Beyond Nuclear Symposium : Melbourne Indymedia

Wassup with all this talk about nukes? Below is an article about uranium enrichment - the plan that Howard and Downer and co. are most excited about (money AND bombs!). And immediately below is info on the Beyond Nuclear Symposium being held in Melbourne next weekend. Thanks for reading this far, Jim.

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Beyond Nuclear Symposium
Melbourne - September 15-16, 2006
Invitation & Registration Form

The Beyond Nuclear Initiative invites you to the Beyond Nuclear Symposium in Melbourne on September 15-16, 2006. The Symposium is the largest of its type in 2006, with experts addressing issues from weapons proliferation, proposed nuclear waste dumps, Australia’s ability to develop renewable sources of energy, as well as Senior Traditional Owners talking about the effects the industry is having on their communities and country.

Speakers on Friday September 15 include retired diplomat Prof Richard Broinowski, Assoc Prof Tilman Ruff and Dr Bill Williams (Medical Association for the Prevention of War), Jillian Marsh (Adnyamathanha Traditional Owner), Prof. Jim Falk (Melbourne Uni), Margie Lynch (Traditional Owner of a site short-listed for nuclear dumping in the NT), James Thier (Australian Ethical Investment), Julie-Anne Richards (Climate Action Network Australia) and renewable energy expert Dr. Mark Diesendorf (University of NSW).

Saturday September 16 is a day of workshops and campaign building in which people from across the country will come together to build on current strategies and create new alliances to strengthen the anti-nuclear, clean energy movement.

The venues are:
* Friday - Melbourne State Library, Swanston & Latrobe St Melbourne. Doors open 8.30am for registration. Start 9am sharp
* Saturday - Trades Hall - cnr Victoria and Lygon Sts, Carlton South. Start 9am.

I hope that you will be able to attend both the Friday and Saturday agendas as they will provide a solid foundation of knowledge and networks for the future of the anti-nuclear, clean energy movement.

If you would like further information, please contact me or symposium organiser Louise Morris <louisemorris@graffiti.net>, 0408 667100.

More information on the symposium - including registration information - is available on the internet at <http://www.foe.org.au/bni_symp.htm>.

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ENRICHING AUSTRALIA?

Jim Green
National nuclear campaigner - Friends of the Earth
Ph 0417 318368
jim.green@foe.org.au

August 2006

Recently, the Prime Minister has become fond of likening a domestic industry for enriching uranium to building factories to knit garments from Aussie wool. It’s a cosy argument for value-adding, but it masks the security and environmental threats of a domestic uranium enrichment industry. Unlike enrichment plants, garment factories don’t generate large volumes of radioactive waste in the form of depleted uranium and they don’t have the potential to destabilise the region.

We can safely assume that the Lucas Heights nuclear plant in Sydney never operated a secret program to knit woolen garments. But in 1965, the Lucas Heights plant, then known as the Atomic Energy Commission, did begin a secret uranium enrichment program. It was known as the 'Whistle Project' - the idea being that workers would whistle as they walked past Building 64 and studiously avoid any mention of the secret enrichment program underway in the building's basement. There is no doubt that the Whistle Project had a military agenda. Indeed, in the archives of the University of New South Wales, you can find hand-written notes by the then chair of the Atomic Energy Commission, Sir Philip Baxter, in which he calculates how many nuclear weapons could be produced if the enrichment work proceeded as he hoped it would.

As it happens, the enrichment work was publicly revealed in the 1967-68 Annual Report of the Atomic Energy Commission and the project proceeded in fits and starts until the incoming Hawke Labor government put an end to it in 1984.

Other countries proceeded with their 'peaceful' uranium enrichment programs. More precisely, they proceeded to build nuclear weapons using highly-enriched uranium from their 'peaceful' enrichment programs. This is how Pakistan and South Africa developed their arsenals of nuclear weapons. The Iraqi regime was pursuing uranium enrichment until its nuclear weapons program was terminated during and after the 1991 Gulf War. North Korea claims to have an arsenal of nuclear weapons which use enriched uranium as their fissile material. There is enormous controversy over the current uranium enrichment program in Iran.

The simple fact is that 'peaceful' enrichment plants can produce low-enriched uranium for power reactors, and they can produce highly-enriched uranium for Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Further, the depleted uranium tailings waste produced in large volumes at enrichment plants can be used in munitions, such as those used by the US and NATO in Iraq, the Balkans and Afghanistan.

Australia could not credibly oppose uranium enrichment programs in North Korea or Iran if we had the same capacity to produce fissile weapons material. Nor could we credibly oppose the current plans in Indonesia to build plutonium production - oops, I mean peaceful power - reactors.

In the June 6 edition of The Bulletin, Max Walsh discusses the 'elephant in the room' in the current nuclear debate - the possibility that it is being driven by a military agenda. Could it be that John Howard is interested in uranium enrichment precisely because of its military potential? Does Howard subscribe to the 'Fortress Australia' views which led former Liberal Prime Minister, John Gorton, to approve construction of a plutonium production - oops, I mean peaceful power - reactor at Jervis Bay in the late 1960s?

The Prime Minister is undoubtedly aware of widespread concern that the international non-proliferation regime could collapse because of the recalcitrance of the major nuclear weapons states and the ambitions of would-be weapons states. As the 2004 report of the UN Secretary-General's High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change noted: "We are approaching a point at which the erosion of the non-proliferation regime could become irreversible and result in a cascade of proliferation."

The Prime Minister has argued that in the emerging Nuclear World Order, countries supplying nuclear fuel might also take responsibility for spent nuclear fuel disposal. If Australia is to supply not just raw yellowcake but enriched uranium or fuel rods, the pressure on Australia to host an international high-level nuclear waste dump will continue to build.

As Professor John Veevers from Macquarie University wrote in the Australian Geologist in August 1999 - when Pangea Resources was attempting to foist a nuclear dump on Australia - such a dump would pose serious public health and environmental risks: "[T]onnes of enormously dangerous radioactive waste in the northern hemisphere, 20,000 kms from its destined dump in Australia where it must remain intact for at least 10,000 years. These magnitudes - of tonnage, lethality, distance of transport, and time - entail great inherent risk."

Instead of pursuing his nuclear dreaming, the Prime Minister should focus his attention on adding value to benign and clean energy resources. Australia was once a leader in solar power, an industry that has been left by his government to wither on the vine as capital and brains take flight overseas, where more visionary policies are in place.

In May, a confidential CSIRO report was released which argues that solar thermal technology "is poised to play a significant role in baseload generation for Australia" and will be cost-competitive with coal within seven years. But this potential won't be realised unless the Government can be persuaded to shift its nuclear ambitions from enrichment plants and power reactors to the the nuclear fusion power supplied by the sun at a safe distance of 150 million kilometres.

An expanded renewable energy target, like those recently announced in Victoria and South Australia, would provide jobs and energy security while cutting greenhouse emissions. And it won’t upset the neighbours.