THE AUKUS NUCLEAR SUBMARINE DEAL
30th March 2024
MAJOR NEWS UPDATE AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS BLOG
On 26th April 2016 Australia’s then Conservative Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull signs an agreement with the French Government to build 12 Shortfin Barracuda diesel powered submarines at a cost of $Au50 billion.
On 16th September 2021 Turnbull’s replacement and fellow conservative PM Scott Morrison (an Evangelical Christian and Donald Trump supporter), suddenly scraps the French deal and announced the signing of an agreement with the UK and the US to buy three nuclear powered Virginia Class SSNs submarines with an option on purchasing a further two.
The French were ‘not pleased’, and in the reporting from Reuters:
“Australia has made a huge diplomatic error by ditching the multi-billion-dollar order for French submarines.” The French Envoy to Canberra said.
The aftermath saw France loose $au50 billion, Australia loose $au835 million in compensation and both the newly elected Australian Labor Party PM Anthony Albanese and US President Biden seriously humiliated on the world stage for deals that were instigated before they were elected to their respective positions of authority in their countries.
China raised concerns that the AUKUS deal undermined the nuclear non proliferation agreements, with some Australian commentators believing this was just what the Chinese needed to increase their nuclear capabilities.
This deal, signed by the conservative Liberal National Coalition, was not a real surprise as they have been pushing for a nuclear powered Australia since the 1950’s.
AUSTRALIA’S NUCLEAR WASTE DUMPS
Other than the proposed aforementioned submarines, Australia currently has only one nuclear reactor station at Lucas Heights near Sydney and it is primarily for nuclear medical use. According to our Federal Government web site, the waste from this reactor, and associated radioactive material, is sent to France, the UK and the US for reprocessing.
However, and again at the same Australian Government website:
“Australia doesn’t have a central facility for the storage or disposal of radioactive waste, which is currently held at more that 100 locations around Australia. Many organisations are using storage areas that were not designed for long term storage of radioactive waste.”
Does this mean radioactive waste is piled up and stored in numerous locations as it waits to be transferred to aforementioned process centres overseas?
One of these dump sites, opened in 2021 by a private company called Tellus, is at Sandy Ridge in Kalgoorlie WA. The original approval was granted by the then Liberal National WA State Government, during the Liberal National Federal Government’s time, in 2018. Like all companies registered on the Australian ASX, major shareholder’s country of origin are private: We can’t know where the money is coming from, or where it is going to. And worse, we know nothing of what and how much radioactive material is stored, or planned to be stored there.
A Liberal National Coalition Government planned site at Kimba in South Australia was scrapped in 2023 by the incoming Federal Labor Government after the Courts ruled in favour of the local Barngala Aboriginal people and against the proposal.
Even though the area was under a Barngala Native Title Agreement, the Coalition Government ignored this and had planned to dump large quantities of international nuclear industry waste there earning up to $5 billion per year, according to an InDaily News Report.
Two Stories Of Note:
2017 Giant mining company continues to have serious issues with toxic mine waste seeping into groundwater and affecting the health of Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory.
2023 Northern Territory Government have failed to establish independent scientific panels to deal with the McArthur Mine’s waste rock dumps.
If this, and many other mining mishaps, are happening now without government investigations or actions, what will it be like when the subject matter is nuclear waste?
A Federal Election in Australia is due before the end of September 2025 and already the Coalition Opposition has declared their intention, if elected, for nuclear power generation as part of their agenda:
“It’s the latest technology that has zero emissions and it can firm up renewables in the system.”
Liberal National Coalition, Peter Dutton.
As the Coalition has been voted into Federal Governance almost twice as many times as the alternative ALP since the end of WWII, has the backing of the super corporations, including Rupert Murdoch’s media, and were last in power for a nine year period, it doesn’t take a genius to see what is planned by them for Australia’s future, whether we like it or not.
With proof beyond doubt that human made global warming is increasing, the world is having to turn away from fossil fuel in favour of less pollutant alternatives, such as solar and wind generation. For many nations with poor wind, solar generating capabilities or unreliable hydro system, nuclear generated electricity would seem to be the most preferred alternative.
If the world is currently having serious problems when it comes to transporting and processing nuclear waste, how will it cope with the predicted increase from these yet to be build nuclear reactors?
In Blog 186: Bits and Pieces on the 3rd February 2024, in part my Spirit Friends highlighted these concerns:
Seismic Disturbances: A day doesn’t go by that there isn’t earthquakes, seismic disturbances or worrying earth rumbling somewhere in the world.
As an example, in one year a total of 12,384 quakes were recorded, with many of them occurring in places or with intensity never seen before, and there is no way that intensity is going to diminish. In fact scientific research indicates the severity of quakes and volcanoes will continue to intensify.
According to the Australian Institute of Disaster Resilience (AIDR):
Australia’s geological position makes it prone to intra-plate earthquakes of a ‘shallow focus’ which makes them different and less predictable to the plate-margin type quakes common to California in the US or Japan.
Currently Australia records an average of 100 earthquakes of magnitude greater than three per year. (Geoscience Australia.gov.au)
Is it the plan of an Australian conservative Coalition Government of the future to permanently bury the world’s nuclear waste in the old mine sites of Australia’s ‘Outback’?
Is it planned that the Australian people will be given the opportunity to face a Referendum on the topic before such a fearful scenario is instigated?
Spirit Friends: If you were the Creator, the real God of all Creation, what would you do? Stay with the status quo or create a permanent intervention?
That is the topic of next fortnight’s Blog in this series.
MAJOR NEWS RELEASE FROM THE GUARDIAN
Remember, The Road To Materialism Is The Road To The Death Of The Soul.
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