Fed’s nuclear waste dump option: Northern Territory Muckaty station, near Tennant Creek, in the list

According to John Breusch in The Australian Financial Review (28/9/2007, p.20), the federal government was to consider a fourth potential site for a nuclear waste dump in the Northern Territory after accepting the Northern Land Council’s application to include Muckaty Station, near Tennant Creek, in the list.

Indicators suggest a move in the spot price of uranium to $US90 a pound by early 2008; up to $US120 a pound by late 2008

John Wilson, managing director, Resource Capital Research, Warwick Grigor, managing director, Far East Capital, a Sydney-based private investment bank specialising in the resources sector, and Michael Angwin, executive director, Australian Uranium Association, answered questions about the price of uranium, reported The Australian Financial Review (10/10/2007, p. 34).

50 years after nuclear fire at weapons factory, researchers reveal poisonous polonium-210 plume drifted over Belgium, Netherlands, Germany and Scandinavia

According to Rob Edwards, in a report in The Economist, 6/10/2007, p. 11 at the time it was the world’s worst nuclear accident. Now, 50 years after the fire at Windscale in Cumbria, UK, on 10 and 11 October 1957, it had emerged a resulting radioactive cloud spread contamination over large parts of Europe, much further than previously admitted. Because Windscale was a military plant, much about the accident was kept secret.

Australia-India Uranium sale deal to be covered by bilateral safeguards agreement: would ensure any Australian uranium sold to India would be used for exclusively peaceful purposes, says Fed Government

Senator Helen Coonan, Senator for NSW, Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts and Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate, on behalf of the Minister for Foreign Affairs in reply to the questions asked by Lyn Allison, Senator for Victoria, Leader of the Australian Democrats, Commonwealth Senate, upon notice on 8 August 2007, regarding the potential Australia-India uranium sale deal that would see the export of uranium from Australia to India in contravention to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty obligations, said the supply of uranium to India did not contravene Australia’s international legal obligations under the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty (NPT) provided the uranium was covered by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards and conclusion of a bilateral safeguards agreement with India was conditional on a number of other steps, including India concluding a suitable safeguards agreement with the IAEA covering all designated civil nuclear facilities.

Labor supports sending Putin-Howard APEC agreement to Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade for examination

Labor supported the reference of the agreement to provide Australian uranium to Russia to the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, said Labor Senator George Campbell in the Commonwealth Senate on 17 September 2007.

No ethical framework considered for uranium export deal with Russia; profits only motive, says Greens Senator

It was foolhardy in the extreme for Australia to put profits from uranium sales ahead of global security, and that was precisely what was going on with the Australia-Russia Nuclear Cooperation Agreement, said Greens Senator Christine Milne in the Commonwealth Senate on 17 September 2007 .

Putin power grab: at least 14 journalists murdered, electoral laws changed, human rights trampled: Greens Senator wants Australia to exert pressure

An appalling pattern was emerging in Russia, said Greens Senator Christine Milne in the Commonwealth Senate on 17 September 2007.

Greens leader wants plebiscites to allow local input on all major infrastructure decisions: pulp mills, desal, nuclear power plants and Queensland council mergers

Amendments to the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Democratic Plebiscites) Bill 2007 deserved support, said Greens leader Senator Bob Brown in the Federal Senate on 17 September 2007.

Libs have “four decades of advocating nuclear reactors”; if the coalition are re-elected later this year, those reactors will be progressed by the government, ALP MP says

ALP MP Brendan O’Connor, Parliamentary Secretary for Industrial Relations, Member for Gorton, said the Government should publicly announce the locations of the planned “25 nuclear reactors”, before the election, in a statement to the House of Representatives on 11 September 2007.

Nuclear power the only form of electricity production that in itself poses a threat to international peace, domestic security and individual liberties

Nuclear power was the only form of electricity production that in itself posed a threat to international peace and domestic security, and consequence of its dangers and of the secrecy that inevitably surrounds it because of its connections with nuclear weapons, the only form of electricity production that in itself poses a threat to individual liberties argued the Oxford Research Group report: “Too Hot to Handle?; The Future of Civil Nuclear Power but Frank Barnaby and James Kemp, with a Foreword by David Howarth MP, UK Liberal Democrat Shadow Energy Spokesperson.

Russian enriched uranium fuel ready to be shipped to Iran’s first nuclear power plant after pay dispute resolved

Enriched uranium fuel was ready to be shipped from Russia to Iran’s first nuclear power plant, it was re­ported on the weekend, noted The Advertiser (17/9/2007, p.28).

SA State Government urged to run proposed Adelaide desalination plant on nuclear power

According to Craig Bildstien, the City editor of The Advertiser (13/9/07, p. 23), the State Government has been urged to run its proposed Adelaide desalination plant on nuclear power.

Labor entering Fed govt would delay nuclear power debate: On 12 September, Professor Kemeny, a founding member of the International Nuclear Energy Academy and former consultant to resource giants Western Mining and Hamersley Iron, was one of three speakers at an Adelaide nuclear energy forum sponsored by the Property Council. Opposition Leader Martin Hamilton-Smith addressed the forum, as did the chairman of the Federal Government’s 2006 Review of Uranium Mining, Processing and Nuclear Energy, Dr Ziggy Switkowski, and international anti-nuclear campaigner Dr Helen Caldicott. Switkowski said the nuclear power debate would “go on the backburner” for a long time if Labor won the next federal election.

The Advertiser, 13/9/2007, p. 23

Vox pop: ‘Dirty bombs’ more of a psychological than real threat; only one of 15 plutoniums can be used to make big bang

Spent nuclear power station fuel was not the threat generally accepted in the Australian scientific community because only one of the 15 plutoniums, number 239, could realistically be used to make a big bang (“Terrorism makes nuclear a dirty option”, September 1-2), said a letter to The Australian Financial Review (5/9/2007, p.59).

Unworkable proposition: “Too much of the other plutoniums in spent fuel make that unworkable. The 250,000 kilograms of plutonium Brian Toohey mentions not only is highly radioactive but has so much of some of the other plutoniums in it – which are almost impossible to separate at reasonable time and cost – that it poses no threat as bomb-making raw material. Hence Toohey’s correct, carefully worded statement that experts say that is possible.

Scare-mongering: “Well, theoretically possible, about as possible as reconstructing an egg from mayonnaise! Dirty bombs have been shown to pose psychological threats of the Three Mile Island type – the incompetent United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission and misled journalists causing many US citizens to be scared witless by an event that posed no direct nuclear health risk to people. The danger was of panic and doing silly things for fear of, but unrelated to, things nuclear.”

The Australian Financial Review, 5/9/2007, p. 59