deludes on Climate Change
www.tai.org.au
24 October 2006
Media release
In announcing funding under its Low Emission Technology Fund the federal government is trying to convince the public that we must wait for new technologies to reduce Australia's greenhouse pollution, according to the Australia Institute.
"We can cut our emissions sharply with existing technologies as demonstrated by the huge response of renewable energy companies to the MRET scheme, which is now fully subscribed", said Institute Executive Director Dr Clive Hamilton.
Dr Hamilton was addressing a meeting at Manning Clark House in Canberra.
"Mr Howard is determined to bail out the coal industry even if it means we must wait another 10-15 years before 'clean coal' technologies become viable", he said.
"We have lost ten years with the Howard Government's denial, obfuscation and bloody-mindedness; we simply cannot afford to lose another ten years before we tackle the most severe threat to our future.
"For a decade the Government has been trying to persuade us that throwing a bucket of money at industry will deal with climate change. It has not worked so far and will not work in the future.
"The only answer is to mobilise market forces to cut greenhouse gas emissions by putting a price on carbon. There is no alternative."
Dr Hamilton said that the Government's climate change policy is mired in contradictions.
* The Government says ratifying the Kyoto Protocol would be economically ruinous, yet claims Australia will meet its Kyoto target anyway.
* It says it rejects Kyoto because the treaty does not include big greenhouse polluters like China and India; yet a treaty that did require those countries to reduce their emissions would immediately cut demand for Australian coal exports.
* In a 2003 report titled Voluntary Approaches to Environmental Policy the OECD confirmed that voluntary programs such as those once again being relied on by the Federal Government rarely have any impact.
"Australia's energy and industrial greenhouse gas emissions have been sky-rocketing throughout the tenure of the Howard Government, and the only test of effective policies will be when they start to fall", said Dr Hamilton.

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A climate protection act must have priority
November 2, 2006
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/a-climate-protection-act-must-have-priority/2006/11/01/1162339917711.html
The latecomers should have heeded strong voices long ago, write Stuart White and Chris Riedy.
THE Stern report, while not revealing much we don't know, represents a fork in the road for the debate over climate change in this country. Surveys indicate the majority of Australians are unhappy with the Government's handling of this critical issue.
Well might they be. Arguments based on narrow self-interest and short-term planning make the community cynical about politics and politicians.
One example of this is "we won't act unless China and India act". Deflecting responsibility to the developing world, as both the Treasurer and Prime Minister have done, is morally bankrupt, when we have one of the highest rates of emissions per capita in the world, second only to our mentor in these matters, the United States.
Between Al Gore, once the "next US president", and Nicholas Stern, a former World Bank economist, a pincer movement has developed which gives these issues the gravity they deserve. The drought in Australia adds to the urgency.
The "do-nothing" option can be dismissed; Stern makes it clear strong action is needed in the next decade. It is a crucial period, and attention should shift swiftly from arguing whether or not we have a problem, to how best to respond.
Of course, not all strategies and solutions are the same. At the global level, Australia needs to demonstrate a genuine commitment to work in co-operation with the international community by ratifying the Kyoto Protocol or an equivalent global agreement. The Government's alternative, the Asia-Pacific Partnership, has no targets and no teeth - it will not deliver the necessary reductions in greenhouse pollution.
In A Clean Energy Future for Australia, independent work undertaken for WWF-Australia shows that the reductions in greenhouse emissions of 60 per cent by 2050 argued by Stern are technically feasible.
Will this cost too much? The Stern report makes it clear the costs of not acting are so high that the cost of taking action is five to 20 times less than that. In Australia, as our research indicates, the fossil fuel industry benefits from subsidies of at least $9 billion a year. Removing these would free funding for a more sustainable energy future.
The largest, cheapest and quickest component of that sustainable energy future will be improving the energy efficiency of existing and new households, businesses and industries.
Improving energy efficiency simply means doing better with less energy, through the use of improved or "smarter" design, appliances, equipment and energy-using practices. This will be the unsung hero of the future, despite the attention being paid to high-profile, high-cost options such as "clean coal".
We will need large-scale support for the development of renewable energy, including wind, solar and bio-energy. While much attention is paid to wind, photovoltaics and large-scale electricity production, it is worth noting that the development and application of solar technology for industrial process heat has a great future in Australia, as does the use of micro-generation at the household level.
There is no need for nuclear power: it is too expensive, too slow and too risky. It is not a coincidence that it is only countries with centrally planned economies or active weapons programs that are continuing to invest in nuclear power.
Like Britain and California, we need a climate protection act at the federal level, a legislative underpinning for the actions needed in the next 10 years to make inroads into this global problem.
Above all, Australians need to have input to the decision-making on this important issue that affects all of us. The time for paternalistic political responses has passed. We propose a national conversation on climate change, a series of regional forums where citizens are asked what they want to have done in response to the challenge that the Stern report has issued.
If surveys are anything to go by, people have a lot they want to say and they will be prepared to play their part in meeting this challenge so our politicians had better get out of the way.
Professor Stuart White, director, and Dr Chris Riedy, research director, are at the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology, Sydney.

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Climate's last chance
Tim Flannery
October 28, 2006
http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/climates-last-chance/2006/10/27/1161749313108.html
THE Howard Government seems recently to have accepted that climate change is caused by humans and needs to be dealt with. But has it really accepted this? And will its policies make a difference? The key to answering these questions lies in understanding how urgent the climate threat is.
The main indicator of how long we have to address climate change is the state of the Arctic icecap, which covers Earth's northern ocean. The entire weather system of the northern hemisphere depends on the temperature gradient between it and the equator, so if the North Pole warms up, the winds, monsoons, rains, temperatures and seasons will shift in dramatic ways. And of course, the southern hemisphere's weather system will be affected as well.
By the mid-1970s, the Arctic icecap began melting away at the rate of 8 per cent a decade. This rate of melting persisted almost unchanged until 2004, by which time about one-quarter of the icecap had melted, revealing the dark ocean underneath.
During the summer, the sun falls for 24 hours a day on the Arctic icecap, delivering a huge amount of energy. But ice is bright, and before its melting the Arctic icecap reflected 90 per cent of the sun's energy back into space, keeping the planet cool. But as the ice has melted, more of the sun has fallen on the ocean, and it absorbs 90 per cent of the sun's energy, turning it into heat.
By last year, so much of the sunlight was being captured by the ocean and turned into heat energy that a dramatic change occurred: the ocean stayed so warm that the winter ice did not form properly, and the following summer about 300,000 square kilometres of ice melted. The same thing happened this year, so now huge areas of ocean are exposed where just a few short years ago there was ice.
Before 2004, the rate of melt was such that scientists believed the icecap would melt entirely by about 2100. At the trajectory set by the new rate of melt, however, there will be no Arctic icecap in the next five to 15 years. And with no ice, the Arctic region will rapidly begin heating, perhaps by as much as 12 degrees.
This change will put further pressure on the Greenland icecap, which is already melting at the stupendous rate of 235 cubic kilometres a year. If it succumbs to the heat, the ocean will rise by six metres, and icecaps in the Antarctic may destabilise.
James Hanson, director of NASA's Goddard Institute, is arguably the world authority on climate change. He predicts that we have just a decade to avert a 25-metre rise of the sea. Picture an eight-storey building by a beach, then imagine waves lapping its roof. That's what a 25-metre rise in sea level looks like.
Whatever you think of such predictions, the rate of melt of the Arctic icecap is indisputable and deeply troubling. It should convince everyone that climate change is by far the most urgent threat facing humanity. It also tells us that the long recalcitrance of the Howard Government in respect to climate change has already cost us dearly, and that we must now make great changes in just a few short years. Had we begun a decade earlier, our actions would have been far more effective and less disruptive.
As we judge the Howard Government's climate change policies, we must keep several things in mind. One is the potentially great cost of not ratifying Kyoto. Phase 2 of the treaty begins in 2012, and already the parties are debating who shall accept what restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions. Both China and India must take on meaningful restrictions if our civilisation is to survive this crisis, but with Australia and the United States outside the treaty, they have the perfect excuse to decline: why should they accept such binding restrictions when the richest nations of Earth refuse to do so?
A second thing to watch is Australia's total emissions. Before we rejected Kyoto, Australia was given a target that allowed for a substantial increase in emissions. When the Howard Government talks of meeting its Kyoto target, this is what it's referring to. Sticking with such a lax target is disastrous, and government-funded projects such as the recently announced solar farm and more efficient burning of brown coal cannot achieve a significant reduction in carbon dioxide pollution.
So far the Howard Government's approach has been to hand out hard-earned taxpayers' money — some of it to big corporations — and proclaim that it's doing something. With a world facing as grave a threat as it faced in 1938, John Howard is quickly becoming the Chamberlain of the chequebook, while a climate-change Churchill is nowhere to be seen in Australian politics.
What must the Howard Government do if it is to effectively protect Australians from the looming climate disaster?
First it must inform Australians of the gravity of the situation, then lay out an ambitious plan for emissions reduction that includes public participation. Immediate reductions are required, and these can be had through efficiency gains. In addition, a long-term target of an 80 per cent emissions reduction by 2050 should be set. If we are to achieve that we must use the power of the market. A carbon tax and carbon trading scheme are absolutely indispensable tools to achieve such targets. And of course we must ratify Kyoto immediately.
My sense of the matter is that none of this will happen.
Instead, the Howard Government will do the bare minimum required to appease public opinion, for it appears to have no one able and willing to absorb the scientific evidence, and to champion a more resolute response through the cabinet.
I sincerely hope I'm wrong, because this Government and the one that follows it may well be the last in Australian history to have the chance to avert a climate disaster.
Tim Flannery is an environmental scientist.

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A huge wind farm and a dire warning
Sasha Shtargot, James Button and Liz Minchin
October 28, 2006
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2006/10/27/1161749315223.html
A $600 million wind farm generating enough electricity to power almost 190,000 homes will be built in western Victoria.
Planning Minister Rob Hulls said yesterday the wind farm, the biggest in the southern hemisphere, would be built on 5500 hectares of farmland at Macarthur, near Port Fairy.
...
The 183-turbine Macarthur project, will be operated by AGL.
Premier Steve Bracks yesterday cast the state election as presenting voters with a clear choice: "whether they want a cleaner environment in the future, with less greenhouse gases and tackling climate change, or whether they don't."
Mr Bracks said the wind farm would be lost to Victoria if the Government's 10 per cent renewable energy scheme was abandoned. The Opposition has pledged to end the scheme.
But former Liberal leader Denis Napthine, MLA for South-West Coast and a supporter of the project, said abolition of the scheme would not affect the wind farm's viability.
The Macarthur wind farm is the ninth to get the go-ahead in Victoria. A planning panel recommended approval after it received 1295 submissions, of which 1148 were in favour. David O'Brien, the Nationals candidate for South-West Coast, also supported it.
Annie Gardner, a Macarthur sheep farmer, said the turbines would devalue her property by 40 per cent and decimate local brolga numbers.

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Hazy dawn on a greenhouse fix
Herald Sun
October 26, 2006 12:00am
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,20646612-5006880,00.html
RIC Brazzale writes: encouraging that the Federal Government is taking action on climate change.
The announcement yesterday of the first allocation of its Low Emissions Technology Demonstration Fund -- $75 million for a 154 megawatt solar station near Mildura and $50 million for the Hazelwood coal power plant to experiment with making coal cleaner -- is welcome recognition that climate change is a problem.
But it falls short of what is needed most. That's a robust, strategic government policy that will make deep cuts to dangerous greenhouse gas emissions now, and develop a vibrant renewable and clean energy industry.
What that means in practice is putting a price on carbon pollution with a carbon tax or carbon emissions trading.
It also entails raising the national Mandatory Renewable Energy Target from its paltry 2 per cent of electricity to come from new clean renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power.
China has a 15 per cent renewables target, yet it has fewer renewable energy choices and less expertise than Australia.
Californian Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is the Carbon Terminator and leads a thriving economy; he has demanded a cut in carbon emissions of 25 per cent by 2020.
These market-based incentives -- a carbon price "signal' and a useful renewable energy target -- are sensible, sustainable and affordable ways to usher in the genuinely clean, green power that we already have pouring from the sun, roaring in the wind and simmering in rocks under central Australia.
The clean energy industry wants these measures.
Increasingly, many big businesses are clamoring for them too.
Even if climate change weren't a concern, the security of our electricity is.
A huge $24 billion has already been committed to our electricity infrastructure, which is cracking under the pressure of our soaring peak energy demand.
This is where solar panels in particular are good for providing zero-emission peak energy.
On hot summer afternoons, when the air-conditioner is on full blast, solar panels on the roof can pour clean power into your home.
But the clean energy industry has never called for coal to be completely replaced by any single "green energy" source.
Rather, it advocates a gradual build-up of a new clean-energy mix of renewable and low-emission energies; solar, wind, geothermal (hot rocks), bioenergy and natural gas.
AGL, one of Australia's major energy companies, undertook a study with Frontier Economics that found Australia could reduce its greenhouse emissions from electricity by 30 per cent by 2030 at a high-end cost of $2 a person a week.
Would it wreck the economy? Hardly.
The energy choices we make now, especially electricity, are crucial to whether humans manage to slow global warming. Electricity is the largest and fastest growing generator of greenhouse emissions in Australia.
Yet, and this is the good news, it makes up less than 3 per cent of most industry sectors' material costs, and Australian households spend more on grog than they do on electricity.
It means switching to cleaner energy reaps big greenhouse benefits but costs comparatively little.
It's easy to get lost in despair over global warming.
But when you break it down and start putting the issue in context you realise that this is a problem for which we do have the answers.
Their names are solar power, bioenergy, wind power, cogeneration, energy efficiency, hydroelectricity and natural gas.
They have been around for many years and are excellent at cutting greenhouse gas emissions today.
But the longer we wait the less time we have, and the bigger the mess we will have to deal with.
RIC BRAZZALE is the Executive Director of the Australian Business Council for Sustainable Energy

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Backing a long shot
Punting millions on the world's biggest solar power plant guarantees an environmental windfall for a government that has been slow to act on climate change, writes Matthew Warren
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20645117-30417,00.html
October 26, 2006

Follow the sun: Solar Systems plans to locate a solar plant near Mildura in northwestern Victoria that will be similar to, but larger than, this one in the US
IT'S spring carnival racing time and the Howard Government has gone to Victoria to back what it hopes will be a sure thing. Yesterday it dropped $75 million on what will be the world's biggest solar power station as its first big punt on a range of new low greenhouse emission technologies in the coming weeks.
It's been more than two years since it announced the formation of its Low Emissions Technology Development Fund. The realisation of pulling together more than 30 starters and a forensic review of the form by a panel of eminent and expert Australians couldn't have come at a better time for a government seriously needing to back a political winner in the climate change stakes.
Howard's first wager certainly looks handy: a remarkable and innovative Australian solar technology that has enough wow-factor to make Australians simultaneously proud and impressed, with its fancy talk of using space technology, Boeing and even the US Department of Energy. It's enough to cast doubt into the minds of even hardened rationalists with its potential for delivering affordable and clean electricity in the future. It might even work.
Solar Systems managing director Dave Holland got the nod for his innovative approach to solar energy and a $420 million power station using hi-tech mirrors called heliostats which will pump sunlight on to super solar cells on the top of a 40m tower. The project has also received a $50million grant from the Victorian Government's Energy Technology Innovations Fund. In the spring, it seems, everyone loves a winner.
"If Holland can get his costs down to $50 per megawatt hour, he is right in the play," says Brad Page, chief executive of the Energy Supply Association of Australia. "This is quite an unusual approach. Where he has got some advantages is the volume of sunlight he is concentrating and capturing, and, second, the quality of the photovoltaics (converting light to energy) he is using. I think it's in the space where you have got to start feeling a bit more positive about some of these new approaches to solar that just aren't about stacking solar cells on your roof."
The global industrial economy has, naturally, been built on access to affordable energy. The relatively uncomplicated but effective, strategy has been to find resources on earth that are densely packed with energy and burn them: first on their own, then in engines and power stations. Wood, then coal and then gas. The processes of extracting the energy have become more refined, but the logic is still pretty much intact.
That was until the threat of climate change. The allure of renewable sources such as wind and solar has been self-evident: they are abundant, clean and free once the relatively expensive plant to capture them is built.
But the big problems have been twofold: they come and go as days pass to night and winds become calm. And they're also frustratingly un-dense.
Research and development on solar thermal power generation has been going on in Australia and overseas for at least 30 years. Conversion of the concept to commercial use has been run down by the low cost of coal and gas power and even, more recently, by wind power.
The diffuse nature of solar has meant that conventional photovoltaic systems, which transform parts of the spectrum of light rays directly into electrical energy, need too much to generate too little power. Their electricity costs about 10 times the power from fossil fuels and their applications are limited to specific remote applications.
The other problem with these cells is they cannot cope with high temperatures. Some solar technologies have looked to magnifying and collecting the sun's energy to generate high temperatures, which can then be used to run more conventional steam turbines. These solar thermal technologies are cheaper and more promising.
Solar Systems thinks it has gone one better. It has developed breakthrough photovoltaic cells that can withstand temperatures that would melt steel while delivering a wider band of the sun's light directly into electricity, claiming about 35 per cent transformation efficiency. "Like most good technology, it's a very powerful combination of smart engineering and simple concepts," Holland says.
The company will build its 154 megawatt power station in about six large areas covering 600ha to 800ha in yet to be determined sites across the Mildura region, chosen for its relatively high levels of sunshine and suitable topography for broad-acre solar farming.
The first power will come on stream in 2008, with the station fully operational by 2013. While coy about the start-up price, Holland expects to find renewable and boutique markets for all the electricity generated by the plant.
"The objective of this project is to bring the capital costs down to the point (where) you can produce power stations rolling on from this at a capital cost that can compete in the market," he says, "but this project has been put together on the basis that the power from it can be sold for the life of the project.
"Some people will pay a premium to buy electricity that they can market the fact that they are using." In other words, pay more for green power.
While his immediate concerns lie in ensuring a return on the nearly $300 million of private investment in the technology, the public purse has been opened for much longer-term goals. That is, can this or any of the other technologies being funded by the Howard Government under its LETDF make the big jump on the cost curve from development to application and become real players in an affordable low-emissions solution to climate change?
Solar Systems is betting it can get its costs down to about $50 a megawatt hour by 2025 or so, which is extremely ambitious by industry standards and not that much higher than the longer-term estimate for the latest technology in coal-fired power. A tough but not unrealistic price on carbon could conceivably close the gap.
But despite the excitement surrounding Solar Systems' windfall, 2025 is still a long way off and there are still a number of ifs. Aside from cost, the other big challenge for this and any other advanced solar technologies is night time.
But Holland is a realist. He sees his electricity as similar to that from a peaking power plant, which takes advantage of higher demand and prices into daytime markets when peak demand and prices are higher.
That suits his business case but does not fulfil the dream of Opposition Leader Kim Beazley and others who see a solar-base future for Australia replacing the tranche of reliable but ageing coal-fired power stations that supply about 75 per cent of Australia's electricity and all of its base-load supply.
Until technology can be found to cheaply and efficiently store the clean energy from Holland's power stations for use at night, or at least pick up the slack as the sun sets over Mildura, then even solar technology as clever as this is still a fringe player.
But these rational concerns are unlikely to dampen Howard's appetite for further subsidies for potentially green technologies. Not only do they add urgently needed environmental cachet to a government that has been slow to move on climate change, but as ACIL Tasman energy economist Mike Hitchens points out, they are possibly Australia's best way out of its energy catch 22.
He says while putting a price on carbon is a well-established way of driving business to invest and find low-cost, low-emission energy solutions, it would require either a genuinely global price on carbon or such a high domestic price that the ability to deliver solutions in 25 years may be significantly hampered by the impact such an energy spike would have on the economy.
"So in this scheme of public good arguments, this (scheme) is a good one," Hitchens says. "We know there is a market failure, we don't think we have the technologies we need to correct the market failure, and because there is no market there is not going to be private investment until we can create a market some time in the future."
Acting professor Tony Owen from the University of NSW's Centre for Energy and Environmental Markets agrees with the philosophy of investing in infant industries such as Solar Systems, but cautions that these are still relatively risky investments in new technology which will not continue to proceed without being able to benefit in some way from a carbon market.
"If you subsidise these sorts of immature technologies to the stage where they perhaps get economies of scale in production and their development costs are stabilised, and everyone has learned what they have to learn by doing (this), then that's quite acceptable," Owen says.
"Where I have a problem is that they might even still be financially non-viable then.
"And that largely could be due to the fact that there is no carbon price in the competing industries."
Matthew Warren is The Australian's environment writer.

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PM turns up heat on solar power
Joseph Kerr and Dennis Shanahan
October 25, 2006
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20640740-601,00.html
A PROPOSED $400 million solar plant that could deliver 154 megawatts of power will be the cornerstone of the Howard Government's fight against climate change.
In a political shift that steals an approach trumpeted by federal Labor, the federal and Victorian governments will contribute $125 million towards the plant, to be built in northern Victoria using technology developed by Melbourne firm Solar Systems.
The announcement today, part of a $230 million package, is the first in a series that will see an eventual $2 billion invested in new technology aimed at cutting greenhouse emissions.
A coal-drying project in the Latrobe Valley is also expected to be announced today, to help burn Victoria's large brown coal deposits more cleanly than current technology allows. Other projects include seed funding for developing affordable ways of pumping carbon gases from coal-fired power stations underground or diverting carbon dioxide from coal before it is used to generate electricity.
The federal Government hopes its spending will encourage up to $10 billion in greenhouse-friendly electricity projects.
The funding is also going towards developing solar and wind technologies as part of a mix between fossil fuel power and renewable energy sources.
Treasurer Peter Costello, who will announce the funding today with Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane, has kept alive the prospect of domestic nuclear power, predicting that a plant will be built in Australia as soon as it becomes economically viable, perhaps within 10 years.
Mr Costello said the Government should not legislate to stop companies investing in nuclear energy apart from on safety and environmental grounds. "I don't think we should legislatively stop it," he said yesterday.
"I think we should legislatively say, provided you meet all of the requirements in relation to safety and export controls and all those sorts of things, environmental consideration, that there is no legislative bar and then I would let the market work. And the day it becomes commercial someone will build it."
The Howard Government's announcements come before the release next week of a British review, which will radically change the attitude to the economic effect of climate change with long-term predictions of economic costs if it's not addressed quickly.
Before heading to Fiji for the Pacific Islands Forum, where climate change and rising sea levels are major concerns, John Howard said climate change had to be addressed.
The Prime Minister said there was no single answer, but Australia's role as an energy producer for the world meant it should look at technological ways to cut greenhouse emissions from coal-fired power.
Instead of simply converting direct sunlight that hits expensive photovoltaic cells to electricity, the Solar Systems technology works by concentrating the sun's rays with cheap glass and steel on to highly efficient photovoltaic units. The Melbourne-based company has been focusing its efforts on drawing ever greater efficiencies from photovoltaic cells, as well as improving its mirror technology. It has invested more than $40 million in developing its technologies.
Such a solar power station would be one of the biggest in the world, but would produce only a quarter of the power of a small coal-fired station.
The funding comes from various federal Government commitments, including promises under the Asia-Pacific Clean Development agreement - struck by the AP-6, which includes India, China and the US - of $500million, state governments and the coal industry's own $300million.
A spokesman for Victorian Energy Minister Theo Theophanous said the state was "likely to attract more significant renewable energy projects thanks to our renewable energy targets, which will cut 27 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions".
More announcements are expected in Queensland - where Premier Peter Beattie has pledged his own funding to develop clean coal technology - and one other state.
Mr Beattie recently said he wanted a clean coal process developed before he committed Queensland, a large coal producing state, to a proposed states-backed emissions trading system that would push up the cost of electricity and impose costs on carbon emissions.
Mr Howard on Monday said the Government was about to reveal funding "for exciting new technologies, including those designed to ensure that the use of our abundant fossil fuel reserves will in the future occur in a cleaner, greener fashion, thus reducing the process of climate change".

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Boss queries climate change action
Andrew Trounson and Joseph Kerr
October 26, 2006
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20646447-2702,00.html
AT least one member of the expert panel helping to direct hundreds of millions of government money into new low-emission technologies is unsure how effective they will be in fighting climate change.
As the Government yesterday began dishing out money from its $500 million Low Emissions Technology Demonstration Fund, business leader John Ralph warned it was possible little could be done to halt climate change because it might not be the result of human activity.
"We have to be careful that (efforts to cut emissions) don't lead to a situation where people expect there will be large changes by what we do," the former boss of mining giant CRA told The Australian yesterday.
Mr Ralph said that while he backed moves to try to "ameliorate" the effects of climate change by reducing emissions, it was possible climate change might be occurring naturally, rather than being primarily driven by human activities.
"I don't doubt the climate is changing, but I don't know human activity is the primary cause of it," Mr Ralph said.
His stance was immediately welcomed by Finance Minister Nick Minchin, who strongly endorsed Mr Ralph for making his views public, suggesting the extent of atmospheric damage done by humans was an open question.
"It's good that people of John Ralph's standing and character are prepared to contribute to the public debate about the extent, if any, to which human activity has contributed to climate change," Senator Minchin said.
Mr Ralph notes that given Australia generates less than 1.5per cent of world greenhouse gas emissions, there is a limit to what Australia can do in isolation.
"It (cutting greenhouse gas emissions) will do good at the margin, but expectations might be greater than the capacity to deliver," he warned.
However, Peter Costello said he accepted the scientific view on global warming that saw human activity as the prime culprit.
"I accept the scientific evidence, which is that global warming is taking place, that it is caused by carbon emissions, that restraining the increase in carbon emissions will counteract that process of global warming, and that we should play our part," the Treasurer said.
But while backing the need to cut emissions, Mr Costello warned that without the participation of growth nations such as China and India, little would be achieved. "You could close all of Australia's power stations today, and China would open up the equivalent in one year and then they would do double the equivalent in two years and triple in three years," he said.
Mr Ralph said panel members, including former Telstra boss Ziggy Switkowski and former National Australia Bank chief Nobby Clark, had to go through "crates" of documents assessing reports on the various technologies from consultants.
At the time the fund was announced in 2004, there were fears among green groups and the renewable energy sector that it would favour fossil fuel projects, such as technologies to clean up coal emissions.
But Mr Ralph said the panel had been careful to assess projects on their merits, rather than supporting different industries.
"The panel was interested in what was best for Australia, not picking one industry over another," Mr Ralph said yesterday.
Nevertheless, coal has been one of the first beneficiaries. Of the two projects that won funding yesterday, one was a $360 million pilot plan to reduce brown coal emissions from the Hazelwood power station in Victoria, which provides up to 25 per cent of the state's power.
The federal Government has put $50 million into the project, which aims to dry the coal before burning it and then capture the emissions by absorbing the carbon dioxide in a solvent.
The Government also put $75million towards building a $420 million solar power station in northwest Victoria.

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Targets 'crucial' to solar project
Joseph Kerr and Andrew Trounson
October 26, 2006
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20646443-2702,00.html
THE Victorian company awarded a massive commonwealth grant to set up the biggest solar energy power plant in the world has praised a state scheme as vital to the project.
Peter Costello yesterday awarded Solar Systems $75 million, with Victoria contributing $50 million, to set up the facility from 2008 as part of the Howard Government's move to fight global warming and climate change.
But while the federal Treasurer provided the lion's share of government funding, the company cited Victoria's mandatory renewable energy scheme as crucial to the project's viability.
Victoria has set a target of 10per cent of all electricity being provided by renewable sources by 2010, giving a clear advantage to renewable energy providers setting up in the state, compared with other parts of Australia.
Solar Systems managing director Dave Holland said the Victorian renewable energy target was "a key ingredient in the economics of the project", which will provide the equivalent of 154MW of power to the state grid.
There was strong support for the $420 million project yesterday, as well as for a $360 million coal-drying and carbon-capture project in Victoria.
John Howard stressed solar power was not the whole answer. "Solar power will never be able to provide base-load power ... in the way that, say, coal and, I believe in the long run, nuclear power can," the Prime Minister said.
"But it's part of the response."
Opposition Leader Kim Beazley dismissed the package as "quite a small one" even though it was "worthy", accusing Mr Howard of simply putting out "bits and pieces of technology" while secretly wanting to turn to nuclear power. "John Howard's lips say solar but his eyes say nuclear," he said.
A further project based in Queensland is expected to be announced on Monday, possibly using clean-coal technology.
NSW Premier Morris Iemma insisted his state was leading the way in providing incentives for alternative power sources, even though Victoria has been the focus of the two projects announced so far and NSW is not expected to win any commonwealth funding.
The long-awaited rollout of the federal Government's $500 million low-emission fund drew criticism from the renewable industry yesterday for not doing enough to encourage the take-up of low-emission technologies.
The Business Council for Sustainable Energy said proven low-emission technologies were already in place, such as wind, biomass and solar, but needed a carbon price signal to make them viable against cheap coal and encourage their development.

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Eco companies to quit NSW
Catharine Munro
October 22, 2006
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/eco-companies-to-quit-nsw/2006/10/21/1160851182456.html
(From Sun-Herald.)
NSW risks losing $9 billion in energy investment if it fails to make a quarter of the state's electricity green by 2020, says a report to be released today.
High-tech companies have confirmed they will abandon projects combating climate change and go overseas if Premier Morris Iemma does not do more to help.
With a national scheme about to expire, the companies want new state laws to force electricity retailers to buy energy that is generated using solar power, wind or waste instead of fossil fuels, which are blamed for climate change.
NSW would be halfway towards meeting a 25 per cent renewable energy target if 19 proposed projects, worth $3.1 billion, were developed, the report, co-written by Greenpeace, the Total Environment Centre and the Nature Conservation Council, said.
One proposed project, a solar power development near Moree in the state's north-west, could generate enough power to light up a town the size of the state's largest inland city, Wagga Wagga. Managing director of Solar, Heat and Power, Peter Le Lievre, who is planning the Moree development, said government schemes in Europe and the US were far more profitable.
"If there's nothing coming from NSW we will go overseas," he said. "We are up and out of here.
"It's a pity because we got our start in Australia but we have to pay our bills and make money."
The company has one pilot scheme running. It feeds electricity, generated by solar power, into the grid at the Liddell plant near Singleton in the Hunter Valley.
As the March state election approaches, the issue of alternative energy is shaping up to challenge the Labor Government's green credentials.
The results of polling by independent think tank the Lowy Institute show voters see climate change as a serious concern.
Even China appears to be doing more to find alternatives to fossil fuels, by demanding that 15 per cent of its energy must come from renewable sources by 2015.
Australia was the first country to introduce targets for renewable energy, but the Federal Government has not maintained the targets, leaving no incentives for new companies to look for ways of creating electricity out of alternatives to fossil fuels. Victoria and South Australia have already decided to set their own targets.
"NSW has one of the worst regimes in place for ensuring renewable energy," said Greenpeace's green energy campaigner Mark Wakeham.
"The proof is that since 2001 only two wind turbines have been introduced in NSW and there have been 215 in South Australia."
Meanwhile, a 1 per cent increase in temperatures in Australia would make the drought in NSW increase by 70 per cent, the report says.

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Green power gets the vote
25/9/06
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/bid-for-sport-whistle-for-the-rest-unis-told/2006/09/25/1159036472176.html?page=2
UNIVERSITY of Sydney students have "overwhelmingly" voted for their
administration to adopt renewable energy, in their first referendum in
27 years.
Students were asked last week whether the university should reduce its
energy use, whether it should purchase 20 per cent green power, and
whether the university should declare any partnerships with nuclear or
fossil fuel industries.
"They're still finalising [the count], but the vote is an overwhelming
'yes' for the university to reduce greenhouse gas emissions," said
Wenny Theresia of the Student Representative Council's environment
collective.
It was the university's first referendum since Tony Abbott and Tanya
Coleman, Peter Costello's future wife, urged students to abolish
compulsory unionism in 1979.
The student council has estimated it would cost the university
$125,000 a year to buy 20 per cent of its energy from a provider
approved by Green Power, the Federal Government's accreditation
program.
But the university's vice-chancellor, Gavin Brown, said money would be
better invested in renewable energy research, to which the university
would give $1 million in March.
The students' push is part of a general campus movement towards
renewable energy.

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CLIMATE CHANGE AND NUCLEAR POWER

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The truth? 'Nuclear is not the answer'
Leon Gettler
November 17, 2006
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2006/11/16/1163266712885.html?from=top5
NUCLEAR energy is not the panacea for tackling global warming, says one of the world's most celebrated climate change campaigners, former US vice-president Al Gore.
Mr Gore also shrugged off Prime Minister John Howard's recent claim that his film An Inconvenient Truth showed "a degree of the peeved politician".
"It may be one of those elements that's in the eyes of the beholder," he told The Age yesterday.#
Mr Gore said nuclear power was unlikely to play a significantly bigger role in the climate change battle. "Even if you set aside the problem of long-term waste storage and the danger of operator accident and the vulnerability to terrorist attack, you still have two others that are more difficult," he said.
The first problem was one of economics.
"Nuclear power plants are the costliest to build and they take the longest time and at present they come in only one size — extra large."
The second was nuclear weapons proliferation. "For eight years when I was in the White House, every problem of weapons proliferation was connected to a reactor program," he said.
The Prime Minister has recently talked up the prospects of nuclear power plants being built in Australia, arguing the country could not afford to "sacrifice rational discussion on the altar of anti-nuclear theology and political opportunism".
Next week an inquiry into nuclear power headed by former Telstra chief executive Ziggy Switkowski is due to deliver its findings.
Mr Gore said it was extremely important that Mr Howard had now acknowledged the damage from carbon dioxide emissions.
"Let me say I want to be respectful of the Prime Minister's change in rhetoric.
"It's not easy to do something like that and … this position might be a way station for him on the real road to Damascus where he actually joins the world community," he said.
"And he may. I don't know, I can't look into his heart."
Mr Gore said that Australia and the US should sign the Kyoto Protocol but he acknowledged that this presented Mr Howard and US President George Bush with big political problems given that they had previously "demonised" it.
Of Australia's promotion of a new global climate change pact he said: "Obviously neither Australia nor the United States can write its own little treaty and be separate from the rest of the world."
But there was, he said, a third path: "To join the world discussion now in Nairobi on how to strengthen Kyoto and how to make whatever changes Prime Minister Howard wants to advocate and join the rest of the world community. That's the test."
Mr Gore, now chairman of investment firm Generation Investment Management, yesterday met with Premier Steve Bracks and his deputy John Thwaites. He described Victoria as forward thinking on climate change and said he would take a number of local initiatives back to the United States.
He was particularly impressed with the Bracks Government's "black balloons" advertising campaign, which links household energy usage with the amount of carbon dioxide it releases into the air.
"I'm going to take that ad back and show it to some folks there, maybe put it on YouTube," he said.

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Nuclear is not the answer to warming
By Jim Douglas
Canberra Times
Tuesday, 24 October 2006
http://canberra.yourguide.com.au/detail.asp?class=your%20say&subclass=general&story_id=524866&category=Opinion&m=10&y=2006
JUST a few weeks ago, the Prime Minister was batting away questions about climate change with responses suggesting that he would need to read the science on this subject, and so on. Now it appears the subject has become significantly more interesting to the Government. The Foreign Affairs Minister, Alexander Downer, has apparently had a damascene moment on this subject on an unseasonably hot day at the Port Elliott Show, and has let it be known that he now recognises the need to act on this matter.

What has produced this apparent change in attitude? Perhaps the Prime Minster is an absolute whiz at speed-reading, and has gotten through all those scientific documents on climate change to come up with an informed view. Or perhaps it is that some recent polling data indicate that most Australians are seriously worried about this issue, and want something done about it.

We need to consider this question of motive, because if it remains a superficial political response, then we can expect measures which are partial, partisan and ineffective. Two pieces of evidence suggest that at present it is going this way. First, the Prime Minister, and the Minister for Industry have recently abandoned their cautious approach to nuclear energy: remember that when the Prime Minister formed the panel of inquiry into nuclear energy, he advised all and sundry to wait on the results of this process before forming a view. Now, with the inquiry ongoing, Mr Howard and Mr MacFarlane have suddenly begun to boost the virtues of the nuclear option as the answer to climate change. Unfortunately for the Prime Minister, he chose to launch this campaign just as the head of that inquiry, Ziggy Switkowski, has done his own little bit of premature evaluation by announcing that compared to the coal option for energy in Australia, nuclear energy is not economically viable. This is hardly a revelation. It is blindingly obvious to anyone who has a fleeting knowledge of the energy sector that virtually no alternative source of energy can compete with coal in Australia - at least, while coal-fired energy plants are not required either to do anything about global warming themselves, or to pay for someone else to do so. We did not need Dr Switkowski to tell us this, and neither did the Prime Minster.

In reality, it hardly matters who wins the nuclear debate. By the time the dust has settled, and sufficient new plants have been built and brought on line, if we have not in the meantime taken other significant measures to abate climate change, then we will have lost another two decades. In a previous article on climate change in this newspaper, I argued that if continued inactivity on this issue increases the risks of potentially catastrophic events occurring in some time-frame relevant to our own lives and those of our children and grandchildren (and most informed analysts of climate change would say that, without significant abatement starting now, this is the likely outcome), then inactivity or business-as-usual is the wrong approach,.

The second reason to doubt the Government's commitment to this issue is that the Prime Minster, and his economic ministers, Mr Costello and Senator Minchin, continue to rule out carbon taxes, and the associated options of emissions trading that could form around these - even though this is the only immediate route to lowering emissions that we have available. This is really the crux of the question of what to do about climate change in Australia. We now know that there are costs associated with emission of greenhouse gases, even if we cannot yet specify exactly what they are. For example, the more coal-fired energy plants are required to pay for their greenhouse gas emissions (which presently they are allowed to do for nothing), the less competitive they will become with the alternative forms of energy, which have lower (or zero) emissions. Importantly, however, this does not necessarily mean the coal-based energy plants could not compete at all: they could improve their technology to reduce emissions (or sequestrate those emissions in a form that prevents their release into the atmosphere), and they could make offset investments by financing activities that actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Some of these sorts of investments (for example, avoided deforestation and plantation forestry) may actually be profitable activities in their own right, and end up costing the companies making the offset investments relatively little.

However, these things will not happen voluntarily or spontaneously, even if the Government attempts to subsidise such solutions into existence. They will require introduction of policies requiring emission of greenhouse gases to be priced: a carbon tax system (but with the important addition of rebates for greenhouse-gas reduction activities); or a greenhouse gas licensing system which would issue permits for emission, which industries that succeed in lowering their emissions below permitted levels could sell, and those that exceed their emission permit level would have to buy.

The Prime Minister might not welcome the fact that a defence of sorts of this position comes from none other than Karl Marx, who observed in his essay A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy that "Mankind thus inevitably sets itself only such tasks as it is able to solve, since closer examination will always show that the problem itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution are already present or at least in the course of formation".

If this Government, or any other that might replace it in Australia, wants to set in formation realistic solutions to this particular problem, then it needs to do two things. First, it must develop meaningful carbon emission targets for all heavy-emission activities in Australia, via taxes or permits, and then establish a trading system that will allow those industries and technologies which prove themselves best at reducing emissions to be rewarded, and those who perform badly to be penalised. Australians have already indicated, in polling data and otherwise, that they are willing to pay more for energy, and this should be seen as a gift for any government that really wishes to lead effectively on this issue. Second, it needs to sponsor the sort of research and policy work that can answer important questions about the best options to pursue to maximise our greenhouse reductions (and minimise the costs to ourselves of doing so). There are difficult and complex choices to be made here: how much effort should be expended on amelioration of drought and land degradation effects, compared to improving climate change abatement approaches? What sort of policies will work in this new environment? Integration of economic modelling work with the results of scientific and technical innovation into a properly thought-out national strategy for greenhouse gas reduction is the way to approach these issues and questions. This process will certainly not be assisted through boosting silver-bullet solutions such as nuclear energy, nor through a flurry of indiscriminate support for anything which looks like an abatement activity.

Jim Douglas worked on climate change and natural resource issues when employed as Forests Adviser to the World Bank in Washington, and continues to do so in his position as a Visiting Fellow in the School of Resources, Environment and Society at the Australian National University.

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MARALINGA

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http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/fadt_ctte/nuclear_tests_bills_06/index.htm

Inquiry into the provisions of the Australian Participants in British Nuclear Tests (Treatment) Bill 2006; and, the Australian Participants in British Nuclear Tests (Treatment) (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2006
Submissions received
Public hearing and transcript
Report

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Media release –  27th September 2006

'One tree' planted in Alice Springs to commemorate 50 years since the first atomic test at Maralinga.

Fifty years ago today, the first of seven atomic bombs was detonated at Maralinga in South Australia. The bomb, code-named 'one tree' by the Australian and British Governments who conducted the tests, lead to widespread sickness and deaths from the fallout, which was spread heavily across Central Australia.

To commemorate the first atomic test at Maralinga in 1956, one tree will be planted by Alice Springs community members, on the Uniting church lawns in the Todd Mall today at 11am.

"This tree is being planted to recognise and remember the thousands of people who were affected by the nuclear weapons tests at Maralinga, whether by death, sickness or the destruction of country and a way of life. These things can never be replaced and can never be forgotten," said Betty Pearce from Lhere Artepe; a Native Title holder of the Alice Springs area.

Very little warning was given to Aboriginal people in the region, who consequently suffered significant radiation exposure from the blasts. Australian and British military personnel were also deliberately exposed, to test the effects of radiation on humans, clothing and equipment. People were forced to move from their country, which is still highly contaminated and uninhabitable today.

It was only in 2002 that the clean up of the Maralinga site was finally declared successful, though it was widely considered by many in the nuclear industry to be grossly inadequate.

"There are only two end products of the nuclear cycle; nuclear weapons or nuclear waste," said Jayne Alexander from Alice Action, a local social justice and environment group. "We have seen the results of weapons contamination here in Central Australia, let's not wait around to find out what happens with the waste as well."

"This is a timely reminder to the rest of the country that Central Australia is not just 'the middle of nowhere', a place suitable for nuclear testing or radioactive waste, but a lived in, unique environment that has cultures and ecosystems with significant meanings for both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians." added Reverend Tracy Spencer from the Uniting Church.

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Tests held in undue haste, claims MP
The Advertiser
14/10/06
Colin James    
FEDERAL Parliament has heard a detailed account of why British nuclear
test veterans believe they have been poorly treated for 50 years by
successive Australian governments.
"They argue the testing of atomic test weapons was hazardous and
exposed individuals to ionising radiation and toxic chemicals and other
risks beyond normal peacetime duties, causing high levels of disease and
death among participants,'' Opposition veteran affairs spokesman Allan
Griffin told the House of Representatives.
"The tests were conducted in undue haste with immature technology,
inadequate understanding of the science and poor planning and
management.
"They were conducted with inadequate safety provisions in place and
insufficient knowledge of the risks involved.
"Health physics teams were inexpert and the various test management and
safety committees, including the Australian safety committee, were
ill-informed and negligent.
"Australian members of the armed services were used as guinea pigs in
the tests - that is, they were deliberately exposed to radiation, or at
the very least, those in charge had little regard for their safety,
especially if test outcomes were likely to be jeopardised.
"The nature of the tests, the extent of radiation exposures and the
shortcomings in safety management of the tests have been deliberately
hidden from the Australian public.''

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MARALINGA Veterans still battling for recognition
The Advertiser
SAT 14 OCT 2006
By: COLIN JAMES, LEGAL AFFAIRS EDITOR    
FIFTY years after the first British atomic bomb was tested at Maralinga,
surviving veterans remain immersed in the political fallout it created.
Their latest battle is with scientists who recently published a
comprehensive report dismissing their long-standing claims they were
exposed to excessive levels of radiation during their service in the
South Australian desert during the 1950s and early 1960s.
The report - much of it written by a team of researchers at the
University of Adelaide - blamed other factors such as smoking, skin
cancer and asbestos on the premature deaths of thousands of servicemen
and civilians sent to Maralinga, where hundreds of devices were
detonated in a secret program aimed at developing nuclear weapons for
the British Government.
Nuclear test representatives, who spent seven years working with the
Department of Veterans Affairs on the study, have claimed their views
have not received adequate scientific exploration.
The dispute spilled into Federal Parliament this week, with the Labor
Opposition accusing the Howard Government of ignoring extensive research
accumulated by the veterans on radiation and the medical impact on the
veterans, particularly cancers they developed.
During a debate over legislation introduced by Veteran Affairs Minister
Bruce Billson to grant free cancer treatment to veterans - without any
official acknowledgement of liability - the House of Representatives
heard they have been fighting for decades to have the tests declared
dangerous, which would make them eligible for compensation.
Mr Billson was accused by Labor of "back flipping'' on a promise he
made four years ago to help ensure the veterans received official
recognition. Former ALP leader Simon Crean tabled a letter Mr Billson
wrote to his predecessor, Danna Vale, in August, 2002, saying service at
Maralinga had exposed the veterans to radiation.
"A high proportion of our veterans have experienced conditions
attributed to their exposure to radiation, with many losing their
lives,'' says the letter. "I wholeheartedly support the concept of
graduated benefits to our veterans that takes into account the harm and
hostility to which they have been exposed.''
Among those veterans calling for Mr Billson to stand by his letter is
Peter Webb, who was 21 when he was sent to the top of a small hill to
watch the first nuclear bomb explode at Maralinga at 5pm on September
27, 1956.
Dressed in boots, khaki shorts and a short-sleeved shirt, the Australian
Army private and other soldiers were positioned about 1km away from a
tower containing a 15-kiloton nuclear bomb - 15 times more powerful than
the device detonated 10 days ago by North Korea in a test condemned
across the world.
"The countdown was called and we were ordered to turn our backs to the
tower, shut our eyes and cover them with our hands,'' he said.
"When the bomb was detonated the noise was deafening, there was a vivid
flash, more powerful than a flashlight going off in your face, and you
could see an X-ray of your hands, and there was a scorching sensation on
the skin.
"We were ordered to turn and we saw a dark brown cloud coming up from
the ground with vivid orange flames. For these scientists to say we
weren't exposed to radiation is just absolute nonsense and so typical of
how we have been treated for 50 years.''

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NUCLEAR DUMP PROPOSED FOR THE NT

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Radioactive Waste Act Amendments Fuel Fears of Dodgy Deals on Dump

Environmentalists and Traditional Owners have today expressed disgust at the Commonwealth Government's attempt to rush through legislative changes that would remove the need for procedural fairness and consent of the community, in their attempt to impose a radioactive waste dump on the Northern Territory.

"The original Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Bill was bad enough, but these changes have seen John Howard and Julie Bishop stoop to new lows", said Nat Wasley of the Beyond Nuclear Initiative.

With all the whispers about deals being struck between the Northern Land Council and the Commonwealth Government to dump radioactive waste at Muckaty Station, there's a real reason to fear that the passage of these amendments may be designed to expediate this process.

The proposed changes mean that a nomination by a Land Council will no longer require:             
* consultation with the traditional owners
* that the nomination be understood by the traditional owners
* that the traditional owners have consented as a group
* that any community that may be affected has been consulted and had adequate opportunity to express its views

These scandalous and undemocratic additions will also see the removal of the right to appeal on the grounds of procedural fairness.

"Clearly the federal Liberal Government sees procedural fairness as something that could prevent them imposing their radioactive waste on the Territory.  One can only wonder, in light of these changes, what dirty tricks the Commonwealth Government has in mind, to get their way on the nuclear waste dump", said Tim Collins, Coordinator of the Arid Lands Environment Centre.

Given the likely passage of the amendments (no doubt with the ongoing support of "Nuclear" Nigel Scullion) the ball is now squarely in the Northern Land Council's court.  

"The Northern Land Council must publicly declare its intentions in regard to the consultation of the Traditional Owners of Muckaty Station.  If their process is anything but completely transparent, it will raise questions that they have either bowed to bully-boy tactics of the Howard Government, or have been enticed by undisclosed benefits that may have been offered", stated Mr Collins.

"The eyes of the Territory are on Muckaty Station.  Traditional Owners, green groups, the Territory Government and minor parties will be closely monitoring this situation and will not tolerate the dumping of radioactive waste on a community that has so strongly voiced their opposition to the plan." Ms Wasley concluded.

Full details of the proposed amendments http://parlinfoweb.aph.gov.au/piweb/browse.aspx?NodeID=41

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Bill to cut traditional owners out of waste dump consultations
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/bill-to-cut-traditional-owners-out-of-waste-dump-consultations/2006/11/27/1164476139354.html
Annabel Stafford, Canberra
November 28, 2006
Aboriginal elders may no longer have to be consulted before their land is turned into a radioactive waste dump under controversial new legislation set to be passed by Federal Parliament in the next fortnight.
The legislation could clear the way for Aboriginal land to be nominated for use as a radioactive waste repository without the consent of traditional land owners - and without consultation of them or other indigenous people who may be affected.
It will also remove the right to a judicial review or procedural fairness for parties that oppose a particular site being nominated or approved for a dump.
The legislation comes amid speculation that the Northern Land Council is considering a radioactive waste dump at Muckaty Cattle Station in the Northern Territory.
The Labor Party, Aboriginal groups and the environment lobby savaged the Government for giving a parliamentary inquiry just a few hours to investigate the bill. The inquiry was held yesterday evening.
Labor Senator for the NT Trish Crossin said the bill was meant to "block the rights of traditional owners or others from challenging any nomination of Aboriginal land for a dump site". It would "absolve the Government from any responsibility to traditional owners of a site, to ensure that they agree with it becoming a radioactive dump site and losing access to it", she said.
Aboriginal Land Councils in the NT are split over the legislation. The Northern Land Council supports the bill, saying provisions that stop a site selection being overturned - even if the rules about consulting traditional owners have not been followed - are no different from existing arrangements for certain mining leases.
There was "no way" the legislation would allow Land Councils to nominate a waste site without getting the approval of traditional owners, NLC representatives told the parliamentary inquiry. Instead it would simply stop green groups and other parties delaying developments.
But the Central Land Council says the legislation "diminishes the rights of traditional owners, is a gross abuse of process and must be rejected in its entirety".
Nationals senator for the NT Nigel Scullion said he was "absolutely confident" the legislation would not wind back the protections of the Land Rights Act or requirements to consult traditional owners.

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AUSTRALIA AS THE WORLD'S NUCLEAR WASTE DUMP

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(Long, rambling pro-nuclear rant ...)
The big U-turn
Friday, November 17, 2006
http://bulletin.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=161844
The threat of climate change and the fear of rogue states are pushing Australia into the role of the world's champion of safe nuclear power. Paul Toohey reports.

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Excellent articles by Julie Mackin in New Matilda
http://www.newmatilda.com/home/articledetail.asp?ArticleID=1913
http://www.newmatilda.com/home/articledetail.asp?ArticleID=1921
Part 3 is subscribers-only

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Nuclear fuel leasing still 'very much a theory'
Katharine Murphy
October 6, 2006
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/nuclear-fuel-leasing-still-very-much-a-theory/2006/10/05/1159641461932.html
THE chairman of the Government's nuclear inquiry has raised questions about the prospects of nuclear fuel leasing.
Ziggy Switkowski told The Age the idea of Australia converting its uranium into fuel rods, exporting them and taking back waste was "very much a theory".
His taskforce had examined nuclear facilities overs