Category: Archive

Crops damage Kingaroy soil

admin /25 March, 2007

Kingaroy-based Department of Primary Industry and Fisheries researcher Mike Bell told growers at the recent Grains Research and Development Corporation Grower Update, at Casino, NSW, there was significant room for improvement in northern cropping region soils, reported Queensland Country Life (4/1/2007 p. 17).

The soil biota factor: Dr Bell said soil biota hold the key to sustainable crop production, including building or maintaining soil structure and suppression of disease outbreaks. Bell said the northern grain region’s vertosol soils were characterised by low levels of general soil microbial activity which was worsened by the dry climatic and cropping systems.

Cropped versus timbered sites difference: Research in northern NSW and southern Queensland shows microbial activity in cropped sites (assessed by measuring microbial biomass, free living nematodes and general or specific enzymatic activity) was just 30-50 per cent of that in uncropped sites under brigalow/belah vegetation. "Microbial activity in adjoining pastures was similar or more than the timbered sites and there was little or no difference between fields cropped for less than 10 years or more than 50 years," Bell said. "Soil organic carbon showed similar trends, while specific pathogens like lesion nematodes were present in quite high numbers in cropped soil but were almost undetectable in soiI at the timbered sites.

 

Apple growers eye recycled water

admin /25 March, 2007

MP Damian Drum motioned an adjournment issue in parliament on 15 March 2007 on the recycled water project in Bendigo for the attention of the Minister for Water, Environment and Climate Change.

Cost-benefit analysis on water to Harcourt Valley: "The Harcourt Valley is about 18 kilometres to the south of Spring Gully Reservoir. I call on the minister for water to do a cost-benefit analysis on getting this recycled water to the Harcourt Valley so that a certain percentage of it could be used for the production of apples, pears and cider. The Harcourt Valley is an iconic area for apple production in Victoria. It would be a tremendous boost for the security of this whole region if we could send the recycled water Coliban Water will have available to the Harcourt Valley. I believe there will be sufficient water to cover existing projects and uses, as well as a large amount available to be sent further south to Harcourt".

Real risks come with living nesar nuclear power reactors

admin /23 March, 2007

"It is very clear to me that the government could, in our next week of sitting, change the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act in ways that would remove the illegality of a nuclear facility," Democrats MP Lynn Allison told the Senate on 1 March 2007.

Govt "contempt for the EPBC Act": "The government has shown contempt for the EPBC Act on numerous occasions, so it is quite feasible to imagine that in this case it would do likewise".

Radiation causes cancer, genetic deformities in animals: "Before concluding, I thought it would be useful to draw on some work by the leading campaigner on nuclear matters, Dr Helen Caldicott, in an article she wrote recently about another aspect of nuclear—which I think most people are very afraid of, and they have reasonable reason to be afraid. Senator Chapman suggested that this is all fearmongering. However, I think that there are real risks associated with living in proximity to a nuclear power reactor. Dr Caldicott says: ‘… nuclear reactors routinely emit large amounts of radioactive materials, including the fat-soluble noble gases xenon, krypton and argon. Deemed ‘inert’ by the nuclear industry, they are readily inhaled by populations near reactors and absorbed into the bloodstream where they concentrate in the fat pads of the abdomen and upper thighs, exposing ovaries and testicles to mutagenic gamma radiation (like X-rays). Tritium, radioactive hydrogen, is also regularly discharged from reactors. Combining with oxygen, it forms tritiated water, which passes readily through skin, lungs and gut. Contrary to industry propaganda, tritium is a dangerous carcinogenic element producing cancers, congenital malformations and genetic deformities in low doses in animals, and by extrapolation in humans’".

Water system contaminations herald horror scenarios: "Already, radioactive elements in many nuclear-powered countries are leaking into underground water systems, rivers, and oceans, progressively concentrating at each level of the food chain. Strontium 90, which causes bone cancer and leukaemia, and cesium 137, which induces rare muscle and brain cancers, are radioactive for 600 years. Food and human breast milk will become increasingly radioactive near numerous waste sites. Cancers will inevitably increase in frequency in exposed populations, as will genetic diseases such as cystic fibrosis in their descendants".

Plutonium’s nightmare potential: "Each typical 1000-megawatt reactor makes 200 kilograms of plutonium a year. Less than one-millionth of a gram is carcinogenic. Handled like iron by the body, it causes liver, lung and bone cancer and leukaemia. Crossing the placenta to induce congential deformities, it has a predilection for the testicle, where inevitably it will cause genetic abnormalities. With a radiological life of 240,000 years, released in the ecosphere it will affect biological systems forever".

Reference: Commonwealth of Australia, Senate Hansard, Thursday 1 March 2007, pg.106, document is available at http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/senate/dailys/ds010307.pdf

Erisk Net, 08/3/2007

Greens: Switkowski hand-picked pro-nuclear panel

admin /23 March, 2007

WA Greens Senator Rachel Siewert told the Senate on 1 March 2007 that the Switkowski review panel "used a highly optimistic set of assumptions favouring nuclear energy".

No-nuke Greens:: "The Greens opposition to nuclear power stations is firmly on the record. We will be supporting this motion.

Mystified about ALP position: "However, with the greatest respect to the Labor Party, I am mystified as to how they can take a strong position against nuclear power whilst gearing up to open up uranium mining. The Prime Minister’s campaign to resurrect the 1950s dream of nuclear power stations should have been pronounced dead in the water of the Switkowski review".

Switkowski panel fix was in: "This hand-picked, pro-nuclear panel used a highly optimistic set of assumptions favouring nuclear energy and still concluded that public subsidies or carbon taxes would be needed to make the nuclear industry competitive—that is, before realistic estimates of decommissioning, comprehensive insurance, research and development, waste transport, mine rehabilitation and waste are factored in. Of course, the same carbon taxes that potentially could help nuclear industries and energies are very helpful for renewable energies and would help the renewable energy industry take off, as they have in other parts of the world. However, unlike nuclear power stations, they could be installed virtually overnight and they will not leave a legacy of hazardous waste lying around for millions of years all over Australia".

"The most expensive method of boiling water ever devised": "On economics alone this technology fails the most basic test. It is still the most expensive method of boiling water ever devised by humankind. In the United States, subsidies are estimated to have accumulated over the 50-year period from 1948 to 1998 to about $US74 billion. Forbes magazine put it this way in 1985: The failure of the US nuclear power program ranks as the largest managerial disaster in business history. If this is the disaster the Australian government are sleepwalking towards, they have not learnt anything in 20 years. A former commissioner of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission told the New York Times in 2005: The abiding lesson that Three Mile Island taught Wall Street was that a group of NRC-licensed reactor operators, as good as any others, could turn a $2 billion asset into a $1 billion cleanup job in about 90 minutes".

Where will 25 nuclear power stations go? "Perhaps the government has uncovered secret evidence that the nuclear industry has eliminated the risk of catastrophic accidents and has worked out how to prevent routine releases of radioactive chemicals from these plants. If this is the case, the Prime Minister has nothing to fear and neither does the community. He should tell us where his 25 nuclear power stations are going to go".

Reference: Commonwealth of Australia, Senate Hansard, Thursday 1 March 2007, pg.107, document is available at http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/senate/dailys/ds010307.pdf

Erisk Net, 08/3/2007

Recent Green Poll shows increase in Aussies opposing nuclear

admin /23 March, 2007

The majority of Australians oppose the building of nuclear reactors and only slightly less are in favour of expanding uranium mining according to a new poll, which signals problems for both the federal government and opposition. The poll taken by Green pulse at the end of last month found that; •  only 29 per cent Continue Reading →

Spanish Wind Power blows past Coal and Nuclear

admin /22 March, 2007

On March 20th Spain’s wind power generation rose to contribute 27 per cent of the country’s total daily power demands, surpassing supplies by nuclear and coal. This is a new record for contribution of wind-generated power at a given time to their electricity grid. As projected this occurred without any stability issues.

Spain’s installed wind power capacity is the second highest in the world at 11,615 Mega Watts (MW). Half of the country’s wind farm fleet is constructed of older technology with much less efficiency than what is currently available. Spain will increase installed wind capacity to 20,000MW by 2010 and are adding 2000MW in the year 2007.

Spain’s electricity grid is approximately the same size of Australia’s NEM (National Electricity Market) Grid, making it a prime model for comparison. Spain’s success with wind power also presents an exciting opportunity for Australia to follow its renewable lead, given Spain’s poor wind and solar potential energy resources when compared to Australia.