Tuesday 19 March 2024

Australia’s big electricity generators say nuclear not viable for at least a decade.

Extract from The Guardian

AGL Energy, Alinta, EnergyAustralia and Origin Energy say they will remain focused on renewables despite Coalition support for nuclear reactors.

Tue 19 Mar 2024 01.00 AEDTLast modified on Tue 19 Mar 2024 07.40 AEDT

Australia’s big private electricity generators have dismissed nuclear energy as a viable source of power for their customers for at least a decade.

They say they will remain focused on developing renewable sources as coal and gas plants exit the grid.

The comments – from AGL Energy, Alinta, EnergyAustralia and Origin Energy – follow an announcement by the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, that the Coalition would back both large-scale and small modular nuclear reactors (SMR) as a way to cut electricity prices and increase grid reliability.

Energy Australia, whose Hong Kong-listed owner CLP currently operates two large nuclear power stations in mainland China, said the company was “committed to Australia’s clean energy transformation, reducing emissions as quickly and affordably as possible while maintaining system reliability”.

“We know that Australia will need some form of controllable long-duration, zero-carbon storage or generation to deliver net zero by 2050,” an EA spokesperson said, adding that green hydrogen or nuclear had potential to play a role.

“Given long lead times for development, [nuclear is] a potential option for the late 2030s or 2040s.”

Alinta said it had not been approached by the Coalition and nuclear energy was “not something we’re exploring”.

“To be a viable option, the regulatory environment would need to be amended and many other considerations would need to be assessed,” the Alinta spokesperson said.

Damien Nicks, AGL’s chief, said nuclear energy was not a part of the company’s plans to develop coal and gas plants into low-emissions industrial hubs.

“There is no viable schedule for the regulation or development of nuclear energy in Australia and the cost, build time and public opinion are all prohibitive,” Nicks said on Friday. “Policy certainty is important for companies like AGL and ongoing debate on the matter runs the risk of unnecessarily complicating the long-term investment decisions necessary for the energy transition.”

An Origin spokesperson said the company was focused on accelerating the take-up of renewables and storage, including the construction of big batteries at its Eraring coal-fired power plant in New South Wales and at its Mortlake gas-fired plant in Victoria.

“At this stage, our primary focus is adding more supply from these mature low-emissions technologies, however we will continue to watch progress with any emerging technologies that may be able to contribute to emissions reduction over time,” the spokesperson said.

Australia’s electricity prices have jumped in recent years, including a hike in the default market offer in 2022 that the Morrison government delayed until after the election that year – lumping Labor with the increase.

The slow rollout of wind and solar farms, however, has stoked concerns the electricity sector won’t have sufficient capacity to meet demand as ageing coal plants shut.

While companies stress they remain “energy agnostic”, the challenges of introducing a new energy source requiring complex regulations, particularly for the storage and disposal of nuclear energy waste, are steep, they say. They point to the absence of commercially proven SMRs and cost blowouts of large-scale plants such as the UK’s Hinkley Point C, which has been touted as the world’s “most expensive” power station.

Guardian Australia sought comment from Ted O’Brien, the opposition’s energy spokesperson. “If you’re not serious about nuclear, you’re not serious about net zero,” O’Brien said last December. “We’re open to all technologies from renewables to carbon, capture and storage, zero-emissions nuclear energy, and so much more.”

One senior executive told Guardian Australia power bills would triple if the nuclear path was pursued.

NSW’s chief scientist, Hugh Durrant-Whyte, dismissed the comparisons by nuclear energy advocates of places such as Ontario, Canada. That country had spent decades building a nuclear industry employing 70,000 people.

“Nobody in this country has even the faintest idea how to build a nuclear power plant,” Durrant-Whyte, a former nuclear adviser to the UK government, told NSW upper house estimates earlier this month.

'I feel like I'm in a dream': Palestinians get Australian visas reinstated after days in limbo.

Extract from ABC News 

ABC News Homepage


Twenty-three-year-old Hani had almost given up hope when his temporary visa to Australia was reinstated after he spent four days in limbo at an airport in Istanbul. 

Last week, Hani and several other Palestinians who had been able to flee Gaza heading for Australia had their visas suddenly cancelled, leaving them stranded in other countries.

The ABC knows of at least 11 Palestinians who had their visas cancelled and then reinstated.

Hani's family in Australia said they were concerned for his well-being, as it was his first time travelling and they were not given any answers as to why his visa had been cancelled. 

He had been living in the airport when he was finally updated. 

"I was on the correct path. I didn't do anything wrong," Hani said.

"I was worried. I couldn't sleep. I was having nightmares.

"Right when I began to lose hope, the good news came."

Hani said he was excited about arriving in Australia and being reunited with his family and he now felt like he was "in a dream". 

The Palestine Australia Relief and Action (PARA) Foundation has been supporting Hani and other Palestinians with their cancelled visas over the last few days. 

PARA co-founder Rasha Abbas said the news of the reinstatement of visas would be a relief for many.

"Hani's story resonated with our Australian community, Palestinian and non-Palestinian alike," she said. 

"I received an influx of calls and texts from people wanting to check-in."

Ms Abbas received a text from Hani that said: "I am coming to Australia!". 

"To say we felt an overwhelming sense of relief [when we heard the news] would be an understatement — our entire volunteer network lit up and we are all over the moon," she said. 

Government won't reveal initial 'security' advice on visa cancellations

In cancellation letters — obtained by the ABC — some Palestinians were told the reason for the cancellation was that they never intended a genuine temporary stay in Australia.

It caused confusion and distress for many in the community, some of whom told their loved ones not to leave Gaza in case they were left stranded in a foreign country.

Federal Cabinet Minister Murray Watt said the government would not provide details about the security advice it received.

"The security advice was that some visas should be cancelled, and that action was taken, and then as time progressed, additional information came to light which required the re-institution, if you like, of some of those visas that had been cancelled," Mr Watt said.

"That is ordinary practice."

A hand holding a Palestinian passport.
Hani was on his way to Australia when his visa was suddenly cancelled.  (Supplied)

The government has granted more than 2,200 temporary visas for Palestinians, and 2,400 for Israelis since October.

The ABC understands most of the visas given to Palestinians and Israelis since October 7 are subclass 600 visas, in the sponsored family stream, allowing whoever applies to stay in Australia for up to 12 months if they have a family sponsor.

On that temporary visa, you cannot work, or access education or healthcare, and are essentially a tourist.

These particular visas are granted with the hope that those who have applied will be able to return to their home country, with character requirements in place for those applying.

Israeli troops conduct 'precise operation' at Gaza's Al-Shifa hospital, UN says famine is 'imminent' in northern Gaza.

Extract from ABC News 

ABC News Homepage


Israeli troops have raided the compound of Gaza's Al-Shifa hospital and claimed to have killed a senior Hamas operative in an operation that Palestinian health authorities said caused multiple casualties and set off a fire in one of the buildings.

The Israeli military said soldiers conducted a "precise operation" and were fired upon when they entered the compound on Monday (local time).

It said it killed a Hamas commander who was armed and hiding inside the medical centre, and that one of its own soldiers was killed in the operation.

It said 20 Palestinian gunmen were killed in the fighting and "dozens of apprehended suspects" were undergoing questioning.

Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry said a fire broke out at the entrance of the complex, causing cases of suffocation among displaced women and children in the hospital.

Smoke billows into the air above ruined homes
Smoke rises following an explosion inside the Gaza Strip on Sunday.(AP Photo: Ariel Schalit)

It said communication had been cut off, with people trapped inside the surgery and emergency units of one of the buildings.

"There are casualties, including deaths and injuries, and it's impossible to rescue anyone due to the intensity of the fire and targeting of anyone approaching the windows," the ministry said.

The Israeli military issued grainy drone footage of the operation which it said showed troops coming under fire from a number of buildings in the hospital complex.

Israel said the operation was based on intelligence information which indicated the hospital was being used by senior Hamas leaders.

It said troops had been instructed on the importance of operating cautiously as well as on measures to be taken to avoid harm to patients, civilians, medical staff and medical equipment and said patients were not required to evacuate.

Hamas said in a statement the Israeli military had committed a new crime by directly targeting the hospital buildings without caring about patients, medical staff or displaced people in it.

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus took to social media to condemn the raid.

Mohammad Ali, a father of two, who lives about one kilometre from the hospital, told Reuters news agency via a chat app that he heard "explosions" about 1am local time.

"Suddenly, we started to hear sounds of explosions, several bombings, and soon tanks started to roll, they came from the western road and headed toward Al-Shifa, then sounds of gunfire and explosions increased," he said. 

Grainy black and white photo showing a view looking down onto a building.
The Israeli Defense Force has released footage it says shows its troops being fired at.(Supplied: Israeli army via Reuters)

Israel came under fierce criticism last year when troops first raided the hospital, where they uncovered underground tunnels they said were used as command and control centres by Hamas.

The hospital in Gaza City is one of the few remaining health facilities left in the besieged enclave and the Israeli military has long accused the Islamist movement Hamas of using it as a base for its fighters.

Hamas and hospital officials have denied the accusation and the hospital has been at the centre of accusations of war crimes on both sides, with Palestinians accusing Israel of targeting hospitals and Israel saying the sites were being used to shelter armed fighters.

Meanwhile the Al-Jazeera television network says Israeli troops arrested one of its correspondents during their raid on Gaza City's Al-Shifa hospital.

In a statement, it said the troops severely beat correspondent Ismail Alghoul while he was covering the raid on the hospital and destroyed the network’s broadcast vehicle as well as cameras and equipment. It said he was detained along with other journalists and that his whereabouts are unknown.

The Qatari-owned network demanded his release and called the arrest "an intimidation tactic against journalists" to prevent them from reporting on the military's "crimes against innocent civilians". 

The Israeli military said it had no comment.

Famine 'imminent' in northern Gaza

The United Nations's food agency says "famine is imminent" in northern Gaza, where an estimated 70 per cent of the population faces catastrophic hunger.

The World Food Program on Monday released the latest findings of its Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC — an international process for estimating the scale of hunger crises.

A little girl, holding an empty white bowl, frowns as she lines up with others who are also holding empty food containers
Palestinians families stand in a line waiting to receive food amid shortages of food supplies.(Reuters: Mohammed Salem)

It has reported that virtually everyone in Gaza is struggling to get enough food.

Around 210,000 people in northern Gaza are in Phase 5, the highest, which refers to catastrophic hunger.

It warned that if Israel broadens its offensive to the packed southern city of Rafah, the fighting could drive around half of Gaza’s total population of 2.3 million into catastrophic hunger.

In December, the IPC estimated that a quarter of Gaza’s overall population was starving.

Aid groups say they face a burdensome Israeli process to import humanitarian aid.

The group say that distribution in much of Gaza — especially the north — is virtually impossible because of Israeli restrictions, ongoing hostilities and the breakdown of law and order.

Israel says it places no limits on the import of humanitarian aid and blames bottlenecks on the UN agencies distributing it.

The US and other countries have carried out airdrops in recent days and a sea corridor has just opened up. But aid groups say those efforts are costly and inefficient, and are no substitute for Israel opening up more land routes.

Biden calls Netanyahu

US President Joe Biden spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday and discussed the situation in Rafah and efforts increase aid to Gaza, the White House said.

The call was the first between the two leaders since February 15 and comes amid sharp tensions between Israel and its most steadfast ally over Mr Netanyahu's handling of the war in Gaza.

"President Biden spoke with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to discuss the latest developments in Israel and Gaza, including the situation in Rafah and efforts to surge humanitarian assistance to Gaza," the White House said.

Separately, Mr Netanyahu said the two men had discussed Israel's commitment to achieve all the targets it had set out for the war: eliminating Hamas, releasing all the hostages and ensuring Gaza would no longer pose a threat to Israel.

This would be done "while providing the necessary humanitarian aid that helps achieve those goals," he said in a statement.

Reuters/AP

Vladimir Putin's hold on power has been extended. Here are three things to expect.

Extract from ABC News 

ABC News Homepage

A lot has changed since Vladimir Putin's reign over Russia began more than two decades ago.

The 71-year-old is set for another six years in the country's top job, after winning the presidential election held from Friday to Sunday with almost 90 per cent of the vote.

While many Western observers argue it was rigged, that will hardly rattle the cage in the Kremlin, which Putin has towered over since 1999.

But with a declining population, the ongoing invasion of Ukraine and increasing international isolation, Russia's future is far from straightforward.

Here are three things to expect in Putin's next term.

1. Another mobilisation

The rhetoric from Moscow and Kyiv is clear: the war in Ukraine isn't ending any time soon.

But as casualties mount, some experts are predicting Russia will again begin forcibly drafting civilians into its military ranks.

This has already been done once during the war, and was deeply unpopular. Putin signed a decree to make it happen in September 2022, seven months after his invasion began.

It sparked protests around the country — something seldom seen in Russia — while scores of men fled abroad in a bid to avoid being mobilised.

Many of those who were drafted and sent to the front lines vented about their training and equipment online.

The first mobilisation lasted about a month, and saw 300,000 people pulled into the military. At the time that was done, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said, "no further measures are planned".

Legally, however, the framework that allowed Russia to start drafting civilians was never repealed, meaning Putin could order another mobilisation.

A man and a woman kiss and hug near a bus, as several people look on
A Russian reservist bids farewell to relatives and friends before being taken for training in October 2022.(Reuters: Alexey Malgavko)

It would make political sense for an unpopular move like that to be announced after an election, rather than before it, even if the vote is rigged.

And there are indications it is coming. Late last year, Putin ordered the maximum number of Russian military personnel be increased to 2.2 million, including 1.32 million troops. The last time he demanded a boost like that was in August 2022, one month before his first mobilisation.

The country's defence ministry has also moved to decrease the number of diseases that can see people exempted from conscription.

A woman lays a flower at the top of a small wall, surrounded by other people looking on
Maria Andreyeva, whose husband was mobilised in October 2022, leads a protest in Moscow earlier this year.(Reuters)

While the exact number of casualties since the start of the war remains unclear, a declassified US document tabled in Congress in December last year estimated about 315,000 Russian military personnel had been killed or injured since the start of the invasion.

Further compounding Putin's headaches with regard to troop numbers is a push for the surviving soldiers mobilised in 2022 to be rotated out of service.

There's no legal requirement for him to do this, but a protest movement involving wives and mothers of conscripts is gathering momentum. Any crackdown on them would be unpopular.

2. Abortion crackdown

Abortions are widely available in Russia, but last year, regulations began tightening, when several regions made it illegal for people to "coerce women" into terminating pregnancies.

While abortions remain legal — in fact, Russia's laws in this space have been quite liberal — authorities will begin restricting the sale of medication used to terminate pregnancies from September.

Some private clinics have stopped facilitating abortions altogether.

Two things appear to be driving this new, more conservative, approach. 

The first is ideological, and reflects the Russian Orthodox Church's influence over the Kremlin.

In December, the church announced its position that any form of abortion, at any time, equated to murder.

The second is practical: Russia's population is declining.

Data from statistics agency Rosstat shows Russia's population declined by 1 million in 2021 — the year before Moscow's soldiers started getting killed during the invasion of Ukraine.

German data company Statistia also said the population declined that year, albeit by less.

In January, the president gave a speech in which he described it as "important for us to have more large families" (in Russia, this is officially defined as couples with three or more children).

It's estimated more than 500,000 abortions were conducted in Russia in 2022, something Putin has dubbed "an acute problem". 

Some believe the figure is an underestimate, given not all pregnancy terminations are conducted via official channels.

In 2000, Putin addressed the issue directly, going as far as to say the country's "destiny" depended on one thing: "how many of us there are and how many of us there will be."

But that number has gone backwards under his reign. Russia's government estimated the country's population was 146.4 million in early 2023 — a figure that includes the roughly 2.5 million people in Crimea, Ukrainian territory it has illegally occupied since 2014.

In 2022, Putin signed an order celebrating women who give birth to more than 10 children, who will be bestowed with the "Mother Heroine" award and given 1 million roubles ($16,500).

Everything points to a continuing crackdown on women's reproductive access. 

3. Souring Western relations

Even before its invasion of Ukraine, Russia's relationship with the West was deteriorating. But things have been getting worse, and it's not just about the war.

A composite image of Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin shot in profile
Russian President Vladimir Putin (right) says he'd rather work with Joe Biden.(Reuters: Kevin Lamarque/Alexei Nikolsky)

Putin's treatment of political opponents, like Alexei Navalny, has been denounced by Western leaders. Navalny, Russia's main opposition leader, died in prison earlier this year, aged 47, while serving a sentence of more than two decades on charges he said were trumped up.

He was just the latest in a line of dissidents and political rivals to be imprisoned or killed.

Navalny's death prompted an outcry from foreign leaders, including US President Joe Biden, who personally blamed Putin for it.

Americans are heading to the polls in November for a presidential election widely predicted to be a tight race. 

Putin has already expressed a desire to work with Biden over his challenger, Donald Trump.

That led Biden to describe Putin as "crazy" at a fundraiser last month, which the Russian president said was "rude".

Then there's nuclear weapons. In February 2023, Putin used his state-of-the-nation address to suspend its participation in the New START Treaty with the United States, which limits the number of deployed intercontinental nukes the countries can have.

Later that year, Putin also declined to attend the G20 summit in India, where it was widely expected world leaders would rebuke his continuing war in Ukraine.

Things can still get worse.

Last week, the president told state media outlets Rossiya 1 and RIA Novosti he was prepared to use a nuclear weapon if there was a threat to the Russian state.

Putin has embarked on a modernisation of the country's nuclear stocks, and in October, during a speech in Sochi, he revealed more details about the experimental Burevestnik nuclear missile (which, if ever successfully developed, would have the range to reach Australia).

Putin also used the speech to suggest Russia could resume nuclear missile testing for the first time since 1990, which would mean detonating a weapon it knew worked somewhere remote.

Relationships between the West and Russia are at their lowest level since the Cold War, but there's still room for them to continue sinking over Putin's next term.