3CR
 Community Radio 855am

THE RADIO-ACTIVE SHOW

With Eric Miller and Linda Marks

Saturday at 10.00am

5th December 1998

Good morning, this is the RadioActive Show brought to you by the Sustainable Energy and Anti-Uranium Service. I'm Linda Marks and with me in the studio is Eric Miller. (Good Morning). The RadioActive Show is a weekly program bringing you news and information on Nuclear, Peace and Energy issues.

On today's show we hear from Dave Sweeney speaking to Eric Miller about the decision of the World Heritage Committee to accept the report by the assessment team that there is the very real possibility that Kakadu will be under threat from mining at Jabiluka. We also talk to Charles Berkow on the phase out of nuclear power in Germany.

Eric Miller: After speaking last week about the government and Jabiluka, have things progressed since then?

Dave Sweeney: Absolutely Eric, there's been a lot of movement on Jabiluka in the most recent week. The key thing is that the World Heritage Committee in Kyoto did a couple of important things that will ensure that this issue will remain very high on the international agenda for at least the next six months.

What they did is accept the report from the inquiry mission, that is the team that came out from UNESCO to assess the implications of Jabiluka. They accepted that there will be threats of damage from Jabiluka, they accepted that that report was thorough and credible, they accepted that it identified risks, threats that were occurring now and that would increase in the future and that were attributable to operations at Jabiluka. That was a major step forward because that's formally now embodied and accepted. The Australian Government was trying very hard to get that either deferred or ruled totally out of order.

The second thing they did is say to the Australian Government that you have a period of between now and the 14th April to prepare and submit two reports. One report is to look at the scientific uncertainties in regard to the Jabiluka project, things like ground water flows, hydrology and geology. Another report is to deal with how the Australian Government, its agencies and the company, Energy Resources of Australia, will take steps to ensure that the World Heritage values are not threatened.

Those reports are to be at the World Heritage Bureau in Paris on the 15th April. From then both of them will be independently peer reviewed, they will be subject to international scrutiny, and that scrutiny reports back to the Bureau on the 15th May. If at that point the issues and concerns that have been identified and highlighted in the process to date haven't been addressed, the Bureau is empowered to immediately place Kakadu on the list of World Heritage properties in danger.

Now that was a step away from the position that both Traditional Owners and Environment Groups were seeking which was the immediate listing of Kakadu as World Heritage In Danger. But it's a very significant advance on that way and there's a sense now of, indeed almost inevitability, that Kakadu will, unless there is an intervention and a change, Kakadu will be inscribed on that list next year.

But in the course of so doing, what this decision means is that for six months there will be international scrutiny on Australia, on the impacts of uranium operations, on the effects of social dislocation in Kakadu, on a whole range of issues. So it's very much putting the international spotlight on Australia.

And a second thing happened in Kyoto just last week on Tuesday that was so important. There's 21 member countries that form the World Heritage Committee, there's 150+ countries that are signatories to the World Heritage Convention and every two years they elect 21 that are the Committee. On Tuesday in Japan, 20 of them called on Australia to immediately cease the construction of Jabiluka mine during the period of this review. The one that didn't do that was of course, Australia.

Unfortunately there's no legal basis that will compel Australia to abide by that. It's an ethical and a moral and an international diplomatic mechanism, it's not a legal one. But what it is, absolutely and unequivocally, is a sign from the world community that there are things seriously wrong, seriously going awry at Jabiluka. And it needs to be independently and rigorously looked at.

It's sad that the Australian Government's response and the company's response has been effectively one of, 'No-one tells us what to do and we're continuing with the project.' But the mere fact that that request came, including from Australia's staunch diplomatic allies, particularly the US, the mere fact that that request came, and also the parochialism and the self interest with which it has been responded to by the company and the government, shows that this is a project that has no basis in science. Jabiluka is a project that has no basis in ethics. Australia as a government, the national government, Senator Robert Hell and his like, have no credibility as responsible environmental managers or indeed as responsible members of the international community. So it has been a very, very significant week in locating Jabiluka on the international agenda.

Eric Miller: This decision that the Government won't stop the Jabiluka mine it's going to be quite detrimental to Australia isn't it? We are looked on as an environmental pariah.

Dave Sweeney: Yes, we will be. It will be a major change in the perception of Australia and the environmental approach and the environmental record of Australia. Australia in global terms has enjoyed a perception, sometimes earned and sometimes inherited, of being clean and green. But in the last three years that has been under assault.

The position taken by Senator Hill at Kyoto, in arguing against an international convention on climate change reduction, the position taken by Australia on a whole range of development issues, and now in very, very sharp relief and very, very demonstrable, the position taken to continue with mining the most toxic substance on earth, adjacent to a World Heritage area where it has been identified that you are having an impact on that area., where the international community has identified that the assessment processes have been dodgy, the impacts are real and the project needs to be seriously revisited, and you carry on regardless, Australia is showing itself as a cowboy country in relation to environmental matters.

And it is going to damage Australia's perception, Eric, and not just in the question of environment. And not just in a range of soft fuzzy things, but in the age of economic rationalism, in the age of the dollar over all, it is going to damage Australia's perception as a provider of clean, green food. People will say, 'What's all this fuss about uranium mining, I didn't even realise you had radioactive stuff in your country.' It's going to damage Australia's perception as, 'Can you really trust Australia when they say they are going to deliver on any agreement, you saw what they did with that uranium mine.' It's going to damage Australia's perception as a country that can talk about environment issues, human rights issues, a whole range of concerns that we should be playing in the international arena because they're concerns held by a lot of Australians. It's going to make us look like what this government is, short-sighted, indifferent, contemptuous and money grabbing.

Eric Miller: Ok Dave, thanks very much.

Dave Sweeney: Thanks very much, Eric.

Linda Marks: That was Eric Miller speaking to Dave Sweeney in Melbourne this week. He now speaks to Charles Berkow from Friends of the Earth, Sweden, who was in Melbourne recently attending the Friends of the Earth, International Conference. Eric asked Charles about the Swedish referendum that elected to phase out nuclear power in that country by the year 2010.

Charles Berkow: We had a referendum in 1980. Basically the result was that nuclear power should be phased out by the year 2010.

Eric Miller: And you get about 50% of your electricity energy from nuclear power?

Charles Berkow: That's right, electricity consumption in Sweden is very high because of the over capacity due to the extensive build up of nuclear power in the 1980s after the referendum.

Eric Miller: It's quite a few years ago now, it's 18 years ago, so when are you expecting to get rid of nuclear power?

Charles Berkow: That's a good question. It's a constant topic of political discussion. When to start, how to start, what to do? And, of course the anti-nuclear forces have been mobilising with a massive public opinion campaign in different ways since the referendum. Obviously we still have people who don't accept the results and who want to keep nuclear power going as long as possible. So they have delayed doing the things they should have done in terms of renewables, in terms of energy conservation, to facilitate the phase out of nuclear power and they haven't even turned off the first reactor yet. And now they've gotten themselves into a situation where some of the people happily, some of the people not so happily say gee, well, maybe we can't turn everything off by 2010 as we promised, but let's talk about when we turn off the first one instead. Even that they haven't managed to do.

Eric Miller: The nuclear industry in Sweden is a big industry and so it has lots of political clout.

Charles Berkow: Yes, it sure does. There's a sort of golden triangle of people from industry, people from research and people from government whose whole mind set is how to increase the supplies of electricity and hey, nuclear is a great way to do it.

Eric Miller: You are locked into that high energy use and energy on tap just when you want it.

Charles Berkow: It's almost worse than that. What tended to happen was that the government said that it's for the benefit of the country that we have electricity. It's also to the benefit of the country that industry has enough electricity, so let's go and ask industry how much electricity they'll need in 10, 20, 30 years from now. Well industry, they weren't dumb, they said we're going to need an awful lot of electricity. Knowing very well that if it was all built that it would mean lower prices. There was an electricity glut after because the result of the referendum in 1980. Six nuclear power plants that were then on the planning stage would be built. There were 6 nuclear power plants more or less in operation or almost built at the time of the referendum and they would complete the other 6. In doing so they made an electricity glut which lead to an electricity sale during the 80s. The result of which is that about 100,000 single family homes have no other source of heating other than electricity. It's a very inefficient use of electricity and it's a cold country.

So you've locked yourself into a situation where you have a lot of home owners who are really worried about what they are going to do if they have to find another way of heating their homes.

Eric Miller: Is there any movement to closing these power stations down by 2010? I believe that Denmark is quite close to some of these power stations and they don't like it, they don't have nuclear energy.

Charles Berkow: The struggle has been more about when do we start? The start of the phase out has been delayed for a long time. In fact the government made a decision that the first reactor would be closed down in 1998, that's this year. The first one should have been closed. They decided in February last year that one of the reactors should be closed down by the end of June this year. This is the one you can see on a clear day from Copenhagen. It's just on the other side of the sound. The Danish Government has been furious about this for years. The Swedish Government, in explaining why they are closing that one down first, is referring precisely to the letters that they've gotten from the Danish ministry.

The trouble is that the owners of this plant have appealed the decision. They have appealed it to the administrative courts system in Sweden and they've also appealed it to the European Union. They claim that the Swedish Government had decided to close down their reactor because it happens to be foreign owned. Now at the time when the company was given the permit to make this reactor it was owned mainly by local communities in the South of Sweden. Since them ownership has changed. The dominant owner is now a German privately owned company. This company now owns 20% of the shares. The second biggest owner is the Norwegian State Electricity Company called Statcraft and Norway has no nuclear power of its own. There are a couple of other foreign owners, German Electricity Companies, foreign funds, pension funds and things like that and together they have a majority. That majority is the one that decided that we are going to appeal this decision, we are going to kick and scream and try and keep our plant going as long as possible.

At the same time they are having negotiations with the government as to how much compensation, as they call it, they are going to get from the Government to close down the reactor. Now, they have known since 1980 that they are going to have to close their reactor and they have also gotten clear signals a number of times that their reactor was one of the first ones they were going to close. So that it can't come as any kind of surprise that they are supposed to close this year.

It has been very interesting because we have actually gotten documents that they've sent them to the European Union and to the Swedish Government and it's very revealing to look at their arguments because they say, well we've started to make investments since 1991. The German owners say we've been investing in this company since 1991. We've invested in a cable to transfer electricity from Sweden to Germany and back the other way too, and we see this as a long term investment. If you make us close this reactor we're not going to make as much money on our investment as we expected and we're going to have trouble fulfilling the long term contracts that we have to our customers. It's going to make problems with our creditors, we're going to have to pay more interest, and we're going to get a worse competitive position on the market for this company. For this partially Swedish, partially German, partially Norwegian owned company.

Now if they are going to get all those problems from closing a reactor, it seems to me that they haven't been planning for the chance that they might have to close the reactor. They haven't been taking account of the risk that they might have to close the reactor. Now a company that runs a nuclear power plant that doesn't take account of risk is a company that might not be taking account of other kinds of risk. That is, that things happen in the power plant and that kind of a company shouldn't be given the public trust to run a nuclear power plant. That's our opinion.

Of course, there is an alternative explanation for what they're doing. They are not really going to have all these problems if they close down the power plant. Of course they are not so stupid that they haven't taken account of these risks. Of course they have back up plans and things like that. They are just saying this in court because they want to get more compensation from the government. Well, what that says is in fact, the short version is, they are lying to get money. If you have a company that lies to get money is that the kind of a company that you want to run a nuclear power plant in your country? We don't think so.

So we've been doing a campaign this year trying to make the public aware of who is it that's actually blocked the delayed start of the phase out in Sweden and why and what kind of arguments that they are using. So the situation now is that the High Administrative Court has said 'We don't know if this company has made some interesting claims in their case so it will take us some time to deliver, to consider it.' They have also appealed to the European Union law. We might have to take a look at that.

During the time that the court is considering the case they don't have to close down their reactor. So that's the situation right now. The court in Stockholm is looking at the case, the European Union is looking at the case and in the meantime the government is negotiating with this company.

That is interesting in a European perspective because, obviously there are some people in the government some people in the civil service who are in the energy Mafia who don't want to phase out nuclear power in Sweden. If they have to sacrifice one nuclear power plant but do it in such a way that becomes extremely expensive, then it's a stronger argument for why they don't have to close down other nuclear power plants. So this is a risk. If the government makes a deal at such a high level of compensation that makes the continued phase out more difficult. It has implications not only in Sweden but also in Germany. The new Green, Social Democratic Government in Germany has stated that they want to phase out nuclear power in Germany. Now if the German company can in Sweden establish a precedent of the level of compensation that a company has to get to close down a nuclear power plant it could have implications in Germany and make it more difficult or more expensive to phase out nuclear power.

Eric Miller: Some of these reactors must be getting pretty old now. They are coming to the end of their lives anyway.

Charles Berkow: It depends on who you talk to. The company claims that they'll keep going safely for another 15 years. Other analysts say, look these plants are already so old they've had to be patched up so many times that it costs more to produce electricity at these plants than what they get when they sell it. You can look in their annual reports and see their production costs per kilowatt hour and it is actually higher than the price of electricity on the Nordic electricity market in Oslo. The question then is why would a company that is in the business of making a profit keep running a nuclear power plant at a loss? One answer that we can see is that they want to get compensation from the government for closing it down. They are using it as a sort of a black mail against the government.

Eric Miller: It's not an easy thing for a government to say we want to take another energy path.

Charles Berkow: Easy and easy. Friends of the Earth, Sweden has done a report showing how nuclear power could be phased out before the year 2010. And at the same time reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide substantially, substantially reduced than what the government is planning on doing anyway. At the same time electricity prices, energy prices could be competitive, could be kept at a competitive level for industry and the supply of electricity would be big enough also to have a substantial industry that's dependent on abundant energy supplies. This could be all done but it requires new thinking and it requires being goal orientated and saying this is the way we want to go. We want to stop energy waste and we want to find these other alternative energy paths. It could be done if they wanted to.

Eric Miller: Thanks very much.

Charles Berkow: But there's one other thing that I wanted to tell you about especially here in Australia. Because one of the arguments that is being used by proponents of nuclear power why we shouldn't turn it off in Sweden is that nuclear power is a clean energy source. It's the best from an environmental point of view. You have people who are saying that, who claim to be serious. Of course they are not taking account of the waste problem, but they are also not taking account of the mining problem.

The mining problem is interesting from a Swedish perspective because Sweden has uranium deposits. Sweden could mine uranium if it wanted to but it chose not to. Why not? Two reasons. One is environmental reasons. There was local opposition again in the places where they wanted to have the uranium mines. The local opposition was so strong that they managed to block it. Also, there is an economic reason. The ore is not as high grade as it is for example in Australia. The consequence is that Sweden imports some of its uranium from Australia.

This company that imports uranium from the Ranger mine which is owned by ERA and it turns out that this Swedish company is also part owner of ERA, Energy Resources of Australia. It owns 0.5% of the shares which is not very much but still it's a part owner. And this is the company, as we have heard from our colleagues here, is the company that wants to open the mine at Jabiluka.

It is very interesting to get the news reports today about the very critical UN study about the mine saying that evidently from an environmental perspective it wouldn't be so good. When you are on the other side of the world in Sweden and you don't have your own uranium mines you can easily say that nuclear power is a clean energy source. They don't have to deal with the mines. The knowledge in Sweden about the mining situation is very, very low. At the same time we have a responsibility because Sweden buys uranium from Australia from the Ranger mine, from ERA, and is a part owner.

So we think that the weak spot in the nuclear industry actually is the mining issue and it is really important for us to get more information about what are the consequences of mining in places like Australia. Friends of the Earth Sweden wrote a letter to this company, that's a part owner of ERA. We asked if by some chance you are still in the nuclear energy business when the uranium from Jabiluka, if it ever starts, comes on the market, you wouldn't buy it from there, would you, from such a place, from a World Heritage area? Just a few days ago we got a response from them saying we think that ERA is an excellent supplier of uranium from an environmental perspective. So it will be very interesting to go back to Sweden and ask them the UN seems to have a different opinion about ERA's plans for Jabiluka, 'What do you have to say about that? Do you still think that they are a good supplier and if you can't find any uranium that's better than that, from an environmental perspective, then you are doing pretty poorly.'

Eric Miller: Thank you Charles.

Charles Berkow: You are welcome, Eric.

Linda Marks: That was Eric speaking to Charles Berkow from Friends of the Earth, Sweden, speaking about the how the Swedish nuclear industry is making the phase out of nuclear power in that country a very difficult operation.

Eric Miller: And that's all we have time for today, Linda, so it's goodbye from Eric.

Linda Marks: And goodbye from Linda.

Transcript produced by Linda Marks - with much thanks!!!
Page last updated December 26, 1998.
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